The next day.
Silvin was being held in the Elven Clan's confinement room, a space completely isolated from the outside world, where the air was thick with an oppressive silence.
Silvin hid in a corner of the confinement room, his body completely shrouded in darkness.
Seeing the brother he had grown up with reduced to this state made Elvin's heart ache terribly. “Silvin, I've come to see you.”
Silvin growled in a raspy voice, “Get out—”
Elves who had fallen to darkness could not control their emotions and would become violent and out of control.
Elvin did not get angry at his rudeness. Instead, he said gently:
“I brought a human friend with me. He is a light mage and might have a way to help you. I'll let him in to take a look at you, alright?”
“A human, hah...” Silvin mocked weakly. “Since when did the Elven Clan need help from a human? I don't want to see anyone. Get out—”
Elvin furrowed his brows and directly opened the door of the confinement room, saying to the person behind him, “Ning Busan, come in.”
There was not a single speck of light inside the confinement room. Ning Busan snapped his fingers, and the surrounding light elements condensed into a light source.
Ning Busan finally saw what Silvin looked like.
His eyes were not the emerald green of other elves, but were stained a turbid, dark gold. His silver hair hung down like dead vines, the tips tinged with a grayish-black decay.
Black lines wrapped around his face like venomous snakes, sometimes contracting and sometimes expanding, as if draining his life force.
“No—”
Silvin curled into a ball, reaching out to block his eyes and face, seemingly terrified of the light.
As the light fell upon him, his skin rapidly festered, turning charred as if burned by fire, splitting open into hideous wounds.
Ning Busan quickly extinguished the light source, and the confinement room returned to pitch blackness.
The moment Elvin took a step forward, Silvin screamed, “Stay away from me! Don't come over here!”
Elvin's steps froze, his voice trembling. “You can't even bear the light... Silvin, have you already fallen to darkness to this extent?”
“Who says elves fallen to darkness can't bear the light?” Ning Busan frowned slightly, his tone grave. “This isn't a fall to darkness at all.”
Elvin's eyes widened. “It's not?”
Ning Busan didn't know how to explain it. He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. “You've probably never seen an elf who has fallen to darkness, have you?”
Elves fallen to darkness are abandoned by the holy light and rejected by Hell.
They are the interweaving of light and darkness, the incarnation of beauty and destruction, a descent beyond redemption, and an eternal, unchanging solitude.
They are not like this—weak, wretched, and hideous.
“You say that as if you've actually seen a dark fallen elf.”
A cold female voice drifted in from behind them.
Ning Busan turned around to see Lislene.
Elvin asked, “Lislene, what are you doing here?”
Lislene said coldly, “Prince Elvin, by order of the Elven King, dark fallen elves must repent for their sins in the confinement room. Clan members are not permitted to visit. Please return.”
Elvin felt the anger of being deceived. “Silvin hasn't fallen to darkness at all. What on earth is wrong with him?”
“Prince Silvin was bewitched by a demon and became a dark fallen elf. That is the truth.” Lislene looked somewhat disappointed. “Would you rather believe the words of a human now than trust us?”
Elvin hesitated for a moment before saying, “Ning Busan is my friend. He has no reason to lie to me. But you all... Ever since I came back this time, I've felt like you're hiding something from me.”
“What could we possibly hide from you?” Lislene's tone was somewhat stiff. She turned her head to look at Ning Busan, her gaze sharp. “You say Prince Silvin hasn't fallen to darkness. Have you ever seen a dark fallen elf?”
Ning Busan said helplessly, “I haven't.”
Although he had never seen a dark fallen elf in person, no one knew what they were like better than him.
Because Faelo was a dark fallen elf.
He had seen Faelo's appearance on his character card, and it could be said to bear absolutely no resemblance to Silvin's current state.
“Since you haven't seen one, don't talk nonsense.” Lislene shut the door of the confinement room again and said impatiently, “Prince Elvin, do not defy the Elven King's command. Take your human friend and leave this place.”
Elvin wanted to say more, but Ning Busan stopped him, shaking his head slightly. “Let's go first.”
Once they left the confinement room, Elvin couldn't help but ask, “Why didn't you let me demand answers from her just now?”
Ning Busan looked at him as if he were an idiot. “Would she have told you even if you asked? Since they don't want to tell you, the more you press them, the more guarded they'll become.”
Elvin grew sullen. “I suppose you're right.”
“Trust me, Silvin absolutely did not become like that because of falling to darkness. Dark fallen elves have to endure the constant burning of the holy light forever; they cannot possibly fear light,” Ning Busan said.
Elvin was thoroughly perplexed. “But Silvin indeed has a dense amount of dark elements in his body. If it isn't a fall to darkness, what else could it be?”
Ning Busan speculated, “The black patterns on his face look like marks left behind by a curse.”
“A curse?” Elvin looked completely blank. “But elves are naturally immune to all curses. Elves are the incarnation of nature; immunity to curses is a blessing from the Mother Tree.”
Ning Busan pondered for a long time, and a possibility suddenly occurred to him.
The scenes he had witnessed in the prophecy were of a massive disaster sweeping through the entire Elven Valley.
What kind of disaster could drain the Elven Valley of its vitality?
What kind of disaster could make the Elven Mother Tree wither?
With a grim expression, Ning Busan said, “It's a plague.”
Elvin was shocked by his deduction. “The Elven Valley is under the protection of the God of Light, and the Elven Mother Tree has the power of purification. How could Silvin contract a plague?”
Ning Busan gave a bitter smile. “The only truth worth going through such trouble to conceal—even to the point of self-slandering as a dark fallen elf—is a plague.”
The Elven Clan had truly run into a massive heap of trouble this time!
Elvin's heart tightened. “Are you sure it's a plague?”
“Almost certainly,” Ning Busan said seriously. “A plague capable of infecting the Elven Clan is definitely no ordinary illness. We must find the source of the plague before we can find a cure.”
“...I might know what the source of the plague is.”
“You do?”
“I'm not sure, but I feel like the outbreak of the plague might be related to that matter,” Elvin said. “My defiance of the Elven King and my departure from the Elven Valley were also because of that.”
Ning Busan said, “Get to the point. What on earth is it?”
Elvin gritted his teeth and finally revealed the truth: “I once stumbled upon the Elven King and the elders worshipping a deity. It's just... it's just that the deity was not the God of Light!”
Ning Busan was completely dumbfounded.
Was this gossip for real?
Rate on N.U.
