"Save me..."
The mangled lips on that blood-soaked face twitched, letting out a faint, cowardly plea.
"Save me..."
It was the soldier who had been abandoned by her comrades earlier.
In the dark of the night, a chilling wind blew, and pale moonlight filtered through the leaves, casting swaying shadows as a deathly silence gripped the mountain forest.
In such an eerie atmosphere, that blood-drenched face appeared exceptionally terrifying, and any normal person would have been scared out of their wits.
However, once Sevia Winter came to her senses, her face showed nothing but concern.
"How can I help you?"
Thud—
A heavy sound rang out as Sevia watched the person collapse.
She stepped forward and gently pushed the soldier's shoulder, realizing there was no response before rolling her over to finally see her face clearly.
The figure was an exceptionally tall woman, nearly two and a half meters in height, standing almost half a body taller than Sevia.
Her skin was silver-gray, which was not a pathological change caused by disease but her natural skin color.
For some reason, a certain race came to Sevia's mind.
The titan race.
This was a race born from the union of trolls and dark elves.
Due to genetic reasons, the vast majority of this race's members were brawny females, with the largest individuals even growing to a height of five meters, resembling a sturdy little mountain when walking toward someone.
They played a crucial role within their society, jointly constructing the upper echelons, formulating policies, and maintaining order and stability within the tribe.
Externally, they waged violent wars, engaged in expansionist aggression, and fought for resources and interests.
In contrast, the males of the race inherited the beautiful appearance of the dark elves, standing eight feet tall with wicked, handsome features, their every smile radiating charm.
Their seductive eyebrows, in particular, possessed a magical power to enchant hearts; in politics, they were primarily responsible for negotiations and the kingdom's diplomatic affairs.
"Are you alright?" Sevia asked.
She received no response, as the soldier had fallen completely unconscious, her eyes tightly shut and her body appearing weak to the extreme.
Her body was also covered in the same black spots as the corpses, with egg-sized lumps distributed in areas dense with secretory glands, such as the armpits and inner thighs.
She emitted a thick, foul stench, her blood mixed with the pus flowing from ruptured tumors.
Sevia placed her hand on the soldier's forehead and found her burning with a severe fever, her body temperature nearly exceeding fifty degrees Celsius, as if fire were flowing through her veins.
From the occasional twitching of her eyelashes, it was easy to tell that the soldier was suffering immense pain.
'Why bother with her? Just go.'
'I can't leave her here alone,' Sevia thought, a sudden obsession taking root in her heart.
The woman was a stranger to her, and Sevia was merely a wandering traveler.
By all accounts, she should not rashly help a stranger in such a place, as it could potentially bring her trouble.
Yet for some reason, the obsession in her heart made it impossible for her to simply ignore the soldier.
Perhaps some things, once lost, could never be found again.
She hoped that at the end of her journey, when she reunited with the person she longed for, she would still be moving toward the ideal version of herself, still existing as a complete self.
'Overflowing with compassion.'
'I'm just following my own path.'
Sevia shook her head and attempted to use a water healing art to treat the soldier.
The moment the soft, moist current touched the soldier's skin, a burst of black aura surged from within her body, intertwining with the water.
Like a drop of thick ink falling into a cup of water, the clear current became filthy and turbid in the blink of an eye.
It emitted a wave of deathly energy and suddenly exploded!
The scattered water droplets were like bullets, riddling the surrounding forest with holes in an instant.
A hole the size of a bowl appeared in one tree trunk, and with a burdened groan, it collapsed, startling a flock of birds into the air.
"A miracle?" Sevia realized something was wrong.
She felt the power of a miracle within that lingering black aura of death!
A miracle was a projection of a certain "existence" within the Eternal Garden above the starry sky.
People of the present world collectively referred to those "existences" as mysteries.
Perhaps some people worshipped those "existences" as gods.
Currently, it was the third era, the Silver Age; millions of years before the birth of urban legends, when the civilization on this planet was still in the Cradle Age of the first era—an ancient time before the vast oceans had receded from the land—those mysteries had already been proven to exist.
Archaeologists had once discovered murals and totems related to mysteries in the ruins of an early Bronze Age civilization.
People back then worshipped the "Night Goddess," the "Harvest Goddess," and the "God of Memory."
While the burgeoning pan-human civilization was still using fire to dispel the darkness, they had already begun communicating with the mysteries above the starry sky.
They prayed for those deities to grant their will, protecting the flames that helped them through the night so they would not be extinguished, and blessing the grains they relied on for survival so they would flourish forever.
They hoped that all stories told would never be buried.
After traveling through the badlands for so many days, she had seen many miracles, large and small.
There were lake miracles that would fill one's throat with water if they got too close, crying miracles that would cling to her and call her "mama" if she didn't sing, and trial miracles containing shadows of predecessors.
In short, the badlands were filled with such miracles, and a moment of carelessness could invite trouble.
Miracles were projections of those mysteries and were often limited by the mystery's own power; most were anonymous and harmless.
However, this kingdom seemed to have run into trouble, being haunted by an unknown miracle.
Could it be related to the thousands of corpses in the valley?
It was hard to imagine a kingdom standing in the badlands, tens of millions of kilometers away from civilized gathering places.
While Sevia had been confused about this before, she now had some inkling of the matter.
It seemed this kingdom had gradually risen under the protection of a miracle.
Only another miracle could contend with the power of a miracle, unless the source of the miracle was cracked or the erupting miracle was sealed.
Perhaps this was why the kingdom had not been destroyed by the miracle storms raging across the badlands.
At the same time, a faint sense of unease clouded Sevia's heart.
One had to know that any miracle had two sides.
Her intuition told her that the miracle of this kingdom was on the verge of eruption.
The young girl shook her head, pushing her thoughts aside.
She leaned down to drape the soldier's arm over her shoulder, using her slender frame to support the woman's brawny body as she slowly walked toward a nearby village.
The horizon turned a pale gray, and a faint line of golden light spread through the misty morning.
Slightly later, the girl arrived at the nearest village, a small town named Sheens.
To avoid bringing trouble to the townspeople, Sevia did not bring the sick soldier into the village.
Instead, she settled her in a cave several kilometers away, camouflaging the entrance and applying a water art to mask her aura.
Only after soaking her own body with water to ensure it was clean and that all routes of transmission were severed did she enter the settlement.
She could not allow her compassion to bring trouble to others, nor could she demand that others pay the price for her so-called kindness in the name of being good.
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