Green Wind Forest, Deep Forest, Broken Space Gate.
It had been almost a month since the mass teleport incident.
Back in the snowstorm, a small group of expedition members managed to regroup.
This was another forbidden zone, a broken space gate left behind by the high elves.
Unlike the high elven 'Prison', which was located at the border between the shallow forest and the deep green region, the broken space gate was located in the depths of the deep green region.
Elena sat on top of a carriage that she had found abandoned on the roadside. Although none of the main roads reached this deep into the Deep Green, there was a dirt path that was often used by the local villages, about half a day's walk away from here.
Because most of these villages were either abandoned, evacuated, or massacred, these dirt roads had become a bit overgrown, but with the help of the snow, it was not a problem.
The road was rough, but at least it could be used, unlike most of the land in the dark forest.
After Elena parted ways with Petra, she came straight here.
Elena looked at the surrounding faces.
The original group had thousands of people, but that number was currently down to a few hundred.
They had already waited a week, hoping that the expedition leaders, the mages from the Sky Tower, would arrive quickly.
Most of the remaining people were from the adventurer's guild, and a small handful were free explorers. The number of mages was only around ten.
As for those who had given up or died, Elena didn't really care.
What she wanted was an explanation from Aron or Owen. Elena didn't miss the space stone that Owen had crushed. Although he would probably claim that it was to 'save everybody', she knew that it wasn't that simple.
Elena had no idea what the mages from the Sky Tower were up to.
The reason Elena didn't join the Sky Tower, despite them being arguably the strongest force on the continent, was because they were arrogant and despotic. They believed themselves to be above everybody else, and although this was technically true on a very literal level, that didn't mean that their attitude was acceptable.
Elena turned her attention to the broken space gate.
A space gate was basically the high elves version of the cultivator's teleportation array, or the mages teleportation circle. Before the disappearance of the Elfefalein Empire, the high elves broke all the space gates across the continent.
This space gate was a massive ring that stood on top of a square altar. When the space gate was activated, the ring would turn and somehow use its centrifugal force to pull open a hole in space. It worked on a very different concept than normal spatial magic.
With the current level of human technology, they were far from repairing these space gates, not to mention creating a new one.
Elena sipped some water from her thermos. As for why this specific space gate was considered a forbidden area in the northern forest, Elena had no idea.
Elena heard a sudden commotion.
The beautiful blond haired big sister looked over.
From afar, Elena could see a group of people approaching.
"Hm, more people, and a lot..."
Elena hopped off the carriage and walked over.
The group of people were Aron and a team of tower mages.
Elena frowned. She jogged over and asked, "Where are the others?"
Aron just looked at her, clearly in a very bad mood. His hand brushed against the three broken soul jades hidden in his belt.
For him, this mission was a complete disaster.
What's worse, the secret mission he was given had failed completely. Not a single person from the initial team met the conditions of a Hero. Although his master believed that they would eventually find them, Aron was starting to doubt his master.
Did it need to be so complicated?
Wasn't it just Petra that they were looking for?
Aron looked towards the group that had arrived earlier.
He frowned.
"Is this all?"
Elena shrugged her shoulders. "The forest is very big. Unless you want to wait another few days, it's hard to tell if any more people will come."
Aron thought about it and agreed.
His team was already very late.
"In that case, let's rest here tonight, then move in the morning."
Elena had no complaints.
-
Late at night.
Elena walked around the campsite, lost in thought.
In her past life, Owen Oswalt would ascend to the position of Tower Keeper shortly after the Ice Calamity. This was because of his contribution to quelling the chaos in the southern region.
In this life, many things had changed.
Although Owen should have been in the southern region during this time, he was redirected into this northern expedition.
The cause of this seemed to be related to the appearance of the extra three Heroes. Because the surrounding regions had a 'protector', that opened up a lot of room for other people to move. Take the Sky Tower for example. Instead of focusing all their manpower down south, they now took the opportunity to target the northern regions secrets.
Elena knew that the mages from the Sky Tower had a way to track each other.
Judging from Aron's expression when Elena asked about the others, they were either missing or dead. This made Owen inheriting the Tower Keepers position unlikely. Such a change would have a huge impact on the following two calamities.
What caused the early appearance of the Ice Castle?
Where did the extra three Heavens Chosen come from?
Who was the one secretly pushing all of this from behind?
These were all mysteries that Elena couldn't figure out.
