After Eredin's death, successive screams echoed from the black mist, followed by a return to silence, and the thick, mist-like darkness quickly dispersed like ordinary fog.
"Arthas, are you alright?"
After confirming the enemy was completely unresponsive, Jaina hurried to Arthas's side and asked with some concern, while Lothar continued to explore deeper into the underground labyrinth with his torch.
Arthas had clearly explained their objective to him before they arrived.
The heart-pounding curse earlier had made Jaina very worried about Arthas's safety, but the aura quickly dissipated.
Now, seeing Arthas standing there unharmed, she let out a long sigh of relief.
However, she suddenly began looking around, as if a cat had smelled fish.
"What are you looking at?" Arthas asked, somewhat puzzled.
"Where's that sword? The power that killed that monster just now certainly wasn't Holy Light; you must have used that sword." Jaina's nose wrinkled.
Although Arthas had told her a little about Frostmourne, that dream still made her strongly dislike the runeblade.
After all, in her dream, that sword had slowly devoured her beloved.
This made Jaina unable to like Frostmourne no matter what; the sword's existence felt like an unstable factor to her.
Yet, Arthas said that Frostmourne and he bore a very important mission and could not simply abandon it.
Fortunately, Arthas himself rarely used Frostmourne in public, but Jaina also knew that Arthas was not like some of the pedantic paladins and priests in the Silver Hand; he didn't care about the nature of power, only whether it could be controlled and utilized.
"Frostmourne is in the void between two realms; there, it can better absorb Anima."
"Anima? What's that—" Jaina had never seen such a term in any ancient texts.
"I knew you were hiding something from me this time.
Now, can you finally tell me what you came to this so-called vault to find?"
Jaina could guess that Arthas bore not only the burden of being the Crown Prince of Lordaeron; his integration of nearly all of Azeroth's power also meant he had to shoulder heavy responsibilities and missions.
If she could, Jaina would prefer Arthas not be so burdened.
She missed the time a few years ago, before the Burning Legion returned, when she could still travel with Arthas during her holidays.
Now, in just a few short years, their world seemed to have been turned upside down, no longer the same as before.
"Anima is what another world calls soul power.
There, Anima is the cornerstone of all things, a power similar to our reality's Arcane, yet even more important," Arthas explained.
"Frostmourne's specific origin is obscured by a certain entity, but it was indeed not forged for any good purpose initially.
I sought the help of ancient wisdom, broke its original master's control over it, and one of the reasons for coming here today is to find another similar weapon."
"Another world, are you saying a planet similar to Draenor?" Jaina found it hard to understand.
The Arcane should permeate the entire physical universe; how could there be a planet entirely composed of soul power?
"No… more accurately, it's the mirror world of our universe, another physical universe.
It is called the Shadowlands, the destination of all the deceased." Arthas briefly mentioned the Shadowlands, but he quickly fell silent.
"I'm very sorry, Jaina, but I cannot tell you more about that realm for now; it would attract the attention of some very dangerous things to you."
"How dangerous?" Jaina looked at Arthas's face and asked.
"More dangerous than the Burning Legion—we might all be pawns."
After hearing this, Jaina sighed.
She really shouldn't have listened further.
An excellent mage should be able to control her curiosity and fully recognize her own abilities.
Arthas had no need to deceive her about such matters.
If Jaina were truly targeted by an existence far beyond mortal comprehension because she heard certain things, she might not die, but she would certainly become another burden for Arthas.
Gradually, he was drifting further from her—Jaina's expression was a little sad.
Just as she was about to say something, a strong hand took hers.
"Don't worry, I'm here."
"You must be careful, truly.
I don't want to lose anyone else I love after losing my brother."
Arthas said nothing, only nodded.
He didn't know how far he could go, but the knowledge he was born with and that mysterious disk made him understand that he had to bear certain responsibilities.
Suddenly, Jaina's expression changed, and she quickly said, "Magic fluctuations are coming from deeper in the labyrinth—are there other Guardians in this crypt besides those Black Knights?"
Arthas also sensed Lothar's Death and runic power contending with an Arcane force.
He glanced at Jaina, and the witch understood.
They immediately moved forward.
Soon, they discovered that Lothar was surrounded by several complex Arcane magic circles, and surging Arcane power was constantly attacking the Deathlord.
However, Lothar was not to be trifled with.
Although trapped by these spells, his situation was not dangerous; on the contrary, the magic circles trapping him were starting to falter.
