At first… there had been light.

Warm. Soft. So unfamiliar that I didn't know how to hold it.

The moment the Elf Queen bowed to me — bowed to us — something inside my chest loosened for the first time in years. My heart… actually dared to beat without fear. I looked up at the sky and I thought…

Mother… can you see this?

We're finally… not filth anymore.

A single tear had escaped me — not from grief, but from something much more fragile. Hope. A word I never thought belonged to me.

For once, I wasn't a curse.

For once, I wasn't alone.

For once…

I believed I might live a tomorrow worth wanting.

But then—

CRACK.

I didn't even hear it.

I just felt everything shatter.

Light didn't fade.

It was ripped away.

And suddenly—

I was falling.

…into nothing.

A void swallowed me whole — cold, silent, merciless. As if the world I had just begun to accept… had spat me out.

"Hello?"

My voice didn't echo.

It didn't exist.

I tried to lift my hand but couldn't feel my fingers.

The hope I held seconds ago…

It slipped through me like smoke.

Was I lying somewhere?

Was I standing?

Was I even breathing?

My chest burned —

as if my heart had forgotten how to beat.

Where is everyone?

The dark elves who stood by me.

The bright elves who finally welcomed us.

The person who held me back from my rage…

Where… where is he?

The warmth I'd only just begun to understand…

had vanished.

Every sound — gone.

Every color — gone.

Every dream — gone.

Only darkness remained.

And with it came the truth —

A cold whisper curled around me:

You were foolish to hope.

Mother's smile — gone.

The promise of a home — gone.

The light of forgiveness — gone.

Everything I had fought for…

All burned into nothing.

My lungs constricted.

Is… this it?

Is this how my story ends?

Before it even begins?

Before I could make her proud?

Before I could prove I deserved to live?

No.

No.

NO.

I felt something ancient inside me scream.

Not yet.

Not when I finally tasted what living felt like.

I don't want to disappear.

I don't want to return to the shadows.

I won't let everything be taken from me again.

I won't die here.

I dug into the darkness with everything I had.

Clawing upward.

Reaching for anything — anyone — any light that might still exist.

My thoughts weren't words anymore—

they were raw, primal survival:

Let me out.

Let me live.

LET ME LIVE—!!

Somewhere — impossibly distant —

a warmth pulsed.

A flicker.

A heartbeat.

A hand.

I felt it.

A thread of light so thin I almost broke it just by hoping.

I threw every last piece of myself toward it —

every breath I had left — every memory — every reason to stay:

For Mother.

For my people.

For… that light of hope which has escaped me forever.

The darkness clawed at my ankles —

pulling — restraining — choking.

But I pushed. I fought.

I refused.

I latched onto that light—

and I didn't let go.

Not now.

Not after finding something worth holding onto.

Not when the world finally — finally —

opened its arms to me.

Even if the darkness swallowed everything else…

I will tear my way back.

Because I am Sylthara.

And I will not die in the dark.

***

Silence fell heavier than any roar of battle.

Where once stood the breathtaking Evergreen Elven Forest — a realm sung with ancient magic and life — now remained only a wasteland of ash. Charred earth stretched endlessly, cracked like parched skin. The air reeked of burnt roots and fading divinity. Not even the wind dared to move.

The Mother Tree, once towering in radiant grace, was now nothing but a colossal, hollow corpse — its branches skeletal, its trunk split and blackened. No glow. No heartbeat. Just death.

Elowen collapsed first. Then the rest of the light elves followed, their knees sinking into the lifeless ground. Soft, broken sobs rose like prayers that would never be answered.

Their queen — the mother of their people — was not among them.

And she will never be with them again…gone forever.

The hope of the elves… gone.

Luca stood in the middle of this despair, unable to breathe.

He had known danger.

He had known fear.

He had even known loss — or so he once believed.

But never… never this.

The world felt like it was folding in on itself. His fingers trembled, numb and cold as reality carved itself into him like a blade.

Is this... the cost of failure?

And then….

A tiny pull at his wrist — sudden, sharp.

"Huh—?"

He looked down.

Sylthara, lying pale and exhausted on the devastated earth, clung to his hand with a strength that didn't match her broken body. Her fingers tightened so much that pain shot up his arm.

She wasn't letting go.

"…Sylthara?" he whispered, voice cracking.

Her lifeless expression did not change.

Her breathing which was almost stopped — was still stopped.

But that grip… it refused to weaken.

"H-hey, everyone…" He tried to steady his voice but it wavered, trembling like his heart. "Look… look at this."

Heads slowly turned. Light elves, dark elves — all of them raised their despair-drowned eyes toward him.

Gasps followed.

A spark — not of light, but of defiance — flickered in those who saw her hand clutching Luca's so stubbornly.

"She's… alive?" someone whispered.

Dark elves rushed toward her instantly, kneeling around Sylthara. Mana flared from their palms — desperate, hopeful. They pushed every drop of power they could summon into her, praying to whoever would listen.

But her breathing did not strengthen.

Her body did not react.

Still… her hand never once loosened.

