Khadgar breathed again, but it was hard and rapid. His joints were burning and his muscles were aching. By the reflection of the obsidian floor, he could see his own face clearly......

It was the old man in the illusion who was staring at him. The gloomy, tired eyes are surrounded by numerous wrinkles and gray hair. Even his beard turned pale.

Khadgar's heart froze. His youth and magic had been taken away from him, and he never had the confidence to get out of here alive.

"It's really dramatic," Medivan turned to look at Khadgar, "One of the negative effects of being possessed is that the human part of me always comes out from time to time. To make friends, to help people. This caused me a lot of trouble when I had to kill them in the future. You know what? When I killed Moros and Cook, I was on the verge of crying. That's why I'm hiding here to recuperate. But like anything, it's good to get used to it. Once you get used to it, you can kill your friends like a stranger. ”

The distance between the two grew closer, his shoulders loosened, and his emerald green eyes flashed with wisdom and a certain danger. Looks even more normal than the usual Medivan. Looks confident. It looks relaxed. But it makes people feel boundless fear and devilish madness. "Now, you're about to die, young trust," said the astral mage, "and it seems that your trust has been misplaced after all." Medivan raised his palm, which shone with energy.

A hoarse shout came from his right. "Medivan!" is the hero of Lothar, Azeroth.

Medivan looked at him, his face seemed to soften, but the energy in his palm was still burning. "Anduin. "Old friend, why are you here too?"

"Stop, Mad," Lothar said, Khadgar could hear the pain in the warrior's voice, "Stop before you can get it back, I don't want to be your enemy." ”

"I don't want to, old friend," Medivan pointed his hand at him, "you don't know what I've done. It was cruel, but I had to do it. I don't want to be your enemy. Lay down your arms, friend, and stop meddling in this matter. ”

The energy in Medivan's hand shot out at the warrior, bathing him in starlight.

"You want to help me, don't you, old friend," a cruel smile appeared on Medivan's face again, "you want to be my slave." Come on, help me get rid of this kid. We can be friends again as we did before. ”

The twinkling starlight around Lothar receded, and the warrior dragged forward with a slow, steady pace, one step, two steps, three steps, and finally raised his runic sword and began to charge. Unexpectedly, he cursed and rushed at Medivan instead of Khadgar. The words were filled with grief and tears.

Medivan was taken aback, but quickly reacted. He took a step back and dodged Lothar's first sword. The Warrior stopped his inertia and pulled his blade back in a parrying move, forcing Mediven back a step. Then he raised his sword and slammed it over the shoulder, and Medivin was forced to take a third step back.

But now that Medivan had fully recovered, Lothar's next blow slashed at a blue energy shield, and the golden blade sparked sparks, causing no damage to Medivan at all. Lothar tried to pick up, stab straight, slash flat, and slash hard. Every time it's blocked by this shield.

Mediven roared, and once again raised an eagle's claw-like hand, boundless mana darting between the palms of his hands. Lothar screamed, and his clothes burst into flames, engulfing him in flames. Medivan looked at his masterpiece triumphantly, and with a wave of his hand, threw Lothar's body out like garbage.

"Light. Whereas. Easy. Lift," Medivan tossed the words, turned around, and looked at where Khadgar had been.

- But he was not there. Medivan was shocked to see that Khadgar was behind his right, but it was too late for him to turn to look. The sword that Lothar had allotted to Khadgar had pierced the left chest of the astral mage. The runes on the sword shone with an unprecedented light, like the scorching sun in the sky.

"It's not a good habit to not keep an eye on your prey," said the young mage, who was no longer young.

At this moment, time seemed to stand still, and large beads of sweat dripped from Medivan's forehead.

"It's still like this," said the Astral Mage, "I thought you wouldn't know how to use a sword, young trust." ”

"I think," Khadgar gasped hard, his tone sounding like that of someone who had just learned to speak, "that part of your humanity, Medivan, to make friends, to save the people, and to be kind to the people around you, regardless of your plans. As a backup plan, in case you end up going crazy anyway. Once that happens, your friends, we, will stop you and break the cycle of samsara that you have not been able to break free from. ”

Mediven sighed bitterly, his expression softening. "I never wanted to hurt anyone," he said, "I just wanted to have my own life." As he spoke, he spasmodically raised his hand, a magical light gathering in his palm, ready to disturb Khadgar's consciousness as he did with Garona.

