The Empire of Arwen [Part 2]

A beam of light pierced through the air, illuminating the afternoon sky with a blinding white. Darius instinctively covered his eyes, shielding his face, but the beastkin around him weren't as lucky. The white flash of light immediately burned deep into their eyes, rendering them unconscious.

Arwen's body began to hover above the ground, rising higher and higher as if drawn by a string toward the sky. She radiated a snowy white hue, similar to an angel ascending to heaven, and unconsciously clasped her hands together in the form of a prayer. An intimidating aura spread across the battlefield as the beastkin and elves watched in horror.

"O Spirit King, O Spirit King,

Lord of the forests and of the springs,

Please heed my cry and watch me sing.

DooDoo Ding. DooDoo Ding.

I wish to request you for something."

'Spirits?' the elves questioned, tilting their heads in confusion. 'But…they had lost their connections to the spirits many years ago,' they wondered as a fluffy white spirit, the size of a large plushie, descended from the sky.

"Saintess of the Spirits, I will now fulfill your request. By the power of nature vested within me, I, the Spirit King, shall smite the savage creatures who dared to hurt you and your loved ones. Many years ago, you saved my family, and now…it is my turn to save yours."

Immediately, millions of fire, water, earth, and light spirits flooded the battlefield, wreaking havoc everywhere they went. Hundreds of beasts screeched in pain as they were blinded by a dazzling light, stabbed by earth spikes, drowned in water bubbles, and burned endlessly by a blood-red flame. Darius watched in shock as his peerless army began to crumble, one by one, set ablaze by the millions of fluffy creatures.

"Arwen! Are you ok?" Ediolus screamed at the top of his lungs, running toward her, his concerned eyes never leaving her body.

But the voice who responded was not his fiancée's.

"She will be okay," replied the Spirit King as a matter-of-factly. "She is merely resting in my Spiritual World for now."

"Are you the Spirit King that Arwen always told me about?" Ediolus asked cautiously. "Thank you for saving her. I-I'm sorry for what happened before," He added in an apologetic tone.

"We didn't come here to help you," the Spirit King replied coldly. "We will never forget the many deaths your people have caused us and the years of neglect, but we couldn't bear to see our Saintess die."

An intense roar split through the air, interrupting their conversation.

"Give me back my woman!" Darius yelled, a scowl spreading across his face. "I captured her; I won the war…So why? Why is all of this happening to me now?" he screamed as his large crocodile teeth smashed against each other.

Darius charged at the young elf with the speed of a fox, hoping to turn the tides of war back in his favor. With only three hundred soldiers remaining, he believed that if he could kill the black-haired beauty and the Spirit King beside her, they would be able to rampage across the hills.

"Elf," the Spirit King said in a hurried manner. "Don't let him disrupt the Saintess. She is in a very precarious state, and any disturbance to her healing will cause her instant death. I will lend you a bit of my power for old time's sake."

The Spirit King released a large white orb, which flew in a frenzy toward Ediolus. As it embedded itself within Ediolus's dagger, a small hieroglyph began to glow. With a battle cry, the young elf dashed toward the towering Crocodox without a doubt in his mind. He was prepared to die if it meant that he could save his beloved fiancee, and though he knew that he was lacking in both strength and speed, he charged forward fearlessly. He dodged the Crocodox's chomps with fancy footwork, dashing side to side in an unpredictable manner before finally stabbing the beast's arm.

Darius stumbled backwards, screaming in pain. Gripping his left arm with his right, the mighty Crocodox grit his teeth as he watched the Elf throw an unrelenting barrage of strikes and slashes, closing in on his momentary weakness.

The Spirit King had gifted the elf the power of Light, which allowed Ediolus to move at the speed of light for brief spurts of time and also gave him the power to shred through any kind of resistance, no matter how tough, with a 25% chance. Though Ediolus would normally be one to two letter grades below the Crocodox in agility and strength, he was now a full grade above, and the result of the battle seemed obvious to all onlookers.

The townspeople watched as their hero utilized the power of Light, blinding the Beast Army commander before stabbing him hundreds of times. He weaved in between the crocodile's bites and kicks as if it was child's play and continued the process again and again.

