When the youth, whose eyes were redder than the blood flowing in his veins, shouted at the top of his lungs, time stopped; the man looking with fear hidden behind his astonishment, the teenage boy trying to make a move, and the guards sprinting from various parts of the garden were trapped in their last movements.
"Would you really do it?"
Nafız, transforming into the main character in the dream world she was trapped in, smiled when she heard the voice echoing in her mind; she was so used to these types of situations that you could ask her what people labeled as mentally ill in the world felt.
"The turn will ultimately come to the Empire of Machines too; I suppose I can get your Toricelli Family out of the way while destroying a whole empire!"
There was absolute silence for five breaths; she could hear neither the thoughts passing through her mind, nor the beating of her heart, nor any proof that she was alive.
"Please, save my brother before he turns into my father!"
When the final wish of the youth exiled from his homeland was revealed, Nafız, exhaling all the air inside her as if she had been waiting to take this breath for years, said her final words.
"Leave it to me, but if I tell you not to commit suicide in your next life, would you listen to me? At least don't cut off your ears!"
The world Nafız was trapped in was shattering; someone who hadn't experienced this situation before could easily lose their mind. It was not something just anyone could handle to endure while all the signals perceived as real by the five sensory organs disappeared one by one.
"Now that was really good!"
This was the effect of living imaginary realms in her mind, roaming over them, and having her perception of reality shaken on her; the members of the Elemental Ten involuntarily took a few more steps back. It was impossible for them not to understand that the last attack was a spiritual attack, and now not knowing exactly who was standing before them scared them.
"You are next, Alator, but first, I want to hear your subordinate's name!"
When their leader's name was called, their tense muscles and their brains, which had to interpret the warnings coming from every point of their bodies, let off steam like hot iron plunged into water. Was it worse for her to be possessed by someone else, or did Nafız's return, even if they didn't know her normal state, soften their body language.
"Siomha, that is my name!"
Even though her blonde hair, leaning towards bright white unbefitting the element she used, covered her face when she bowed, it was impossible not to see her light blue eyes. She was practically radiating light; her appearance was like her other friends who didn't lose their brightness even if they were covered in blood.
"Siomha, have you thought about using your ability on yourself?"
She must not have guessed this would be the first question directed at her; the beautiful deputy leader of the Elemental Ten failed to answer. She too had closed her eyes like her other friends while carrying out the attack; how could she not have guessed that even she would be affected while Nafız was inside the ten-pace diameter area?
"No, I have never experienced it. Actually, I didn't even think about doing it!"
"It's so obvious; your voice, your stance, your skin, your hair color, the brightness of your eyes would have said the same thing even if you hadn't answered. Then you don't know how you would save yourself if you accidentally got hit by your own attack, or how you would save a friend if they were exposed to it!"
It was obvious why she hadn't made any move other than spell formations up to this moment. She possessed the ability but didn't have full control over it, and in the event of the slightest mishap, she could sacrifice those next to her to friendly fire.
"I don't know why my elemental affinity is like this, and while developing my ability, I was only allowed to experiment on people condemned to death. I am afraid of the darkness growing slowly but resolutely inside me with each passing day; every time I use my ability, I feel it accelerating even more!"
Alator looked at his subordinate standing a few steps away from him in such a way that it was as if he had just learned he wasn't the child of the people he had known as his family for years. The situations of the other eight druids were no different; they felt as if they didn't know the woman with whom they trained for years and abandoned the path adopted by their lineage together at all.
"And this feeling scares you. You think it will take over you if it continues like this, don't you? Your not experiencing your ability, your striving not to use it, and your thinking that not telling even those closest to you will protect you is all because of this.
Why are you looking like that? Do you think you are the only one experiencing these feelings in this big world? Rest assured, everyone who is powerful enough to scare others today had to walk the same path as you, and because they conquered their own fears, they managed to become people to be feared.
If something is growing inside you, it belongs to you just like everything else. Just as your hand cannot move on its own unless you want it to, your fear cannot lift a finger without your permission either, but the real question is; do you have the courage to face it, or will you continue to feed it by ignoring it?
You keep thinking about it, Alator, come here!"
The Elemental Ten, eating slap after slap while expecting to enter a Reward Dungeon, had long forgotten the worry of weapons or equipment.
They saw that the destructive power they gained by abandoning the teachings of their lineage was useless due to a feature coming from a reward dungeon. They saw that as long as sufficient time was given, a solution against elemental attacks could be found, and that the search for more power before facing themselves would only bring disaster.
The only one left was the person who led them and who was the first to declare that he wanted to exist as an attack power, not just defense and support, by joining the Orc Military Academy. His elemental mastery was undoubtedly superior to all of them; at another time, in another place, it wouldn't even cross their minds to worry about him, but now he had an opponent before him who surprised them with her power the more they got to know her.
"There is no need to waste time, I don't want to enter a war that I won't win no matter what I do!"
Even if the nine druids, whose last hopes were extinguished, didn't want to show it, their hung heads and their bodies shrinking like deflated balloons gave everything away. Actually, there was nothing to be surprised about; anyone in their right mind witnessing the events taking place before their eyes could easily make this decision, but there wasn't someone as reasonable as him standing opposite him.
"I am not surprised at all; do you know why your ancestors stayed back and accepted the job of defense and support? Perhaps this cowardice of theirs was because they realized they could never be as strong as an orc, brave enough to stand against an orc no matter what they did!"
The border outpost, pillaged by elemental attacks before and after, was invaded by water needles piercing everything they touched right after being hit by a wind of unknown origin, practically a hurricane.
The elemental particles suspended in the air or trying to exist in dead bodies accompanied them, and they all had a single target, Blood God Nafız!
"Blood Dome!"
The blood-red energy field formed a breath before the attacks touched her and sealed every side of her, including the ground, against enemies. Even though she stood against at least five attacks per second, there was no change other than shapes resembling the ripples raindrops create on the surface of a puddle.
"This technique is the gift of the owner of the Legacy Cave where everything began. For years, her pain has been my pain, her hate my hate, her revenge my revenge. Are you talking about the darkness growing inside you, I lived for years together with someone I didn't know at all but who was crazy enough that her anger would scorch the whole world."
Nafız, crossing her hands over her chest, was only talking in the face of the attacks coming from all four sides, but her words were at least as sharp as her daggers, as scorching as her whip.
"What was it; I don't want to enter a war I won't win no matter what I do. If Ainle, for whom your faces fell because I called him a wimp, had acted cowardly like you, neither you nor your friends could be here today.
Did I rush too much while praising you, I wonder? Intelligence only goes so far, my lion; he who thinks of the end cannot be a hero!"