Virethiel stepped forward—regal, resolute, the wind catching strands of her dark hair.
"I said before that what he did here should be kept silent," she spoke, voice rising through the clearing. "To protect him. To shield him."
She turned.
"But now… that silence would be betrayal."
Everyone listened—soldiers, survivors, leaders. Even the wind stilled.
"So I order you—spread his story. Let the world know the truth. Not a myth. Not a legend. A truth that is already unbelievable enough."
Her voice trembled with power, like roots pulling through stone.
She paused.
"The world must know who Icariel was."
They bowed.
Two days passed.
Elven hands rebuilt shattered homes. Cracked stones were lifted. Burnt roots were mended. The land began to breathe again.
But the wound remained.
And in that wound, a name took root.
On the highest balcony of the Elven castle, Virethiel stood once more. Her voice rose over the forest like morning mist over graves.
"Elven blood flows through roots and rivers. But today, a human fought for us more fiercely than many of our own ever did. He did not ask for praise. He just gave us salvation."
She turned west, toward the battlefield—where a crater still smoked like a burnt offering.
"And for that, the tale of Icariel must be told."
And just like that, a legend began.
It started in whispers—soldiers speaking of white lightning that split the sky like divine wrath. Scholars inked the name into scrolls with trembling hands. Wanderers carried it beyond the forests—to human kingdoms, dwarven halls, and citadels carved in stars.
A tale was born:
A human boy who fell from the sky with death in his hands and mercy in his breath.
Icariel.
They gave him titles.
The first came from soldiers who saw him fighting before them.
The Living Lightning.
Soldiers spoke of the Living Lightning—a boy who didn't cast a spell but became it.
The second came from the survivors:
The Storm Who Showed Mercy.
Survivors called him The Storm Who Showed Mercy, a child who unleashed a god's fury but turned it away from those he loved.
And the third came from his enemies from The Godless Abyss. Whispers carried across dungeons and beyond:
The Unknown Walker.
A name not feared for its power—but for its mystery. A mortal who interfered with years of careful planning and effort. Because of him, everything fell apart. What was once certain became chaos. He was a disruption in fate. A crack in the design.
Rumors said he survived. Others said he died standing. But one truth remained:Even death, for a moment, had hesitated.
And in the Elven capital, beneath the hollowed crown of the Tree of Life , Virethiel took the final step.
Clad in ceremonial white, barefoot upon sacred roots, she knelt before the elders.
Her words were not loud.
But they echoed through history.
"He may not share our blood," she said, "but he gave his life to guard this forest. His fire did not burn our roots. It protected them."
She stood, her eyes wet but unwavering.
"Icariel… shall receive the title of Sylvaran."
Gasps followed.
There were protests at first.
Whispers of blasphemy.
But the proof had already seared itself into their memories, and even the Elf Queen had given her consent.
Silence followed.
"Sylvaran," she repeated, "Child of the Sacred Grove. A title once only ever bestowed upon the ancient guardians of elvenkind. Never to an outsider. Never to a human."
She looked out over the gathering, her voice soft and sure.
"Let history record this moment: That a human boy gave his life so that an elven tribe might live."
And so the world knew.
A mountain-born boy.
A child of terror and fire.
A god who fell—and whose name refused to.
Icariel. Sylvaran.
The boy who feared death, yet died for the dead.
When his title crossed the last elven borders, the world did not whisper.
It roared.
A human… given an Elven soul-name?
Unheard of.
Unthinkable.
A crack in the sacred wall between bloodlines and worth.
Nations questioned it behind gilded doors. Factions sharpened their daggers beneath temples of silence. Holy orders, their robes reeking of incense and rot, called it blasphemy and treason in the same breath. A child with no bloodline, pulled from the ash of obscurity, now bore a name meant only for those woven from starlight?
It wasn't just a betrayal of tradition.
It was a betrayal of power.
But among the low—the gutter-born, the war-maimed, the shackled heirs of old regrets—the legend took root not as heresy, but as something else.
Hope.
In quiet corners of forgotten temples. In the flickering shadows of smoky inns. In frostbitten attics and rusted barracks. One whispered phrase took shape:
"The boy who vanished with lightning will return with stars."
It began in the south, in a crumbling tavern tucked beneath the bronze cliffs of Tomorrios. A grizzled barkeep poured ale into a chipped mug and murmured low to a wandering sellsword:
"They say a human boy destroyed the plan of the Godless Abyss alone. Unleashed a spell that cracked the sky, stripped the forest bare, and left not even ash."
In the East, deep within the marble walls of the Kokues Empire, a councilwoman whispered to her lover in the dark:
"One of the Elven princesses herself—Virethiel, the third—named him Sylvaran. No non-elf has ever received such a name. And they say he was only sixteen."
In the war-broken West, a minstrel sang on the ruins of a trade city. His voice rasped from dust, but his words rode the wind like prophecy:
"A child of lightning, A breathless grief, Who tore down gods With hands still raw. He bled a storm, He gave us peace, And vanished 'fore he saw the dawn."
In the frozen North, where the stars linger like ghosts, children huddled in an orphanage attic, retelling the tale as if it were their own dream:
"He was like us—alone. No family. Small. But he burned through monsters. And they called him a hero."
From crystal towers to soot-covered villages, someone always knew his name now:
Icariel.
He became a question whispered in royal halls. How could the royal bloodline of the Elves give their most sacred title to a human?
A mystery. A scandal. A miracle.
He became a symbol, painted on frostbitten walls by rebels and orphans. The legend of a storm-born soul who refused to die quietly. The fire in the heart of those who thought they never mattered.
Was he dead? Was he hiding? Was he ever real?
They didn't know. But they wanted to believe.
And belief spreads faster than fact.
But not all belief breeds hope. In some corners of the world, belief fermented into dread.
A rumor took root.
In a smoky inn near the Elven border, two hunters drank too much and said too much:
"If he survived… could he rival the one with the Infinity Body?"
A silence dropped like a blade.
The Infinity Body—The ultimate phenomenon. A being born once every few generations, capable of mastering everything after seeing it only once.
And now, a sixteen-year-old human had created a disaster from grief… and steered it like a god.
Some scoffed. Others sent spies. Not to praise. Not to protect.
To confirm.
To confirm if he was truly dead.
Because if he wasn't…
He would become more than a legend. He would challenge fate itself.
And in the darkest corner of that same inn, at the last table near the wall, a robed figure sat unmoving.
He had listened. He had paid. He had left.
Outside, under the cold breath of night, he pulled back his hood. His Elven ears shimmered in the moonlight.
"Spreading that rumor was the only thing I could've done for him," he said.
A wry smile curled his lips.
"I should've told them how his body could shatter arms just by touching it."
He chuckled, low and hollow.
"I hope they spread it further," he muttered.
And then Calvin—the royal guard—walked into the dark.
He had spread the rumor. He had set fire to the world in memory of a boy who had once burned brighter than all of them.
But truly…
Where was that boy?
Was he really dead?
[End of Chapter 74]