385 Needs Time
In the end, it was not difficult for the Elven to eradicate Heligav settlement in its entirety.
The Heligav race's mentality had been broken the moment the shadowhole, which was what the Nightshadow Elves labeled the first attack, had impacted their grand protection dome.
A single attack had been more than enough to destroy the grand protection dome and a quarter of the settlement. It was only obvious that witnessing such an attack left a devastating impact on both the Helgiav race, who were afraid to face a second attack like this and the Elves, whose blazing fighting will had soared drastically.
Instead of facing a second attack that was highly destructive with only a few casualties just like the first attack, the bright sunlight seemed to disappear for a few seconds. It was clouded by the dense envelope of more than 200 darkness spears that devoured the sunlight as they rained down on the settlement.
More than half of all the Prometheus Heligav were killed within seconds and the last wall of protection in the Heligav's mind seemed to have crumbled down.
Desperation filled their entire beings and they could clearly see the Grim Reaper approaching them. At least, that was what happened in their mind.
The utter shock deprived them of their ability to think properly, and the remaining Heligav were overwhelmed by the flood of 2000 Elves that were eager to eradicate the Heligav.
Screams overflowing with pain filled the air for a few minutes before everything turned quiet. The surrounding area became eerily silent but not even the Elves said a word.
It was satisfying to be on the winning side when fighting against the Heligav but this easy victory against a small number of Heligav that had also been at lower ranks than the Elves on average didn't really feel satisfactory.
At the end of the day, the numbers of the Heligav were manyfold higher than the Elves, who rarely gave birth to children. The Heligav had also great innate talent, which turned them into a worse enemy when it came to a 'fair' fight without any restrictions.
Thus, the warfare they had initiated on Jundra was just one of the many that would follow suit in the future.
Everyone knew this and it was also why nobody felt overly satisfied with the end result of the battle because now was not the time to slack off and become too confident.
Nial descended to the ground when the battle came to an end and the screams died. He spread his dark energy through the ground to turn everything into his domain, even if it was only temporary.
"You guys missed one heavily injured Heligav fighting a Dark Glacier Elf," Nial mumbled when he sensed something before pointing in the direction of a small hut that was about to collapse at any moment.
Making use of his dark energy, he shot hundreds of darkness needles out of the ground from within the building where the two were fighting.
The building isolated all sounds, vibrations, and mana fluctuations from within. This was rather weird and the reason why nobody sensed that something was off.
When the others heard Nial, they dashed in the direction of the small hut and tore it apart when they entered it in search of the Heligav.
What they saw were hundreds of darkness needles protruding out of a Heligav, who had been leaning over a young Dark Glacier Elven woman.
Both were at the Deux rank but the Heligav had been able to overwhelm the Dark Glacier Elf. She would have died, if not for Nial, who had arrived at the last moment and killed the already heavily injured Heligav.
Many Elves looked at Nial with complex emotions, even more so the High Elves and Sacred Elves, who hung their heads low and pretended to study the ground.
However, Nial didn't care about that in the slightest. He was more focused on expanding his darkness domain to devour the corpses of all the Heligav, who had been killed mercilessly.
Their energy was necessary for his strength to increase faster. Furthermore, by devouring them, he could eradicate their entire existence.
It would be as if they had never existed in the first place!
Nial focused on the surrounding area and the dead corpses around him instead of the living beings around him.
This made it much easier for him to devour everything of value in the following minutes.
Everyone observed what Nial was doing but they couldn't see much. The Elves could only feel that energy swirled through the ground, straight toward Nial where it ended up gathering around him.
It was as if the ground below the Elven's feet was restlessly alive and moving whenever a new wave of energy swept toward Nial.
He absorbed everything greedily and retracted the darkness domain when he was done. Everything was tightly sealed within him before Nial began to move once again.
Nial's head turned toward the center of the settlement. A large building had been constructed there and many interesting things were located inside.
"The Heligav's treasures, a few devices and a somewhat different dungeon portal is located inside it," He mumbled as Evalyne and the others approached the large building
"That's probably not a dungeon portal," One of the Keltia rank Pyromas Elves shared his observation after he had heard what Nial said before they heard the Royal Princess' voice.
