Chapter 191: The Elven Sacred Ground—Elfo Sagrado (4)
A very long time ago—so long ago that the very idea of time lost its meaning—there existed a place where even the memory of sunlight faded. It was a land of endless white, a domain ruled by bitter cold, where blizzards raged so fiercely that seeing a single step ahead was nearly impossible. At the edge of that storm-lashed border stood a solitary barbarian.
That barbarian was Ketal.
He gazed silently into the swirling expanse of snow, his breath crystallizing in the frozen air. Far, far off in the distance, he could just make out the vague shimmer of green—some trick of the light, a fleeting glimpse of living grass or leaves. Perhaps it was only a mirage conjured by his desperate hopes. However, for Ketal, that faraway patch of green was nothing less than a vision of paradise, a myth made real. He stared at it, spellbound, as if in a trance.
How long he stood there, he could not say, but eventually, he hefted his axe—a weapon battered and worn by untold struggles—and swung it with all his might.
CRACK!
The axe struck the empty air, and reality itself seemed to splinter. For an instant, a jagged line ran through the world, as if the boundary between this realm and the next had truly fractured. However, as quickly as it appeared, the fissure sealed itself up, vanishing without a trace. It was as if the world had never allowed it to exist at all—a silent declaration telling him that he is not permitted to pass beyond this point.
Ketal’s face twisted in anguish. A wordless cry tore from his throat, raw and desperate. “Aaah! AAAAH! WHY! WHY! WHY! Just—how much longer!?”
His voice, strained with hopeless longing, echoed across the wasteland. It was the wail of a prisoner who had tasted only the tiniest sliver of freedom—a lament for all that was denied to him. Ketal’s scream rang out over the snow, a sound full of both defiance and despair.
He did not know how long he stood there, shouting himself hoarse at the uncaring sky. The blizzard howled on, and he was just one lost soul within its endless fury.
***
“What did I do, you ask...?” Ketal murmured, pulled back to the present by Arkemis’s gentle question. His voice carried the faintest trace of something—regret, perhaps, or a sorrow that was too old and deep to name. Arkemis, sensing that she had inadvertently touched a nerve, shrank back a little in her chair.
“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered. “You said it was a memory you’d rather not revisit. If it’s too much—”