Um, where is Marcel? Yes... I remember now. He’s currently with the man who sent kidnappers to get him while he was still at Alverona’s, a.k.a. the ruler-type existence, King of the Sunfire elves. As if torturing Marcel wasn’t enough, he’s currently sending him off to the other elven kings to be further tortured by their elven natures. Let’s just say that Marcel isn’t going to be having a very good time for the next couple of days. 

Currently, they’re about to reach the first king’s domain but, before they did, Mr. Sunfire King had a few things to say to the little guy, 

“You know, this little home of us elves is one of the strangest dimensions in the demon realms; probably because of all the different sources of natures that exist here which have divided our world into different domains. Point is, many strange plains exist in our world, like where we’re about to stop at: The Kingdom of Night, situated just south of our kingdom in the Fiery Plains, so don’t be too surprised.” He said to Marcel who could do nothing but nod. What else could he do in his current situation, not nod? 

Anyway, he’d been trapped in a curtain of darkness ever since getting into the Sunfire king’s fire portal and when he could finally see again after they reached their destination, all he could see was even more darkness. Strange how just moving south of somewhere could bring you to a place with two moons illuminating the dark curtain that is the plains shrouded in darkness.  

This really is the kingdom of night! Marcel thought. 

After exiting the portal, Marcel saw the Palace of Obsidian, also known as the home of the first king he was about to meet. With a quick touch from the Sunfire king and they were already inside the gorgeous palace of black and in front of them, was Hedos Evenhelm, the Elven King of Shadows. 

The man in front of them was a dark beauty, so much more than the Moonshadow elven kidnappers who serve him. With pure locks of thick dark silver, light grayish-black skin that the moonlight shone gorgeously upon as he sat beside at the window with a melancholic expression as if he lost his entire world while wearing loose clothes of pure black and shrouded in a thick curtain of formless shadow spirits and one exceptionally matured dark shadow spirit who bore the melancholic king’s appearance, this king was beautiful, and maybe even more so than the Sunfire elven king. Once again, Marcel had himself thinking the same thought again without realizing it, 

Why must everyone here be so gorgeous?! 

He looked at the melancholic king in silence as if not to disturb the force of nature in front of him when suddenly, the dark silence was disturbed by the noisy Sunfire king. 

“Hey, brother!” 

“What do you want this time? And call me uncle!” Hedos took a glance in their direction as if having just noticed when he had the moment, they entered his domain. He looked so unenergetic and to put it straightforwardly, immensely sad. The Sunfire elven king was about to ignite some passion in him again very soon. 

“Oh, come on, brother! This time, I’m not here to expose your secrets again but rather, for a favor. This time, I’m here because Alverona struck again! I need your help!” The moment the Sunfire king mentioned Alverona, the unenthusiastic and lethargic king was revitalized.  

“Tell me more, nephew!” He asked threateningly with a burning curiosity that threatened to kill his nephew, the Sunfire elven king if he refused to tell him. Looks like he also hates Alverona just as much or even more so than the Sunfire elven king. He grabbed his nephew and they spoke secretly in a corner away from Marcel. They spoke for about ten minutes while Marcel waited before finally attending to him.  

Marcel had a sense of déjà vu, and guess what, he was right! This time, he was right! 

“I’ll do this myself. You can leave now!” Hedos spoke in a calm voice. 

“Thanks, brother! Pass him on to the next king when you’re done; you get what I mean, right?” The Sunfire king said with a suspicious tone at the end but Hedos was, for some reason, happy as he suddenly realized what the Sunfire king said entailed. 

Right after the Sunfire king opened his portal and left, Marcel was taken to the source that shrouds the Dark Plains of Tharrelan with its curtain of darkness, the Orb of Darkness, and guess what? This time, Marcel isn’t just being subjected to the rays of the source like the Sunfire elves’ Sunstone but rather, he was currently inside the ginormous sun-like orb and swimming in its pools of dark shadow nature. 

As expected, he felt immense pain to the point of falling unconscious at first after Hedos put him inside the power that no ordinary demon or even one of their Moonshadow elven species wouldn’t be able to handle, well, except for Hedos himself, of course, but after a few hours of swimming in the pool of shadows, his body did the same thing as it had while being subjected to the Sunstone’s power and absorbed a massive amount of the Moonshadow species’ shadow nature and suddenly, he could feel no pain at all. He could finally regain a bit of consciousness after feeling no pain. 

After noticing this, King Hedos was surprised as well and suddenly wanted to test the limits of whatever it was that allowed Marcel to absorb all that power and so, he tried to peek into Marcel’s realm of magic out of curiosity and guess what? He was cast out of Marcel’s realm of magic by the same force that denied both Claude and the Demon Lord access to the secrets inside the little hero with a touch of soul damage as a warning to not do it again. 

