Shikondell still lay on the stone platform, her face looked pale and her delicate hands were cold, showing clear signs of suffering.

The, cherry-haired girl, radiant as the spring sun, held her hand tightly, casting a gaze full of mercy and affection, like a goddess descending to relieve suffering.

Luna and the other two approached the three pillars surrounding the platform. In theory, a high-grade enchanted healing platform could accommodate six people simultaneously channeling healing energy, but due to limited personnel, only four of them possessed the [Holy Envoy] spirit mark. Mioka did not, so only three could channel healing energy into the platform.

Luna and the other two mobilized their mana, releasing healing spells toward the white crystal floating atop each pillar. Fanya’s healing light was bluish-green, Luna’s was pure white, and Amisa’s was brilliant gold.

Upon receiving the healing energy, the white crystals gradually brightened from their previously dim state, becoming active and flickering, then emitting golden-white beams of light that converged onto the central stone platform.

After receiving the healing purified, impurity-free energy transformed by the crystal, the inscriptions carved into the stone base began to illuminate one by one, spreading across the entire platform. A golden-white radiation enveloped both Shikondell and Vanessa, and under the glow, Shikondell’s condition seemed to improve, her face at least regained a faint hint of rosy color.

Before initiating the healing process, Luna had specifically made Fanya and Amisa drink magic potions to restore their mana, granting them the benefit of doubled mana regeneration per second.

With all preparations complete, Vanessa began treating Shikondell’s heart wound.

She grasped Shikondell’s hands, gently closed her eyes, and lowered her eyebrows. The next moment, she lifted her snowy white swan-like neck with the grace of a noble swan. Pure, flawless angelic wings burst forth from her back, and the room echoed with a high-pitched yet tenderly melodious song, like a soul-cleansing swan lament.

The sacred hymn and chant embedded themselves into the hearts of everyone present, drawing them into deep immersion, as if transporting them to a paradise free from pain, filled only with happiness and peace.

Countless soft feathers fluttered like dandelion fluff, landing upon the surrounding ancient stone bricks. The bricks instantly renewed, appearing as fresh as the moment they were cut, polished, and forged.

Mioka stared at the girl before the platform, her heart overwhelmed with awe. Fanya and Amisa were both captivated by the sacred hymn filling the air. As for Luna, she gazed at Vanessa’s back with fanatic devotion, like a fervent believer worshiping a god.

“So beautiful,” Luna whispered softly, a sound only she could hear. Her golden-white cross-shaped pupils brimming with infatuation.

This was the image of the perfect Radiance Saintess in her heart. And the sacred chant the cherry-haired girl was now singing, Luna recognized it immediately.

“The [Eternal Daylight Hymn],” Luna’s eyes sparkled with intense fervor.

This [Divine Blessing] was highly famous. Although it rarely appeared compared to the other two [Divine Blessings] of the Varelis family, whenever it did manifest, it always turned the tide in desperate situations.

Records stated that the last time the [Eternal Daylight Hymn] was released was during the era of Saintess Frey. At that time, Saintess Frey Varelis led the Holy Radiance Cross Knights to strengthen the border fortress “Cliffhold,” which was under siege by demons. Upon releasing the [Eternal Daylight Hymn], she miraculously saved Cliffhold from imminent collapse.

According to accounts, when Saintess Frey sang the [Eternal Daylight Hymn], the fortress walls that had shattered and fell into the abyss below regrew as if alive. Before the hymn, the city lay in ruins, ravaged by war; after the song concluded, the entire city, riddled with craters and gaping holes, restored to its pristine, unblemished state as it had been months before.

The warriors lying near death revived one by one, rising anew within the song’s embrace, charging forward with valor. The army’s morale, once shattered, was instantly restored.

In that famous Battle of Cliffhold, the Church’s forces, supported by Saintess Frey’s [Eternal Daylight Hymn], drove back the demons, who had been advancing triumphantly all the way to Cliffhold, back to their original boundary lines. For the next hundred years, no demon dared cross the border even a single step.

