The Dark Elf's Awakening
Elemir was not being crushed by some enormous sense of pressure.
She had not been silenced by magical force, her mouth sealed so she could not speak.
Nor had her voice simply vanished.
Precisely, she had merely grown unwilling to ask the other party for a moment to wait.
Then Jae-hyun’s crimson eyes turned back to her.
“Elemir.”
“Yes, Demon King.”
At the sound of his title, Elemir bowed deeply, her back and head lowered in a show of profound respect that surprised even herself.
Only then could she feel the strangeness emanating from within.
She had not once entertained the idea of defying him.
She had only wanted to prevent the death of the young elf boys, yet somehow she no longer cared if they died, nor did she feel the urge to save them.
All that remained was an infinite loyalty toward Jae-hyun, along with a burning desire to offer him her own body.
And she no longer felt that peculiar, elven affection for her forest.
Only then did Elemir realize what had become of her.
Ah… I have become a Dark Elf.
Even after awakening the truth of her new form, a strange happiness bloomed within her instead.
The time she had lived as an elf now felt like foolishness, and living as a Dark Elf felt like the truest happiness an elf could know.
Shuushuu—
Demonic energy began to radiate from every inch of Elemir’s body.
As the supreme elf sorcerer who had contracted with countless spirits, including the highest-ranked wind spirit, the bonds with those spirits had now been severed because she was no longer an elf.
The spirits she had once bound to her had sensed her new demonic energy and torn away their contracts entirely.
Yet Elemir felt no regret at all.
If the contracts with the spirits of the Intermediate World had ended, then she could simply form new ones with the spirits of the Demon World.
And she was not the only one who had changed.
Among the 50,127 elven females, 50,006 had become Dark Elves.
Even so, their hair and eye colors had remained unchanged, unlike the ancient Dark Elves who had once been corrupted by darkness and whose black hair and black eyes appeared the moment they transformed.
These new Dark Elves still possessed their original elven hues—emerald hair and emerald eyes—because they did not radiate demonic energy; one would never guess they were Dark Elves.
“Diverse colors truly suit them best.”
The ancient Demon King who had first accepted the Dark Elves had favored a single, unified shade over variety, a preference that extended even to the dragons.
While the Dark Elves had always distinguished themselves from ordinary elves by their very name, the dragons—despite their arrogance—had continued to identify themselves simply as dragons that possessed demonic energy, refusing to declare themselves a new species known as Dark Dragons.
Of course, even the dragons of the Black Clan had been forced into permanently black hair and black eyes by the ancient Demon King’s whims, yet Jae-hyun, the current Demon King, had chosen to preserve the original elven colors of these Dark Elves instead.
“How… how could this be?”
“You said you would spare the children, did you not? No, wait—why did they become Dark Elves if you intended to save them in the first place!”
“Are you planning to break your promise?”
The remaining 121 elven women, terrified by the sight of 50,006 of their sisters turned into Dark Elves, raised their voices in protest against Jae-hyun.
They had feared transformation and never sworn loyalty, choosing the path only for the sake of their own safety, yet a deep guilt gnawed at them.
They had convinced themselves that if they alone refused, the other 50,000-plus elven women would not turn, and they had even prepared a noble justification to safeguard the entire group.
Yet all of it had been utterly meaningless—50,000-plus elven women had become Dark Elves anyway!
“I did not break any promise.”
The Demon King, a handsome black-haired youth with a tall, elegant build who possessed no elven grace yet carried an undeniable aura of majesty, answered their accusations in a cold tone.
“L-lies! You’re a liar!”
“Then why did they all turn into Dark Elves?”
The elven women, having refused the sacrifice to protect themselves, were now shocked beyond measure and shouted back at him with trembling but vigorous voices, still trembling with fear of Jae-hyun.
“I promised that if every last one of you swears loyalty to me, I will spare the young elf boys.”
Jae-hyun repeated the contract’s terms in a loud, clear voice.
“Moreover, if even one of you refuses, I will revoke the promise to spare the boys, and they will not survive.”
Even after those words, the elven women could not grasp what had gone wrong.
The Balrog warriors, who had been laughing hysterically, only laughed louder at their confusion.
“Kuk… kuku… kuhahahaha!”
“Those stupid elven bitches! They look so deliciously perfect and still couldn’t figure it out!”
“Kuhahaha! Such innocent fools, easy to deceive.”
“No, stupid, you idiots! Kkuk~”
The Balrog warriors, bursting with glee, mocked the elven women mercilessly, and the weight of that ridicule pressed upon their ancient elven souls with a shame they had never before experienced in the long history of elves.
