"Patriarch... Patriarch... what... what exactly happened? How did the valley become like this..."
Just as Patriarch Thorne was straining to maintain the barrier, his heart filled with powerlessness and anxiety, a weak and familiar voice drifted over from not far beside him.
Hearing the sound, Thorne struggled to turn his head, which was groggy from the over-exhaustion of magic, and looked toward the source.
He saw the elven girl Shalin leaning against the trunk of a nearby ancient tree, her face as pale as paper as she looked at him.
At this moment, Shalin's petite body was trembling slightly; she had clearly only managed to support herself this far with great effort.
"Shalin?" After recognizing her, Thorne was momentarily stunned before he hurriedly pressed, "Why are you here? Weren't you supposed to be on patrol duty on the outskirts with Nimue? Where is your sister, Nimue?"
A string of questions instantly shattered Shalin's forced composure.
Upon hearing the name "Nimue," her eyes immediately turned red uncontrollably. Crystalline tears welled up within them, and her voice choked with sobs:
"Sister... sister is behind me..."
As she spoke, she fought back her tears, turned, and stumbled into the dense thickets nearby.
A moment later, she emerged cautiously supporting—or rather, almost dragging—a figure who had completely lost consciousness.
That figure was indeed her sister, Nimue.
Currently, Nimue's eyes were tightly shut and her face was ashen; even her breathing was so faint it was nearly imperceptible.
"We... we had just finished our patrol and were returning to the valley..." Shalin recounted their encounter in a tearful voice while doing her best to support her sister's body. "Just shortly after stepping into the valley... suddenly, it felt as if countless iron needles had pierced into my brain. Countless shrieks and ravings... they just kept ringing in my head without stopping."
Recalling the horror of that moment, Shalin's body still shook with fear.
"Sister Nimue... her reaction was much faster than mine... even though she immediately showed an expression of extreme agony herself, she still... she still forced herself to mobilize all her remaining mental power to cast a temporary mental protection spell on me... it was this spell that allowed me to barely maintain a sliver of clarity and not faint immediately..."
She raised her tear-blurred eyes to look at Thorne, her gaze filled with lingering fear.
"But... but after casting that spell, sister... she just fainted directly. No matter how I called, she wouldn't wake up... I-I was terrified... I could only grit my teeth and endure the constant buzzing in my head and bouts of dizziness, desperately carrying her on my back to run toward the residential area... I wanted to find other clansmen, find the elders to ask for help... and then... then I saw you here..."
Reaching this point, she finally could not hold back any longer and began to sob quietly. Her thin shoulders shook incessantly as her pent-up terror and helplessness completely erupted at this moment.
"It's not just sister Nimue... Patriarch... along the way... I-I also saw so many, many compatriots... they were just lying on the ground like that, by the roadside, by the trees... some were still groaning in pain, some were already... already motionless... our Moon-marked Clan... what... what exactly have we encountered..."
Listening to Shalin's narrative, Patriarch Thorne fell into a deathly silence.
His aged face was etched with heaviness and sorrow. Those eyes that had witnessed tens of thousands of years of wind and rain were now shrouded in a deep layer of agony and powerlessness.
Then, he bent down with some difficulty and extended a slightly trembling hand. A faint trace of investigative magic gathered at his fingertips as he pressed them lightly against the forehead of the unconscious Nimue, carefully sensing her condition.
A moment later, he straightened back up. The solemn expression on his face eased slightly as he spoke in a heavy voice to the anxious Shalin:
"Shalin, don't panic yet. Nimue... her mental power is primarily severely overdrawn, and combined with a strong external impact, her body activated its self-protection mechanism, causing her to fall into a deep coma. Her life is not in danger for now. As long as she can receive sufficient rest and mental soothing afterward, she should be able to recover gradually."
"Is... is that true? That's great... thank you, Patriarch... thank you..."
