Chapter 279
Side Story 12
As he stepped beyond the gate, colors beyond description in this world enveloped Dale.
By the time his next step followed the one before, the world’s landscape had changed.
An endless ash-gray winter night stretched out before him.
He remembered when he had reached this place, ‘Winter of the Universe,’ long ago in the kingdom of the elves.
The blood-chilling cold that tore through his very being—the apocalyptic chill coursing through Dale’s veins—was proof enough.
After the final battle with the Third Empire, Dale confronted the cosmic winter that sought to devour the continent. He faced the ancient dread itself, the very Apostle of the Apocalypse, declaring this world would end in ice.
Even Dale could not meet it head-on with force. Yet winter willingly halted its advance and let Dale pass.
Because there is an ending, there can be redemption; sorrowful and painful things can come to a close. Your existence was born not to be an object of fear, born in everyone’s dread and subject to finger-pointing, but rather you should have been a being worthy of their blessings.
‘You’re too trivial to even be worth my time. My interest is gone. Just disappear.’
The silhouette made of pure white frost spoke, and that was his final conversation with Winter.
And now, the place Dale stood was once again that world of winter.
In the cold that froze blood and froze the lungs, Dale looked around. Nothing was visible.
As Ray Yuris said, could the history and answers of the vanished Fourth Empire truly lie here?
