"The elders claim that Ankran's followers are controlled by his magic...... Perhaps they felt that this conclusion would alleviate their anxiety a little compared to the other possibility - no matter how powerful the magic was, it was impossible to manipulate such elves, they were not corpses, they had their own will...... No, that's not magic, it's more like ......"

The Elven King stopped, seemingly unable to find a suitable description...... Or maybe they don't want to use a word that's too heavy for an elf. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

"Faith. ”

Ed whispered.

"Yes...... Faith. Payne smiled helplessly, "The elves hid this history, but they weren't so stupid as not to leave any records. Even in the pen of the elders who hated him, and beyond his incredible power, Ankeland had his own charms...... At least, thousands of years ago the elves were far braver and more passionate than they are today, but willing to fight for him. ”

“...... But what do they want?" Ed asked, puzzled. He could understand Ankran's revenge, but he couldn't understand what the elves who followed him were seeking.

Absolute power - so the dragons thought. But elves are not dragons after all, and they are not barbarians.

"What the hell do you want?" Payne repeated with a wry smile, "That's a good question...... I'm not trying to blame humanity, but it does concern you. ”

Ed was at a loss. Thousands of years is too long for humanity. What were humans doing thousands of years ago? Ru Mao drank blood, lived like a wild beast in the wilderness, and did not even have his own language...... What threat could such a human be to the elves who were in their glory at that time?

"At that time, humanity was just being born...... A whole new race, the second son of God, resembles elves, but not elves. Short-lived, changeable, and without faith...... Many elves approached them with curiosity, and even helped them, but many more were just watching from afar, and were increasingly amazed at the power of your life force in your short life. We don't guess God's will, and we don't know when that uneasiness begins...... Some elves fear that they have lost the favor of the gods and will one day be abandoned...... Like the giants of the ancients. ”

Ed was speechless.

"Ankelan has taken advantage of that very cleverly. "He convinces the elves that it was some supreme, only god who created the elves, and that the gods had stolen his power and created the human race—a shoddy imitation." They simply cannot give human beings an eternal soul like a spirit and a final home, so they have to call it 'freedom'...... The fact that he destroyed the Tower of Omer without punishment is probably more telling than the power he showed. ”

Ed, who had barely spoken, only felt his mouth dry. He glanced at his empty glass and silently pushed it a little farther away.

His limited-capacity, human brain needs to be awake enough to accept this long-buried history.

"Unbelievable, huh?" Payne casually filled himself with another glass, his eyes shining so brightly that Ed wondered if he had drunk enough, "but there's more to it than that...... Your friends believe that Ancla studied necromancy in order to resurrect his dead loved ones, just as Lydia had done in the first place, because of grief and longing...... No, it's much more than that. What he wanted was for his father to be the only god, or at least his incarnation of this world—or at least to make the elves believe in it. After all...... 'only gods can create life'. In this way, he is the 'Son of God' in the truest sense of the word...... The world was destined to be ruled by him. ”

Ed shuddered unconsciously.

It's crazy...... But what really scares him is that all of Ankland's crazy plans thousands of years ago are now being repeated in different ways by different people. Was that some kind of coincidence, or was it a deliberate arrangement?

“...... You guys...... How do you know that?" he muttered.

"Because not all of Ankland's followers are destroyed with that city. Payne replied.

Before that, some of the elves fled back to Grivar. They thought Anclan had gone mad, and in addition to the prisoners of war, he threw his most loyal warriors into some kind of dark sacrifice that wiped them out...... It was supposed to be the best time to destroy Ankeland, but Grivar was in the middle of civil strife and could not send an army until Almers ascended the throne. And by the time they arrived, Ankeland was already a silent dead city.

"The Punishment of the Gods". This ending was probably a relief for both Almers and the Elders. They buried this history, not only to hide their own failures, but also to bury the seeds of chaos and destruction that Ancland planted.

In the hundreds of years since the city of Ankeland was turned into a white land, Grivar has experienced the cursed decay of the Far Northern Light thousands of years later, with some of the elves who had participated in the war rapidly aging and newborn babies dying one after another...... That's why the elders panicked when they learned of the catastrophe of the Far Northern Light—they feared that Ankeland hadn't really been destroyed, even if his bones had been burned to ashes.

Ed was stunned: "He left a corpse?"

"Yes. At least the person who found the body at the time believed it was him...... He collapsed in a tower in the middle of the city of Ankland, with only bones left, the staff in his hand broken into pieces, and the blue gems set on it shattered...... Whether it was him or not, it was clear that he had enough strength to protect his soul. ”

Payne reached out and pressed his forehead, smiling tiredly: "All their worries have actually come true...... He's really back. If they had known this a year ago - if they had told me this a year ago...... I'm afraid I'm not going to be presumptuous and let Norvi out alive. ”

Ed chilled. He thought Payne had finally answered his initial question.

"You're going to kill him. He whispered, "Even if Norway still exists somewhere......"

“...... I think you know how slim that hope is. Payne looked at him calmly, "I don't know much about necromancy, but I do...... One body can't fit two souls. ”

Ed's heart moved. He remembered Sercio...... Coscott. Although the situation is different, the ......

"Possibly!" he blurted out, stubbornly refusing to give up, "at least give me a chance......

He didn't know what to do yet...... But he couldn't do nothing.

Payne was silent for a long time.

"You trust me, so I can't give you any false promises. Finally, he said, "A year ago, despite their suspicions, the elders spared Norway and did not continue the hunt because they had not found a way to destroy Ankelan once and for all—a physical body was easier to grasp than an ethereal soul." Until now, they still haven't had a way to do it, and until then......"

"Until then, I'll get Novi back!"

Ed eagerly made assurances that he most likely couldn't.

. (To be continued.) )