Ling gazed at the people in the distance.
Several girls chattered as they gathered firewood in the woods beside the main road. They wore thick padded clothes, their faces red from the cold, but their laughter drifted over from afar from time to time.
The greatest and most tangible damage war inflicted on a country in a short time was the reduction of its young adult population. Eluin had endured far too much warfare in only three short years. The men had gone to the front in waves, leaving only the elderly and women working in the fields.
Yet even in the hardest of times, people would not abandon their hopeful optimism. That winter, more than a hundred and thirty babies were born in Fir Territory. To every family, those children symbolized the future.
In the distant land, the snow had already erased the traces of war, burying all the pain and ugliness beneath its flawless whiteness. The seeds of wild grass quietly waited beneath the ice-covered soil. When spring came the following year, they would turn this place into a land brimming with life.
Sometimes, the tenacity of life lay precisely in its insignificance.
In the distance stood Valhalla's lofty form. Its verdant branches looked like a piece of emerald even in winter. Its roots plunged into the earth as it slowly absorbed the magic power beneath the ground. A thin layer of sparse clouds stretched across the horizon, setting off the sunset, which glowed like crimson fire.
"Sister."
Ling turned around.
Lian wore a black fur coat with golden buttons. Its fluffy collar made her fair little face look especially tender, while her silver hair fell smoothly down her back and was tucked beneath her hood. Qian, who had brought her here, crouched down and gazed tenderly at