Elena reached the space gate.
She had seen the space gates in the eastern and western regions in her past life. The eastern gate was split in half and the western gate was broken into four pieces. Regardless of the damage, there was a certain level of desolation that clung to their ancient structures. For some reason, she felt that this gate was different. As for the northern gate, the one before her, it didn't seem damaged at all, it just gave off a 'broken' aura, like a façade.
She had had this feeling since she arrived.
Elena was a cultivator, not a mage. Although her understanding of runes wasn't low, she didn't specialize in it, leaving large gaps in the advanced portions of her knowledge.
The High Elves were a unique branch of mages called Spell Weavers. This was a profession that mixed the Mage and the Controller pathways. Their magic usually focused around five things, Environment, Weather, Flora, Fauna, and Life. The cursed winter was caused by an ice elemental high elf who specialized in the environment, weather, and fauna.
Back to the space gate...
Elena felt like this space gate wasn't actually broken. Although it looked old and dilapidated, Elena couldn't actually find any places with missing or broken runes.
This discovery made her frown.
Why had she not realised this before?
This space gate was indeed broken, but it didn't look like it was a problem with this side.
Petra had no knowledge of where the space gates connected to. She knew that they all had a single destination, but because one had never been used, there was no way of knowing where they led.
Elena's brows furrowed.
She suddenly wanted to cut this expedition short.
Her instincts as a transmigrator told her that something was wrong.
It was a very inexplicable feeling.
Elena found this decision quite easy, after all, she trusted her instincts.
After deciding, she walked over to Aron's tent.
The lamps were still on, so Elena just walked in.
Although a bit surprised by the sudden visit, Aron greeted Petra with a smile. His expression was a lot better than earlier today.
"I'm leaving."
Aron's face fell. "Can I know why?"
"I don't know, I just have a bad feeling. If possible, you should leave too." Elena said, shaking her head.
Aron pursed his lips.
"We can't leave. This is an important mission from the tower. As for you..." Aron took a deep breath. Although he was exhausted, he knew he couldn't let her leave. He wanted to use force to make her stay. "As for you... BOOM!!"
His words were interrupted by a sudden explosion from outside.
Elena felt the fluctuations of space.
Her face darkened.
There was no way that this was a coincidence.
The two ran outside to see what had happened.
The camp had lit up, and a part of it was on fire.
Elena discovered that two of the adventurers were fighting. Her eyes moved, and she scanned the surroundings. She suddenly felt like the atmosphere had changed a lot. There was an inexplicable tension in the air, like hundreds of eyes were hiding in the darkness, just waiting to crawl out.
As Elena expected, the space gate was slowly starting to turn.
'It's a distraction?'
'The timings are too coincidental.'
The surrounding explorers were all rushing to stop the fight, causing unintended chaos.
A cold wind blew, causing the lights in the camp to flicker.
The snowstorm thickened, reducing the visibility.
'What's going on! Why would they...' Elena's eyes widened. 'Is there target me!?'
Elena scanned the surroundings.
She realised that there were a few people lurking in the dark, swimming around her.
'Can they stop me from running? No, do they want to push me into the space gate? Why?'
Elena furrowed her brows.
She felt a conspiracy, but she didn't understand. Nothing like this had happened in her past life, so why was it happening now? What was the point?
From the darkness, a flash of light streaked past.
Elena dodged the dagger with ease.
'These people are too weak.'
Her eyes scanned the darkness.
She found no one who could threaten her.
'What could it be?'
Boom!
There was another explosion. This time, it happened around the two explorers who were fighting.
Elena glanced over from the corner of her eye.
'Could I be wrong? Am I not the target?'
Elena looked around for other possibilities.
'No, there's nobody else that's worth attacking. Aron? No, he wouldn't need these theatrics.'
Elena pursed her lips.
'What is it...'
Swoosh!
Another dagger flashed by.
She dodged. These small interruptions were clearly only used to slow her thoughts.
Elena turned to the space gate.
'Is it there? Is something coming out?'
As if on queue, the space gate began rotating violently. It threw out sparks like metal scraping metal. A crack in the void slowly opened from the center of the ring. This was a circular cut that was far too perfect to be made by human hands.
Elena's eyes darkened.
This level of spatial manipulation was a little too refined, wasn't it?
Whoosh!
The space gate was opened.
The surrounding fights stopped all at once.
