Orgrimmar's fingers finally hovered over the obsidian tabletop.
He felt the cold seep along his fingertips.
After the image disappeared, the lingering magical fluctuations still trembled in the air.
They were like the final ripples spreading from a stone dropped into still water.
He held his original posture, his gold-green slit pupils fixed on the empty projection area.
It was as though he could still see those pale golden dragon eyes meeting his gaze through the magical image.
The black dragon's aura had been fierce and feverish, yet tinged with weakness.
But the injured dragon was not the Black-Winged Tyrant herself.
Still, the oppressive aura of a blood relative of the Black-Winged Tyrant could not be faked.
He slowly straightened, the hem of his dark green robe brushing the living moss floor without a sound.
In the Castle's main hall, the magical medicinal spring burbled.
Faint sounds of circulating mana also came from within the ancient tree.
Meanwhile, a distant clamor drifted from the retainers' camp.
At that moment, every source of sound and movement became exceptionally clear.
He raised his hand, and blue-green spectral scales appeared over his palm again, the old scar standing out starkly among their patterns.
More than two hundred years of caution had made him habitually work through every possibility.
Had something happened on the Black-Winged Tyrant's end, forcing her to approach him in this somewhat bedraggled fashion?
He walked to the ancient tree's main trunk and pressed his palm against an inconspicuous ridge in the grain.
Pale green currents of mana flowed from his palm and spread upward along the tree's veins, drawing a low hum from the entire giant tree.
A few seconds later, the faint turning of a mechanism came from a platform somewhere in the canopy.
A hidden door disguised as