In the world of Elarion, the divine tapestry is woven through the reverence of Seven Great Gods, each sovereign over a single Great Empire that mirrors their essence in culture, power, and tradition.
These gods are not merely worshipped—they are intrinsically tied to the ruling imperial bloodlines, with each empire's identity shaped around its patron deity.
Elyssira– Goddess of Radiance, Life, and Renewal
The Empire of Aurellia, bastion of light and rebirth, venerates Elyssira. Her grace shines brightest in places of healing and hope. The imperial family of Solvenhart serves as her chosen stewards.
Noxariel – Goddess of Veils and Whispers
The Empire of Velmyra thrives in secrecy and shadow, guided by the unseen hand of Noxariel. The Nyxbourne line rules from behind a curtain of mystery, safeguarding sacred truths.
Zehiron – God of Skyborn Paths and the Unbound Spirit
High in the airy reaches of Sylpharion, the Windevere dynasty flies under the blessing of Zephiron. Freedom and motion define both the land and its people.
Thalara– Goddess of Tides and Echoes
Nerevia's waterways and memories run deep under Thalara's dominion. The Mirellion family governs with reflection and gentle grace, preserving wisdom and flow.
Ignarok – God of Embered Hearts and Sacred Flame
In the forge-heart of Dravengarde, passion and war burn in harmony. The Dravenholt bloodline channels Ignarok's sacred fire with fervent pride.
Virelios – God of the Enduring Pillar and Divine Order
Teralorn, grounded in unwavering law and strength, is ruled by the unbending Granthorim. Under Virelios' guidance, oaths bind tighter than steel.
Myrien – Goddess of Fate's Loom and Quiet Dusk
The twilight realm of Vael Thorne bows to the silent strings of Myrien. The Vaelwyn family walks her weavings with solemn reverence, shaping destiny through stillness.
Each empire is not just a nation, but a living testament to the divine essence it follows. The Great Empires remain in balance—seven gods, seven realms, no more, no less.
Among the countless kingdoms and dominions beneath them, only one follows in closest devotion: the Kingdom of Velmora, a humble land pledged to the light of Elyssira, hidden on the fringe of Aurellia's radiant reach.
***
Alaric left Branmere beneath the hush of dawn, the faintest hues of light brushing against the soot-stained fields.
Behind him, the ruins still whispered of fire and miracles. The people, now rebuilding with calloused hands and quiet reverence, had changed—because of him.
His small figure sat steady atop a sturdy chestnut horse, gifted by Father Joran. The cloak around his shoulders billowed gently as he looked back one last time.
Branmere disappeared behind the hills.
And yet, it remained with him.
He thought of Joran—no longer a fading man clinging to his sword, but a tempered warrior reborn through divine light.
Of Master Helbric, whose bones no longer cracked with each movement, now training others with a new fire.
Most of all, he thought of Elior, whose soft eyes had once held the weight of a doomed fate written in ink and neglect. That fate had been rewritten.
But as comforting as that truth was, doubt still lingered. Would the future he remembered still unfold? Would the master destined to train him still find him? Or had he strayed too far from the script of the novel?
These thoughts followed him like shadows for days—until he cast them off, not with answers, but with resolve. The story is no longer theirs to write.
***
The Kingdom of Velmora stretched wide before him, a land ruled by old names and older bloodlines. One royal family sat upon the throne in Caerwyn, veiled in divine legitimacy.
Beneath them, Five Dukes wielded power like steel. Twelve Marquess houses stood between stability and collapse. And the rest—countless Counts, Viscounts, and Barons—filled in the seams of nobility.
In total, 117 noble houses dictated the rhythm of Velmora's politics.
The lands he now passed—his village, and the cities of Calden Hollow, Redfern Cross, and Durnmere—all lay within the reach of the Viscounty of Greythorne.
Their crest, a silver quill crossed over a black scale, hung from weathered posts at each city gate. Once famed for their judges and lawmasters, the house now struggled to maintain relevance, their dominion thin and fraying at the edges.
Alaric passed quietly through each city, unnoticed under his robe. He kept his hood low and words few. The cities buzzed with life, but nothing stirred him.
Each night, he rented the cheapest inn room, often healing a beggar or blessing a stable boy with a touch that left them blinking in awe.
His horse carried him far, but he made sure it never tired.
By threading his Divine Energy into the creature's muscles and core, he erased fatigue, easing burden and stress alike.
The same energy he had once used to heal and bless now served to travel swift and silent. Yet more than speed, it was knowledge he gained.
He learned that the Divine Energy was more than power. It was possibility.
By drawing it into his eyes, he could see beyond light and shadow, noting the twitch of wings or the flicker of concealed movement in the underbrush.
By weaving it into his voice, his words gained weight—authority no child should possess. When he willed it, others listened, moved, obeyed.
