Ages passed. I stopped measuring time, but I watched it flow through the mortal races.

  Greed became their common scourge—the very vice that had first provoked Father’s wrath.

  The dwarves delved deeper and deeper into the earth. Their thirst for precious metals grew insatiable. They excavated entire continents, ignoring warnings that they were destroying the vaults of the world. They became selfish, hoarding their treasures and sharing with no one.

  The elves became arrogant. Recognizing no one, they saw all other races as filth and barbarism. They retreated into their last enchanted forests, shutting themselves off from the world with magical barriers, and forgot their past alliance with humans and dwarves.

  Humans remained the most unpredictable force. Their short lives gave them no chance to form a single, stable will. One generation could be the terror of all lands—greedy and bloodthirsty. And the next became kind and clever, capable of great compassion and scientific breakthroughs. And so it went, each time, in an endless, rapid смене характеров.

  And while civilizations gnawed at one another, nature decided it had had enough.

  The Ancients awoke. As if nature itself were trying to rid its body of sores. From old times, when there were no dwarves, no elves, no humans, they began to stir:

  Dragons: Their scales gleamed like volcanic glass, and their wrath was aimed at the settlements that shattered mountains.

  Ents: Gigantic tree spirits who rose to defend forests from the humans who cut them down.

  Stone Titans: Living mountains whose awakening brought earthquakes, punishing dwarves for their greed.

  Water Spirits: Life boiled in the waters too—merfolk, hydras, water elementals—defending rivers from human грязь.

  I tried to help everyone I could. I was the last archangel power working for the good of this cursed world.

  I held back dragons, turning their rage toward empty cliffs. I bargained with the Titans, promising them the dwarves would stop digging. I healed the wounds humans inflicted on nature.

  They knew me as the Great Heroine who came in troubled times.

  The elves always remembered me. Their long lives let them keep my story.

  The dwarves remembered too, carving my name into their stone chronicles.

  But humans… They were my bitterest trial. The first generation I saved remembered my name and my face. In the second century, I was a legend to them, a demigoddess from ancient myths. And by the third, I became a forgotten tale.

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  When I returned to a city after three hundred years, I would see my statue torn down and my deeds credited to some mortal king. And then it repeated again: a new catastrophe, a new cry for help, my arrival—and, at last, oblivion.

  I became an eternal shadow in a fleeting world. I was cursed with immortality, but that very eternity let me see the cycle:

  Chaos — Salvation — Prosperity — Oblivion — Chaos.

  And not a trace of my brothers. No one knew where Zariil was now. Ignis had long since become ash. Krav had likely simply dissolved into the desert. Darkness remained silent.

  I was alone. And the world continued its meaningless and beautiful turning.

  The demons, having lost their King Ignis, did not vanish. They were pure passion and rage, and that rage demanded a leader. Each century, a powerful demon rose from their ranks, proclaiming himself a new king. He led them toward the single goal Ignis had given them in his last days: the destruction of all who did not belong to the higher powers.

  Each time they appeared was a harsh trial. Their hordes brought devastation, as if reminding the world of the old fire. I turned them back. I killed king after king, never letting the demons gain a foothold in this world. It was my endless, exhausting work.

  And then, after yet another suppression of a demonic uprising, I walked through an ancient enchanted forest the elves called their sacred home.

  Passing through the magical barrier, I saw a scene that shook me more than demon armies ever had. In the middle of a settlement grown from white living trees, elves held two prisoners. A human and a dwarf. Their hands were bound. The elves were preparing an execution.

  I stepped in. My presence was so sudden and commanding that every elf lowered their head. They did not forget.

  “Oh, Heroine!” the elder said with a bow. “You are in time. These terrible creatures dared to defile our lands. They hunted our beasts. They rob, the godless wretches!”

  I moved closer. The dwarf and the human were exhausted, but they looked at me with defiance.

  The elf beside them had already raised a shining blade, ready to cut off one of their heads.

  “Stop!” I ordered. The elf froze, his blade trembling in the air.

  “Have you forgotten the Light of the past?” I asked, and my voice sounded like a warning bell. “Elves, humans, dwarves—all creatures of this world once stood together against Cold and Fire! Why are you doing now what made Father wrathful?”

  The elder did not answer, but then a small elf boy stepped forward. He was beautiful as a forest flower, but icy hatred burned in his eyes.

  “These humans…” he said, pointing at the prisoners. “They are horrible. They plunder our lands, they are unholy. They are rats!”

  I looked at him. In his child’s body already lived centuries of malice, inherited from ancestors who remembered human betrayals.

  “Elven life is very long,” I said softly, meeting the boy’s eyes. “And if you live that long life in hatred, you will see nothing but filth. You will never see goodness.”

  I stepped back, realizing my futility. I could kill demons, but I could not kill pride and hatred that they had been piling up for so long.

  I looked at the boy and saw stubbornness that nothing could break.

  “What is your name, boy?”

  “Elvindor,” he answered proudly.

  “Well then, Elvindor,” I nodded. “I can see you will grow strong in the future. Guard your strength.”

  I turned and left. The elves knew they had no right to argue with the Heroine. They released the prisoners.

  But I knew I would return in a century, and Elvindor would already be a grown elf, and he would find another reason for war. I was eternal, and the world was an endless spiral of conflict.