Elianora looks at Seirra’s body without a hint of an expression. She’s really trying hard, isn’t she? I could tell from her heartbeat the complex of emotions she was feeling. I could have stopped her from killing Sierra, if I wanted that is. But I don’t really care about this whole matter. It doesn’t involve me and I’m not such a righteous person. People die everyday. At least she died without pain.
“Are you not going to ask why I killed her?” Elianora asks with her head hanging low, glistening emerald hair with flowers falling over, covering her face.
“It doesn’t involve me so, no.”
She bites her lip, as she holds back her tears. After a moment of silent, she finally speaks again.
“She would have faced a far degrading punishment if she went back to the forest. Her pride would have to be reduced to nothing. And if I had let her go, she would either have been made a slave or an elf without a home,” she says in a low voice.
I don’t know much about the elves, but from the books I’ve read, I learned that elves are a united race without much discrimination amongst themselves. Of course, that doesn’t apply to dark elves. That’s only because of the betrayal and disgrace they caused a thousand years ago. In fact, because of their betrayal and disgrace, they lost Gaia’s blessing resulting to their complexions turning dark. Hence why they are discriminated and loathed, only reduced to nothing.
That’s why the elves’ pride doesn’t come from believing themselves as superior per se but because of the love they are given by the Spirit King of nature everyday. The one who shines brighter than any of her other siblings, Gaia. Humans, nor dwarves, nor the beastmen receive the love of Gaia, a Spirit King who is believed to be responsible for life itself.
I once asked Gaia about the Spirit Kings. She told me that when a Spirit King is born, laws corresponding to their nature would be born alongside them. Although she was the last of her siblings to be born, she was the most ‘loved’ and powerful. Of course, that was only to her siblings because before she and her siblings ever came to be, two other spirits existed.
Spirits created by the world itself to bring forth ‘life’ and ‘death’. The spirit of light and the one of darkness. The spirit of light was the one who created life itself. That means elves, dwarves, beastmen, giants, and even animals. The spirit of death created everything that brought about death such as monsters and diseases.
What about humans?
“What about humans?” I asked Gaia.
Only silence befell the room. Her usually majestic demeanour filled with coldness. I wondered why the silence. I mean, it only makes sense that the humans were created by the spirit of light, right, since her alone was responsible for life. She never answered me and I never asked again.
What happened to those first spirits? Gaia told me they ‘died’. It seems they ‘defied’ the world, whatever that may mean.
“But you told me that if a Spirit King died, laws themselves would die,” I say to Gaia.
“That’s true, but not at the same time, for a Spirit King, no, a spirit can never truly die. When a spirit is destroyed, they return to their essence. I embody the essence of nature, so if any of the spirits of nature die, they return to me. I can then forge a new vessel for them however, they lose their previous selves.”
“Meaning a new spirit is born.” I say.
“Yes and no. In mortal terms, it would be like losing all your memories and be born anew. Of course, that’s when spirits are destroyed. For Spirt Kings, if our ‘true bodies’ are destroyed, we become nothing but our essence with no sense of self. Our essence can’t be destroyed since it’s tied to the world. So, that means the next holder of our essence returns back to their creator, the world.
“Hence why it’s virtually impossible to destroy the laws… unless of course you destroy the very ‘principles’ that govern this world,” Gaia continues. “That’s why ‘life’ still exists in this world. It’s all because the essence of the spirit of light returned to the world itself. That goes for the monsters and disease as well.”
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Because of that, elves would rather kill themselves than be taken as slaves. Them being disgraced and defiled by humans is the same as Gaia herself being defiled. At least that’s what they believe in.
Of course, that doesn’t mean no elves are slaves. And that’s only because slave traffickers are taught that at the sight of an elf, take them by surprise and imprint the slave mark on them.
“I understand,” I say soothingly as I pat her head. “Let’s finish this talk somewhere else, shall we.”
I teleport myself and her to the farthest place from where we were.
***
After the two disappear, a man clad in white heavy armour, adorned with intricate gold carving on the chest plate and the shoulders appears as swiftly as the wind. He has a giant axe on his back and his yellow aged hair sways gently in the wind.
“It seems I was too late. They’ve already left,” says the man as he clicks his tongue with a disgruntled face.
He was still far out when he sensed the intense magical energy originating from this area. He had left his unit at breakneck speeds and hurried over here. However, the moment he got closer, he felt a gaze that shook even him to his very core. That gaze managed to make even him reduce his speed unintentionally.
How long has it been since I felt fear? Even the commander hasn’t made me feel this way. Mmm, now that I think about it, I once did feel like this. And it was when I met that man for the first time. The leader of the Spectres.
After a while, heaving breaths sound behind him. A group of fifty knights all clad in white-gold armour and a girl in pure white priest’s clothes.
“Huff, huff, vice commander Godrick. You can’t just disappear like that without saying anything, okay,” says the girls out of breath.
“I had no time to waste. Forgive me priest Veronica.”
“Anyways, what the hell happened here?”
Vice commander Godrick has also been observing the scene in front of him. Bodies sprawled everywhere in the ground with decapitated heads. The ground deformed and decorated by chunks of wood everywhere.
“These people seem to have been killed by a very skilled individual,” says vice commander Godrick.
Probably by the person who had ‘gazed’ my way.
“Well, that’s obvious vice commander. I also sense spirit magic. Was it the Elven Guard perhaps?” asks Veronica curiously.
“I believe it was the princess. She probably fought the person who killed all of these men. I believe our plans were leaked somehow. It seems someone got to the princess first.”
“Whaaaat?!” Veronica yelps exaggeratedly as she clasps her silver hair with both her hands. “Doesn’t that mean we failed the mission? The pope will be sooo angry.”
Veronica stops talking when vice commander Godrick doesn’t respond. At least for her and the holy knights, their punishment will be minimum compared to the vice commander.
The vice commander title is only second to the commander title in the entire army of the Holyland’s holy knights. To be given such a status just shows how much faith and importance is held for the one who receives it. Expectations are high and failure is not expected. That means this is vice commander Godrick’s first failed mission. A mission that can be considered easy by many but of great importance.
With this failure, he risks losing the vice commander title, a title that has been vacant for more than a hundred years until his teacher, the commander who has held the title of commander for more than two hundred years gave it to him.
Now, what was the mission that would risk him losing his title? Kidnapping the princess was just phase one of the plan. The true purpose of this mission was to force the Elven kingdom’s hand into helping in this war. By having the princess kept captive, on the promise she would be brought back after this war with the demons was over. As the only heir, the Elven queen would have no choice but to comply.
The elves never fought in the war with the demons two hundred years ago. So, why did the pope want their help? Not only did the humans win two hundred years ago, now, the Demon Lord has been killed. The humans should be at an advantage, right? That’s not what the pope believed. The fact that the demons still dared to launched a war without the Demon Lord meant that they have confidence in something.
And Godrick has experienced what he believes is a tiny portion of that confidence. You see, unlike last time, the demons this time used their army sparingly. Not even a Demon Guardian has been spotted in the frontlines. Instead, what has taken up the numbers of the demon army are grotesque white creatures on all fours, with razor sharp claws and teeth.
White devils they call them. Creatures that show no fear and charge forward. Creatures that even with fatal injuries never stop baring their fangs until their last breaths. They are fast and lethal. But that’s not the true problem. The true problem is their numbers.
Due to their number, the demons managed to take hold of one of four fortresses that was the sign of the border between the human territory and the demon realm. Now, a fierce war has ensued to retake the fortress before the demonic energy from the demon realm takes root.
This is why more soldiers are needed to fight off the demons and bid time for as long as they can.