When pressed, he didn't need to fight. He only had to be.
And still, he remained a student of himself. There was so much he did not know. But the road was a good teacher. The solitude taught discipline. The quiet taught control.
***
But solitude is also dangerous.
Not for the beasts—they fled when they felt his divine pressure ripple out like thunder in still air. But humans? They feared little but opportunity.
In Durnmere, Alaric let his horse go at the forest's edge, resting his forehead gently against its brow before whispering a prayer. It galloped into the trees, untethered and free.
He joined a merchant caravan bound for Verdeloth the next morning.
It was modest: two wagons, six guards, a grizzled peddler of vintage wines, and a young family seeking work in the city.
None of them paid the boy much attention, though one of the guards muttered that he gave off a strange feeling.
Alaric said nothing.
He kept to the second wagon, resting among crates of grain and bundles of cloth, his cloak drawn close. Through the slits in the canvas, he watched the landscape change.
The trees grew taller, older. Moss clung to rocks like forgotten stories. Luminescent flowers began dotting the roadside like silent sentinels, glowing faintly even under daylight.
They were entering the region near the Verdant Veil—a vast, ancient forest that loomed at the edge of the city Verdeloth.
*****
✢═─༻༺═✢═─༻༺═✢
✶ I Reincarnated as an Extra ✶
✧ in a Reverse Harem World ✧
⊱ Eternal_Void_ ⊰
✢═─༻༺═✢═─༻༺═✢
*****
Verdeloth—the city known in every tavern and mercenary lodge as the Adventurers' City—stood as the southwestern gateway into mystery and madness.
Its true name, Verdeloth , came from an old tongue, meaning "the Breath of the Green." But most called it what it had become: the place where dreams and nightmares were forged in equal measure.
Low-ranking adventurers flooded its streets, drawn by whispers of glory and gold. Not because of politics, nor trade routes, but because of the forest. The Verdant Veil.
The forest had three layers.
The Outer Forest was deceptively calm. [Rank-1] beasts wandered among the bramble, sometimes a [Rank-2] lurking in wait. New adventurers tested their mettle there, often losing blood and limbs—but rarely lives.
The Inner Forest was different. The air shifted. [Rank-2] beasts roamed freely, and [Rank-3] predators hunted from shadows. Only trained warriors dared enter, and few ventured far.
But beyond that—beyond the veil of silence and thorns—lay the Core Forest.
It had no map. No returning eyes. Whatever truth it held was locked away by death or vow.
Only high-ranking members of the Adventurers' Guild knew its nature. And even they spoke little.
But rumors breathed in every corner.
Some said ancient beasts still roamed there, creatures of scale and shadow. Others whispered of [Rank-4] monsters—apex predators touched by time and mana. A few, quieter still, feared something greater.
[Rank-5].
A thing beyond description. Beyond mortal strength.
They said the trees there sang old songs in voices that weren't wind. That the stones still bore claw marks from gods long buried.
Alaric sat quietly in the wagon, eyes closed, as the forest whispered closer. He could feel it—like a pulse beneath the earth. Ancient. Watchful. Waiting.
And in his chest, his Divine Core stirred—not with fear, but recognition.
He didn't know what awaited him in Verdeloth.
But something inside him had already begun to answer the forest's silent call.
***
The wagon rattled on, wheels creaking against worn earth as the forest thinned into rolling hills. But the silence did not lift. It deepened.
It was not the silence of emptiness, but of presence—the kind that listens.
Around the path, the land began to rise into sweeping mist-laced hills, wrapped in evergreen cloaks and scattered with ruins too old for memory.
Moss covered forgotten stone altars. Wind sang through broken archways where birds no longer nested. Time passed differently here. Slower. With reverence.
To the east, shadowing the path, loomed the Myrrhvale Range—a great crescent of gray-violet mountains that pierced the sky like ancient fangs. The peaks were snow-kissed, even in the growing warmth of spring.
Locals told stories of things that slumbered within them—stone-skinned giants, cloud-bound serpents, beasts born before the gods.
Some said the mountains were once divine sentinels, turned to stone by sorrow when the first gods fell silent.
To the west, the hills dipped into marshy valleys fed by silver-threaded rivers. But between the mountains and the city—like a veil drawn between heaven and hazard—stood the Verdant Veil, ancient and breathing.
It was not merely a forest.
It was a threshold.
The trees here were unlike any Alaric had seen. Towering oaks with bark like hammered bronze. Willows whose leaves glimmered faintly blue under the fading sun.
Creepers with soft white thorns that pulsed faintly, as though alive with memory.
The air itself grew thicker, imbued with a strange hush that pressed gently against the skin. Not oppressive. Not malevolent. But aware.
