For years, players could only guess at the origin of the Infinite Dragonflight.
They interfered in Old Hillsbrad Foothills (the Escape from Durnholde Keep), the Black Morass, the Culling of Stratholme, and other pivotal moments in history. The bronze dragons sent players to repair the timelines, but the master of the Infinite remained unseen.
In Cataclysm, that master finally appeared.
It was Nozdormu.
More precisely, it was his future, corrupted self: Murozond.
Key Moments
End Time
Before entering the Dragon Soul raid, the heroes needed to travel into the past and recover the artifact itself. Nozdormu could not open the way because someone was blocking the timeways from the future.
That is how players entered the End Time dungeon.
It depicts one possible Azeroth after Deathwing's victory. Dragonblight is scorched, Wyrmrest Temple has become a tomb, and twisted echoes of familiar heroes wander the ruins.
Murozond lived there.
And he regarded that world as almost merciful. During the battle, he said that he had seen the “true End Time,” beside which this dead version of Azeroth seemed a blessing.
The game never showed that other future directly.
The Hourglass Against the Dragon of Time
The battle with Murozond revolved around the Hourglass of Time.
Players could rewind the encounter several times, restoring health, resources, and abilities—effectively replaying the previous few seconds of the fight.
The mechanic remains memorable for an ordinary dungeon, and its theme suits Murozond with almost mocking perfection: the future Aspect of Time is defeated by rewinding his own battle.
After Murozond dies, Nozdormu says something far stranger.
He declares that the loop is closed. One day he will go mad, become Murozond, and be slain by the heroes once again.
At the time, it was presented almost as a death foretold.
Dragonflight Entered the Loop Again
Many years later, the Infinite Dragonflight returned to this point in Dragonflight.
In Dawn of the Infinite, Chrono-Lord Deios tries to turn Nozdormu from the distant past—before he became an Aspect—into Murozond. Chromie and the player intervene and prevent the transformation from taking hold.
That changes how the old prophecy is understood.
Nozdormu is no longer certain that Murozond must be his one inevitable future. For an Aspect accustomed to seeing time more clearly than anyone else, that is a profound change.
Yet the Murozond players faced in End Time has not vanished from history.
Why Players Remember It
Murozond works so well because Blizzard left an uncomfortable temporal knot around him instead of immediately explaining it away.
In Cataclysm, players first kill Nozdormu's future and are told that it is inevitable.
In Dragonflight, they save another point in time from the same transformation and receive a far less certain answer.
Between those events, the Infinite dragons continue to exist—and they know their master's name perfectly well.
A little disorder feels appropriate in a story about dragons of time. Even now, you cannot simply open the chronology and check off a box marked “Murozond: resolved.”