Chapter 179
A few hours ago.
Nohitel stood atop one side of Fortress Jibarsh and looked down at the plain.
Sturdy fortress gates.
A massive army lined up without a single inch of error.
And the demonic beasts charging at them, each driven by their own desires.
Nohitel had seen this very scene for nearly a thousand years.
There were always enemies threatening the North.
The first patriarch, Callis, slaughtered his rivals and placed the North into the arms of Carpe, and in return, became the master of the North.
He founded a family named after his own castle, and declared he would protect the North for his entire life, even in death.
He declared so and died.
"That wretched bastard."
Nohitel recalled his old friend and looked down at the battlefield with bitter eyes.
Old memories naturally surfaced.
Every time he saw a war for the North where fate was at stake.
Nohitel recalled that time.
Before Callis died.
'Tel. Can you make a contract with me.'
He wanted a contract.
'Why talk of a contract when you're dying?'
He was strong.
At the very least, he was the strongest human among all the humans I had seen.
I don't mean just physical strength.
Taking everything into account, he was a human worthy of making me, a fairy, hold him in respect.
Perhaps that was why.
I fell for his scheme.
'I will protect this land even after I die. So, make a contract with me.'
A contract.
It could suppress a fairy, but it could also elevate one to a higher realm.
'Are you telling me to protect the North even after you die? Why should I do something so unprofitable?'
But in those days, I was a fellow famous for weighing the pros and cons.
So I refused at first.
'A bet.'
'A bet?'
Until he offered a bet.
'I will become a sword.'
'Even the hero who killed the dragon and the demon eventually withers before the passage of time. Even if your flesh and soul are forged into a sword, will your descendants be able to protect the North?'
'Tel.'
'Speak.'
He must have known.
Even if my words were cold.
Looking at my figure tightly holding his hand, he must have been ridiculously certain.
'If the sword made of me breaks before you do, I will give you everything of the North. You may do as you wish with all the Earth Qi of the North.'
'Really? If that happens, the North will become a land where people cannot live, you know?'
'It's fine. If I break, it is a land that must naturally become so.'
However.
'If you help the North before I break, you must give everything to protect this land.'
A foolish friend's bet.
Telling me to just watch.
I didn't know how many years it would take, but the passage of time is meaningless to a fairy.
I readily accepted.
'Alright. I'll watch by your side and write the record of how long a human family that doesn't even live for a hundred years will last, until its demise.'
And so, Callis became a sword.
His son grasped Callis and marched into numerous wars.
In those days, the North had many formidable enemies that would be called ancient species in the present era, so Callis's son wielded the sword made of his father and fought and fought again.
And died in battle.
War broke out, they fought and died again.
It was a repetition of that.
By their side, I saw the birth of Zervan, and watched their deaths again, predicting that the lineage would soon be severed.
Like a thin thread placed over a fire.
To Zervan of the North, who looked precarious as if it would snap at any moment, I thought I wouldn't have to spend a long time.
Three hundred years at most.
I thought that much time would be enough to fulfill my respect and courtesy toward Callis.
However, that was my arrogance.
The North, Zervan, was strong.
About to fall, yet they didn't fall.
No matter how many times they staggered, they never broke.
I watched hundreds, thousands of battlefields, and watched again.
Then I finally realized.
That something splashed over my heart kept making my chest feel stifled.
A hundred years passed.
Three hundred years passed.
Five hundred years passed, and seven hundred years passed.
Having witnessed the birth and death of successive patriarchs numerous times, I slowly found this contract...
this endless cycle wearisome.
I thought of it as a curse Callis laid upon me.
I thought so and even resented him for it.
But coming to the present, I realized it was a wrong thought.
While I changed my appearance dozens of times, becoming one of those who attended to Zervan.
I came to hold a deep affection for Zervan.
No, I ended up having it.
Watching their descendants, and their descendants' descendants.
Unknowingly, I hoped that you would not die like that, that you would become even stronger.
I wished and prayed so.
In the end, even to those living on this cold, white, empty land.
I had come to hold affection.
Then, strangely enough, it became painful.
What I had merely felt stifling.
Now only felt painful.
'Bernard. A child who lived his whole life in the North, dedicating his body to hunting demonic beasts.'
'Lorysen, a child with beautiful red hair and dagger skills resembling your parents.'
'Killavan, foolish and pitiful child. A child who lived blaming others for your own wrongs.'
Rather, the contract with Callis became a spell,
a restraint that prevented me from helping them, and tormented me.
The castle walls crumbled.
The residents slipped away through the back alleys, and only the Northern Army, trained their entire lives, remained to begin a lonely battle.
Elberton was pushed to the defensive by Killavan's appearance, and the Northern Army was completely helpless against the toughness of the enhanced trolls.
Left like this, the North would be annihilated.
Callis's family, which had continued for a long time, would be broken, and the sword he had become would shatter.
And his descendants would also be torn to shreds, fading away leaving only a few letters on a scrap of paper in the back of history.
"Callis. You probably deliberately made that bet with twisted intentions."
At the very end of the end.
So that I would have no choice but to move.
"Your greed that loved this land so viciously made me suffer for a thousand years, making it futile even at the very end. Even knowing that I couldn't win the bet with you, so wicked."
You must have contracted with me.
My friend who became a sword, expecting everything to go your way.
"A thousand years of time vanishes in vain."
However, I do not regret it.
Because they filled my desolate heart and made me realize what that feeling was.
I, for the North.
I no longer want to just watch the crisis of your descendants.
I've suffered enough.
A fairy's stubbornness is enough at this point.
"I too, with you."
Will protect the North.
The bet was lost.
But the burden of the heart that pressed down on my chest also faded away together.
Whatever Callis's intentions were.
Right now, this is also what I wish for.
