The open yet luxuriant Bewitching Forest was eerily quiet.
A light breeze descended from the blue-gray mountain range at the far end of the forest, crossed the scorched black plain, and carried a few wisps of ash into the dense, unnaturally thick colonies of fungi within the woods. Slender mushrooms spread their caps, greedily absorbing the nutrients that fell from the sky.
Dead and dying trees lay on the fertile soil, slowly rotting, their trunks covered in patches of greenish-white moss like scars.
A bewitching rat poked its head out of a mushroom patch and looked around. Sensing no movement, it leaped onto a nearly dead tree lying across the ground and raced along it, its limbs scrabbling rapidly, leaving a scattering of tiny paw prints in the moss.
Then it spotted several conspicuous figures at the edge of the scorched black plain.
The bewitching rat immediately rolled off the trunk and vanished back into the mushrooms.
Its movements were light and swift, but anyone paying even a little attention could easily have spotted its fur, so different from the colors of the forest. Yet the young wizards in the ash-covered land were immersed in the tremendous shock and endless confusion brought on by Jiang Yu's little story. No one noticed the tiny brown figure in the woods.
"If I understood correctly,"
Xiao Xiao rubbed the Crystal Ball in his hands and said slowly, "Ms. Jones was caught in that explosion too, wasn't she? She didn't have a gentleman to save her... she hasn't come to class in a long time."
The school's explanation had been that Ilena was busy with matters concerning the Gypsy Witch Coven and was temporarily taking time away from her courses.
But now they knew that was not the truth.
"Ilena isn't dead," Jiang Yu