There was a deathly silence, leaving only the howls of the wind.
Elena jumped to a nearby tree. Her eyes narrowed and her senses focused. 'Now, what is it?'
All her attention was on the space gate.
From the torn space emerged a figure in blue.
His footsteps were light and graceful, retaining a clean and elegant posture. His eyes were kind, and his temperament was noble. This man had pale white skin and long blue hair that split into two and hung down his front. His pointy ears extended further than a normal elf's. On his forehead was a black totem of two intertwining fish circling each other.
Elena recognized this man as a High Elf.
Her eyes shot open. In all of her lives, she had only seen a high elf twice. High elves were forbidden from appearing on the continent. That was what she thought. In her later loops, she discovered that some High Elves could circumvent this rule through some means.
This man, however, did not have those means.
And indeed, the moment the man appeared, the sky darkened, and the earth became deathly cold.
Elena's body shook.
Elena could feel that this was not a natural power, nor a divine one. This cold and sticky aura was like the deepest and darkest curse.
Elena watched as the 'Curse of the World' slowly locked onto the elf.
Elena had only ever felt a power like this once before. That was, in her first life, when she met the Dragon of Destruction face to face. Her body became cold and she began shaking uncontrollably.
'Is this the reason the high elves left the continent!?'
'What the hell kind of curse is this!!'
'No, wait! Why would he appear here!'
'Crap!'
Elena was horrified as the high elf slowly turned to her. He grinned, like a friendly doorman greeting a guest. Then... the surrounding world was engulfed in a sea. The sky, the land, and the forest were transformed into an ocean.
Elena watched helplessly as a massive hand formed from a slightly darker shade of blue condensed, covered the sky, and grabbed her, dragging her into the space gate.
The moment Elena disappeared, the surrounding forest was obliterated by the wrath of the curse, the cursed sea, the cursed winter, and the lightning, wind, and rain, all rebounding.
* * *
The High Elven Void Castle, Null Space.
Elena opened her eyes to find herself floating freely in a black void.
She spun around, extremely vigilant.
From the darkness came a voice.
"Relax, I won't hurt you."
Elena grimaced, her ears failing to track the sound. "You could have fooled me."
The voice hummed, then paused for a long time.
"How much do you understand about the calamities?"
Elena frowned. "Enough!"
The voice came again. "Good, then I'll get straight to the point. Out of the ten parties involved in the calamities, six of them are either hostile or want you dead."
Elena shook, but quickly forced herself to stay composed.
She had no idea what ten parties he was talking about.
From what she knew, there were only four, the Humans, the Gods, the Evil Gods, and the Witches.
"And you?" Asked Elena, looking for an end to this void.
There was a pause before a small chuckle came. "No, not at all. In fact, we've brought you here to help you. We want to make a deal."
Elena narrowed her eyes.
She didn't believe him at all.
She asked. "Those people, the ones back at the space gate, you killed them?"
"Yes."
"How is that not hostile!?" Elena yelled.
"Ah, you seem to have a misunderstanding. We are not friendly to 'Humans', we are friendly to you, 'Elena Evergreen', the chosen of Zoezellana."
Elena gave up looking for a way out.
She frowned. "Who is Zoezellana?" She felt like this name was familiar.
"Hm? You don't know? Then allow me to explain it to you. There are five gods, the God of Creation, the Sun God, and the gods of the Sky, Earth, and Sea. Zoezellana is one of them, the one supporting you."
Elena paused.
She always knew that she had a patron, but she didn't know who it was.
She silently nodded.
She probed, "Then, who are the parties aligned with me?"
Another chuckle came from the void. "There are four, the 'World', the 'Stars', the 'Void', and the High Elves. Unfortunately, aside from us, the other three are just spectators."
"I haven't heard of them before." Elena's brows furrowed. "Not the Gods?"
"Indeed, not the Gods. Aside from Zoezellana, none of the other Gods like you. Even the humans want you dead. Your situation is very precarious."
"How can I trust you?"
There was a pause.
"Actually, you already know something, right?"
Elena was silent.
She did indeed have that feeling.
"Why would you help me?" Elena asked.
There was a sudden smile in the voice. "Sometimes, your connections are more important than you realise."
Elena rolled that around in her head. 'Who was he trying to curry favour with? '
She narrowed her eyes. "Then, what kind of deal do you want to make?"
The high elf smiled. "I knew you would be interested."