The First Age, Western Continent.
Watcher's Hill.
This is a barren hilly area located in the central part of the Western Continent.
It is said that a thousand years ago, before the great catastrophe broke out, this place was once the location of one of the three great royal courts of the Glorious Age - the Giant King's Court.
However, it is different from the ancient Dragon King's Court, which still has ruins remaining today, and the Elf King's Court that is said to be located above the Endless Sea and coexisting with the Lost Island.
The fate of the Giant King's Court is even more miserable than that of the other two races' courts.
In the chaos at the beginning of the Cataclysm, the Giant King's Court, as the core battlefield of mythical creatures, was affected by the aftermath of the war between gods.
Under the might of the fallen god, every inch of land and building in the Giant King's Court, including all the living beings within, were engulfed by the violent spatial turbulence caused by the collision of divinity...
It was completely crushed into powder, not even a trace of debris was left.
...
...
It was the mass extinction of an entire race. The blood of countless giants dyed the entire barren hills a blinding crimson that never faded even after thousands of years.
Over the next few hundred years, a legend spread among the surrounding human kingdoms.
There is a legendary half-mad mountain giant who always wanders among these bloody hills.
It is said that this mountain giant was once the chief guard of the Giant King's Court. He escaped the catastrophe because he left the Giant King's Court to perform a mission...
But after narrowly escaping the disaster, he did not seek another place to recuperate like the other surviving giants... Instead, he wandered day and night on this hill, which was also the ruins of the royal court he once guarded.
Every full-moon night, residents living near the hills can hear the mountain giants' mournful cries.
Occasionally, there will be human adventurers who covet the extraordinary materials and holy relics that may remain in the ruins of the Giant King's Court... go to the ruins of the Giant King's Court to explore and search for treasures.
Then they were torn to pieces by the angry mountain giant.
Over time, this hilly area that carries the ruins of the Giant King's Court has become a forbidden zone for life in the eyes of the surrounding humans.
The mountain giant that roamed the ruins of the royal court was called the "King's Court Watcher" by the surviving adventurers.
Together with this forbidden ruin of the Giant King's Court, it is also called the "Hill of the Watcher".
Thousands of years have passed and the past has been buried in time.
And the mountain giant known as the "King's Watcher" had also reached the end of his life at some point, turning into a gray, withered corpse on the Watcher's Hill.
Only the place name remained and was passed down, and together with the story of the mountain giant, it became a vague and unverifiable legend among the poets.
…
Snap——
A red, barren and rocky hill.
A pitch-black space crack silently opened up in the dim sky.
The next moment.
High heels made of crystal emerged silently from the crack in space.
Next, a golden elf girl in a plain white robe and long red-gold hair appeared.
With such graceful movements, he stepped lightly onto the blood-red hill.
"It's been a long time since we last met..."
"Western Continent."
"No, to be more precise... this should be my first visit."
The golden elves stepped onto the barren hills.
One of her eyes was slightly closed, and with her only open right eye, she overlooked the barren hills.
The lifespan of giants is much longer than that of humans, but unless they have broken through to become demigods, causing the essence of their lives to transform and evolve into inhuman mythical creatures, their lifespan is by no means infinite.
The "King's Court Watcher" had long passed away, but because of the many taboo rumors and the ominousness brought about by the ruins of the King's Court that were permanently stained with blood, the surrounding humans still regard this place as a forbidden zone for life and dare not set foot in it.
Amidst the barren mountains, the only person left was the golden elf girl with her left eye half closed.
She looked at it for a long time.
After a long time, a hint of nostalgia flashed across those beautiful light golden eyes that seemed to have experienced a long time.
"I have imagined countless times before the real scenery of the Western Continent outside the Lost Island..."
"But when I really left the island in the vast ocean and saw the scenery of the Western Continent...I felt it was ordinary."
“It’s even a little disappointing.”
"So, all this is because of you..."
"Teacher Char."
The corners of Hathaway's mouth moved slightly, and she murmured softly.
In the "Char's Little Flying House" in the drifting star world, in the great library of the Lost Island, in the library that Char left for her...
On countless difficult nights, Hathaway used the dim candlelight to read the tiny lines of text on the damaged and dilapidated ancient books... and imagined the world beyond the Lost Island.
It is not a landscape forever shrouded in the veil of eternal night, but a gorgeous landscape bathed in sunshine.
However, when those thousands of fantasies came into reality, when I truly returned from my long wandering in the star realm and truly set foot on the land of the Western Continent.
Hathaway just realized...she was not as excited as she had expected.
