296. The Shaded Sky (1)
What is romance? To most of the elves occupying this place, romance was a word that carried a similar connotation to foolishness. For those who had lost their gods and wandered solely for survival, romance felt no different than the escapism of drug addicts.
Yet, even for them, this faint moonlight would not signify stupidity.
The king who had led their people since the era when the gods resided, and the foreigner who had shared sword dances and clasped hands with him.
The dragon, believed to have vanished long ago, had returned, and an era where the fragments of the dead gods gathered had arrived. A thousand years. The time needed for the faded faith and the old fairy tales to regain their color.
That passage of time, the accumulated years, had robbed the elves of their peak strength… but it was enough to bring a longing for forgotten legends.
“It’s raining.”
Leia muttered as she watched the two people step aside. The night was thick with a halo around the moon, and a faint mist drifted through the dim moonlight. Before raindrops fell on the deck, the sensitive ears of the elves began to hear the sound of the storm.
“Let’s go inside. We need a drink. You two, follow us.”
She gestured to Jerolen’s retainers and trudged toward the bow. Following the queen’s footsteps, the nobles and the Wild Prince each gave a brief nod to the two and stepped aside.
* * *
Meanwhile, Abel glanced at Lishir, who was biting her lips, and spoke quietly.
“Do you trust your spouse?”
“Of course…”
“Then why are you so tense?”
At her words, Lishir tightly closed her eyes. She struggled to shake off her fear and spoke.
“I… if that man harms him… I…”
“Would you oppose me?”
“I will!”
Lishir shouted without opening her eyes.
“I will! I’ve lived longer than you! Now it’s even longer! I’m not… the same as I was back then. I…”
“Haha. Lishir. Yes… I’m so glad you’ve grown up well.”
Abel smiled softly and wrapped her arms around Lishir’s shoulders. Lishir trembled and leaned into her, sobbing.
“Abel… I can’t live without Jeri. He’s my everything. I don’t want to live forever. But… I can’t bear to see him die.”
“I understand your feelings, Lishir. I truly do.”
If there were a lighthouse found by chance in the vast ocean by those left alone, how could one not love its light? She, more than anyone else, couldn’t ignore the feelings of her young kin.
A way to suppress the madness of the ancient dragon… Abel, looking down at Lishir sobbing in her arms, fell into thought. If there were such an easy method, no. Even if it were the most difficult method, someone had to survive.
If divinity was necessary for the dragon’s survival, the dragons of that era would have opposed the gods. It wasn’t a situation where they would hesitate to side with hell. After all, it was an era without perfect allies.
Just as Fernandez pondered Jerolen’s methods while listening to Lishir, Abel pondered Lishir’s condition. The madness of the ancient dragon is a shackle that approaches an aged soul. One that can never be broken…
A half-baked solution. No, merely a stopgap or the lesser of two evils. Infusing divinity. She, who lived in the present with divinity in her body, knew that fact more clearly than anyone.
‘It doesn’t grow.’
To suppress the madness of the ancient dragon, one must not become an ancient dragon. One must not grow. To bypass the accumulating years means that those years do not settle into the body and mind.
Lishir… is still a young dragon. Like the elves cursed by their god for stealing divinity, she too is cursed. A curse that prevents her from ever growing.
An artificial immortality…
‘For the gods, a curse… is akin to a blessing.’
Abel ended her short contemplation and shook her head. She stroked Lishir’s hair and whispered.
“Just as you trust your spouse, so do I, Lishir. He never goes back on his word. The fight between him and your spouse today won’t last long.”
“Okay…”
Whether it was fear of Abel or the emotions toward a kin she had finally reunited with after so long, Lishir nodded without complaint.
* * *
“Have you ever met a god?”
Jerolen sat at the edge of the port side, gazing at the undulating night sea. He tossed a bottle to Fernandez.
Fernandez caught the bottle mid-air, wiped his mouth, and sat beside him.
“Yes.”
“Guess it wasn’t a great experience, huh? For a priest.”
“Not all sons love their parents.”
“Sometimes a prodigal son appears, and that’s what makes it balanced. Right.”
Jerolen chuckled and took a swig from the bottle.
“Gods. What a ridiculous term. Transcendent beings. Immortals. Souls structurally built to hold concepts more robustly than mortal spirits… or those who have endured long enough to achieve a level of spiritual strength.”
Put simply, it’s not that impressive, is it? Jerolen shrugged.
“Even if it’s not something anyone can easily become. Those who consider their existence inherently noble are certainly not.”
“Soul parasites.”
“What? Hahaha!! Hahaha! Right! That’s it! Parasites!”
Jerolen laughed until tears streamed down his face. Soon, he smiled gloomily and tilted the bottle.
“I heard from Lishir. About the end of the Elven Temple of the Gods.”
“Yeah.”
“The fate of the defeated gods. I don’t know much about the dwarves, but at least for you humans, it’s a fortunate thing. Your Temple of the Gods wasn’t defeated.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Our gods… our ‘parents’ who created us. They were our distant ancestors and great leaders. At the moment their souls were torn apart and devoured by the Great Demon, what do you think they prayed for?”
“What?”
Jerolen…
Without turning his gaze, he continued to speak while staring at the approaching dark clouds.
“Who did the gods pray to? They couldn’t have been indifferent in the face of death.”
