Chapter 201: Passage to Hell (2)
A thunderous roar shook the world. Schwarzwald, the largest and most ancient expanse of woodland on the continent, was nothing short of hell on the Mortal Realm. The once-proud and timeless forest now lay half-devoured by flames. These weren’t ordinary fires but the pure hellfire spat out by the hellfire’s vessel from Hell. Had it not been for the Wind Spirit King’s intervention, not a single tree would have survived the inferno’s ravenous hunger.
At the heart of the ruined forest stood the elves’ sacred ground, Elfo Sagrado—a place that, until mere hours ago, had basked in tranquility for centuries. Now it was transformed, unrecognizable, from the holy refuge of the elves into the front lines of a war against hell itself.
All around, the air shook with monstrous roars. Demonic beasts swarmed toward the sacred ground’s heart, their screams a cacophony of hunger and hatred. The elves fought desperately to repel them, their arrows, spells, and blades forming a silver web in the darkness.
Many among the elves were no ordinary warriors. There were Transcendents here—those whose names were legend among their people, whose power could tip the scales of war in any ordinary age. Yet today, even the strongest elves found themselves struggling. These monsters were different. Their flesh was tougher, their hunger for destruction bottomless. What would have been a defining clash in any other land now amounted to nothing more than a frenzied skirmish on the margins of something far greater.
Above it all, three colossal Quiklon fortresses—dark, floating citadels the size of castles—hovered ominously. Each one radiated an unnatural chill, its hull made not of stone or steel but the essence of shadow itself. From these bastions, waves of darkness rained down like meteor showers, each streak of power strong enough to incinerate a city wall or obliterate a magical fortress.
One after another, these torrents fell—dozens at a time, their combined impact enough to shake the continent’s bones.
However, not a single one reached its target.
All the darkness, all the fury, was turned aside by the ever-churning winds. Karin, Queen of the High Elves, stood at the eye of the storm, her presence both serene and terrifying. Each spell she wove twisted the wind into a living shield, scattering the attacks as if they were nothing more than summer rain.
The demons pressed on. They tried everything—blasts that curved, twisted, and ricocheted, arcs of shadow that snaked around in complex patterns to strike at the sacred ground’s weak points. They poured their essence into attack after attack, determined to punch a hole in the defense.
If any one of those blows landed, it would have meant disaster. The sacred ground itself would have been torn apart, the World Tree within forever tainted. Yet Karin was unimpressed.
“Such petty tricks,” she muttered, her voice like a cold wind. She stamped her foot, and the ground itself seemed to answer.
With a sudden rush, the air spun outward in all directions. The displaced wind gathered, swirling faster and faster, encircling the sacred ground like an invisible serpent. The pressure built until, all at once, the spinning air burst outward, forming a titanic cyclone that encased the entire heart of elven civilization.