Chapter 2
1377words
In the corridors of this Titan relic, energy crystals that once emitted soft blue light now lay covered with a layer of gray haze. The order runes engraved on the walls had dimmed as if rusted.
She clutched her mentor's notes tightly, her fingertips tracing over the annotation "Celestial Observatory — Unbound Space Stability Monitoring Point" on the page. Her heart hammered with unease.
"It's on the third level, in the Celestial Observation Chamber," Liora murmured, raising her staff to illuminate the path ahead.
The mechanical guards along the way maintained their vigilant postures but remained completely motionless—their core energy sources seemingly drained of soul, their metal shells covered with spider web-like black cracks.
As she circled around a giant statue of Thorim, the floor tiles beneath her feet suddenly lit up with eerie purple runes. Countless tiny shadow tentacles emerged from the crevices, wrapping around her ankles.
"Purifying Fire!" Liora chanted, golden flames engulfing the tentacles and emitting an acrid smell like scorched fabric.
But the tentacles didn't dissipate; instead, they split into more fragments, coalescing in the air into a blurry shadow. From within came intermittent whispers, identical to the ink-colored mist she had encountered in Dalaran: "The rift is widening... the light of the star souls is dimming..."
When she finally reached the observation room, Liora drew in a sharp breath.
The celestial observatory that should have been suspended in the center of the dome was now enveloped in a thick mass of black energy. The crystal screen, once used to display cosmic star maps, showed only a distorted void vortex.
The Titan inscriptions on the base of the instrument rapidly faded, replaced by shadow symbols she had never seen before.
She cautiously approached, and suddenly her notebook opened on its own. The ancient god sealing patterns on the pages resonated with the symbols on the instrument, emitting a faint golden light.
"This isn't contamination," Liora suddenly realized. "It's the energy from the Unbound Space retaliating against the Titan device!"
She attempted to purify the instrument using the ritual from her notes, but the black energy suddenly exploded. A sharp beam grazed her cheek and blasted a deep hole in the wall.
On the walls of the hole, blurry scenes of the Shadowlands appeared—Kyrian's ferry capsizing in the void, countless souls scattering like kites with broken strings.
Meanwhile, in the thick fog of Tirisfal Glades, Kael Darkblade's ranger squad tracked deeper into the forest, following the undead trail.
The black filaments on the ground grew increasingly dense, entwining around withered trees, giving an eerie vitality to the otherwise desolate forest. The thorn vines bore dark red berries that, when split open, released not juice but shadow energy with the scent of blood.
"Captain, the magical barrier here is failing," Lia said abruptly, pointing at the air ahead.
Kael narrowed his eyes and saw a black crack, several millimeters wide, slowly expanding. The energy seeping through caused the surrounding wild grass to wither and regenerate at a visible rate.
A passing wild rabbit, affected by the energy, instantly developed blood-red eyes and charged madly toward the ranger squad, its fangs growing several times larger.
"Shoot it!" Kael ordered sharply. An arrow pierced precisely through the wild rabbit's skull. But the rabbit didn't fall; instead, its body expanded, transforming into a twisted shadow creature that lunged at the nearest ranger.
Lia swung her enchanted curved blade. When it collided with the shadow creature, it produced a piercing metallic scraping sound. Her arm went numb from the energy backlash. "This energy can distort creature forms!"
Kael crouched down, using his dagger to scrape black filaments from the ground. The filaments writhed on the blade as if alive, trying to burrow into the metal's crevices. He suddenly noticed the space around the crack was distorted—distant tombstones appeared sometimes blurry, sometimes clear, as if viewed through rippling water. "This is no ordinary spatial rift," he frowned. "It's interfering with the boundary between reality and the spirit realm."
Just then, the crack suddenly widened to half a meter, and a powerful suction came from within. Lia's cloak fluttered violently in the pull. She cried out and grabbed a nearby tree trunk, only to watch it instantly drain of moisture and crumble to powder.
The dust of Kezan had not yet settled when Zik Blastcore roared through the gates of Ironforge on his modified motorcycle.
The portable resonance device on his back emitted constant beeping alarms. Kaja ore fragments embedded in the device's surface flashed with an uneasy red light.
"Make way! Make way! I've got a world-saving discovery!" he shouted as he weaved through the crowded tunnel, only to be stopped by two dwarf guards at the entrance to the Explorer's League.
"A goblin from the Horde? You're not welcome here!" The guard raised his battle axe, the runes on the blade glowing. Zik rolled his eyes and pulled out a glowing piece of Kaja ore. "Look at this! A treasure that reveals the Shadowlands! Your archaeologists would kill for this!" He tried to hand over the ore, but the guard knocked it away with his axe. The ore fell to the ground with a crisp sound.
"Don't try any tricks here!" The dwarf's roar attracted attention. Several human mages and dwarf warriors gathered around. Someone spotted the Horde emblem on Zik's back and immediately raised their weapons.
Seeing the situation turning ugly, Zik turned to run but slammed into an ice wall—a spell from an Alliance mage.
"Listen to me! This concerns everyone's lives!" He jumped anxiously as the resonance device suddenly emitted a sharp alarm, the energy curve on the screen shooting to its peak.
Just as tensions reached their peak, a cold shadow essence suddenly enveloped the entire hall.
Everyone froze, cautiously looking toward the source of the essence. The dome of Ironforge suddenly split open with a crack, and a figure wearing damaged black armor slowly descended. At her waist hung a fragment of a sin tablet that flickered with a faint glow. Her face was pale yet bore an undeniable majesty.
"Enough." Valery's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a power that pierced through hearts.
Her gaze swept across everyone, finally landing on Zik's resonance device, her pupils contracting sharply. "Kaja ore... you can track soul rifts?"
Zik was stunned for a moment, then nodded. "More or less. This baby's very sensitive to the fluctuations of that so-called Unbound Space."
Valery walked to the center of the hall. The sin stone fragments floated up, projecting scenes from the Shadowlands: the World Tree in Bastion beginning to wither, cracks appearing in the bone walls of Maldraxxus, and the anima containers in Revendreth completely empty.
"This is the truth behind your so-called 'faction conflict,'" her voice carried a heaviness. "The Shadowlands is experiencing an unprecedented soul drought, and Azeroth's soul rifts are the culprits. If you continue to slaughter each other, both worlds will be destroyed."
Liora's staff suddenly began vibrating in her backpack; she had rushed back from Ulduar just in time to witness this scene.
Kael had also arrived at Ironforge seeking help with the injured Lia. When he saw the vision projected by Valery, he immediately understood what the rifts he had been tracking meant.
Zik looked at the two people who suddenly appeared, then glanced at Valery, grinning. "Well, looks like the save-the-world squad is complete now, huh?"
Valery put away the sin stele fragment, her gaze determined. "We have no time to waste. The rifts are expanding globally, and the next eruption point could be just hours away."
She looked at Liora and Kael. "Miss Mage, you have clues about the Titan device; Mr. Ranger, you've obtained samples of the rift; Mr. Goblin, you have tracking tools. Only by working together do we have a chance to stop this catastrophe."
In Ironforge's great hall, warriors of the Alliance and Horde exchanged uncertain glances, while the four heroes from different factions and races had already gathered around the resonance device, their eyes fixed on the red dots flashing on the screen—the soul rifts that continued to expand.
