"What?..... How?" Rick asked as he stepped closer to the painting of what seemed like a male elf holding a bone dagger.

Of course, he knew Ophelia had clearly used magic.

However, it was still surprising to see this in front of him because it was clearly his first time seeing someone use magic of this calibre.

And so, Rick watched as the male elf with the dagger played with his dagger.

Then he noticed how other paintings began to move as well.

But while still being amazed by what was happening in front of him, Rick suddenly heard Ophelia’s voice explaining to him how it all began.

"Before our clan began its conflict with the Night Clan, and before the Vikings arrived as well, we, just like every other clan, had always been dependent on the Wise Forest Spirit."

"A spirit?" Rick asked and Ophelia pointed to a certain painting that looked like a huge tree transforming into a feminine figure.

"Yes. She was like a mother to all other spirits in the forest. Many spirits call her Mother Dryad and we call her that as well."

Ophelia continued. "She taught us many things, like how to talk and what to name each animal in the forest. She also taught us what to eat and what was forbidden. In a way, she was the one who kept our race alive."

"Many of our kind learnt a lot from her and without her, we wouldn’t even know how to use magic." Ophelia explained how Mother Dryad had been the sole reason for the elves’ existence.

She taught them how to coexist with the animals around them, and how to hunt them when necessary.

In a nutshell, any time the elves wanted to learn something new or wanted to know about anything specifically, they would always ask Mother Dryad through a shaman, who would act as a medium between the two.

Shamans of different clans would learn from the Wise Spirit before teaching it to the rest of the elves, and that was how the elves had been living for generations.

This made the elves a simple and peaceful race.

There was no conflict and there was no chaos. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Everyone simply lived in a peaceful and tranquil environment.

Even in terms of magic, no one really competed against one another and no one seemed interested in learning anything new unless the Wise Spirit had asked them to do so.

Back then, hunting was also very easy because whenever an animal was told of what was about to become of it, it would simply accept its fate and wouldn’t run or struggle to fight back.

It would just close its eyes and lower its body.

So, in a way, the elves had everything they could ever want.

Or more precisely, everything they needed was perfectly handed to them by the Wise Spirit.

This simple lifestyle continued for years over many generations.

Well, it continued until the Vikings arrived.

They called themselves Northmen at the time, and they begged the elves to welcome them into their land because they had been chased away from theirs by forces stronger and more terrifying than them.

Whether this was true or not, the elves didn’t care because no one had ever lied in their tribe, so they believed other races were the same as them.

In a nutshell, they welcomed the Northmen into their land, but Mother Dryad had warned the elves not to let the Northmen stay in their homes.

She warned them the Northmen weren’t as nice as they claimed to be, but no one listened.

A few elder elves advised their young Chieftains to do as the Wise Spirit had warned, but most of the Chieftains thought the Wise Spirit was just being paranoid for no tangible reason.

Besides, the Wise Spirit had always taught the elves to be kind to everyone around them, so why would she suddenly ask them not to help those clearly in need of their assistance?

Also, they blamed her old age for blinding her and preventing them from doing what was right.

After all, in recent months, the Wise Spirit had been wrong in some of her assumptions and predictions, like when rain would fall or when other notable things would happen, only for it not to happen in the end.

Anyway, seeing that the young generation of Chieftains weren’t listening to her, she warned them even more of how the Northmen weren’t exactly who they thought they were.

She called them Vikings, which was a spirit language word that meant raiders, but while some Chieftains began to trust the Wise Spirit’s warnings, two notable Chieftains decided to do what they thought was best.

These two Chieftains were the Chieftain of the Moon Clan and the Chieftain of the Sun Clan.

Both clans instantly welcomed the Vikings into their land and into their homes, promising to give them food, water and anything else to ensure the Vikings were well taken care of.

And that was exactly what they did.

The Vikings thanked them in return and began to live with the elves.

They even helped them whenever they could by assisting them in hunting and fishing.

And this was how the Vikings got into the good graces of the Moon and Sun Clans.

Even other clans who had long been distant from the Sun and Moon Clan began to wonder if the Wise Spirit had truly been wrong.

Maybe she had truly grown old and her predictions weren’t as accurate as they used to be.

This made the Sea Clan consider welcoming the Vikings into their clan as well, but just before this could happen, something totally unexpected occurred in the Sun Clan.

One night, when all the male Sun elves were asleep and the females were exhausted, the Vikings wiped out more than seventy percent of the Sun Clan’s total population in a never-before-seen bloodshed that left countless bodies dead before sunrise the following morning.