Chapter 261


    Whioo-


    The illusion of the ice flower erased the forest, and this time, the very old memories that Sd remembered began to be dra


    wn before Suho’s eyes.


    It was a newborn baby.


    [That’s me.]


    It was a very young Shd, fast asleep in the arms of an adult elf.


    [And my mother.]


    And behind it, the tall Elvenwood trees were swaying their branches ominously.


    Sd muttered softly, ring at the hideous monster disguised as peace.


    Since when did it start?


    [… … Before I was born, our elves were already being raised by Elvenwood.]


    And this memory was a very painful memory that Scy still held even after his death.


    Spring, summer, fall, winter.


    The four seasons that the elves experienced were not one year.


    Sometimes it was brief, sometimes itsted for decades.


    But there was definitely an end someday.


    The peace that seemed like it wouldst forever was inevitably met with winter.


    One day, as the once fertilend gradually dried up and a bitter snowstorm swept through the bare forest where even the fallen leaves had fallen.


    [As always, the ‘Year of Harvest’ came suddenly.]


    Whoa-


    Hey, run away!


    [Winter is always sudden.]


    The year of harvest.


    One day, Elvenwood began harvesting the elves it had been raising.


    [… … I was still young.]


    Suho, who was watching the illusion, saw Sd’s expression.


    Sd was facing his memories with bitter eyes.


    WHEEWWW!


    A bitter cold blizzard.


    He saw his mother desperately running away across the frozen snowfield.


    When I closed my eyes, it was still vivid.


    Holding myself tightly in her arms, still a newborn baby.


    The urgent face of a mother running away in a panic.


    In that warm embrace, Sd looked at his young eyes that were staring nkly at his mother’s face.


    and.


    Phew-


    -Ugh… … !


    … … Even as her back was pierced by those hideous thorns, the mother’s trembling hands desperately handed her child over to another elf.


    -You, you too… … .


    … … Thest voice of my mother as she was captured by the fallen spirits and dragged back to Elvenwood.


    Those sad eyes that smiled faintly as they watched their child drift away in the arms of another elf.


    Even with her blurred eyes, she still smiled at the child until the very end, that faint voice.


    -Alive… … .


    [… … You live too.]


    All of those things were still vivid in Scy’s memory. 1


    Even at this very moment, when I am dead and in eternal sleep, forever and ever.


    [That is thest I remember seeing my mother.]


    Whioo-


    Time passed quickly in the fantasy.


    Sd.


    There was a newborn baby there who had lost his parents and barely survived by being left in the arms of other survivors.


    At the same time, the young elf, who had witnessed all of the tragedy with his own two eyes, settled down smoothly in the new vige with the other adults, remembering all of the despair.


    New home.


    Within the fence of the newly sprouted Elvenwood.


    Sd grew up and became a boy.


    Became a young man.


    I also made some friends.


    Among them was Fores.


    Sd learned magic and hunting techniques with his friends, and evenpeted with each other for the position of guardian of the vige.


    Looking back, it was peace.


    Sunny weather.


    The fresh scent of grass.


    Every moment was peaceful.


    But in all those moments, Sd’s friends never once saw Sd smile.


    It seemed like he didn’t know how to smile at all.


    It was natural.


    Sd’s mother simply told him to live, but left without telling him how to live.


    [Do you know that?]


    Sd chanted beside Suho.


    [Sometimes a bloody battlefield is better than a miserable peace.]


    Sd was ring at the illusion he had created with a fierce gaze.


    Kkwaak!


    Winter hase again.


    Peace is over.


    The elves were dying.


    The survivors fled in panic.


    -How!


    Among them, Fores was howling.


    -Why do we have to end up like this every time!


    [Fores was the same as me.]


    Fores, like Sd, was a newborn baby who barely survived in the previous vige.


    An elf who has experienced the tragedy of repeated winters.


    [We have always felt wronged. Why do we elves always have to repeat this? Why can’t we escape this cruel fate?]


    Silent anger bloomed in Sd’s eyes as he watched Fores howling in anger in the midst of a blizzard.


    [So I stayed.]


    Srd made a different choice than Fores.


    In the middle of the vige where everyone is scattered and running away.


    In that bitter cold, blizzard.


    Only Sd remained there, holding his weapon.


