What Was Ula'Tek?

 While we got the Unbinding of Kith'ix as the true finale to this patch of Midnight, the chapter in this story ultimately revolved around the massive snake-monster, Ula'tek.

In the distant past (we're talking, I believe, pre-War of the Ancients, though WoW's timeline has always been a little fuzzy - this would have to have been after Tyr's flight from Ulduar, given that Kith'ix and Zakazj were sent by Loken to hunt the defiant Keeper down) the ancient Amani struggled to defeat Kith'ix, and a desperate priest chose to summon Ula'tek to defeat them.

Now, Ula'tek is ultimately bestial in nature (is it the only final boss of a major raid with the beast creature type?) and thus, it would seem most likely that it's some kind of Loa - perhaps a dark Loa along the lines of Hakkar the Soulflayer, who would play such a central role for the Gurubashi to the south.

And yet, every indication seems to be that there's a sharp line of distinction between Ula'tek and the Loa. Both in the ancient past and in modern day, the sort of "mainstream" Amani preferred to rely on the four patron Loa of their culture: Akilzon, Jan'alai, Halazzi, and Nalorakk, but the summoning of Ula'tek was considered an act of rejection toward the Loa, which implies that, bestial or no, Ula'tek is not a Loa, and presumably by extension not any sort of Wild God (my understanding is that Wild Gods like Malorne or Xuen would simply be called Loa by the Trolls, even if the cultures that revere them have other terms for them).

So... what is she?

I don't really have a concrete theory here, but I suppose there are some possibilities:

First: maybe she's just a powerful monster. Not deific in any way, not bound to any particular cosmic force. Just a really, really, really powerful and semi-immortal monster. But that's not terribly satisfying: after all, when we've encountered massive and powerful creatures of any sort on Azeroth, they tend to fit into the cosmology in some way. Ozumat is some sort of Old God creation, for instance. But I think we can rule that possibility out given that Ula'tek is in opposition to Kith'ix (not to say that creations of the Old Gods have not warred with one another before - hell, that was kind of their favorite thing to do back in the Black Empire days). But there's no real "psychic madness" element to Ula'tek's M.O., and we don't actually see any examples of Old God-related creatures being reptillian (primarily they're either mollusk-like or arthropods, or in the case of the Aqir, a little bit of both).

Second: maybe she is a Loa, just not one that is worshipped in the same manner. I'm deeply skeptical of this possibility because NPCs almost explicitly refute it. But also, Ula'tek never speaks, and may not even be sapient, though some of her offspring are, so... it's weird.

And... I don't really know that I have any other compelling ideas.

I'm also not terribly confident we'll ever get a concrete answer: Ula'tek was a big threat with the spreading of her venom, but plot-wise, it led us to a dark conclusion for Zul'jan and his nationalistic/expansionist ambitions and carried with it the dark twist of Kith'ix's unbinding. (Also, I was talking with a friend who pointed out that this expansion has seen us losing an NPC with almost every raid. Also, the Voidspire might be the first raid where we don't even remotely accomplish our goal, though I'd argue Sanctum of Domination at least comes very close to that).

Perhaps this will remain a mystery until some future plot development several years down the line thinks to expand upon it. Consider, for example, that 2.3's Gods of Zul'Aman patch didn't really tell us at all what was going on with Zul'jin or Malacrass' plans (and in fact, the "priests who had stolen the Loa's powers" were simply called Akil'zon, Nalorakk, Halazzi, and Jan'Alai, so there was no real reason to think we weren't just fighting the actual Loa themselves, other than the fact that they had humanoid forms). It took like 19 years to flesh all that out and find out what was actually going on in that raid. Perhaps a decade from now, we'll have to deal with some crisis involving numerous kaiju, of which Ula'tek was one.