The Elves were forced to accept Damos's cruel condition. Their freedom vanished, and their hearts were gripped with fear. The once joyful kingdom became a place of sorrow and enslavement.
But what the Elves didn't know was that high above, watching from a dimension beyond mortal perception, a figure observed the massacre with cold, calculating interest.
The Red God, one of the thirteenth who had shaped the world during the Age of Creation, stood in his crimson observatory. He was not a god of mercy or justice. He was a god of evolution through suffering, of strength forged in the crucible of despair. And the scene below fascinated him.
"Interesting," the Red God murmured, his voice like grinding stone. "The Elven Queen fights with such passion, such desperate love. And yet..."
He tilted his head, watching as Queen Hania's body burned.
"She will be perfect."
The Red God raised one hand, and crimson light began to gather in his palm. This was not a spell any mortal could cast, this was divine intervention, the kind that rewrote the rules of existence itself.
"The Earth Shift approaches," he said to himself. "And I will need loyal servants in the new world that emerges. Servants who understand loss. Who have been broken and remade."
He released the crimson light, and it descended like a falling star, invisible to mortal eyes, piercing through dimensions until it struck Queen Hania's burning body.
At that moment, something changed. The flames that should have reduced her to ash instead became a cocoon. Her soul, which should have departed to the afterlife, was anchored forcibly to her charred flesh. And deep within her consciousness, a seed was planted... a fragment of the Red God's own power, dormant but waiting.
"Sleep now, Queen of the Elves," the Red God whispered across dimensions. "And when you wake, you will serve a higher purpose."
The Earth Shift was coming, a cataclysmic event that would reshape continents, destroy kingdoms, and create new power structures across the world. The Red God had foreseen it centuries ago and had been preparing.
He needed Valkyries, not the warrior maidens of legend, but something darker. Experimentalists. Beings who had been human once, who understood mortal suffering, but who had been elevated beyond their original existence through corruption and divine manipulation.
Queen Hania would be his first, but she would not be his last.
"Soon," the Red God said, watching as Damos continued his rampage below, "the old world will fall. And from its ashes, my new order will rise."
He turned away from the scene, his form dissolving into crimson mist.
The connection had been made. The seed had been planted. And fifteen years from now, when a corrupted mage named Xerxes stumbled upon the Queen's preserved body in the ruins of Green Kingdom, he would unwittingly complete the Red God's work.
The next day, Damos gathered the Elves in the burned palace to choose his bride.
"Silence!" ordered a Goblin beside Damos.
Immediately, everyone fell silent as Damos began to choose his bride. His eyes landed on Hanan, who was holding the infant Bruwa.
"Come forward!" Damos commanded, pointing at Hanan.
Before Hanan could step forward, an Elf shout echoed through the air. "Dungeon Unleashed!"
It was King Niro's big sister, Ms. Vice.
Legendary Dungeon Bosses immediately emerged in the air and charged at the goblins. As the battle between the goblins and dungeon monsters began, the Elves found an opportunity to escape the chaos. The enemies were preoccupied with facing the threatening forces from the dungeon's depths. The air was filled with cries of anger and fear as the goblins were gradually overwhelmed by the dungeon monsters.
Amidst the chaos, Hanan, still holding the infant Bruwa, ran with the other Elves toward a secret tunnel long built by their ancestors for such an escape.
"Let's hurry! We can't stay here long!" Hanan shouted, her eyes full of determination. Her feet barely touched the ground as she ran swiftly.
Despite the exhaustion and fear, the Elves continued their escape. When they reached the tunnel, they quickly sealed the door using the mana of Narda Stone to protect themselves from the pursuing goblins.
"At least we're still alive," Ms. Vice said inside the tunnel. "But our struggle doesn't end here. We must prepare to reclaim our Kingdom."
The remaining Elves gathered inside the tunnel. Each one of them held back their tears as they remembered their loved ones lost in the battle. Hanan, still holding Bruwa, approached Ms. Vice.
"Auntie, what do we do now?" she asked, her voice full of a promise for revenge.
Ms. Vice looked at her, her eyes heavy with sorrow. "We need to strengthen ourselves, Princess. We will return when the time is right to reclaim our kingdom."
"I am ready to do anything," Hanan replied, her eyes filled with the fire of revenge. "I will wipe out the goblins when my power awakens."
What none of them knew—not Hanan, not Ms. Vice, not even Damos himself, was that Queen Hania's body had not perished completely in the flames.
Deep beneath the ruins of the palace, in a chamber protected by ancient Elven magic and now corrupted by divine intervention, her body lay preserved. Not dead, but not truly alive either. Suspended in a state between existence and oblivion, waiting for the moment when the Red God's seed would germinate.
Waiting for Xerxes to find her... waiting to become Han, the Cursed Queen.
And when that day came, she would serve the Red God's grand design, whether she wanted to or not. Because the Red God's loyalty was not requested... it was commanded.
Burned into the essence of one's being, impossible to resist, impossible to deny. This was the true cruelty of divine intervention, not destruction, but corruption. Not death, but enslavement.
And Queen Hania, who had loved her daughters with every fiber of her being, who had fought until her last breath to protect her people, would become the very thing she had died fighting against. A monster.