    [I felt wronged. So I made a promise. I would never repeat it again.]


    Arge number of thorn roots descended on Shd, who was looking up at Elvenwood with a venomous expression.


    Breaking through the ice floor.


    Through the snowstorm.


    [If my end is already decided, at least I will choose where I die.]


    Swish! Swish!


    The fallen spirits also came rushing in.


    Evil spirits with their faces turned upside down, once members of the same vige.


    Hungry spirits who have not yet imed their bowls.


    Against all those enemies.


    No, against everything in the world.


    [… … I didn’t run away.] 1


    Shwaak-!


    Grrrrrrrr!


    In that thick snowstorm.


    Sd fought and fought without rest.


    In that ce where everyone else had fled, only Sd remained and fought alone.


    [We fought day and night. We even forgot about hunger. In the first ce, the passage of time had no meaning in a blizzard. We fought so frantically… … .]


    Towering.


    [At some point, no one attacked me.]


    Whioo-


    All the enemies had disappeared.


    A cold and bitter winter.


    In that bitterly cold blizzard, only Sd stood alone on the deste snowfield.


    And Sd couldn’t help but burst intoughter when he discovered something toote.


    Suho, who was watching the illusion from beside Sd, also opened his mouth when he noticed the sight.


    ‘… …Elvenwood is frozen to death.’


    [Yeah. Isn’t that ridiculous?]


    At Suho’s words, Sd burst intoughter and responded.


    [That great Elvenwood froze to death. Much faster than I, who was just struggling to survive. It couldn’t stand the cold. The cold… ]


    That was all there was to it.


    There was a mixture of emptiness, ridicule, and resentment on Sd’s face as he muttered endlessly.


    Looking at it another way, it seemed like she was forcing herself to hold back tears.


    That’s it…


    Having barely managed to survive, Sd dragged his wounded body towards the frozen Elvenwood.


    And then he started beating the frozen tree like crazy.


    There was no purpose.


    Just until his anger subsides.


    Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!


    For several days.


    Continue on.


    He didn’t stop until Elvenwood was torn apart.


    [But I still couldn’t get over it. So I dug up all the frozen ground and pulled out all the roots hidden underneath. And this time, I chewed up and swallowed all the roots.]


    ng, ng.


    The expression on Sd’s face as he forcibly chewed and swallowed the remains of Elvenwood was already half-mad.


    How can one be in one’s right mind?


    His entire body was covered in wounds, having been worn out by a long battle.


    The blood from his wounds had frozen like frost in the bitter cold, leaving his skin cracked and split.


    In some ways, it was a much more gruesome sight than that of a fallen ghost, and it wouldn’t be strange if he died soon.


    But Sd was still alive.


    Even this bone-chilling cold was nothing to him.


    Rather, he couldn’t copse even more in order to spend his entire life mocking Elvenwood, who couldn’t stand such cold weather.


    [So I decided to stay in that town after that. Since there was no reason to leave in the first ce.]


    And the moment he left thatnd to escape the cold, he also felt that he was no longer worthy ofughing at Elvenwood.


    [So I just sat there. It was cold, but as I lived there, I realized there were many advantages.]


    What are the advantages?


    It was so damn cold.


    But elves were a race that adapted to their environment… … .


    [That’s how I became the ‘first ice elf’.]


    The first ice elf.


    It was muchter that Sd, who survived the bitter cold, became the next monarch.


    Only after the current elven monarch died in the war between the rulers and the lords, could Sd finally be the next lord.


    But at that time, he was still young and young.


    If you think about it, it wasn’t even a proper revenge on Elvenwood.


    All he had aplished was holding out until Elvenwood froze to death.


    He made up his mind.


    [I decided that one day I would be the lord of the elves and find all the elvenwoods and uproot them. And I finally did it. As soon as I became the lord, I uprooted all the elvenwoods I could see.]


    Of course, there were elves who opposed it.


    However, since the decision of Shd, who had already be the monarch, was absolute, all the elves gradually adapted to the harshnd where Elvenwood had disappeared and became ice elves.


    And the starting point is the first snowfield where Sd survived.


    Elvenwood was the first vige to be rebuilt on the dead, coldnds.


    But ironically, the elves who lost Elvenwood were very weak.


    The spirits who had lost their center of gravity no longer listened to the elves’ requests.


