300: The King of the Leaf Giants

The King of the Leaf Giants

He then lifted his head.0

When the boys saw his face, they were perplexed. 

Eranos' eyes... were filled with tears. 

"Why are you crying?! We were the ones who were attacked for no reason!" Both boys thought in indignation.

It was like the situation where a bully hit their victim, then complained to the teacher that the victim ran into their fist and hurt them. 

This was ridiculous! They should be the ones crying! 

What the boys did not know was that Eranos was going through some emotional turmoil in his mind at the moment. 

With his body previously completely dried up, he was unable to shed tears for a long time, even if he wanted to. 

But now…

He lifted a hand and touched his wet cheek. Looking at his wet finger, he seemed both sad and elated at the same time. 

A slight smile appeared on his face, yet there was no smile in his gaze. 

Instead, there seemed to be some sort of pain and realization in his expression… and anger, as if he should not have been reminded of these things. 

"I have to protect this world…" Eranos mumbled. He remembered now, why he was alone in this world, and why the world was completed white. "I… failed."

This was indeed Kraesos, the Land of the Leaf Giants. 

And Kraesos had indeed been destroyed. 

And the Leaf Giants had indeed run into extinction a few millennia ago during the Dimensional War. 

And Eranos was the only survivor of the Dimensional War, one that came with a huge sacrifice. 

His memory was faint, and he had to piece those broken memories together in order to fully understand everything. But one thing was for sure; he had seen parts of the terrible Dimensional War. 

Dimensions were a weird concept. They were not static. They moved about in a way that no one could predict. And occasionally, thousands of dimensions would move onto the same line, allowing creatures to move in and out of other dimensions with much easier effort than other times. 

During one of these rare lining up of dimensions, greedy foreign creatures came into his world and attempted to gain the Leaf Giants' treasures and abilities. 

A war was started. It was horrible. Poisons and attacks foreign to this world caused irreparable damage to its ecosystem. 

At the end of the war, it was clear that the Leaf Giants were unable to win against the intruders from other dimensions. It wasn't like they were dealing with only one tribe. They had to deal with hundreds of different races and tribes, from hundreds of different dimensions. 

By the time they learned the weakness of one tribe, they had to start learning about the weaknesses of the other ten tribes. And this kept going for a thousand years. 

In the end, when there were only less than a hundred thousand Leaf Giants left in this world, the leaders decided to take the most drastic move. They searched high and low and found the most talented Leaf Giant among the youngest generation. 

And everyone in the Leaf Giant tribe then transferred all their skills and abilities to this special individual, before giving their remaining lifespans to him, with the hope that he would be able to keep living and save their tribe from extinction.

And once everything was done, everyone placed this young Leaf Giant in slumber before sacrificing themselves to close all the naturally-occurred portals in the world, forcing their dimension to move out of the line instead of waiting for time to do its work, and killing almost every living being in this world.

When the young Leaf Giant woke up thousands of years later, the world had already semi-repaired itself. The forests were thriving, and little animals were running around. At first, the young Leaf Giant was fine, believing that he would be able to make his people proud.

He spent most of his time studying the new flora and fauna, as well as the abilities that were given to him. 

But after thousands of years, he realized something else while watching the animals procreate. 

They gave everything to him… and him only. 

How was he supposed to save their tribe from extinction when he was all alone in this world? 

And with that realization came loneliness. 

He remained fine for a long time, albeit very much lonely, as he watched the flora and fauna thrive fast under the lack of hunters. 

But he had no one to talk to, and it was slowly eating him inside. 

And one day, his grief and loneliness finally overcame his sanity. In a crazed stampede, he destroyed half of the world before turning everything into white so that he would not be reminded of what he lost. 

Colors were beautiful. 

And things that were beautiful reminded him that he had no one to share them with.

Thus he would rather not have anything beautiful in his life. 

Living in a world with no colors, over the years, he had slowly forgotten about most things. His family, his tribe, the war, and who he was. And that water was important to his people.

Occasionally, the intruders with water-based abilities would come over and try to fight him, but they were no match for him. 

But just now, Juin's power was stronger than any of the past intruders, and the amount of water that he managed to shower onto Eranos was unprecedented as well. The water awakened all the cells in his body, giving him clarity, and he eventually regained his sanity and remembered who he was. 

The King of the Leaf Giants. 

As the memories began to piece faster and faster in his mind, Eranos' body also started to undergo some sort of transformation. He became smaller and smaller, until he was roughly the same size and height as the teenagers. 

At the same time, the leaves around his crotch grew all over him, flattening and smoothing out before forming the most beautiful forest green robe around his body. His hair that was previously a messy mix of green had now settled down to a vibrant green, like the beautiful meadow grass that grew during springtime. 

Small golden leaves and flowers grew out from his temples and weaved around the top of his head until they formed a golden crown. 

Even though the tone was still dark brownish, but his skin tone gradually became more even, ending with a golden brown. And his facial features were softer too, revealing a handsome youthful-like appearance.

The only thing that remained the same was his shrunken ears, which were still pointy.

He looked both bizarre yet beautiful.

Once he was done transforming, he looked down at his palms. He then looked at his wrists. The rings that were all over his body earlier were now tightly packed around his neck, wrists, and ankles, making it look as if he were wearing some sort of accessories. 

Clenching and unclenching his palms, he then murmured in the ancient language of his people, "How long had it been… since I was myself?" 

He then raised his head and looked toward Juin and Luca, who were both shocked by the sudden attention on them. 

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