“Mother! This isn’t the time to keep acting like a Queen! We must flee!”
The anguished voice of a young girl echoed through the calls of the throne room as she begged. She sat on her knees, banging her head against the floor to show her sincerity.
“Everyone else is dead! Aurora is the only bastion of hope remaining for our people, and you wish to flee?!” The Queen responded furiously, ignoring the girl’s pitiful state.
“Bastion or not, none of it matters anymore. Don’t you understand by now?! There is no way for us to win against them!”
The Queen slammed her fist down on her armrest, causing a fierce shockwave to spread and push the girl back several meters.
“Enough! If I knew I was raising such a cowardly daughter, I wouldn’t have put as much care into you as I did! To think you wish to abandon your people in times of crisis! Abominable!”
The Queen’s roars filled the palace halls, causing the various servants and knights in the palace to feel both warmth and despair at the same time. It wasn’t a small number of them that shed tears.
Among them, an old servant who had served many past generations of Queens and even the one currently ruling. An old high elf by the name of Sebastian.
He stood at the Queen’s side, looking at the pitiful princess as she begged. He couldn’t help but feel conflicted.
On one hand was a daughter who was desperate to save her mother, and on the other hand was a mother who could only stubbornly fulfill her duty as Queen. In this situation, neither of them would win.
‘Haa…why did such a catastrophe have to fall on us?’
Sebastian thought back to the past few years. It hadn’t even been a decade since the invasion started, but it was already their loss. The elven forces and those under them couldn’t stand a single chance against the invaders.
‘And here I thought we were powerful. Those bastards…they’ve planned well for this day!’
Sebastian’s fists clenched so hard they drew blood as he thought of the invaders. It wasn’t his first time seeing them, but it was his first time feeling so hopeless in front of them.
‘During the previous war, they were only equal to us. How were they able to grow so much in the short span of 10,000 years?’
But it wasn’t just their strength, it was their numbers.
‘There aren’t as many of those disgusting barbarian ones as there were in the past, but they have corrupted leagues more people within our ranks! Rather than losing a war, we fell to internal strife. How embarrassing!’
Even Sebastian, the most loyal subordinate of the Royal Elven Family, considered fleeing at one point, but his loyalty prevented him to do so.
‘But now isn’t the time for my Queen to be arguing…if she doesn’t gather our forces to at least put up a final fight, then soon…!’
His thoughts were cut off by a massive shadow that covered the Heavens. Because the throne room of the palace had an open roof that embraced nature, they were able to witness it even from within.
Sebastian’s face paled. It wasn’t just him, but those of every warrior present on Aurora. No matter where on the planet they were, they could see the massive shadow that hung in the sky.
“People of Aurora, hear me. Your trial begins now. For daring to rebel against the will of the Lords, your punishment is death.”
The Queen bit her lip hard as she looked into the sky. Although her face still showed fighting spirit, her hope was quickly draining internally.
‘Why…what chance do we even have?’
Although she always said she was planning to fight with her people, her words weren’t necessarily true. From the start, her only plan was to die with her people so that she would at least be somewhat absolved of her sins.
‘I couldn’t save any of you. I’m so sorry.’
The Queen shed a silent tear, her eyes quickly filling with flames thereafter. “It is time.”
Her figure flashed, appearing beside the princess and grabbing her with a thread of mana. Without another word, the Queen dashed through the throne room until she reached an inconspicuous area of the wall behind her throne.
“M-mother! What are you doing?!” The Elven Princess screamed. But the Queen didn’t listen at all.
She tapped on the wall randomly with varying amounts of strength, using fine mana control to deliver bursts of mana into its surface.
And as she did so, the shadow in the sky began to shift.
Large cannons appeared along the sides of the starship, a massive ball of light gathering at its front.
Without warning, three of the side cannons shot bursts of crystalline blue light that descended upon Aurora.
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The massive explosion rocked the planet. A crater hundreds of thousands of kilometers in diameter formed in the surface of the world, killing billions in the process.
“Witness your fate before you meet it.” The voice from the starship rang out again. “This is the only end for those who oppose Their regime.”
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Six more cannons fired at the same time, turning half of Aurora into a charred wasteland in an instant.
But the Queen ignored it all. With tears of blood streaking down her face, she used her body to endure the shockwaves that kept impacting her, shielding the Elf Princess in the process.
And all the while, she continued randomly tapping on the wall like a madwoman. It was to the point where even the Elf Princess questioned her sanity.
‘So that is your decision, Your Majesty.’ Sebastian thought to himself.
