Helmut: The Forsaken Child - H.F.C Chapter 314 (Part 1):

‘What’s this?’

Something black brushed past his eyes.

It covered his vision like a fleeting moment. And in the next instant, Helmut lifted his head.

The space had changed. The place where he stood was no longer the forest. The monolith, Terra—everything was gone. He stood alone.

‘A cave…is it?’

Starlight poured down from above, giving a sense of depth. And floating in the air below the light were two luminous ovals.

There was no other form or anything else, but their presence was unmistakable. This was the Earth Spirit.

Helmut looked directly at it. Two eyes looked down at him. An overwhelming presence seemed to bear down on his chest, prickling his senses.

Faced with an absolute foe, the Seed of Darkness stirred and reacted for the first time in a long while.

During the Demon King War, Spirit Mages fought alongside humans against the Demon King. It wasn’t just Lumen who rejected demonic energy.

The Earth Spirit. The most powerful spirit on earth was, ironically, bound by restrictions because of its immense power.

Just as a rock couldn’t move and flow freely like pebbles or sand, neither could the spirit dwelling within the mountain range.

However, the Earth Spirit wasn’t a being that felt confined by this fact. That was a sensation felt by living creatures.

Many mages wondered why such a being had formed a contract with Rodril, a human mage of seemingly insignificant power, but none knew the reason.

The Earth Spirit possessed neither material greed nor a lust for domination, but it was known to have the will to manifest on earth.

Rodril was merely the pathway connecting the Earth Spirit to the world. But here, that pathway was completely excluded.

As the sky met the earth, something surreal was occurring in this space.

A supernatural, colossal being. Silent yet powerful, the force that had shaped this world. Its gaze, both contemplative and observant, was both mystical and instinctually stimulating.

An ordinary person would have wanted to flee. But Helmut felt the urge to confront it.

After all, he was a swordsman, a swordsman who had reached the pinnacle of his craft.

‘Why did you call me? What do you want to know from me?’

As if asking, Helmut stared intently into the two eyes. His unwavering pupils were black, as if absorbing the light.

He had lived a short life, but his eyes held an uncommonly strong will and firmness, rare for a human who had lived so briefly.

They reflected Helmut’s very self. Helmut was a sharply honed sword, a sword grasped in hand. A sword that moved according to the will of its master, the master of his own self.

A controlled sword would not be swung indiscriminately. It would not cut anything but its enemy.

He could read the essence of his opponent in a brief moment. It was simply an intuitive understanding.

The Earth Spirit slowly looked down at Helmut.

It had existed for an immeasurably long time, but what stood before it was a unique being it had never seen before.

If the most powerful spirit on earth was unique, Helmut was a miracle, the only one of his kind on earth.

The one who escaped the Forest of Roots with the Seed of Darkness, something that had never existed before.

Was he dangerous? Was he not? What was the meaning of his existence? What impact would this variable have on the world?

There were things that could be predicted and things that couldn’t. What was clear was that the future was an unfinished painting. No matter how the sketch was drawn, the final result could be entirely different. It might be better to eliminate variables beforehand. However…

That was not a choice for a spirit of the natural world to make. It was a human choice.

The Earth Spirit was not Renosa or the Temple. Lumen bestowed his power upon humans and let them carry out his will through their own judgment.

But the Earth Spirit was different. If it had intended to do so, it would have appointed priests, not formed a contract.

Spirit Mages were like its priests, but mages, by nature, were not beings subservient to anyone.

As the long silence continued, Helmut finally spoke.

“Do you have something to say to me?”

As if waiting, the two eyes floating in the air blinked.

Both Lumen and the Earth Spirit seemed to consider human eyes a convenient means of reflecting themselves.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have taken such a form.

Helmut tilted his head slightly.

‘Can it not speak, or is it not allowed to speak?’

Spirits couldn’t speak directly to humans. Contrary to Helmut’s expectations, it seemed that this held true even in this special space.

Or perhaps, that was the line the spirit intended to keep.

Before Helmut could urge it again, something appeared between them. It was a translucent, spherical orb.

“A Divine…Barrier?”

Divine Barriers were typically spherical. While Helmut understood this, he had never seen one in person.

As Helmut watched, a pitch-black darkness enveloped the Divine Barrier. No, it was but a fleeting moment.

Soon, the darkness was sucked back into the white sphere. As if being imprisoned.

This scene was somehow familiar.

‘Does this mean that the Sacred Barrier has been imprisoning demonic energy since the Demon King War?’

Then, a black speck appeared inside the white sphere. The black speck pierced a corner of the white sphere and emerged.

At that moment, the entire white sphere flickered dimly and vibrated subtly. The black speck rolled out and stopped in front of Helmut, as if pointing at him.

Helmut bent down and reached out his hand.

However, the black speck simply passed through his fingers, ungraspable. It was an illusion.

“This is me, isn’t it?”

The two eyes blinked slowly again. A sign of affirmation.

And in the next instant, the black speck was sucked back into the white sphere.

After a brief moment, the light emanating from the white sphere dimmed. A total of four times. Four times the sphere’s light gradually faded.

Soon, the light intensified again, and the entire sphere trembled. This time, the tremor was quite significant.

And several black specks, large and small, rolled out of the white sphere. Once again, they landed at Helmut’s feet. Helmut frowned.

‘It was watching everything.’

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