In fact, from that moment onward, the door to communication and exchange between the two civilizations had already closed.
This hatred might not have been as glaring or frenzied as the annual bloodshed along the border between the Cruzian and Nazel peoples, nor as sharp as the mutual mockery and incompatibility between the Cruzian and Fanzan nobility. But the divide between humans and elves was colder and far more difficult to mend.
According to all recorded history, ever since the Second Holy War, the Wind Spirits had not sent even a single official envoy to Cruz or Fanzan, nor had there been any cultural or civilian exchange. In Fanzan and Cruz, one could see dwarves, Wild Elves, and even lionfolk and Nazel people, but one could hardly see a single Wind Spirit. The human world and the world of the Wind Spirits beyond the White Mountains seemed to have forgotten each other.
Since the Year of Frog Croaks, the human nation that had interacted most with the Wind Spirits was probably Eluin, on Cruz's southern border. But that was all. Even today, the Wind Spirits remained almost entirely indifferent toward this human kingdom they had once supported.
Even as they watched it return to the embrace of the Temple of Flames.
And today.
The Empire had fallen into dire straits, and the Cruzian people had remembered their former allies once more. They remembered the comradeship they had forged with the Wind Spirits during the War of the Saints. Yet even if they wished to mend this rift, would the Wind Spirits accept their goodwill?
The crystal clusters had yet to threaten the elves' homeland. Between them stretched the vast imperial territories of the Evergreen Corridor, the Alqash Mountains, and the Wilds of the Four Borders. Even if the Wind Spirits