But Khadgar didn't give him that chance. After a moment's hesitation, Cadega pressed all his strength and sent the thin rune blade through Medivan's ribs and into his heart.

The expression on Medivan's face was very surprised, even shocked. But he still had his mouth open, struggling to say something.

Khadgar's sword was no longer up to the hilt, and the tip of the sword peeked out from the robes behind the mage. The mage fell to his knees, and Khadgar fell with him, but his hands were still clasped tightly on his sword. The old mage took a hard breath and finally spoke.

"Thank you," he said, "I've done my best to fight him......"

Then, the Jugger's face began to deform, his beard turned into flames, and a pair of horns protruded from his eyebrows. With Medivan's death, Sargeras finally revealed his true form. Khadgar felt a heat from the hilt of his sword, and Medivan's body burned, and the flames were transforming him into a kind of shadow and flame being.

Behind the badly injured Astral Mage, Khadgar saw a charred Lothar stand up again. The warrior staggered forward with smoke all over his body. He raised the rune sword in his hand and slashed out a powerful sweep.

The sword slashed into Medivan's neck with a scorching sun-like glare, slicing off the head of the Master Master. Coherent.

It was like pulling the cork of a soda bottle, and everything in Maddie's style leaked out of the cut in his neck, and a torrent of energy and light, shadows and flames, smoke and rage, erupted like a volcanic eruption, splashed all the way to the ceiling of this basement, and then disappeared without a trace, as if it had never existed. Khadgar felt as if the boiling energy had outlined a face, a demonic face with horns on its forehead, struggling to let out a desperate wail.

When the qiē is over, all that remains is a layer of skin and clothing for the astral mage. A qiē in his body had been eaten away by demonic fire, and when his body was torn apart, the rest of his body could no longer maintain his form.

Lothar used the tip of his sword to pick at the debris and flesh that had once belonged to Medivan on the ground, and said, "We have to go." ”

Khadgar looked around. But there was no trace of Garona. The flesh on the Astral Mage's head had completely evaporated, leaving only a skull glowing with a red-white light.

The former apprentice shook his head: "I'm going to stay and deal with some things. ”

Lothar disagreed: "The biggest threat in the world may have been eliminated by us, but there is clearly another thing to do. We must fight off the orcs and close that portal. ”

Khadgar recalls the vision—the burning Stormwind and Ryan's death. And that illusion of himself—a battle with the tide of orcs with his old body. But he didn't want to tell Sù Lothar, so he simply said, "I have to bury Medivan's body, and I have to find Garona, who shouldn't have gone far." ”

Lothar agreed, then staggered to the door. Before he went out, he turned around and said, "Maybe it's not going to help at all, you know." We try to change it, but it's just one part of a larger cycle. ”

Khadgar nodded slowly, "I understand. This qiē is just a doomed reincarnation. But I hope we end up breaking it. ”

Lothar left. Khadgar collected all the parts of the astral mage that could be called corpses. He also found a wooden box and a shovel in the pens. The skull was packed into a box, along with the broken skin, along with the torn copy of Egwen's Hymn, and buried in the cemetery under the tower. Perhaps when the time comes, he will come back to erect a monument, but it is not convenient to disclose the location of the burial place of the master at this time. After burying the Astral Mage, he dug two new pits next to the mound, one on each side, and buried Moros and Cook.

With that done, he let out a sigh of relief and looked up at the tower. The white-brick Karazan, the residence of Azeroth's most powerful mage and the last guardian of the Council of Tiris, stood out to him. Behind him, the east showed the whiteness of the fish's belly, and the sun seemed to be preparing to make its way to the top of the tower.

But something else caught his eye, and above the empty and gloomy entrance to the main entrance, there was a flicker on the balcony overlooking the mountains, like a dream. Khadgar let out a long breath and nodded at the ghostly intruder, the one who had been there since day one, watching his every move.

"Now, I can see you, you know. He shouted. (To be continued.) )