Silver Staff

At last, no more sound came from the image, and the commotion gradually died away.

The ancient frost settled, revealing the figure that the wind and snow had concealed.

On the platform blanketed in frost and snow stood a tall, slender figure.

Silvery-white ice crystals flowed over his body, covering its nearly perfect, powerful contours. His gently stirring hair lost its dark blue hue and turned black once more.

The dragon scales on his cheeks and neck faded as well, revealing the patterns of his sigils again.

He was still that handsome young man, his face unchanged and his expression as calm as ever. Yet a touch of otherworldly nobility now graced his features, as though he were the heir to some ancient aristocratic house.

At his feet lay the battered Obadiah.

His limbs twisted, Obadiah lay on his back, staring skyward with his mouth slightly open. The orange-gold light in his vacant eyes had dimmed, leaving them full of bewilderment and helplessness—

Who am I? Where am I? What... just happened to me?

"Uh..."

Above the deathly still Mirror Lake, the frozen atmosphere was finally broken by a soft sigh from someone in the crowd.

"How could someone like him show up on a second-line battlefield?!"

The crowd slowly stirred, and a constant buzz of discussion rose all around.

Karos stared at the spell projection, his eyes fixed on the young man in the image.

Even as the master of the Second Tower, a wizard at the peak of the Third Ring and only one step from becoming a Fourth-Level Miracle, he was shaken into momentary silence.

In a daze, Karos thought the young man's figure seemed to overlap with those of several people he knew.

They each had their own bearing, and their strengths differed greatly, but... they