"A man-made world bridge with a timer!"
Nial had recently gotten to know that other than portals, world bridges existed as well. Apparently, some planets connected to each other in order to create a better balance of their overflowing planetary mana core.
These world bridges would have been created naturally, which was different to the world bridge Evalyne spoke about.
Upon hearing that it was man-made and with a 'timer', Nial released his range of perception and [Mana Sense] in the direction of the man-made world bridge.
Only when he used a tremendous amount of mana and put his entire focus on the world bridge that looked similar yet a bit different in his visualization to a dungeon portal, did he notice something?
Nial could perceive a humongous combination of black, golden, silver, and gray runic constellations that had been merged together. There were millions of miniature runic constellations of a very higher Tier that he could barely perceive despite giving his all to visualize what lay behind the world bridge.
"This must have been created by a God, who studied runic constellations for centuries…if not millennia!" Nial exclaimed, which attracted lots of attention.
"You don't have to be a God to create a man-made world bridge. The usage of certain devices and enough time to prepare yourself is all that you require," Princess Evalyne answered when she stepped back outside the large building. She saw that Nial had approached the building as if he wanted to take a close look at the world bridge.
"The world bridge was not created by a God?" Nial asked doubtfully as he perceived more and more things about the world bridge's structure.
He now figured what Evalyne meant by 'timer' because the world bridge was currently in a hibernating state, and accumulating mana from the surrounding area.
Every few weeks or months, the world bridge would open and allow all kinds of beings to pass through the gate, until all the mana had been used up.
Once the countdown of the timer ran out, a new batch of Heligav was likely to emerge from the man-made world bridge.
But that was not something Nial could focus on right now.
"That's not correct either. This world bridge was probably created by a God," Evalyne said with a complex expression as she added,
"I just think that it didn't have to be a God to create a man-made world bridge like this one."
Nial nodded his head before he averted his attention to some place else once again.
He was not sure how to feel now that the Heligav on Jundra had been killed. It was definitely advantageous, and Nial should be happy that his master's murderer and everyone closely related to the murderers had been killed.
However, Nial didn't feel happy or content in any way.
His master was still dead, after all.
"By the way, I wanted to ask this earlier but…are you fine?" Princess Evalyne enquired worriedly.
Nial hadn't expected Evalyne to be bothered about him but he must look like a beaten-up dog for her to ask this question.
Yet, even if he wanted to, Nial was unable to lie and say that everything was fine. Because he felt far from fine!
"Do I look fine to you?" He just asked in return before he sighed deeply. Nial didn't really like where the conversation was going but it was not as if he could go away right now. Something held him back from moving…
"Not really. That's why I'm asking," Evalyne said slowly, feeling that the pressure around Nial got heavier without him doing anything actively.
His heartbeat got louder and the pressure around Nial increased drastically.
"Then I'm not fine," He could only answer before he noticed how suffocating his presence had become. Nial didn't even realize how depressed he sounded and how much pressure he was releasing.
Thus, he sighed deeply once again before he went his own way.
Nial didn't feel uncomfortable with the Royal Princess but he needed some time for himself.
Even now, he was not sure how to feel about the things that had happened, let alone what he was supposed to do.
Was he willing to work hard to help others and prevent them from facing the same situations as he had been forced to face? Not really. Nial might like to help others when he encountered them in tricky situations but he would always prioritize his family and friends over others.
Going out of his way to help others was something Nial had only done for the Originals, who had been disabled while conquering dungeons, or even before they awoke their Origin.
However, even that had been something Nial had done in order to improve his reputation, and let more people know about him, and not just with the sole intention of helping others. The helping part had been important but it was not his only reason to help.
It was already a wonder that Nial was functioning with the severe blows he had received one after another. His mother and master were dead, his sister had gone on a journey, his father was struggling with depression and it was almost impossible for him to force anything down his throat.
Even the only friend who should have been his pillar of support had blamed him for the death of their master.
Nial knew that he had to take care of his father and that he would have to work hard to make him get his act together, but he didn't know how.
He was barely hanging on to his own sanity with all his might, so how could he help others to become better, make them feel good, and drag them out of their pit of misery when he was drowning himself?
Was that really possible?