Awakening

Several days later, explosive news began to spread across the East Coast.

Rilkes, the Nature School's vice dean and its most powerful divination Wizard, had suffered a backlash from a prophecy. The resulting explosion had destroyed even his Wizard Tower. Judging by the scene, he had had no chance to resist.

Surprisingly, the other Wizards who had been watching had all suffered injuries of varying severity. A backlash this violent was almost unheard of.

As for the target of the prophecy, every senior figure on the East Coast knew it concerned the Extreme School's objective: that unknown world.

Once the news spread, the Extreme School's operations became unusually easy.

The Extreme School had become everyone's stepping stone. For the School, that change in circumstances was no blessing.

Every power on the East Coast was watching what the Extreme School would do next.

Inland on the East Coast lay a place called Dead Soul Swamp.

Thick gray-green fog blanketed the swamp. Rotting plants floated on its surface alongside animal remains. Crows cawed over the mire, their lonely cries like death's summons, enough to make anyone shiver.

Around the outer edge of the swamp's Core Region stood a gray-green wall. Gray-black spirits occasionally emerged from its surface. Some were human, others beasts, but all of them howled without cease.

Invisible ripples spread through their howls, driving the gray-green fog back from the wall!

A gray-white spire that looked as though it had been fashioned from bone stood at the center. Its spiraling exterior resembled an embrace, as if it had been built from human ribs.

At that moment, inside the castle, in the spire's highest room,

Dennis and Will, two of the Extreme School's three Third-Level Wizards, stared at Trak, dumbfounded!

"Trak! Are you saying no one on the entire East