The Balrog warriors stood nearly two meters tall, towering giants of pure brutality, war-mad warriors who cared nothing for books or culture, only endless battle and slaughter.
Yet to these elven women—who had lived centuries longer than humans as the noble guardians of the forests—these crude, unintelligent monsters had called them stupid.
“Quiet.”
The Balrog warriors continued their mocking laughter, but the moment the Demon King ordered them to cease, every last one of them clamped their mouths shut as if a lock had been placed over their lips.
The instant silence fell, Jae-hyun turned back to the elven women and spoke again.
“Now you’ve quieted down. It is true that you are foolish, but I will still explain exactly what happened.”
His voice was not raised, yet the weight behind every word was more than enough to hold the 121 elven women in rapt attention.
He was the Demon King; the very power of his words carried absolute authority, and the situation only intensified the effect.
“The contract between us is simple. There were 50,127 elven females in total. If every single one of you swore loyalty to me, I would spare the young elf boys of this village. I also stated that if even one of you refused to swear loyalty, I would eliminate the boys. Yet you refused, 121 of you, while 50,006 swore their loyalty.”
Even after those facts, the elven women still looked bewildered.
“In other words, the first requirement was for the elven females to swear loyalty to me. The 50,006 who swore loyalty simply chose that path for themselves. It was not that everyone had to swear loyalty. But because 121 of you refused the contract, I no longer had to pay any price for it. The condition I set was that the full 50,127 must swear loyalty before the price would be paid. There was never any clause requiring me to accept the loyalty of those who refused.”
“W-what…?”
Only now did the elven women finally understand.
The contract had never promised to spare the boys if even one woman refused.
It had merely promised that I would spare the boys only if everyone swore loyalty.
With 121 women refusing, there was no need to honor the promise.
There was also no reason to refuse the loyalty of the 50,006 women.
They had sworn loyalty in accordance with the contract, and I was not required to pay the price because they had not met the full condition.
“Y-you demon… you… you tricked us!”
One elven woman burst into tears as she screamed at Jae-hyun.
A beautiful elven maiden with azure hair and soft green eyes, she glared at him with bitter resentment, yet Jae-hyun merely sneered without the slightest trace of remorse.
“I did not lie. You simply misunderstood the contract. And since you were the one who refused the contract from the start, you suffered no harm, did you? You chose freedom over sacrificing the children for your own sake. Is that not enough?”
Jae-hyun was mocking the elven women openly, having already deceived countless humans on the continent in just three days and now brazenly deceiving the noble guardians of the sacred forest.
“Then you must pay the price for refusing to swear loyalty to me. Since you rejected becoming my people, become my people’s playthings.”
The moment Jae-hyun finished speaking, the elven women opened their mouths to protest, but black holes suddenly appeared beneath their feet.
They screamed as they fell into the voids and vanished from existence.
The 121 elven women who had refused loyalty were now condemned to become whores for the demonic beasts, forced to serve and be used by countless varied demons from that day onward.
And with that, Jae-hyun’s interest in the 121 women ended completely.
His gaze then shifted to the Dark Elf before him—Elemir.
“Let us go to the World Tree.”
Jae-hyun spoke only one command.
“Yes, Demon King.”
Yet Elemir, who had become his loyal subordinate, bowed respectfully and answered.
More than 50,000 Dark Elf elven beauties, their chains now unlocked, began to follow Jae-hyun toward the World Tree.
They, once called the noble guardians of the sacred forest, had now fallen into the Demon King’s faithful servants, their lofty ideals of protecting the children shattered by his cunning deception.
They no longer cared whether they would one day be forced to kill those children.
But these already corrupted Dark Elves showed no hesitation whatsoever as they followed Jae-hyun.
Alongside the Dark Elves, the Balrog warriors, the Dark Knights, the human warriors who had become Black Mages, and the sorcerers also trailed after him.
They finally reached the World Tree’s doorstep.
Jae-hyun sensed the despair radiating from the isolated World Tree, whose spatial linkage was sealed by the overwhelming demonic energy flooding the territory of the Dark Empire.
“Do not worry. There is no need to corrupt it just yet.”
Jae-hyun smiled coldly at the World Tree.
Yes. The World Tree must not be corrupted.
It must remain alive.
Although its space-connecting power was currently sealed by the thick layers of demonic energy, it was far too precious to destroy.
Wait, William… the hideous betrayer who stabbed me in the back.
I will make you taste the fires of hell.