Without another word, he sighed and floated into the air. Feeling his movement, the Elf Queen turned to face him, giving him a final stern nod.
Sebastian smiled lightly. ‘Until the end, I couldn’t get rid of this sense of duty. Ah, what a stupid man I am.’
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Six cannons fired again, but as they impacted the surface, Sebastian’s aura flared, creating a large shield that protected the imperial palace. But even still, the shockwaves from the explosions incessantly threatened to crack the barrier.
BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOOM!
The explosions that were randomly impacting the surface of Aurora started to come together, crashing against the barrier of the castle.
Without them realizing it, Aurora had already been destroyed. The only place left where life could persevere was the imperial palace.
BOOOM! BOOM! BOOOOOM!
“Keuk…!” Sebastian coughed out a mouthful of blood, cracks spreading across his barrier. But just as he was about to give up, he felt a pair of rough hands on his back. Mana poured into his body in droves, allowing him to maintain his protection of the castle.
“S-Sir Mica.” Sebastian greeted while wiping the blood off his lips.
The knight named Mica shook his head in response. “Do not speak. Focus on maintaining the barrier. The Knight Order and the refugees from the Magic Forest will aid you as long as we can.”
As Sebastian turned his gaze to the ground below, his vision was filled to the brim with elves. Magicians, knights, even common maids. They all stood watching him protect them, sending their mana into the sky so that he would never run out of steam.
Seeing them, Sebastian’s bloody lips curved into a warm smile.
“Very well. If you are all putting your hopes into me, then I can only do my best to live up to them.”
The strength of the barrier increased manyfold as Sebastian utilized the mana of those supporting him. The explosions outside were barely able to even rock the new defense.
And during the few minutes she received from the new barrier, the Queen finally finished inputting the commands necessary for activating the mechanism in the wall.
Voom!
It wasn’t one sound, but two. One came from the throne room, where the wall in front of the Elf Queen and Princess began shining with blue light. As for the other…
The ball of light that had been gathering at the front of the starship finally took shape. It revved with such grandiosity that it caused a small earthquake on the surface of Aurora.
The Commander’s voice blanketed the area soon after. “I must praise you for holding out until now. It isn’t a lie when people praise your kind for your immense talent in mana. However, it all ends here. As a reward for surviving, I shall allow you to witness Exadrion’s most powerful weapon, the World Destroyer.”
The elves’ faces paled instantly. The massive waves of mana emanating from that light ball were enough to crush weaker practitioners in an instant. Yet, that was only the mana leaking from the attack.
The actual attack…was aimed at them. Any hope they had of survival vanished in an instant.
“W-where is the Queen?” Mica stammered to Sebastian.
Sebastian looked down at the palace in defeat. “The Queen…is preserving hope for our race.”
“Then that means…!” Mica’s eyes widened.
Sebastian smiled bleakly. “We can only hope that she gets revenge for us in the future.”
Mica gritted his teeth in anger. But before he could even speak, a womanly voice rang out from behind them.
“Who exactly are you wishing to get revenge for you?”
“”My Queen!””
A group exclamation took place as those present voiced their surprise. In response, the queen simply shrugged.
“The Cross-Sector Teleportation Array is a relic from our ancestors. It’s so beat up by now, there’s no way it could carry the weight of two people. In fact, I wasn’t even able to properly input the coordinates. I have no idea where she’ll end up, I only know she’ll be safe.”
The Elf Queen looked back at the throne room and sighed. “It’s a shame. I couldn’t take my focus off activating the array, and after I was finished, I could only send her off immediately lest the array broke. She must be lost and afraid…I hope you can forgive your mother.”
The poor Elf Princess who had been sheltered since childhood was now thrust into the vaster universe without even an ounce of protection. There was no way for the queen to not be worried.
Unfortunately, there was no time for her to worry at all. By the time her thoughts finished, the sky was covered in bright white light.
“Ah…”
A short gasp was the only sound the Elf Queen before that bright light completely enveloped her.
It was painless. Because the scale of the attack was so big, for the few tens of thousands that were still alive to experience it, it was painless.
But that didn’t discount the amount of destruction it did.
A shining white beam of light pierced the world called Aurora, like a sword through the body of a man.
A hole was created through the center of the world as the beam faded. Cracks spread through the remaining two halves of the planet that desperately tried to stay together.
And then, they shattered altogether.
Aurora had been completely destroyed, all life on it exterminated along with it.
From the control room of the starship, the Commander indifferently gazed at the destruction he caused.
“With this, it is finished. Sector 9 has been completely annihilated.”