Hearing that her sister's life was not in danger, Shalin's tightly strung heartstrings finally relaxed somewhat. She hurriedly used her sleeve to wipe the tears and sweat from her face and let out a long sigh of relief.
However, Thorne's next words caused her heart to leap into her throat again.
At this time, Thorne's tone became unprecedentedly serious as his gaze fixed solemnly on Shalin:
"Shalin, listen. The situation is extremely critical now. I have an incredibly important task that I must entrust to you to complete."
"Wha... what task?" Shalin was intimidated by the patriarch's sudden change in tone and subconsciously straightened her body. Although her heart was filled with tension and unease, she still tried to maintain a serious posture. "Patriarch, please speak! As long as I can do it, I will certainly try my best!"
Thorne did not speak immediately. Instead, he took out an ancient-styled metal badge from the inner side of his old robes; its edges were somewhat worn, but its once-exquisite silhouette was still visible.
The badge was engraved with a sun totem pierced by a sharp sword, radiating an ancient and holy aura.
Then, he solemnly placed this heavy badge into Shalin's hand and had her grip it tightly.
"Take this and leave Shadow-fold Valley immediately. At the fastest speed possible, go and find an organization called the Radiant Church." Thorne's voice was low. "If you are lucky enough to find them, tell them..."
Reaching this point, he took a deep breath.
"Tell them that on the Eresia Continent, in the land of Shadow-fold Valley, an evil god named Nether Moon has appeared. It... has successfully revived and is currently wreaking havoc in this place!"
Grasping that cold badge, Shalin's palms were instantly soaked in cold sweat.
Evil god! Revival! These two terms exploded in her mind like thunder, causing her heart to beat violently and uncontrollably, almost bursting through her chest.
At this moment, she finally understood what the root cause was behind all the terrifying scenes happening in the valley.
"When the time comes, you only need to show this badge. They... will naturally understand the gravity of the matter and should believe your words."
Thorne added, a faint but unyielding hope shining in his eyes.
Shalin swallowed hard, trying to suppress the fear in her heart.
She looked at the badge in her hand that symbolized the unknown and hope, then looked at her unconscious sister and the haggard patriarch before her. A force mixed with responsibility and courage quietly rose from the depths of her heart.
"Al... alright! Patriarch, I understand! I... I will go right now!"
Without the slightest hesitation, she nodded heavily. She tucked the badge carefully against her body and turned, about to dash toward the exit of Shadow-fold Valley.
"Taryalondo." (Teleportation across space)
However, before she could take more than a few steps, Patriarch Thorne's low and rapid chanting rang out from behind her.
Immediately afterward, a complex magic circle radiating soft white light instantly lit up beneath Shalin's feet, enveloping her entirely.
The light flashed and vanished.
Shalin's figure, along with the ancient badge, disappeared into thin air from where she stood, leaving only subtle spatial fluctuations in the air that gradually subsided.
Seeing Shalin successfully teleported away, Patriarch Thorne seemed to have exhausted his last bit of supporting strength. His body swayed slightly, and he only managed to stand firm by leaning on his staff.
Then, looking toward the direction where Shalin had disappeared, he let out a deep sigh and muttered to himself:
"I hope... that after the passage of tens of thousands of years and the changes on the continent... that organization once famous for protection and purification... still exists upon this land."
In truth, he didn't hold much hope regarding the Radiant Church.
Because even if the Radiant Church still existed and was willing to respond to this call for help from an ancient ally, by the time they assembled their forces and reached Shadow-fold Valley, it would likely take at least over a day.
By then, the outcome would already be decided.
Either the powerful divine envoy of death would have successfully expelled or slain the evil god Nether Moon, or... the entire Moon-marked Clan, along with the home they had guarded for generations, would have already turned into the dust of history and a breeding ground for madness under the evil god's power.