Hedos, also realizing that he might be dealing with a monster far beyond his comprehension, didn’t do much after and peeked at Marcel’s stats, like the Sunfire king had, and found something strange. 

“Huh?! Even after all that energy, he still didn’t build up resistance against shadow natures. How peculiar!” He uttered to himself. 

Marcel woke up the words of the king of shadows,  

“It’ll probably come much later when he’s ready to undergo rebirth. His body didn’t reject it, so let’s see how it does with the other natures.” He spoke. 

“What’ll come much later?” The now-awake Marcel asked King Hedos, still a bit out of it. 

“The resistance to shadow natures, of course. Boy, your body and soul are very strange!” The king answered him. He looked so ignorant that the king who’d just realized from looking at Marcel’s Informer that he was dealing with a certain someone’s wife-to-be, suddenly felt like not dealing with him anymore. After all, he knows how jealous people can be when someone else is with their partner and so, he decided to pass Marcel further to the next king of their bunch and the one he was most excited to see, Lumos Nachen, the King of Starry Night elves. 

While Marcel was still out of it, he dressed him in fresh, non-soaking wet clothes and before he was fully awake, they were already at the domain of the Starry Night elven king. 

Marcel, who suddenly found himself fully awake after they arrived in the Palace of Stars in the domain where stars lit the sky brightly all day long, was forced to meet another beauty. 

The man whom both currently stood before was Lumos Nachen, the most beautiful Starry Night elf in existence. Like the night sky personified, he had pitch-black skin with specks of star-like sparks appearing all over his body. With streaming hair of white light and eyes which showed the night-sky above, he was the Starry Night, and his children are the Starry Night elven species. The spirits that surrounded him were numerous and unfamiliar to Marcel, but they danced graciously around the Night. He carried the face of pure gentleness and tranquility that granted all those who saw it rest, well, except for Lumos and Marcel, for some strange reason. 

“Honey~!” Hedos hurried towards Lumos with a child-like expression of joy, but when he got there, the gentle night grabbed his face and asked Hedos without the least bit of relaxing gentleness he had earlier, 

“What do you want?! I’m still not talking to you!” Lumos, having not realized that he was currently talking to Hedos as well as making him incredibly sad, looked at Hedos with a slight hint of anger. 

“But I said I’m sorry! I already told you that I didn’t do what Revalor said that I did. Why won’t you believe me?” Hedos tried reasoning with Lumos but the latter wasn’t ready to listen to what might be lies. 

“Tell me later when you’re ready to tell me the truth about what happened. I hate your lies!” Lumos was adamant about not listening to what Hedos currently had to say so their relationship was still as rocky as two stones balancing upon each other. Um, if you haven’t guessed already, the Shadows and the Night are, or rather, were in a relationship and Night messed up and is currently on the bad side of Shadows.  

Anyway, back to more important matters that don’t involve two of the Elven Originator’s children quarreling because one of them looked at another of the Elven Originator’s children with funny eyes, thus the other assumed that the latter was cheating and won’t listen to him until he confesses the truth. 

“So, what are you doing here?” The Night asked the Shadows. 

“Alverona strikes again, that’s what! You see, I’ll explain...” He then explained everything to Night who quickly understood what needed to be done. What had Alverona done to garner upon herself the hatred of all the elven rulers? Well, it all has to do with when they were all very young children and young Alverona forever made herself the one they needed to defeat to live down that one terrible day. Point is, Alverona is the enemy of all the elven rulers and that will never change, even after a couple billion years. 

The moment Lumos heard the name ‘Alverona’, he was immensely riled and took it upon himself to complete the ritual for granting Marcel the elven nature of night. Marcel was put into the Essence of the Night Stars, a pool of energy that was used to create the ruler of night in an attempt to grant him the nature of the starry night elves; something that was incredibly harder to do than granting him the nature of other elves. Shockingly but also expectedly, Marcel’s strange body absorbed the energy of the stars after more than ten hours and lowered the volume of the essence inside the pool by a lot. He gained a few unknown benefits and was sent on his merry way by Lumos to the next king but before they left, Lumos said to Hedos who still hadn’t left yet, 

“If you don’t want me to lose any of my affection towards you, then you’d better prepare the apologetic gifts as well as be ready to come tell me the truth, or else, we’re over!” Lumos said. 

“Don’t worry! I’ll prepare the gifts and come very soon! Now I feel like my little secret wasn’t worth all the misery I suffered at your hands trying to hide it. I’ll be back to tell you the truth!” Hedos exclaimed. 

Lumos nodded and sent Marcel to his next destination and during that time, Hedos left for his domain with a lot of preparations to make. 