It was impossible not to reflect on how times had changed. The demons, once too afraid to step beyond the border after being crushed by the Church of Radiance, had now drawn back the boundary line to the Demon River. Cliffhold, once the battlefield of the Radiance Saintesss and Holy Radiance Cross Knights, had become recognized demon territory.

Of course, Vanessa’s current power couldn’t compare to that of her legendary ancestor, Frey, known as the “Warrior Saintess.” Thus, the [Eternal Daylight Hymn] she released was nowhere near the historical “Hymn Miracle” in either effect or scale.

Saintess Frey had been one of the top three strongest members of the Varelis family, an unusual Saintess indeed. Unlike other Radiance Saintesss, she wasn’t gentle.

Her nature was fierce, and she despised injustice and evil with all her being. Whenever she caught human trainers or greedy, corrupt Church officials exploiting the people, she wouldn’t let her subordinates act, she wouldn’t even follow proper procedures.

Instead, she’d grab her warhammer and personally march up to the vermin, smashing their skulls with a single blow.

Back then, the Holy Radiance Cross Knights obeyed only the Saintess’s orders. The Church was united, humanity was at its peak, and the continent enjoyed its most peaceful era.

Not like now, peace was precarious, demons repeatedly crossing the previously agreed-upon border, while humanity, though seemingly united, was actually fractured internally.

It wasn’t just Luna or the noble Horaleth family who clearly understood the current situation. Many Church noble families saw it too, yet few were willing to take action.

It wasn’t that they didn’t know. Perhaps it wasn’t that they didn’t want to change, but that they couldn’t.

Staring at the angelic girl, pure and radiant as she sang her lament, Luna once again confirmed she hadn’t misjudged her.

Vanessa closed her eyes.

………

In the darkness, a sea of fire emerges. The screams and wails of elves filled the sky.

Savage tribesmen with grotesque faces and cruel laughter grabbed fleeing elven girls by their hair, dragging them back. Elsewhere, before towering flames, tribal soldiers tossed dead elven warriors into the fire.

The elven temple, burned to rubble, still hinted at its former grandeur. The ruined elven city had been consumed by war, every sanctuary the moon elves relied on for survival utterly destroyed.

This was war, no one spared, from the elderly to newborn infants.

In her memories, this was the most unforgettable hell.

In the next moment, the scene shifts. The moon elven king, clad in royal robes and crowned, was pierced through the chest by a sword. Blood splattered across the face of the silver-haired elven princess behind him, the girl he had protected.

The young moon elf’s face was filled with disbelief and shock, her pupils constricted, her complexion deathly pale, as if her mind and senses were too numb to comprehend the horror before her.

“Live, my child.”

“Run.” the moon elven king said, his voice kind and loving despite his mortal wound.

He pressed several gemstones into his daughter’s hands and, with his last mana and life force, cast a spell, barely teleporting the dazed and broken girl out of the palace engulfed in flames.

Outside the palace, standing on a hillside, the moon elven girl shed silent tears. She could still see her kin suffering within the city, enslaved and treated as property by the tribesmen. She could still hear their desperate cries as they bled to death, and the crackling of houses and temples slowly consumed by fire.

In the end, no miracle occurred.

Her father was killed by the tribesmen, right before her eyes, his blood stained her face.

Her loyal people were slaughtered, even as they clung to the belief that the golden elves would come to save them.

The once-sacred ancestral land of the Forest Mother had become a living hell, seized and ruled by barbarians from the northern grasslands.

Gazing at the endless cliffside, the young moon elf had thought many times of jumping down to end it all, reuniting with her father and people. But the echoing words, “Live, my child,” pulled her back from the brink, again and again.

She sobbed, swallowed hard, and told herself with difficulty and bitterness: she couldn’t die. Her mission wasn’t complete. Her people are still waiting for salvation. If she died, the moon elves would have no hope at all.