Withdrawing his gaze from the distant horizon, Thorne looked up once more toward the massive purple dragon shadow in the night sky that was fiercely engaging (unilaterally attacking) the evil god. Looking at the tiny figure on the dragon's back that radiated an incomparably powerful aura, he tightened his grip on the staff he relied on for support. Using a voice only he could hear, he whispered a prayer filled with endless longing and a trace of imperceptible despair:
"I hope... that this layer of mental defense I have constructed with all my magic... can buy us even a single moment of peace before the divine envoy finishes the battle..."
...
"Radiant Church... where exactly is it... how can I find the organization the patriarch mentioned..."
Shalin shuttled forcefully through the dense forest, her slender figure flashing past gnarled tree roots and low-hanging vines. As she moved as fast as possible, she muttered anxiously to herself, her mind constantly echoing the patriarch's heavy entrustment and the sensation of the ancient badge.
When she regained consciousness from the brief dizziness and found herself on the outskirts of the forest, she immediately understood that Patriarch Thorne had used his final strength to teleport her out. This heavy trust was like a whip lashing her, making her afraid to pause for even a second as she immediately began this aimless yet vital journey to find the Radiant Church.
"But... where should I go to look?" A sense of helplessness coiled around her heart like vines. "The patriarch only gave a name... the outside world is so big..."
Thinking of this, she bit her lower lip, and a thought surfaced.
"Perhaps... humans might know news of the Radiant Church?"
This thought instinctively made her feel somewhat hesitant.
Because the Moon-marked Clan had long lived in seclusion in Shadow-fold Valley, she had almost never truly set foot in the outside world, and her contact with humans was negligible.
And in those few unpleasant encounters, most of the people she felt were greedy and had malicious gazes, which left her with a terrible initial impression of the human race.
"But... Elder Maria once taught us..." At this time, the voice of that gentle elder rang in her mind. "Among humans, there are both villains with ill intentions and good people who uphold kindness... perhaps... perhaps I was just unlucky and happened to meet the bad ones..."
She tried to recall the elder's teachings, attempting to dispel the prejudice in her heart.
However, another memory also surfaced.
'Even within us elves, we are not entirely pure; individuals who have deviated from the clan's tenets have also appeared. How much more so for the humans, with their vast numbers and complex minds? But because of that, among humans, there must also exist kind souls willing to lend a helping hand.'
"But... the elven companions I met in the valley, everyone was so good..." She whispered a rebuttal to the fear in her heart but then shook her head vigorously. "No! Now is not the time to fret over this! The priority is to find humans and find a lead!"
She forced herself to calm down and began to recall the bits of knowledge about the outside world that Elder Maria had mentioned before.
"The elder said... humans usually do not live deep in the forest. Their villages and towns are mostly established outside the forest, near water sources and plains..."
Steeling herself, she identified a direction and accelerated her pace again, dashing toward the direction of the forest's edge in her memory. The wind in the woods whipped past her ears as if it were also urging her on.
Thanks to Patriarch Thorne's long-distance teleportation, Shalin was not particularly far from the edge of the Emerald Forest at this time.
After running a distance with all her might, the view ahead suddenly opened up.
The lush trees reached an end, replaced by a vast, boundless green grassland.
"Huff... huff... finally... out..."
Shalin leaned on her knees, panting slightly, her chest rising and falling lightly from the intense running.
After a moment, she straightened up and looked around somewhat blankly.
Meeting her eyes was nothing but endless green grass and the blurry horizon further away. Where was there any sign of a human settlement?
"Searching aimlessly like this won't work... wait!" She suddenly tapped her own head, a look of realization appearing on her face. "I am an elf! I know nature magic! Why was I being so silly as to search only with my eyes?"
Realizing this, she immediately held her breath and concentrated. She pressed her hand lightly onto a small blade of grass beside her, closed her eyes, and began to chant an elven incantation in a low voice.
This incantation was a spell for communicating with all things in nature, allowing her to listen to the blurred consciousness and memories of plants and small creatures.
As the magic took effect, countless tiny, chaotic sounds began to flood into her mind.