A Guardian is not one who protects a specific nation or person, but the world itself where people can live. They monitor global disasters and anomalies, making the decision to sustain the whole even if it means sacrificing a part, bearing that responsibility alone. Therefore, a Guardian is required to prioritize the survival of the world over their own emotions or happiness.

For example, they used human souls to cultivate barren lands. For example, some offered their own souls in pursuit of a better world.

Elias also became a Guardian out of a desire to save someone, but over the long years, he gradually stopped thinking about "what he wanted" and began to think only of "what he must do as a Guardian."

Elias is fundamentally a person who wishes for the survival of people and the world more than anyone else. He is calm, dignified, and at times acts ruthlessly, but at his core is a strong sense of responsibility that prioritizes the happiness of others over his own.

Over the long years, he has shed even his memories and personal feelings to live as "one who fulfills the mission." Yet, deep inside, the time spent with his former comrades and a heart that wishes for their happiness remains.

A certain Hero first meets him as one side trying to use them for a purpose and the other trying to stop it. To Elias, the Hero was initially nothing more than an existence obstructing his plans.

However, through repeated confrontations and the clashing of their beliefs, he comes to know the essence of the Hero's strength.

Heroes do not fight because they were ordered to. It is not for praise or glory.

They reach out to those suffering before them, and if something is about to be lost, they choose to be hurt themselves.

That was something Elias himself once possessed.

Elias also lived to protect someone. It's just that the things he had to protect became too many.

To save the world as a whole, one must accept the sacrifice of an individual. Thus, he repeatedly makes the choice to "discard the one to save the many."

In contrast, the Hero never gives up on saving the "one" standing before them.

That difference binds the two as enemies.

But at the same time, it is that very difference that makes Elias unable to take his eyes off the Hero.

He saw in the Hero his forgotten self. And the Hero also comes to know that what lies behind Elias's actions is not hatred or a desire for dominance, but a wish to reclaim what was lost.

Though they are enemies, the two become those who understand each other's loneliness most deeply.

The final confrontation is not a battle between good and evil.

It was the settlement between two heroes, each facing the other with something they could not yield to protect the future they believed in.

And finally, Elias finds in the Hero the shadow of a "former friend" who lived with him in the distant past.

The opponent with whom he had crossed blades many times as an enemy was an existence inheriting the same soul as the friend he had lost.

That fact carries more weight than victory or defeat.

Elias does not abandon his mission until the very end. Even so, in that moment alone, he looks at the Hero not as one burdened by a mission, but as a single human being.

—The things I have tried to protect are no longer in my hands.

Still, there are those who will inherit them and live on.

The relationship between Elias and the Hero begins with hostility and leads to understanding.

And finally, they return to being "those who once wished for the same thing."

It is not a simple reconciliation.

A deep affection exchanged at the end by two people who, having crossed a vast span of time, finally understood each other's existence.