    But it didn’t matter.


    They were no longer friends, so a hierarchy was needed.


    -Obey me, you lowly and cowardly spirits.


    After bing the Lord of the Cold, Shd uprooted all the Elvenwood and began to hunt down the spirits that were scattering away from him.


    [The spirits don’t die. But if you catch them and freeze them, that’s the end of it.]


    Sd poured out all his resentment and curses on the spirits he had captured one by one.


    – Spirits, freeze. Be trapped in the bitter cold and suffer forever.


    The curse was an elemental spell containing all the resentment of Shd, the first ice elf to survive the cold.


    -Just as you have made my people like that, you too will live an infinite number of years, neither alive nor dead.


    At the same time, it was as if they had been toying with the corpses of dead elves and turning them into corrupted spirits.


    They too were cursed to be locked in a frozen prison forever, neither alive nor dead, and be ves to Sd.


    Grrrrrr!


    The giant ice giants born in this way trembled before Shd and swore submission.


    Their howls were the pitiful cries of the spirits trapped within.


    [Ice Golem]


    Suho was seeing the name of the prison right before his eyes.


    And then I remembered.


    A quote from a philosopher I’ve seen somewhere.


    ‘We are all fighting our own war.’


    And when I first met the dead Sd in this pure white world.


    I recalled the illusion of a forgotten timeline that Sd had shown me.


    In that fantasy, Sd… … .


    He was whispering in an extremely cruel voice while thrusting a frozen de into Sung Jin-woo’s heart.


    -Is this it, human? Then you will not be able to see. The moment our army arrives on thisnd. At that time, your human corpses will form mountains, and your blood will form rivers.


    It was the worst curse that Sd, the king of the Yetis and the lord of the cold, could do.


    -But this country where you were born and raised will be different. I will personally freeze all the people of thisnd and make them suffer forever.


    At the same time, it was a ‘real’ hell that Scy knew best and understood more desperately than anyone else.


    -… …They will live for an infinite amount of time, neither alive nor dead.


    Fallen spirits who live for an infinite amount of time, neither alive nor dead.


    no.


    The life of the elves themselves, who were taken away from them by Elvenwood and its spirits.


    -… … Hate me endlessly in death like that.


    Remembering the hell they had personally endured, Sd poured out as many curses as he could towards the dying Shadow Lord.


    -… … That will also be my pleasure.


    And that was the only sacrifice that could save him andfort his mother’s smile who died, and hispatriots who died so resentfully next to him.


    -Why! Why do we have to suffer like this every time!


    Before I knew it, the illusion had returned to the image of Fores running away, crying sadly.


    Looking at that sight, Sd muttered with a sad look in his eyes.


    [Yes. I too felt wronged. I wanted to make other people experience the hell that our elves live in. That was the least I could do for mypatriots who had already died. But now that I think about it… … .]


    Sd’s eyes gleamed as he watched Fores’ next memory.


    [… … Fores, this guy seems to have found a different way than me.]


    Sd, who survived the winter on his own.


    Forest, who was also a high elf, had to run away from the countless winters that urred.


    The fates of these two ended inpletely different endings.


    Sd eventually became a monarch and fought proudly against his enemies, fighting on the battlefield until his death.


    Even though the ending was defeat, he was a warrior who aplished the task of thrusting his de into the heart of the great Shadow Lord with his own hands.


    But Fores was different.


    -You are a creature born with a pitiful fate.


    … … !


    Suddenly, in the illusion of the ice flower, someone appeared in front of Fores, who was crying.


    ‘… … !’


    At that moment, Sd and Suho’s eyes shed simultaneously.


    stigma!


    Unidentified beings with golden stigmata floating above their heads in the form of a halo appeared before Fores.


    But unfortunately, their faces were not clearly visible because they were obscured by the dazzling light emitted by the stigmata.


    Because this appearance was Fores’ memory.


    Fores did not dare to raise his head, overwhelmed by the holy light they emitted.


    But even in the midst of all that, he saw something.


    -Can we help you out a little?


    It was a smile that was as beautiful as it was cruel, and it appeared on their lips.


    It was their hands that were extended affectionately to me when I was in despair.


    And that hand, without even waiting for an answer, without hesitation, gouged out Fores’s two eyes.