As if that grip alone declared:

Even if gods fall… I will not.

Luca's throat tightened. His vision shook as he looked at the ruin around them — at the emptiness where beauty once stood.

Victory had always been his companion… until today.

Now he tasted what true loss meant.

Yet in the middle of all that death…

One fragile thread of life still fought to remain.

Sylthara's fingers dug into his skin — painful, desperate, real.

The last spark of resistance against a world turning to ash.

And Luca held her hand back…

fearing that if he let go — even for a heartbeat —

…she would slip away forever.

No wind.

No light.

No life.

Only the shattered corpse of the Mother Tree stood against the void — its once-glorious crown now a burned skeleton scraping the sky.

Then… something flickered.

A faint, trembling pulse of light.

Golden — fragile as a newborn flame — glowing from deep within the dying trunk.

The elves froze.

Every tear-streaked face lifted in disbelief.

A sphere of pure nature — small as a heart, bright as a sun — began to rise from the hollow core.

Fragments of green energy scattered throughout the wasteland were pulled toward it, dancing like dying embers in reverse, gathering… healing.

The ash around them trembled.

Even the dead soil quivered, yearning for that last miracle.

Luca's breath caught in his throat.

Slowly, impossibly, the sphere floated toward Sylthara.

No one moved.

No one dared breathe.

The golden light hovered above her chest… and then — like a quiet whisper of fate — sank into her.

BA-DUMP.

The ground shivered.

And the Mother Tree — the ancient guardian of millennia — let out its final, silent exhale.

Its bark cracked apart like glass.

Petals of light broke free… and drifted into nothing.

The heart of the elves was gone.

Forever.

But the life it had left…

was not wasted.

Sylthara's fingers trembled.

Luca gasped, clutching her hand tighter.

"...Sylthara?"

Her eyelids, heavy as mountains, slowly lifted.

A soft green glow shimmered in her irises — the light of a world reborn.

Dark elves choked on their emotions as joy crashed through them like a storm.

Sylthara pushed herself up, still holding Luca's hand as if it were the only anchor she had.

Then—

a chime.

A melodic, tinkling harmony filled the air — the sound of leaves in spring, rivers in dawn, life awakening.

Spheres of light — tiny, radiant nature spirits — materialized from thin air.

Glowing and pulsing with life.

They swirled around Sylthara like a blooming constellation, glittering with colors no mortal had names for.

Her exhausted eyes widened at the sight.

Elowen's lips trembled as she covered her mouth.

"T-the nature spirits…"

Her voice broke completely, tears flowing freely.

"T-they are back!?"

Sylthara stared, awestruck — as if afraid that even blinking would shatter the moment.

The spirits brushed her hair, her shoulders, her cheeks — gentle touches of love and recognition.

Newborn hope.

Luca, still kneeling beside her, could only watch — heart pounding with disbelief and relief so fierce it hurt.

In a world drowning in ashes…

Sylthara had become

the light that refused to die.

***

A single day had crawled by since the catastrophe, yet the sorrow clinging to the air felt as though centuries thick. The once-glorious Elven Forest, a land that had always pulsed with emerald light and the gentle whisper of leaves, now lay barren and cold — a lifeless scar under a sky that refused to shine. The Mother Tree, the heart of their existence, was gone. Their queen, the pillar of their pride, the soul of their people, had vanished into golden dust. Every elf had cried until exhaustion became their only comfort, their bodies collapsing into silence when their tears finally ran dry. But grief, cruel as it was, did not grant the luxury of permanence. They had to rise again — because she had given everything so that they still could.

Inside a modest tent stitched together from the remnants of their former lives, a gentle mana orb cast a dim glow across four weary figures. The fabric walls shivered with each cold breeze, the air filled with a quiet heaviness that no one dared to disturb. Sylthara sat on a simple cot, her body wrapped in healing cloth, her skin still marked with the shadow of death she had narrowly escaped. Yet in her golden eyes flickered a fragile spark — a spark that had refused to be smothered, even by the abyss.

Elowen stood close to her, hands clasped tightly together as though she feared that if she let go, the last thread holding their race together would snap. Vincent lingered near the entrance, shoulders squared, jaw locked with the weight of unspoken responsibility. Luca stood between them all, his expression caught somewhere between determination and worry, as if the world's burdens pulled at him from every direction.

No one wanted to be the first to speak — because words made things real. Words acknowledged loss, acknowledged that this barren wasteland was all that remained. But eventually, someone had to face that truth. Vincent drew a slow breath, lifting his head as though bracing for a blow, and finally broke the silence.

"So… now where to?" he asked, the question heavy enough to make the mana orb tremble.

Elowen flinched. Sylthara's fingers curled around the thin blanket beneath her, the fabric bunching beneath her trembling strength. Luca swallowed, feeling the dryness in his throat before forcing his own voice forward — gentle, but firm with concern.

"I don't think, with the lingering corruption here… you can live here any longer." He paused, letting his gaze move from Elowen — who looked like she was silently screaming — to Sylthara, whose fragile breaths grew just a little unsteady. "Have you thought about what to do?"

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