Arthas slays Kel’Thuzad

Full History

Kel'Thuzad became the mortal architect of the Scourge's expansion into Lordaeron. Through the Cult of the Damned, he recruited followers and distributed the plague that turned infected communities into undead. Prince Arthas Menethil sought to defend his father's kingdom from the spreading horror. Alongside Jaina Proudmoore, he investigated the outbreaks and followed the trail toward the necromancer responsible for organizing them.

The pursuit brought Arthas into direct conflict with Kel'Thuzad. The prince killed him, an apparent victory against a figure whose actions had brought death to innocent settlements. Yet the danger did not depend upon Kel'Thuzad remaining alive as an ordinary man. The Lich King commanded undead forces from Northrend, and the plague had already spread through the kingdom. The cult and its mission could continue without their original human leader in the same form.

Arthas's response grew more desperate as the crisis escalated. At Stratholme, his belief that the populace was already doomed drove him to order a slaughter before the people could become undead. That decision broke his relationship with Uther and Jaina. He then pursued Mal'Ganis to Northrend, where he claimed the runeblade Frostmourne and began to lose the very independence he had sought to preserve through vengeance.

The death of Kel'Thuzad was ultimately reversed in a grotesque fashion. As a servant of the Scourge, Arthas later helped restore him as a lich, and Kel'Thuzad participated in the summoning of Archimonde. The prince's early victory against the necromancer thus became one step in a plan that led to Lordaeron's destruction. The episode shows how an immediate battlefield success could conceal the greater workings of the Lich King's strategy.