"really--"
“From the very beginning, what I expected was not “seeing the colorful world outside the Lost Island”, “escaping from the eternal night and bathing in the sunshine”… these beautiful things that seem to be taken for granted in the eyes of outsiders. ”
"But."
"With you."
During the days when I studied magic with Char in the little flying house, I would imagine during my rest time the joy and anticipation of mastering magic and walking under the sunshine.
It’s because I’m with him that things have meaning.
But now, the human boy who always looks lazy, with a little ferret lying on his shoulder, and who likes to use head pats on himself, is not by his side.
No matter how beautiful the colorful world of the Western Continent is, no matter how bright the sunshine is without pollution and madness——
But for Hathaway, it is not attractive at all.
A hint of loss flashed across the golden elf's eyes.
But soon, the loneliness in those red-gold pupils quickly subsided.
She had indeed not seen him for a long time.
Even, no one was sure whether the young man under the abyss was alive or dead.
However, it was just as Hathaway and the young man had agreed when they parted.
The next time I meet him again.
You must always have a smile on your face.
As another part of the contract, the young man has promised to wake up from the abyss intact.
Then--
Appear in front of me again, to respond to the feelings that were never fully expressed.
It's not the relationship between teacher and disciple, golden elf and human... but a deeper relationship.
The agreement made at the time of farewell was the only motivation for Hathaway to move forward after leaving the Lost Island.
It supported her through the bleak 500 years of wandering in the star world.
Moreover, she was able to accomplish a feat that countless demigods desired but could not achieve in the astral realm, and she received the "Secret Fire of the Goddess of Magic", or the "Silver Fire", into her left eye.
"A short separation is for a better reunion in the future."
Although I knew that those were the words the boy used to comfort me before leaving.
But Hathaway always believed this in her heart.
Her beautiful red-gold eyes moved slightly, and she woke up from her trance-like memories.
Then, he slowly looked around the surroundings.
On this bloody hill, there remained a certain feeling that Hathaway felt familiar with.
Obviously the life has passed away long ago, but the feeling has lasted through the eternity and turned into some kind of curse-like rule fragments, lingering above the ruins of the Giant King's Court, unwilling to dissipate for a long time.
The golden elf's mind moved slightly.
The next moment, her left eye, which had been closed, quietly opened.
There was a faint blue flame dancing slowly in the beautiful red-gold eyes.
Then, a huge mystery enveloped the surrounding hills.
On this area, the mark of time, like tree rings, quietly emerges.
A long, illusory river of time was cut off silently and reflected in Hathaway's eyes.
Whether it was the illusory wheel of time or the silver fire in Hathaway's eyes, they only flashed and disappeared.
However, all the imprints of time and information in the ruins of the Giant King's Court since the Cataclysm were reflected in Hathaway's eyes at this moment.
Then, she understood and mastered all the details and information about what this area had experienced in the past thousand years.
"Watcher?"
"What an apt name." Hathaway's indifferent eyes flickered slightly.
"In the eyes of outsiders, the king's court has been destroyed, but he still lingers here, giving up his future and the possibility of further progress..."
"This kind of behavior can only be described as crazy and incomprehensible."
"But I can understand this feeling."
Hathaway recalled a story Char had told her long, long time ago in that drifting star cabin.
One is said to be a story from Char's hometown.
There was a fox demon named Tushan and a human named Yu who fell in love, got to know each other, and got married.
But one day there was a flood. As the leader of the human tribe, the newly married Yu took on the responsibility of controlling the flood. He left his newly married wife behind and plunged into the battle of flood control alone.
In order to control the flood, Yu passed by his home three times without entering. The child had already learned to read, but still did not know what his father looked like.
The wife of the fox demon clan, longing for her husband, waited for the return of her lover day after day, year after year.
Until her body became weak, her blood dried up, and she turned into a withered stone, she was still staring in the direction of her husband.
When Hathaway first heard this story, she was quite confused.
She didn't know, nor did she quite understand... What kind of obsession could make the fox demon of a different race from her husband so obsessed with her that she ended up with the tragic ending of turning into a husband-waiting stone.
But at this moment, Hathaway finally understood something.
If I think about it carefully, what is the difference between what I did and that of the mountain giant who lingered on the ruins for hundreds of years and was unwilling to leave, and the fox demon in the story who was waiting for her husband to return?
The nine-tailed demon fox is a different race from humans.
The high elves and humans... are also alien races.
For a vague and insignificant promise made five hundred years ago, we have been upholding it to this day.