Soon, Darius fell to his knees in agony. He stared blankly at the handsome young elf before him and did what no beast would have ever expected him to do. The onlookers' jaws dropped to the floor and their eyes widened in disbelief as the undefeatable Beast King hugged Ediolus's legs, begging for forgiveness.

But war was not the place for unfounded mercy, and with a quick slash at the throat, Ediolus decapitated the reigning Crocodox.

The remaining beasts took less than ten minutes to clean up. With their leader's head now rolling on the floor, blood splattering everywhere, the beasts quickly lost their motivation to fight and accepted their inevitable fate.

The elves slaughtered the remaining beasts without mercy, and within a few minutes, the Western hills were silent. Ediolus stood upon a mountain of corpses and proclaimed,

"The strong will forever devour the weak, they used to always tell us. BUT WHO HAS BEEN DEVOURED NOW?" he shouted with a rallying cry. "We, the proud Elves of the West, will never bow our heads to tyranny! We, who have suffered for so long, will finally see the light."

A smaller beam of light pierced through the sky as Ediolus raised his dagger upwards. The young elf then kneeled, touching his forehead to the ground.

"We have done the unthinkable but not through our strengths alone," he continued. "We wish to thank the mighty spirits a thousand times over for their aid in the war. Nothing will wash away the stain of our past, but we swear by the God of Contracts to treat each and every elemental spirit with respect and dignity from this time forward or be burned by the eternal flame."

Ediolus glanced upward at the fluffy Spirit King and noticed a tiny grin on his face before he disappeared into thin air. He stood back up and roared.

"Today marks the birth of a new nation! For years to come, we will be the strongest empire in the West!" he proclaimed, "Long live the Empire of Arwen!"

"Long live the Empire of Arwen!" chants flooded the battlefield as a wave of fatigue rushed over Ediolus. He sat down and looked at his lover, praying to the Gods above for her safety.

—

Ediolus thought back to the little spirits that had once thrived in the western lands, long before the beastkin had terrorized the Thousand Hills.

When they were children, Ediolus, Arwen, and a group of their childhood friends had always played with the elemental spirits, chasing each other up and down the various hills, and healing each other when they were wounded. They lived in harmony, with the spirits supporting the Elves in times of war and the Elves preserving the natural habitats of the spirits, making sure that the forests were well-nutritioned and the lakes clear. As time passed however, and Ediolus turned 10, the Elven race discovered the existence of magic from a traveling salesperson, and a greed for power proliferated among the Elven elites.

Given that magic had shorter chants, quicker cast time, and less variability (as spirits could just run away and refuse to fight), magic quickly became the main source of power for the Elves. As time continued to pass and the Elven territories continued to grow, the noble race shifted its focus away from the development and nurturing of the kindred spirits toward the creation of new magic spells and new fields of magical studies, in turn neglecting the poor spirits and their domains.

Over time, the elemental spirits began to fade, unable to survive in such harsh conditions without proper care and love. The ground cracked, the plants wilted, and the lakes turned into a muddy-brown. Each day that passed, hundreds of spirits disappeared from the Isles.

When news about the Elves' unrelenting greed for power and their selfish neglect for their homeland finally reached the Gods, Nemesis stripped the race of their newfound power and sent thunder down upon the Elven elites.

However, there remained one Elf, with a soul so bright, that continued to take care of spirits as well as she could. Every morning before magic practice, she watered the plants and the fields, scooped the mud from the lakes, and fed the animals that lived nearby. Even as she was ridiculed for her dirtiness and futile actions, she continued to play with the little spirits, telling them about her life, her crush, and her funny moments.

Time passed slowly for the young girl and her little friends, but soon, the Elf turned 15, and the spirits were forced to migrate to another dimension. Their living conditions were simply too poor, and they didn't want the little girl to be burdened by the weight of millions. The dainty little Elf sobbed, tears rolling down her cheek, as her millions of fuzzy friends ascended towards the sun. They wiggled their little selves and smiled at the girl, begging her to stop crying, but she just couldn't help it.

As the spirits disappeared, one by one, they swore to never let anyone, not even the gods, harm the gentle soul in front of them. Millions of spirits vanished into thin air, but as they transported into another dimension, the same thought echoed across the minds of all:

"Thank you, Saintess of the Spirits…"