Just as you said.
"I will give everything I have. I will protect this land."
Tel's hand reaches out.
Soon, the space fluctuated, and a rather large staff appeared from thin air.
A staff with a red gemstone embedded in the center of a crescent moon shape.
As he grasped it, Tel's fairy power changed into a grid pattern and covered the area.
A fairy's blessing.
The touch of an ancient fairy who made up his mind to truly save humans began to dwell in Jibarsh, dyed in despair.
"That is quite troublesome."
Flinch!
Tel's fairy power fluctuated at the suddenly heard voice.
Because he hadn't sensed the presence.
Even if he was arranging the formulas of his fairy power, he never thought there would be someone who could hide their presence to the point where he wouldn't notice.
But that brief opening.
Politan found that enough.
"Absorb!"
Slither.
White threads moved like sinister snakes and shot at Tel.
In an instant, they slipped into his clothes and burrowed into his flesh.
"……!"
"It's a thread I obtained with difficulty. A thread I wonder if I can ever obtain again. But if it means I can control a fairy as I please, it's not a waste at all!"
Tel's entire body bulged with veins.
Crack, his skin tore, and the balance of his fairy power was disrupted.
The formulas of fairy power spread across the area collapsed, and his intensely dense aura began to discharge wildly.
What the one who caused this incident wanted.
It was the North's Callis.
And Tel, who protected the North alongside him.
To take both.
"It is not difficult to take Callis. The North of today is a rabble without a single Master. The reason it still maintains its lifeline is probably because of the barren land and this cold."
"……."
A land where there is nothing to gain even if taken.
Weather difficult to move an army in.
The geographical advantages that added to that kept the North intact.
"However, that only applies to humans. Dragons and demons left this land after the Dragon-Demon War, but fairies did not. If it's a fairy, it's a land worth coveting. It is a land full of the Earth Qi they desire."
The reason there are many demonic beasts in the North.
That was exactly the reason.
The reason Tel accepted the bet with Callis was also the same: the Earth Qi of the North was outstandingly superior compared to other places.
Earth Qi is important to fairies.
Because by communing with the energy of the land, they can expand their vessel.
"How did you know that."
"I too have a connection with a fairy. I heard it from that child. That a greedy fairy has taken a seat in the North."
As a result of investigating.
Politan learned an astonishing fact.
Combining Lamatu's story with things passed down like ancient legends.
A fairy lived in the North.
And one that could be called a Great Fairy.
"I never dreamed that a fairy who was active in the Dragon-Demon War would be here playing human. So I was worrying about how to find you, but you suddenly revealed your power. I can't miss this opportunity."
Creak.
"The name of that thread is Greed. It covets everything in your body and moves according to my will. Of course, afterwards you will die and the thread will be consumed as well... but to deal with the guys who suddenly appeared, this much is necessary."
Now.
You will now destroy the North you protected with your own hands.
"Destroy the North."
The power of a Great Fairy.
With that, flipping the North upside down would be as easy as blinking.
Politan's mouth drew a curved line.
Unexpected guys had popped up and ruined things, but it was over now.
No matter who they were, before the power of a Great Fairy who played an active part in the Dragon-Demon War, they would become mere flies.
'Before nature, humans are mere humans.'
An enormous aura runs wild.
Nohitel, wearing the skin of an old man, disappeared, and only Tel, with the beautiful appearance worthy of his original fairy form, remained.
Kugududududuk!!
Tel's fairy power, larger than expected, spread out as if to swallow the North.
There was no deployment of formulas like before.
Just an overwhelming discharge of aura.
The ground shook, and space tore.
Crack, riiip!
-Aaaah!
The ground splits, and the land shakes.
Fireballs appear in the sky.
Blood-red fiery lumps and a suddenly appearing storm grew in size.
Amidst the upheaval, the fortress crumbled, and no one could move carelessly.
The power of a Great Fairy who had experienced the Dragon-Demon War was far more immense than they thought.
Soon, the storm raged.
The storm turned into vortexes, and dozens of vortexes that absorbed fire and scattered flames targeted the North.
"No, don't...!"
The Great Fairy screamed.
The threads embedded in his body stirred his entire body.
The fairy power that tried to embrace humans escaped control and began to turn into a disaster.
The people he sought to protect.
The land he sought to protect.
They were about to crumble at the hands of no other than himself.
"Someone...!"
Anyone was fine.
He wished someone would strike his neck right now.
He had relieved the burden of his heart at the end of a thousand years, but had the conclusion reached at that end become an indelible pain?
"Someone, please!!"
However, regardless of the Great Fairy's will, the fairy power turned into force and sparked the wrath of nature.
The figure of his old friend reflected in Tel's eyes.
With fluttering black hair and a rather stiff grey gaze, Callis appeared.
"Ooh! This is indeed...!"
In front of the massive power of nature, delight shone on Politan's face.
Seeing a power greater than he imagined bend to his will, it seemed there would be no greater ecstasy in the world.
"Destroy it! Destroy the North! Hahaha!!"
However, halt.
Tel's power suddenly stopped.
"What...?"
At its center was a man.
A man radiating massive fairy power stood there.
The split ground rejoined, and the shaking upheaval came to a halt.
The storm was offset by something, and the fireballs were sliced away by the wind.
He was pushing back Tel's fairy power that had encroached the area.
"What nonsense..."
How could a mere human contain fairy power! And one rivaling a Great Fairy!
While Politan was horrified.
Tel's mouth shouted.
"Callis!!"
"Callis? The progenitor of Zervan?"
The moment the dumbfounded Politan was horrified.
The man's eyes turned toward Politan.
"Ugh."
A massive killing intent pressing down on his entire body.
Struck Politan.
And then.
"The North is my sanctuary."
His sanctuary swallowed the North.