Chapter 75: The Return of the Sky-Winged
The elven race of today was a prosperous one, the fourth strongest in the world. They had the Great Elven Forest, their ancestral home, from which new elves were constantly being born, and the Elven Kingdom, a nation purely dedicated to war. It was clear that, with the passage of time, the elves, with their superior magical talent, would likely surpass the Sky-Winged. Especially in the future, when flight magic was invented, the Sky-Winged's greatest advantage would be gone.
And yet, in the future, one of these races would have no record in history, and the other would be on the brink of extinction. The entire elven race, nearly wiped out. Rhodes didn't know the specifics of what had happened, but he knew that the elves had faced an existential crisis. The false god had struck at the Great Elven Forest, cutting off the birth of new elves. And then, the first Demon King would issue his decree to hunt down every last elf, and the once-prosperous elven race would be brought to its knees.
Putting all the pieces together, he finally understood the false god's plan.
His face turned deathly pale, and his hand, which was gripping his holy sword, began to tremble.
"I see... so that's what it was," he murmured to himself. "First, he used the demons to destroy the Dwarven Kingdom for touching the forbidden. Then, he used the Sky-Winged to erase the evidence. And now, he's coming for the elves..."
Because he knew the fate of the elves, he could make such a deduction. But the others didn't understand.
"What are you talking about!?" Serie asked, grabbing his arm.
He took a deep breath. "Serie, I think... we need to go back to the Great Elven Forest," he said, his voice grave.
"You mean..." Serie was no fool. She knew what he was trying to say. "You think the Great Elven Forest is in danger of being destroyed?"
"I don't know for sure, but..." He couldn't tell her about the future, about the decline of her race. It was his greatest secret, a secret he would take to his grave. "Doesn't it all seem a little too coincidental? Why did the demon army choose the Great Elven Forest as their primary target? And why did the Sky-Winged use a massive teleportation circle to leave the front lines at such a critical moment?"
Her face turned grim. The Sky-Winged's actions had to have been on the Goddess's orders. Without a divine command, they would never use the Divine Strike. To do so would leave them in a weakened state for a long time, vulnerable to attack. What she didn't know was whether or not the Sky-Winged knew that the Goddess they worshipped was a fake. Now, with their army gone, it was uncertain if the dwarves and the elves could hold off the entire demon army on their own.
For the first time, she felt a pang of fear. She might have said she would never go back, but the Great Elven Forest was still her home. She couldn't just stand by and watch it be destroyed, to become a crater in the ground like the ancestral home of the dwarves.
"But Rhodes, what can we do, just the few of us, in a war between races?" Norne asked, his voice filled with uncertainty. An individual's strength was too small to change the tide of a war.
Rhodes looked down at the Divine Right Sword, Org, and said nothing. He didn't know how to unleash its full power. In the last battle, if not for Org's intervention, they would have never been able to withstand the Divine Strike. As if sensing his helplessness, the sword began to tremble, and a strange power began to emanate from it.
"This is... the power of Org?" Serie said in surprise, feeling her own depleted mana beginning to recover. "No, this is... the power of the holy relic!"
As a legendary dwarven sword, Org naturally had the ability to store mana, and its capacity was far greater than that of the 'Light of Ersten'.
He could feel a pulse from the blade, as if it was resonating with him. The dwarves hadn't placed it on the stone pedestal just for show. The sword had been forged to be one with the slab, like a sword and its scabbard. The holy relic was its scabbard. And it could draw on the slab's power without any limitations, keeping the sword in a state of eternal perfection.
"I see," he said, closing his eyes and feeling the mana surging through him. "This is the power of Org. The Divine Right Sword and the holy relic are one and the same."
Serie stared at him, at the tangible aura of mana now surrounding him, at his eyes, which had turned the color of silver-blue magic. In her eyes, the mana emanating from him was incredibly dense, far surpassing her own. But compared to hers, his was a bit... ethereal, as if it could dissipate at any moment. "This is... the power of the Divine Right Sword? You can control it?"
"Not completely," he said, tightening his grip on the hilt. "But I think... it will be enough."
The power of Org was flowing through him, one of its abilities, to temporarily increase his own mana. And its other ability... was the original, true 'light-beam cannon'. The moment he had resonated with the sword, the knowledge had just come to him.
Just then, the sky suddenly darkened. They looked up and saw that the Sky-Winged army, which had already left, had returned. Their white wings blotted out the sun.
Not long after they had left, the Goddess had bestowed another oracle. But this time, it was not just a command, but a being of pure mana.
[My dear children, your mission is not yet complete. Return to the dwarven ruins and kill every living thing you see.]
The form of the Goddess was as grand and beautiful as ever. Though, for some reason, the wings on her back were a little different from the ones on the statues in their Heavenly Kingdom. But the Sky-Winged didn't question it. To them, the Goddess was their all. Any doubt, any speculation, was blasphemy.
After giving her command, the Goddess's form dissolved into a source of pure mana, which the Sky-Winged then used to quickly recover the mana they had expended on the Divine Strike. In no time, they were back to their full strength.
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