After leaving the Lost Island and getting rid of the curse of elven blood, as a high elf, I have almost unlimited potential.
If she wanted, Hathaway could easily be promoted to a demigod, a pseudo-god, or even reach the pinnacle of mythical creatures to compete for the throne of the new era.
However, she gave up all these opportunities and plunged into the depths of the astral world to pursue that illusory phantom.
To outsiders, what I did was probably no different from that of a madman... Just like a mother who lost her child and didn't want to face the reality, so she regarded a rag doll as her own child. She was just indulging in her own imagination and didn't want to wake up.
But, some things are just like that.
Just as the "King's Court Watcher" will never forget his duty to guard the Giant King's Court, the fox demon named Tushan regards loyalty to love as the most supreme thing.
Even after five hundred years, Hathaway still can't forget the time she spent with Char in that drifting cabin.
I can't forget those beautiful people and things.
Be it madness, being obsessed because of obsession, or being dominated by emotion over reason.
The evaluation of others may be objective and correct, but that is just the so-called correctness... It is meaningless to the person involved.
"Watcher's Hill..."
"Is this the so-called ominous place that humans fear and even resist entering?"
Hathaway looked down at the barren hills and whispered silently.
"But from now on."
“Here, there will be another name.”
"If I remember correctly."
"That city, Mr. Char called it——"
“The city of knowledge.”
"Isn't that right?"
The white fingers stretched out slightly and tapped lightly in the air.
The next moment.
In the golden elf's left eye, a flame mixed with dark blue and silver suddenly burst into flames.
Then, an incomparably magnificent and brilliant light bloomed.
Space is distorting.
No, it's not just the space that is distorted, but the boundaries of the rules.
The boundary between illusion and reality, delusion and what is within reach.
Boom——
Boom——
The huge roar originated from this barren hill.
At the same time, it resounded between the sky and the earth.
In the illusory and magnificent blue flames——
Countless elemental particles condensed in the void.
A leisurely, aria-like chanting sounded.
That was a chant in the ancient elven language.
Hathaway used the technique of "High-Speech Divine" to make it as beautiful as poetry, but it also carried a certain ancient, solemn majesty.
The chants of the ancient elven language converged into the prototype of the arcane.
Then, under the constraints of that spell model.
The sky and the earth... countless wandering ownerless elemental particles were gathered, arranged, and reorganized according to Hathaway's will.
Then, by the illusory and invisible magic power——
It has become a real substance with substance and mass.
boom--
The enormous magical power and mysterious fluctuations reverberated back to the sky.
Not only the surrounding human kingdoms, but even many mythical creatures were startled by the vast fluctuations and cast their eyes towards this barren hill, the direction of the ruins of the Giant King's Court.
However, at this moment, Hathaway did not pay any attention to the temptations from the spiritual world and the astral world, some of which were malicious, some were well-intentioned, and had different purposes.
She just looked at the hills in front of her in silence.
It was clearly just a barren wasteland with nothing in it.
But at this moment, it is shrouded in illusory light and shadow.
And when the distorted light and shadow finally slowly disappeared and the illusion dissipated.
What comes into view is a magnificent and majestic city.
There are no residents in the city, but every building is so clear in detail.
The day when the Lost Island fell into the abyss...
It was exactly the same bubble city that Char took Hathaway to on their last journey.
Compared to what Char created, it was a city of illusions that could only last for one day.
The city before my eyes no longer had its throngs of people, but everything here was not an illusion, but a reality that was within reach.
"Teacher Char..."
"You said that once."
"Magic is the process of using the mind to manipulate magical power and turn fantasy into reality."
"Distort reality, reshape nature, and use the wizard's mind to rewrite this imperfect world into what we expect."
"So, now I am——"
"I have made the city you imagined become reality..."
"Can you be called a master now?"
Hathaway uttered a silent murmur.
She tiptoed and took a step forward.
However, as the space cracks opened and closed, his figure moved silently from the edge of the wall of this imaginary city to the center of the city, the most central location.
It was a spacious square.
In the center of the square stood a huge obelisk, on which was engraved a line of light golden text written in ancient Aramaic.
"The truth and destiny are in the depths of the stars"
Behind the obelisk is an extremely magnificent black tower.
It stands majestically, reaching into the sky.
"Teacher Char, did you see that?"
The golden elf's gaze was clearly on the dark tower in front of him, but his sight was unusually distant.
It seemed to have penetrated the city and landed somewhere farther away, a place that did not belong to this world.
"The continuation of your ideals..."
"This tower is built for you."
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