In the Elven Realm, Yumigawa Senki and Yumigawa Nozomi had been around for quite a while, time flowing like a quiet stream under willow shade. At first, the Elven Queen Elunis invited them to strategize against Molor, a chessboard laid beneath a moonlit canopy. But before long, it shifted—Elunis forged Senki’s cultivation like steel in a glowing hearth, while Nozomi drifted through the Elven Realm and the Elven Empire with Elyar, like a breeze threading green boughs and white spires.
As for Molor, they didn’t fuss over him for the moment. They’d heard the Mizumi Clan would handle it, so the stone on their hearts eased and sank. Even so, Elunis kept her gaze like a hawk on the horizon, tracking every faint stir in Molor’s shadow.
One thing was odd. Molor’s resurrection wasn’t common gossip, but the high seats of every race knew. Yet the Demonic race stayed silent, like a shoreline pulling back from a wave, as if they feared being splashed by his name.
Given the Demon Realm’s state, it made grim sense. A thousand years back, Molor lit the War Era like a torch thrown into dry grass, and demons were branded with a stain that would not wash. Even now, they kept to their realm like wintering wolves, and the world’s prejudice clung like frost.
Among the planes of the four great races, the Demon Realm became the bleakest. When the War Era ended, the worlds were redrawn under Yugou Sage’s guidance, constellations shuffled on the cosmic map. Because Molor’s sins soaked through them, the demons clutched only their homeland, and nothing more.
Once, the Demon Realm was a fair land, rivers bright as glass. The wars left it pitted and torn, like hide flayed by iron. At the end, as Molor fled, the demons’ tide broke. Enemies surged into their heartland like a flood through a broken dyke. Disaster crashed down, and a third of demonkind fell like grain before the scythe.
Even after so long, the rebuilding crawled. The needed resources were a mountain, but their coffers were a cracked bowl. Without the Mizumi Clan’s lifeline, they might not have made it through a single winter.
In short, Molor’s return brings the demons nothing but blight. Not one demon welcomes that jinx back from the dark.
Before Molor pried open that era, the demons stood beneath the Divine race, yet shoulder to shoulder atop the world, peaks under the same sky. After the war, they plunged to the valley—last among the four great races, hated by crowds, and choking in a harsher land.
With no way to turn the tide, most demons named Molor the root of it all. Only by cutting that branch clean could they hope for a quiet life.
The War Era was the Divine and Demonic Races vying like thunderheads colliding, but Molor’s methods burned too hot. The punishments fell hardest on the demons. The Divine race bled far less by comparison; they lost their crown and the scepter of the world, but kept their strength’s bones.
As for why the Elven Kind became the postwar winners and replaced the Divine race at the summit—it wasn’t just the many Elf Users rallying like stars at dawn. More than that, the Elven Kind held the middle like a willow that bends but doesn’t break, and before Yugou Sage had grown, they lent him many hands. After the war, they stood fast as allies of the Mizumi Clan, lighting lanterns along the road of restoration.
The result: the Elven Kind maxed their goodwill bar with the world, and the Mizumi Clan funneled them more resources than any other race. The Dragon Kin enjoyed a similar wind.
After the war, Elf Users multiplied like spring shoots, standing alongside mages as one of the two mainstream paths. With the Elven Empire’s rise and rank climbing step by step, their power skyrocketed, leaving the other three far behind like dust trailing a comet.
Today, the Elven Kind are the world’s undisputed number two, second only to the Mizumi Clan.
Naturally, both the Elven Realm and the Elven Empire brimmed with a prosperity like sunlight through emerald glass. To Yumigawa Nozomi’s eyes, the Elven Empire outshone the Eastern Moon Empire she first visited—size, environment, cityworks, population, all leagues beyond. More striking, nearly everyone here was an Elf User; mages were rare as white crows. It surprised Nozomi, and she drank in knowledge like a thirsty traveler at a clear spring.
When Yugong Sacred Sound and Saint Cole arrived in the Elven Realm a while back, Nozomi flitted over like a sparrow to a branch, eager to ask about her favorite brother—Yumigawa Sumeragi.
When she learned Sumeragi and the others were in the Dragon Realm, her heart leapt like a fish to rain. Senki had already gone into seclusion to train, she’d practically toured the whole Elven Realm, and most of all—she hadn’t seen her beloved brother in so long. He was on her mind at dawn and dusk.
“Sumeragi and the others are training, same as Senki,” Yugong Sacred Sound said. “They probably won’t have much time to play with you, Littlesky.”
She scooped Nozomi up and set her on her lap, pinching those soft, dumpling-sweet cheeks with a smile. “For now, how about your aunt keeps you company?”
“But it’s been forever since I saw my brother!” Nozomi puffed her cheeks, a tiny storm cloud of protest, cute enough to melt steel.
“I know. But the world’s not peaceful right now. Getting stronger matters,” Yugong Sacred Sound said, voice like warm tea on a cold day.
She sketched the recent events on the Northern Abyss Continent for Nozomi, a map painted in gentle strokes. She brushed past Sumeragi’s injuries like a feather—too much truth would worry the child into flying to the Dragon Realm that very night.
“What? Molor actually went to the Northern Abyss Continent? And stirred up that much trouble?” Nozomi’s eyes widened like twin lakes catching lightning.
“Yeah. It’s a headache,” Yugong Sacred Sound sighed, a leaf falling on still water. “Molor hitched himself to people from another world. He’s even tied to an Origin Realm existence.”
Since their last escape, Molor and his lot had vanished like mist at noon. No trace, no echo. Something had shifted behind the veil.
“Involving the Origin Realm… that makes it messy,” Elunis said, rubbing her brow as if smoothing storm wrinkled silk. “I wonder if Sir Xino and the others have fixed the Worldgate.”
She knew the Northern Abyss affair inside out, and it gnawed like a dull toothache.
“Elunis, any ideas?” Saint Cole asked. “We can’t just sit here with our hands in our sleeves.”
“We don’t need to panic,” Yugong Sacred Sound said, steady as a stone lantern in rain. “The Origin Realm existence behind Wilsar isn’t in this world. The Worldgate acting up right now is no coincidence.”
“Sacred Sound’s right,” Elunis nodded. “Most likely, an Origin Realm being in the Inner World tried to cross into the Prime Realm. Sir Xino checked them, so they pushed Wilsar to stir the pot.”
“Nine times out of ten, that’s it,” Saint Cole said. “Let’s watch the currents and move when they turn. But we prep thoroughly.”
“Mm.”
Half a year slipped by like sand through fingers. The Dark Demon was no more, a burnt wick in the wind. Wilsar and Molor left no footprints, and the world settled back into calm, a lake without ripples.
Yet the calm felt like the hush before thunder. Whether Yugong Sacred Sound, Saint Cole, or Elunis, each sensed that something was coming soon, a black line on the rim of the sky.