"These are newly cast spells," Jaina said, using her staff to continuously outline several runes in the void, helping Lothar reduce the magic circles' intensity.
Her expression was grave.
"The caster's skill is extremely high; I can't decipher it, only destroy it with force."
The magic circles blocked sound and some vibrations, which was why Lothar hadn't been able to call for help immediately despite the short distance.
Arthas stared at the magic circles, his eyes slightly narrowed—this vault should indeed only have Black Knights as Guardians, and all those knights had vanished with the disintegration of the curse.
This meant the master of these magic circles was not originally guarding this place.
A mage who could appear in Medivh's vault at will, anytime, anywhere… perhaps there was only one such person in this world.
"Are there any magic fluctuations nearby? The caster should be close, not far away," Arthas asked.
"No… I can't sense anything.
If Sir Lothar hadn't triggered these complex Arcane magic circles, I wouldn't even have noticed their existence—Arthas, this is a mage far superior to me in skill and knowledge!" Jaina's expression grew even graver after she tried to find the source of the spells.
"Alright, it seems we've lost this magical contest," Arthas shook his head.
Though not entirely unexpected, this incredibly skillful method of concealment was truly baffling.
"We mean no harm, so could you please come out and meet us, and stop toying with your son's friend, esteemed former Guardian, Lady Aegwynn Magna."
Magna Aegwynn?!
Jaina's heart was stirred by the name, and she looked at Arthas with some disbelief, for the first time doubting what Arthas said.
"Are you sure it's really her?" Jaina suddenly felt a pang of guilt. Aegwynn's 'notoriety' was also recorded in the secret tomes of Dalaran. If such a powerful former Guardian wanted to target them, Jaina felt she definitely wouldn't be able to help, regardless of Arthas and Lothar.
"Besides her, no one else could set up a magical trap in a vault built by Medivh." Arthas saw Jaina's nervousness and comforted her, "Don't worry too much. Without the Guardian's power, Aegwynn is still powerful, but no longer an unbeatable existence."
Jaina found it a bit hard to accept at first. From Arthas's words, it sounded like he even planned to scheme against Aegwynn?
"Arthas Menethil, it's hard to believe you're a descendant of the Menethil family—that Terenas could raise a son like you?"
A clear and majestic female voice echoed in the underground vault. Strangely, the voice sounded like a mature woman in her thirties, yet it also carried a sense of vicissitude and age.
"Lady Aegwynn, we are not enemies," Arthas did not intend to get entangled with Aegwynn over issues of seniority and generation. She was a Tirisfal Guardian renowned for hundreds of years. If he were to be drawn into her words and become several generations her junior, he would lose the initiative. "Or rather, we are here to clean up the mess left by your son."
"But you've trespassed into a 'private residence,' and I have the right to blast you out." Aegwynn still had no kind words for Arthas. "For your fathers' sakes, leave quickly. I won't make things difficult for you."
Arthas shook his head; he definitely wouldn't accept such a proposal. "Lady, why be so rigid? Karazhan is shrouded in the Dark Titan's power, and combined with its special geographical location, the space within the tower has been twisted into a passage connecting to the Twisting Nether. Do you intend to deal with the demons invading the tower by yourself?"
"Just dealing with a group of demon minions doesn't require the Alliance's help."
Aegwynn's voice came from all directions. She was communicating with Arthas and the others through some magical item, but her actual body was clearly not here.
"Deal with one batch, and another comes? Lady, you should know that demons are endless. If you can't block their invading passage, they will continuously descend until they fill all of Karazhan." Arthas smiled slightly, "Or, are you, who has lost the Guardian's power and spent a large amount of mana to resurrect your son, able to seal that space torn open by the Guardian's power?"
Arthas's words caused Aegwynn to fall silent for a moment. This former Guardian clearly didn't expect that Arthas knew more than she had imagined.
Jaina, however, was not surprised. Arthas had learned many secrets from who knows where, many of which were ancient mysteries not even recorded in Dalaran. It was not strange for him to reveal a secret of a Tirisfal Guardian from hundreds of years ago.
She was just a little surprised that the "Medivh" they saw on Mount Hyjal was not someone in disguise, but had been resurrected by his mother, Aegwynn.
"How exactly did you come to know these things? Besides Merely, no one should know about me recalling Medivh." For the first time, Aegwynn was somewhat puzzled. In her life, she had never encountered someone like Arthas.
She had actually been paying attention to Arthas for a long time. When Theramore was established, she had observed the city through spells. Although she lived in seclusion in Dustwallow Marsh, far from human civilization, Aegwynn still had her own channels of information and was not ignorant of worldly affairs.