Here, the land was old. Older than kings. Older than language.
And it remembered.
Alaric sat forward in the wagon, his golden eyes watching the tree line.
He could feel something stir within him, a resonance with the silent rhythm of this place. Like a forgotten song he once knew in another life.
"You will return here,"
The wind seemed to whisper.
"Not as you are now… but as what you are meant to be."
He closed his eyes and let the feeling settle into his bones.
***
By nightfall, the city of Verdeloth emerged from behind the misted curve of the hills—a strange harmony of nature and stone.
Built along the banks of the crescent-shaped Lunareth River, it rose in tiers, wrapped around the ancient roots of a dead world tree.
Its trunk, petrified and split by time, stood tall at the city's heart, towering even above the spires.
Homes and towers had been carved into its sides long ago, forming the oldest quarter known as Trunkward.
Below that, neighborhoods stretched outward like petals—Stonemarket, where adventurers gathered and supplies were traded; Elderroot District, home to guildhalls and enchanted forges; and Feylight Hollow, the twilight-lit crescent where apothecaries and rare enchanters kept shop under glowing mushroom domes.
No walls enclosed Verdeloth. It had none.
For none were needed.
The forest itself was barrier enough.
But along the city's edge stood massive stone totems carved from enchanted marble—Wards of the First Circle—each humming with faint sigils to ward away low-tier beasts and forest spirits.
They had stood for centuries, maintained by silent rituals and long-forgotten pacts.
As the caravan rumbled across the Mirelyn Bridge and into Verdeloth's outer quarter, Alaric kept his gaze forward, taking it all in.
He could feel it in the stones.
This city was not a beginning.
It was a crossroad.
Where mortals came seeking power, and the world answered… not always with mercy.
***
The caravan halted just beyond the bridge, beneath the shadow of one of the great petrified roots that framed Verdeloth's gate like ribs of a long-dead god.
As the wheels stilled and the horses pawed at the cobblestones, Alaric stepped down in silence.
He had arrived.
Yet something in him still felt mid-journey.
The air was thick with the scent of damp stone, burning herbs, and faint traces of old magic—an unplaceable tang that hummed just behind the senses.
The city spoke in quiet echoes: vendors hawking enchanted goods, adventurers trading rumors in low voices, blacksmiths hammering away with sparks that lit the dusk.
But underneath it all was something older.
A pulse.
A breath.
Verdeloth was alive.
Not in the way a village stirs with life. This was different. This was the kind of aliveness that came from stories being written, rewritten, and bled into the very earth.
Alaric walked through the Outer Ring, the quarter reserved for newcomers and passing guilds.
Wooden boards creaked beneath his boots, the scent of roasted meat and spiced ale rising from open tavern windows.
Yet his golden eyes swept past them, searching for something quieter.
He passed a narrow stone alley where a woman sat blindfolded, playing a harp of strings made from hair. Her song made the stones tremble softly beneath his feet. He did not stop.
Further in, past a crumbling shrine to an unknown minor god, he came to a modest inn tucked beneath the arch of a root, its sign etched with fading gold: The Dreaming Stag.
The innkeeper, a stooped man with silver-threaded hair and a voice like gravel, took one look at Alaric's eyes and said nothing more than,
"Top floor. End of the hall."
No coin exchanged. No question asked.
Alaric ascended the narrow stairs, wooden steps groaning under his weight.
In the room, he stood for a long time at the small round window, staring out at the starlit city.
He thought of Father Joran, whose weathered hands had once rested on his shoulders with quiet strength.
Of Master Helbric, who had laughed like thunder and fought like fire.
And most of all, of Elior, whose fate had shifted in that silent moment under the burning sky. A future that once ended in chains and blood… now unknowable.
"He has a chance,"
Alaric thought, placing a hand over his own chest.
"Even if I don't."
He did not know if the teacher fated to find him would still appear. Nor if the path laid before him by the novel's plot would hold any meaning now.
"I'm not the same soul who read those pages."
The Divine Energy within him stirred gently, a soft warmth rising from his heart like moonlight on still water. In the days of travel, he had learned to guide it, to shape it.
A touch to the eyes made the world sharpen—revealing subtle auras, the exhaustion in a stranger's bones, the flicker of lies in a merchant's smile.
A whisper, when infused with will, bent the air—turned suggestion into command, silencing beasts and calming frightened minds.
Even his presence, when allowed to bloom, weighed on others like gravity—forcing truth, evoking awe, repelling threat.
He was growing.
And yet, tonight, as he lay on the narrow cot beneath the window, wrapped in silence, it was not power that filled his chest.
It was longing.
For what he had left behind.
For what he had not yet found.
And for whatever waited in the heart of this strange, ancient city where the forgotten and the fated walked side by side.
- To Be Continued