Chapter 2 The Last Guardian Chapter 1 Karazhan

The larger of Azeroth's twin moons rose first tonight, and now she hung round in the night sky, illuminating the stars with her silvery light.In this soft moonlight, the peaks of the Redridge Mountains adorned.During the day, the sun paints these peaks with a pink halo, but at night they become tall, lonely ghosts.At the foot of the western side of the mountains is the Elwynn Forest, covered with oak and satinwood, extending from the hills to the sea.To the east is a vast black swamp.A swampy mountainous land full of streams and canals.There are dilapidated dwellings and lurking dangers everywhere.

A black shadow flitted across the moon, and a crow-shaped black shadow flew towards a place in the center of the mountain range.There is the most secluded place in the entire Red Ridge Mountains, a round valley.That place may be the memory of a great collision between the ancient world and the earth, or it may be the trace left by a crustal explosion.The erosion of the years has made the edge of this crater become jagged, and many new peaks are born here.The geographical environment here is that Elwynn's ancient tree species cannot grow.Therefore, there are only weeds and vines all over this barren hill.

At the center of these hills stood a bare pinnacle as striking as the head of some Kul Tiran trade prince.In fact, the mountain road leading to the peak is very steep, but the peak is very flat, and the whole mountain is shaped like a human head.In the past hundred years, many documents have mentioned this mountain, but only a few of the authors of the documents have enough courage to mention its owner.Those few authors who wrote about him were either powerful and unbelievable, or fledgling and ignorant. On the flat summit of the mountain stands an ancient tower of thick white brick and mortar.This gigantic man-made object soared into the sky, taller than all the surrounding mountains, and lit up like a lighthouse in the moonlight.There is a low wall around the base of the tower, and outside the wall is an abandoned residential area. In addition to the tower, there are a beast pen and a blacksmith shop inside the wall. The height cannot be compared with the tower-in fact, this tower is proud of everything , including the mountains here.

The place was once known as Karazhan.Once home to the enigmatic Last Guardian of Tirisfal.It was once a place full of life.And now, it's nothing more than a dead zone forgotten by time. The tower is silent, but that doesn't mean it's silent.Under the embrace of the night, silent pictures float in and out of the windows, and various illusions dance between the terrace and the wall.It is not appropriate to say that they are ghosts, but rather afterimages of the poetic days of the past.These shadows of the past have been unleashed into figurative forms by the madness of the tower's former master.Now, a terrible curse compels them to repeat the past over and over again in this forgotten tower, forcing them to perform a one-act play without an audience.

But now, the sound of booted feet on stone bricks broke the silence.At the entrance of an open-air corridor at the highest spire of the tower, the soft moonlight reflected a figure on the white stone bricks.A tattered red cloak flapped in the bitter night wind.That spire used to be an observatory. The door leading from the open-air corridor to the observatory opened a crack with the screech of ancient hinges, and then immediately became rigid due to the dual effects of time and rust.The figure in the cloak was silent for a while, put his index finger on the hinge, and muttered a short incantation.Immediately, the door opened silently, and the hinges became like new.The intruder smiled slightly.

The observatory is now empty, and the remaining tools are broken and scattered.Cloaked figures entered silently, like those silent visions.He picked up a broken astrolabe.The shape of this astrolabe has been distorted by some unknown force, and now it can only be called a pile of gold, lying lifeless in the hands of the intruder. Other movements suddenly appeared in the observatory.The intruder looked up, and a ghostly figure appeared beside him, leaning against a window.The ghostly figure is a broad-shouldered man with black hair and beard, grayed at the edges due to his age.He is part of those past memories, and has been repeating his work since he was released.Now, the dark-haired man was holding the astrolabe—the same one in the intruder's hands, unbroken—and fiddled with a bump on it.He was concentrating on adjusting the astrolabe, dialing it, testing it once, dialing it again, testing it again.Dark brows were drawn into ghostly emerald green eyes.Finally, the tall, striking figure breathed a sigh of relief, placed the astrolabe on a long-defunct table, and disappeared.

The intruder nodded.Such haunting-like ghosts are common now even when Karazhan was still inhabited.Now, freed from the shackles (and madness) of their tower masters, they are even more unscrupulous.These fragments of the past belonged here now, and he was no more.He was an outsider now, and they were not. The intruder walked down the stairs in the room. Behind him, the image of the old man reappeared, using the astrolabe in his hand to locate a planet that is no longer in that position. The intruder continued down, through countless flights of stairs and corridors, and all the doors opened for him, including those locked, bolted, and even those sealed by rust and age.With a little incantation, a touch, or a gesture, all obstacles melt away, the rust dissolves itself, and the hinges shine like new.There were ancient, still shining guardian runes in a few places, and he paused before them to recall what to do with each one.He casts the right spell, makes the right handprint, and the faint magic remaining on the runes vanishes, leaving the road open.

The visions in the tower became more vivid and alive the further down he went.It seems that now there are more potential audiences, and they are more willing to perform hard-as long as they can be freed from this endless curse.Their voices have long been obliterated, leaving behind only numerous images, shuttling between the halls. The intruder passed through the body of an old housekeeper in black. This frail old man was holding a silver plate and wearing a blindfold on his head, and walked slowly through the corridor with heavy steps.The intruder walked through the library and noticed a green-skinned young woman with her back turned to him, browsing an ancient tome.He passed through a banquet hall again, and at one end of the hall, a silent music was playing, and the dancers danced gavottes to the music.At the other end, a great city burned, blazing in vain attempts to consume the stone walls and carpet of the hall.The intruder passed through the silent flames, his face darkened as he watched once more the mighty city of Stormwind crumble before him.

In a certain room, three young people sat around a table, weaving topics that no one had known for a long time.The metal mugs on the table echo the ones under the table.The intruder pauses and looks at the image for a long time, until it begins to repeat itself for the next cycle.He shook his head and moved on. Nearly reaching the ground floor, he stepped out onto a balcony.This balcony hangs far away from the wall of the tower, hanging like a honeycomb above the main entrance of the tower.There he saw—in the open space in front of the tower, between the main gate and the long-collapsed stables and settlements—a lone figure standing.It doesn't move like other images, it just stands there, waiting, standing still.It, an unreleased fragment of the past, awaits this interloper.

The still image is of a young man with black, tousled hair streaked with white streaks.A few strands of newly grown beard cling to his face.A flat rucksack lay at his feet, and a red-sealed letter of introduction was clutched tightly in his stiff hands. The image was certainly not a ghost, the intruder knew, though the image's original might have died, fallen, under another sky.These are the memories and fragments of the past, like insects sealed in amber, looking forward to the day they will be released.Looking forward to his arrival. The intruder leans on the stone railing of the balcony and looks out, his eyes pass through the residential area, across the hills, and across the mountains.The moonlight was silent, and the mountains seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for him.

The intruder raised a hand and chanted a series of spells.At first it was a rhythmic rhyme, and then it grew louder and louder, shattering the surrounding silence.The wild wolves in the mountains in the distance heard his chants, and instinctively howled in response. The image of the ghostly young man took a deep breath, picked up his mysterious backpack, his legs seemed to be filled with lead, and hesitantly walked towards the main entrance of Medivh Tower.