But she had only thought that Arthas was just another rising star in human civilization for the next few decades. Now, however, it seemed Arthas had exceeded her imagination.
"Where I learned these things is not important; what's important is how to resolve the issues I know," Arthas continued, "Just this vault, hidden by the Black Knight cursed by Medivh, is a very difficult problem."
"You know what those things are? Do you really have a solution?" Aegwynn knew that there were indeed many dangerous things hidden in this cellar, some of which could even subvert common perception and destroy an entire civilization or planet.
Some of the things inside were even troublesome for Aegwynn, which was why Aegwynn initially wanted Arthas to leave. She had thought Arthas didn't have the ability to deal with those things.
But now, Arthas had clearly touched upon a realm beyond mortals, and he himself seemed to possess some power unknown to Aegwynn. After some thought, Aegwynn chose to have a good talk with Arthas first.
It was not wrong to say that Aegwynn was inherently capricious and acted solely based on her personal preferences, especially after she defeated Sargeras's avatar, when this terrible personality reached its peak. This was why both the Tirisfal Council and Dalaran considered Aegwynn a great enemy at the time.
They were very worried that Aegwynn would fall into darkness, in which case the Guardian's power would also become a weapon of destruction.
Fortunately, although Aegwynn had a strange personality, her moral compass was relatively normal. Besides doing some absurd things, she hadn't done anything particularly outrageous or touched any bottom lines.
Furthermore, the Tirisfal at the time truly had no ability to continue pursuing Aegwynn. After Aegwynn gave birth to Medivh and passed on the Guardian's power, she disappeared without a trace.
Over the years, many things had happened. Aegwynn even lost her son. Without the Guardian's power, she realized that she was not a so-called favored child of heaven; she was Merely a mage who was slightly more brilliant than the mediocre.
Of course, Aegwynn herself was by no means "just a mage slightly better than the mediocre"; it was only because she had experienced too many messy things that she began to doubt herself.
But for a Guardian who was once confident to the point of arrogance to doubt herself, it showed how frustrating and unacceptable these things truly were.
Aegwynn's presence here now was also somewhat unexpected for Arthas. He even thought that Aegwynn might have sacrificed the magic she used for "self-preservation" due to the spell that recalled the astral mage's soul. But now, it seemed Aegwynn's condition was not as bad as he had imagined.
So... was it that name Aegwynn just mentioned? That old wizard whose existence was an epic in itself, and also a tragic and heroic figure.
"That is precisely why I am here. These dangerous weapons and magical artifacts, besides making the Black Knights more rampant, are a great trouble in themselves."
Arthas waved his hand, and the reconnaissance magic Aegwynn had left in the crypt immediately detected an energy flow that even she found unfamiliar. But when she pinpointed the source of the energy, her tone suddenly rose a few octaves.
"Be careful, young man! That weapon almost drove me to a dead end!" Aegwynn's voice was no longer calm. Arthas had summoned a terrifying demonic sword that had nearly killed her when she still possessed the power of the Guardian.
Jaina did not detect this special energy flow, but she felt Aegwynn's magical power rapidly escalating. The former Guardian seemed unable to hold back.
She very nimbly conjured several layers of magical shields. Although this would not cause Aegwynn too much trouble, between a "notorious" Guardian and Arthas, she unhesitatingly chose to trust the latter.
"Little girl, do you know what you are helping him do?" Aegwynn said. "If that sword seizes the will of anyone here, none of you will make it out alive."
"I am very sorry, Lady Aegwynn, but I trust him," Jaina found that the Arcane barrier she had constructed was being eroded by Aegwynn at an extremely fast rate, but this was not unexpected. She and Aegwynn were separated by hundreds of years of accumulation and experience, so being outmatched was normal.
Moreover, Jaina found that while Aegwynn's breaking speed was fast, it had not reached an exaggerated level. Being intelligent, she immediately realized that after Aegwynn lost her Guardian power, although her strength still far surpassed hers, in such a sudden confrontation, she had not reached the point where she could completely crush her.
This instantly gave Jaina more confidence; she could at least entangle Aegwynn for a few minutes, preventing her from interfering with Arthas's actions.
Aegwynn, on her side, was also incredibly surprised. She intervened because she was worried Arthas would do something foolish, but she also did not expect Jaina to be able to contend with her for a short time. Even though she was currently a ranged attacker and her strength was far from her peak, she was still confident that she could overwhelm most Archmages.