Even though she saw no hope now, she still believed that if she persisted, everything would eventually be alright.

Memories flooded back. Since childhood, she had lived in a greenhouse filled with honey and flowers, never leaving her home, let alone the moon elven lands.

Now, she was forced to flee far away, to leave it all behind.

In her world, everything was beautiful, filled with flowers, hope, and dreams. Elves lived in peace, and due to their long lifespans, they happily spent their time on pursuits other races considered boring and meaningless.

But that was simply the elven way of life.

Only after leaving Mistmoon Forest, leaving her moon elven homeland, did she realize how small the world she once knew truly was, and how foolish her previous thoughts had been.

She had made everything seem far too simple.

During her escape, her lack of survival skills nearly caused her to starve. She repeatedly encountered vicious jungle beasts at night, surviving by sheer luck. Even as an elf, she nearly didn’t make it out of the jungle.

Only then did she realize how dangerous the outside world truly was.

Soon, her elegant princess gown, untended, became torn and filthy.

Wearing this wretched, soiled dress made her feel deeply uncomfortable. She had never been so ragged before. But she knew she had no choice.

When she couldn’t even get a full meal, how could she care about her appearance?

More than once, she encountered bandits. The moment they saw her face and race, their eyes lit up with greed.

Although she had great magical talent, her lack of courage and timid nature nearly led to her being captured by bandits on several occasions.

Although leaving the jungle would make survival harder, she had no choice but to leave. She knew the tribal soldiers would eventually search every area nearby. The farther she ran, the better, until she reached human nations where the tribesmen would hesitate to act.

Later, she reached a human city-state. To avoid suspicion and exposure of her race, she used the disguise gem her father gave her to conceal her true gender. She also endured the stench of rot, wearing the tattered cloak and clothes of a dead human beggar woman.

After burying the woman, she tearfully apologized over and over, saying she truly needed these clothes.

Eventually, thanks to the guards’ negligence, she managed to slip into the city with a group of refugees.

Now a wanderer in this foreign land, though safe from the tribesmen, she could only hide day after day beneath her foul-smelling cloak, afraid to reveal her true face.

The moon elven girl drifted into the slums of a human border city, witnessing all aspects of life.

At first, she doubted whether she was even still on the continent of Terraria. But gradually, she understood, the place she was in had once been paradise, but had now fallen into hell. And both paradise and hell exist within Terraria.

Unable to sustain herself, she sold her original clothes. The fine silk of Mistmoon Forest should have fetched a good price, but the merchant instantly recognized her naivety and falsely claimed the garments were worthless.

Thus, even after selling her clothes, she received very little coin.

And the few coins she did receive, she gave away to other beggars in the slum, despite being worse off than them, starving and destitute.

A kind yet weak person couldn’t survive in such an environment.

With absolutely no food left, she had to abandon all dignity and beg for scraps. Who could imagine the immense pride a former princess had to sacrifice just to beg on the streets?

She shattered her pride completely, yet most often received only scorn and cold stares in return.

Not only that, she was repeatedly deceived by others in the slum.

Although she had survived the trampling hooves of the tribes, her soul felt forever trapped in her lost homeland.

The constant yearning for home wasn’t killing her immediately, but it was a torment worse than death, living without any hope.

Nothing was as simple as she had imagined.

She had tried her best. She had shattered every shred of pride. Yet she still struggled to survive.

Let alone reclaiming her nation.

Battered and broken, she lay in some unknown corner of the slum, barely alive.

She felt she would never see tomorrow’s sun again. Something cold seemed to block her chest, making it heavy.

Her body felt as leaden as if filled with molten metal. Even the winter snow fell on her skin no longer felt cold, only warm.

Is it over?

Perhaps it’s better this way.

The moon elven girl slowly closed her eyes, collapsing into the frozen winter that had devoured all hope.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep