Death's Door

She excelled in anything she applied her mind to, quickly mastering many fields that took many elves their entire lives to perfect.

Her talent was not focused on a single field, but it was applicable in diverse areas and much to the surprise of many, she managed to master her abilities to their fullest extent.

Above everything else, she possessed a very pure and large mana pool, even larger than most other elves.

In simple terms, her talent was intimately tied to magic.

Elves are known to have more mana than humans, and typically the quality of their mana is higher as well, thus elves were known to be far more masterful and knowledgeable in the art of magic compared to human beings.

But even among the elves that stood at the top of all magic users, Lukalis was exceptional.

She was born with thirty five mana points, which are responsible for producing mana.

Elves, on average, are born with only twenty, which is still far more than humans who have average of seven.

And on top of that, the quality of her mana was especially pure.

The purer the mana is the faster and easier for the individual to cast spells.

In a sense, if mana is thought of as a fuel that drives a spell, her mana would be a fuel that outputted far more power than the others, and at far higher concentration at that.

She spent the first century of her life studying everything her family required of her. However, with her prodigious talent, nothing they taught tended to stick for long. She always found more new things to acquire and learn.

Instead of developing a pa.s.sion for a single field, she would master them one after another, making many of her peers regard her as an intellectual monster.

Maybe it was because of that she grew isolated from the others of her age, preferring to shut herself off in the library to master new types of magic.

But one fateful day changed all of that.

It was the day she saw a magic swordsman demonstrating the art of combat. He was one of the generals of elven army, showing off his skill with his sword to the curious crowd.

At first she thought it was nothing special until her eyes caught him using magic in conjunction with his swordsmanship, the beauty of his style was bedazzling to the eyes.

Immediately, her gaze was locked on to him.

She couldn"t take her eyes off of him even if she wanted to.

Such a beauty, such grace, such speed….It was enamoring….It was glamorous…It was something she wanted.

"Magic Swordsman….I wish to become that…"

Young elf finally found her own dream…and as fate would have it, it would come true….

Due to the conflicts between the elven kingdom and human kingdom of Kizilalem, the wars between the two countries were not an unusual sight, in fact, many were conscripted to fight.

Lukalis was no exception.

For several decades, she fought against humans, viewing them as her opponents, polishing her old abilities and gaining new skills in the process. But while she viewed humans as her enemies, she treated them with honor, thinking of them as unfortunate victims of circ.u.mstances.

However, less than two years ago, Human kingdom and elven kingdom made a peace treaty, due to the demon forces, led by the new Demon King being a threat that needed to be dealt with.

At this point in time, Lukalis was proposed to by the elven princes, the sons of the current elven royal family.

But seeing her duty to be of greater importance, Lukalis refused their offer.

She did not know that what would happen afterwards as a result of her decision.

As one of the strongest elven warriors, Lukalis was one of the few chosen to ally with the human Heroes in order to fight against the Demon army.

They fought against the demons for years; over time Lukalis came to view the human Heroes as her comrades.

However, the feeling was not mutual.

Before a raid upon the demon village, they human heroes held a feast; there she was tricked into getting drunk.

She subsequently lost her consciousness.

When she awoke, she found herself bound in chains and caged, with the human Heroes she called her comrades standing over her, smiles upon their wicked faces.

She realized right then and there, she had been betrayed.

Then, she saw a few of her elven allies come forth and shake hands with the human Heroes while telling the Heroes they could do what they wish with her, she will be their property from them on.

Before seeing this exchange, she thought humans had betrayed her, but the truth turned out to be far worse.

Human kingdom had made a deal with the elven kingdom.

Human kingdom of Kizilalem would give captured non-human women and some territory to Elven kingdom in exchange for taking away Elven kingdom"s prodigy.

Blinded by their l.u.s.t, the elven royal family accepted the proposal without hesitation, sacrificing someone like Lukalis, a member of one of the n.o.ble families was not a significant loss, at least not in their eyes, compared to what they would gain.

But to Lukalis, such betrayal was a blade cutting everything she believed in into pieces.

Because she had refused to become a concubine to one of the princes, she was condemned to be sold off to humans; all the while elven royal family would get their rewards, hundreds of captured demi-human or demon women with severed horns to satisfy their l.u.s.t.

Human Heroes wanted to make their image be flawless.

In a sense, they wanted to make it so that the history would know that it was the human Heroes who were responsible for defeating the demons, thus diminishing the contributions of elven warriors like Lukalis.

Lukalis led many battles resulting in many victories.

She was a liability.

For human heroes, this was the perfect opportunity to defang the Elven kingdom and become legends for singlehandedly defeating the demon army.

So the elven girl would only be known as one of the many who lost their lives in struggle against demon kind, while in reality, her fate was much worse.

In order to get the fame for only themselves and diminish the importance of elves in the eyes of the world, human Heroes sold her off as a slave to mercenaries for an unimaginably high sum.

Before they sold her as a slave, the human Heroes proceeded to blind Lukalis, making sure the last thing she would ever see were the faces of the human Heroes who betrayed her.

All their words were lies….all their promises were deceptions….all their embraces were daggers waiting to stab into her back…and now she found out too late….

Repeatedly tortured and beaten as she was cuffed to a device that stole her mana and converted it into a potion form.

In a sense, they wanted to drain her dry and use her mana to make profit. High quality mana potions were rarity, and ones made of pure elven mana were rarest of the rare.

Making enough profit to live richly for their entire lives was not impossible.

Due to the quality and amount of mana she possessed, the mercenaries profited handsomely from this endeavor.

Each month, she would lose one of her mana points due to overuse and being drained dry of her mana.

She was force fed food to keep her alive, with her life force weakening after each time her mana was extracted from her body.

Mana point"s capacity to produce mana, while potent, was not limitless, eventually the mana point ends up overused and destroyed.

Mercenaries knew this, so they chose to keep draining her until she runs dry and then sell her off to n.o.bles to satisfy their l.u.s.t.

Due to believing that losing purity would make elf"s mana of lower quality, thus lower price, they refrained from doing anything to her, that is, until she used up all her mana points. After that, an elven woman would be perfect to satisfy their desires.

After she would become a fearful and helpless vestige of her former self, they would sell her off. She would die after losing everything, her mana, her body, and lastly, her soul.

It was just a matter of time until all her mana was gone, until then, she would be bound and shackled to the machine that would squeeze away her mana and life force until nearly nothing remained.

She was held captive for more than a year, more than half her mana points were gone, and her weakened body now was a pale shadow of what she once was.

"Human beings must never be trusted….they will betray you…."

"Elven kingdom…I will have my revenge…."

"When all hope is lost, all that remains….is hatred….no…. more accurately, a desire for vengeance….yes…vengeance….such a sweet tasting word it is….Vengeance."

All the meaning such thoughts, such feelings held….they were all she had left. But it was completely meaningless if she could not achieve it.

Her heart desired vengeance, against humanity and elven kingdom, but her revenge was so far out of her reach….

* * *

"Another human filled with lies" Lukalis"s first impression of the lord of the mansion was just, in more ways than one.

"If he wishes to subjugate me, I will show him the taste of despair…"

She was not about to be used again.