Jaina looked at most in her early twenties, yet she had such profound achievements in magical arts. Even Aegwynn could not help but praise her—she herself had been so talented in her youth, which was why she was chosen as the Guardian by the Tirisfal Council.
"You are very impressive, little girl. If you were born in my era, perhaps you could replace me and become the Guardian."
For true geniuses, Aegwynn was never stingy with praise.
Jaina, upon hearing this, did not feel happy. Instead, she was somewhat displeased with Aegwynn's words, "I will not become like you, Lady Aegwynn. I greatly admire your time as Guardian protecting Azeroth, but later, this power corrupted you. If the Guardian power would make me like you, I would not want such power."
In Jaina's eyes now, although Aegwynn was considered a "senior" and had indeed made many contributions as a Guardian, she had monopolized the Guardian's power. Aside from that, Aegwynn was also an unruly traitor and an irresponsible mother who neglected her son.
Jaina simply did not want to become another Aegwynn, so Aegwynn's praise sounded somewhat harsh to her.
Aegwynn sighed. Are young people today all so mature? She suddenly found herself a little funny, having taken hundreds of years to figure these things out.
Jaina was originally waiting for Aegwynn to break through her defenses in a more violent way, but she found that Aegwynn gradually withdrew the steadily climbing magical energy.
The witch from Dalaran was baffled, and it was at this moment that a flash of inspiration struck her. She suddenly found a strange intersection point amidst the chaotic, flaxen magical threads.
She decisively acted, slamming an Arcane-condensed hand onto it, while simultaneously setting up multiple barriers and reinforcing spatial anchor points to prevent teleportation magic.
After the Arcane light dissipated, a glistening purple crystal ball floated in Jaina's hand. She understood Aegwynn's trick, "You were monitoring us, talking to us, and casting spells remotely through this crystal ball."
"You truly are a genius," Aegwynn praised. "Although I deliberately revealed a flaw, your ability to seize it in an instant is enough to show that you far surpass those mediocrities in Dalaran—would you like a different teacher? No one in Dalaran is fit to be your mentor."
"Archmage Antonidas's magic lessons are very good, I don't need…"
Jaina was about to refuse, but then she heard Arthas, who had been in meditation nearby, say, "Agreeing to Lady Aegwynn might be a good choice, Jaina."
"Arthas?" Jaina was somewhat confused.
"Hahaha, your little boyfriend is an interesting fellow too," Aegwynn laughed heartily, showing none of the reserve and dignity of women from her era. She marveled as she scrutinized Arthas, "You actually managed to suppress Apocalypse? That demonic sword cannot affect your sanity?"
"I told you, I understand him very well, so you have always been overthinking it, Lady," The blue light in Arthas's eyes flickered and vanished. He turned his palm, cupped it, and pulled it back.
Lothar had just broken through Aegwynn's magical trap and was about to search for traces of the enemy when he saw a pale green luminescence streak out from the depths of the crypt, passing by his side.
Arthas gripped the sword hilt. The uniquely shaped runic greatsword glowed with a deep green light, like a deadly poison, trembling slightly in Arthas's hand, as if wanting to break free from his grasp.
But very quickly, bone-chilling cold surged from the void, and a thin layer of frost immediately formed in the damp crypt. The blade of Frostmourne pierced through space, entering reality.
Aegwynn stared dumbfounded at Frostmourne. She sensed a threat from this sword that even surpassed Apocalypse—this was yet another extremely dangerous demonic sword.
Moreover, she also noticed that while Frostmourne and Apocalypse's primary powers differed somewhat, their most fundamental natures seemed… to be the same?
"Did these two swords come from the same place?" Aegwynn asked instinctively.
"That's right." Arthas plunged Apocalypse into the ground with a backhand, gripping Frostmourne with his other hand.
For some reason, when Arthas gripped Frostmourne, all the "living" people present shivered, including Aegwynn, who was not physically there.
Jaina stared at Apocalypse and Frostmourne for a good while. The power of both swords was suppressed by Arthas, no longer affecting others' sanity. After a brief observation, Jaina recalled Arthas's earlier brief mention of the Shadowlands.
"Arthas, could it be…" Jaina speculated, "Are both of these swords creations of the Shadowlands?"
"Yes, they have another name there—the unholy sword, Apocalypse" Arthas slowly uttered a term that was very unfamiliar to everyone. As this term appeared in the real world, it seemed as if even the air solidified, and the dormant necromantic energy slowly began to revive.
The unholy sword, its very existence is the sorrow of life.