World of Warcraft’s current big bad Xal’atath has been shrouded in shadow for years, but a new animated short is giving fans their best look yet at her origins and motivations–if she’s telling the truth.
Titled Supremacy, the animated short shows Xal’atath confronting Nexus King Salhadaar, leader of the Ethereals. Salhadaar is reluctant to join Xal’atath and her army of the Void, at first fighting back. But once Xal’atath appears in person to make her case, Salhadaar can’t help but listen.
Rather than using brute force alone, Xal’atath instead tries a different tactic to convince Salhadaar to join her. She offers to tell him “the truth no one living has heard.” That truth is that Xal’atath was once, long ago, mortal. As the short flashes back to show a young, bald girl being consumed by the Void, she recounts how she lost her world to the Void, just like Salhadaar’s world of K’aresh was destroyed by the Void Lord Dimensius.