Traveling again by portal, Marcel found himself with the next elven king, the King of Elven Waters and Lumos’s best friend, Aquafos Valte; the almost spirit-like and beautiful, watery-blue elven king. He had hair of the clearest waters and skin so white that he was almost transparent. With a body like a spirit’s than a being of the physical world, this king exuded the aura of the alluring creatures that Marcel had heard of as a child. They enchanted sailors at sea with their immense beauty and when they got close enough, dragged them under the waters and drove them to their deaths, and torture their souls. Because of the tails he read as a child, he felt slightly uneasy upon seeing, Aquafos but after being forcefully dragged into the pool Aquafos was in when he first arrived, he felt even tenser until he learned that this was to grant him the nature of the elven waters and that the waters also healed. He relaxed even more and as he did, Aquafos left the water to speak with Lumos while Marcel ‘cooked’ in the water until he was ready. 

After Aquafos came Flurie, the elven embodiment of frosty winters and icy cold chills which cooled the blood of all who entered his domain: The Wispy Frost King, Flurie Thawhart. With skin as white as snow, hair as icy blue; the color of frozen, flowing waters, and frozen lips that gave those without his nature who met it the kiss of death, he was known as the most terrifying of all the elven kings. 

His domain, the Frozen Icy Plains, was the least populated unlike the other elven domains as well because of how frigid and unwelcoming that area was, albeit occasionally seeing some sun. Although his power allowed frozen life fully adapted to that environment to exist, not many Wispy Frost elves are born every few centuries and thus, this place, although incredibly beautiful, continues to remain one of the most desolate places in Tharrelan. 

Marcel didn’t feel any of the cold in King Flurie’s domain thanks to Frostbite’s last gift to him, the Blessing of Frosty Winters, so after Aquafos explained the situation and gained Flurie’s full support after mentioning Alverona, Marcel was encased in a form of Eternal Ice that the Elven King of Wispy Frost controlled and after a few hours, was granted the nature of Wispy Frost elves and broke free of the ice. Marcel, after the ritual was complete, was sure that he’d be able to better control Frostbite. 

The next king on the list is Thorngalt Freyblad, Elven King of Luscious Forests, living in the lush forests to the west of Tharrelan. He was the most down-to-earth of the elven kings apart from the Sunfire king that Marcel had met, albeit being a child of the Elven Originator. He seemed very excited to meet Marcel from the very beginning without even knowing the purpose of their visit because Marcel carried something, he found very interesting. 

Anyways, after Flurie explained the situation and dropped Marcel off to Thorngalt, he left, and Marcel was left to the Forest Elven King. He didn’t do much except put Marcel in an Icron, a giant flower full of magic power connected directly to him, and when Marcel fell unconscious as he laid in the Icron, he transferred the forest elves’ nature unto him. His method was probably the most non-painful way of transferring the natures to Marcel and it became so thanks to this ‘thing’ that Marcel carried. 

Marcel awoke after the completion of nature-transfer to an excited Thorngalt who had a lot to ask.  

“Where did you get that mark on your left arm?! Tell me!” He asked, terribly excited and uncomfortably chipper. Marcel didn’t really know how to answer, so he told him the bare minimum. 

“Um, I got it from a dryad! I helped him and he gave it to me as a gift.” He answered. 

“Oh, interesting! Just take good care of it! It’ll help you a lot on your long journey.” Thorngalt finally calmed down and said to him. Marcel heaved a sigh of relief as he realized that nothing weird was going to happen to him. Thorngalt invited him for a chat soon after and he had a great time before he was sent off to the next king; that being Vanos Trisvyren, Elven King of Life, also known as the ‘king who gives life to what was lost’ or Undead King. 

After meeting Vanos and bathing in a literal volcano of cold flames, he visited the six remaining elven kings who gladly granted him their elven species’ nature. Even the most irritable of the elven kings, Alvor Mortes, Elven King of Poisons, granted Marcel his species’ elven nature and thus, his nine-day journey of being passed around by the elven kings came to an end with him being sent back to the Sunfire King by the last elven king, Ilphos Tempest, the Elven King of Winds and Storms. 

In total, Marcel managed to absorb all thirteen different elven essences, much to the thirteen king’s surprise, thus acquiring all thirteen elven natures, albeit most of them laid dormant to awaken when the time of Marcel’s rebirth came. Currently, he had resistance to several different natures, is telepathically connected to the elven kings who can contact him whenever they see fit and his body looked to be quite stable, even after all the harsh torture it’d been through. Marcel gained a lot from this but will it really be worth it in the end? Spoiler, it won’t! 

[A/N: This chapter was written as soon as I could get it out. Please comment below if you notice any mistakes. I've skimmed through it as quickly as I could before uploading this so tell me if you notice anything wrong, like spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. I'll fix it right away.]