If they had been indifferent before their own death, it would have been better if they were closer to mere concepts. They wouldn’t have placed a ‘curse’ as the price for stealing their divinity.
Then, those inferior personal gods, lower than we thought, who did they pray to while watching the approaching end?
“And what should we pray to?”
“Do you see the end?”
“Do we have to see it to know? Do we have to see the raindrops hidden in that fog, or feel them beneath the night sea? We can sense it.”
Jerolen’s eyes glowed faintly. He handed a bottle of alcohol to Fernandez and said,
“Unlike humans, we are more sensitive to such things.”
“……!”
At that moment, a memory flashed through Fernandez’s mind. A memory from his previous life.
During the time when the end was approaching. When the gates of the Great Demon opened, and angels descended from the heavens to fight in the early days of the Great War. When demons laughed from every shadow, reveling in victory and screams—
The rulers of the sea who indiscriminately hunted beings imbued with divinity. The elves had all disappeared at some point.
Some said they had left. To a safe place only they knew. Others said they had sunk into the deep, dangerous sea to meet their end.
It’s unknown. When exactly those who drifted on the sea without settling on the continent disappeared. It was something Faijashi had no interest in at the time.
“If…….”
If the end comes. What will happen to you?
When Fernandez asked, Jerolen lowered his head and laughed.
“We’ll disappear.”
“What?”
“If the time of the end approaches, and Hell covets this material world, eventually leading to a new war after a thousand-year truce.”
That being will awaken. The ancient demon who swallowed our god and laughed at us from the Temple of the Gods. The parasite who said it wasn’t time yet, now becoming the god of the race itself.
“When we feel the end, and the entire race kneels before the approaching despair. That being will tear down the veil of reality, arrive, swallow our souls, and finally be reborn as a true god.”
“So, was it an island?”
“What?”
“I thought about why your capital ship was an island. The other Serpent Kings’ capital ships were ships. To be able to leave anytime, anywhere. To wander towards safer places. But your capital ship was an island. An island can’t move.”
Having a fortress on the vast sea that can escape anytime, anywhere. It brings a sense of security as strong as its power. The belief that no matter what threat comes, you can somehow escape and survive.
The moment that belief crumbles. The moment you realize there’s no place left to escape. What kind of despair would the elves feel?
But if it’s an island. If you become a settled race. If there’s no place to escape from the land you must protect. It’s an extreme last stand. If you consider the safety of the race, it’s something you should never choose.
But…… in the face of the despair of the end, when true doom approaches, one king thought this in the midst of this dilemma.
If there’s no escape. If it becomes this desperate, we won’t give up easily.
A wise judgment. The settled races of the continent. Humans rose up against the end, wielding their weapons until the very last moment. In other words, the disappearance of the elves in the previous life was, precisely, the moment Jerolen’s capital ship was captured.
“Truly…… wise. None of the humans I know. No, not even our own kind, have reached the point you’ve grasped.”
“There must have been one more.”
“……One more?”
“There must have been one more insurance. It wouldn’t have just been a last stand, a desperate struggle to hold on.”
“Can you guess?”
Fernandez handed the bottle to Jerolen. Jerolen turned his gaze from the faint horizon to look into Fernandez’s eyes.
Fernandez watched Jerolen drink for a while, then suddenly spoke.
“That Great Demon who swallowed your gods. You imitated him.”
Swallowing divinity and lying dormant, now becoming the god of the race itself, you imitated that parasite’s method.
You tried to implant divinity into a young dragon to resurrect it as a god. That part isn’t much different from Guimerin’s method…….
“But not as a servant, as a true god of the race. Not the defeated gods of the past, but a new symbol of hope. If the god of the end arrives when the entire race is engulfed in despair……. You tried to serve a new god of the race as a symbol of hope to eradicate the conditions of the end.”
“But it failed.”
“Is it too early to give up?”
“It was a condition that could only be fulfilled if all our kind believed. A challenge that could only succeed if all our kind prayed towards hope in the moment of despair. How could that be? With three dynasties already split, I would have to take the lead and force belief to even attempt it.”
The hegemony of the sea is already in Leia’s hands, and Jerolen is nothing more than a defeated king of a ruined nation. Even if Leia had tried to poison him, he wouldn’t have resisted.
“At least one person was saved. That was enough to live on. She didn’t become the god of all of us, but at least she became my god.”
“So, did you give up?”
“No. There’s still one more left. Can you guess?”
Jerolen shook the bottle to gauge the remaining alcohol. It was empty. He clicked his tongue briefly and threw the bottle towards the night sea. The bottle drew a clean parabola and sank beneath the black waves.
“What is it?”
“Humans.”
The Celestial War was a victory for humans. How could that be? Jerolen, who fled to the sea to escape the storm of war, unlike the other kings, did not ignore humans.
Vermin who luckily occupied empty land. The other Serpent Kings’ view of humans was no more or less than that. In fact, when they ravaged the continent, humans were no better off than livestock or slaves.
But Jerolen thought he should judge them by the result. No matter the process. They won the war. Survival and prosperity were the proof. Then how could that be? The sealing of the Great Demon didn’t necessarily mean Hell’s defeat.
Back then, there were countless gates to Hell. And the gods who constantly intervened, playing at being soldiers. Among the other powerful races and monsters, there must have been a reason they survived…….
“I met someone very much like you, and I became certain.”
Carlos. In human terms, Emperor Charles. His existence was the key to victory.
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