Magis’s back was like a moving stone mountain.
He walked silently at the front, each step heavy and oppressive as he ascended the deep stairs leading to the heart of the Sanctum.
Elena, Lin En, and Elaine followed closely behind, surrounded by the complex gazes of Enders warriors within the hall—confusion, vigilance, and deep concern over their leader’s unprecedented actions.
In front of The Sealed Door behind the throne, locked by massive Runes, Magis halted.
Under the watchful eyes of all, this iron-blooded war chief sliced open his fingertip.
Crimson blood, brimming with power, dripped down.
Using blood as ink, he swiftly and precisely drew a complex Arcane Mark upon the ancient Runes.
“Buzz—”
The Rune glowed, and the heavy stone door emitted a low, tooth-aching rumble as it slowly opened inward.
Beyond the door was not the expected hall, but a spiraling black staircase descending into unfathomable depths.
The moment the door opened, a suffocating aura of life’s withering rushed forth.
Elaine, the aged alchemist, instinctively stepped back half a pace.
He had dealt with all manner of energies throughout his life, yet never had he felt such a vast, life-devouring force.
It filled him with awe—and a primal discomfort.
Elena’s expression was a mix of reverence and tension.
She longed to find hope for “purification” within this power, yet was unsettled by Magis’s abnormal behavior.
Only Lin En, as precise as an arcane instrument, calmly analyzed the energy.
He closed his eyes, sensing its connection to the Wither Fever afflicting his mother.
No doubt—they shared the same origin, but here the power was greater, purer, as vast as the star sea.
Most importantly… it was perfect and stable, without the slightest sign of disease.
This deepened Lin En’s suspicions.
At the end of the stairway lay a natural cavern, magnificent beyond imagination.
Countless crystals emitting a dim glow studded the dome above like stars, casting a dreamlike radiance over everything below.
At the cavern’s center was no altar, but an Absolute Void shrouded by an invisible force field.
And within that void, the legendary sacred relic—[Isolated Remains]—floated.
It was an irregular crystal the size of an adult’s arm.
Its surface was smooth as a mirror, flawless without the slightest blemish.
Within its depths, countless stars seemed to turn slowly, radiating a supreme power that “devoured all things.”
Seeing this, Elena and Magis both unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.
The relic was intact.
But in the next instant, their confused gazes turned to Lin En.
If the relic was whole, then where had the fragment he brought come from?
Magis, ever silent, slowly turned.
The confusion on his chiseled face now surpassed even his earlier shock.
He looked first at the still-sealed Alchemical Box in Lin En’s hand, then up at the flawless divine relic.
For the first time, his iron will wavered violently.
“Look.”
The war chief pointed at the floating sacred relic, his voice heavy as collapsing mountains.
“This is the [Isolated Remains], the supreme sacred relic of our race. It is whole and unbroken.”
Lin En did not reply immediately; instead, his brow furrowed even tighter.
He signaled Elaine to open the Alchemical Box once more, letting the withered aura inside escape and resonate with the vast power within the cavern.
Only then did he raise his head, meeting Magis’s gaze, and spoke in a probing, not accusatory, tone:
“Lord Magis, they are absolutely of the same origin. But the relic you guard is flawless. Why is this…?”
Magis’s brows tightened, his gaze locked on Lin En as if to pierce his soul.
For a long moment, his tense body slowly relaxed, and a look of pain and struggle appeared in his eyes.
At last, as if resolving himself, he decided to speak the secret the Dark Elves had guarded for a thousand years.
“You are right…”
He admitted hoarsely.
“That power indeed originates here. But it should never have appeared in the outside world.”
He turned his back to them, looking up at the majestic relic, and began to tell a history shrouded in dust:
“A thousand years ago, our Queen accepted the Oracle of the Goddess of Life and devoured all the Golden Elves, becoming a monster like the Flesh Broodmother. It endlessly consumed all vitality to expand itself—our cities, our kin, all became its nourishment, and our people teetered on extinction.”
“In our utter despair, the High Priestess of that era—a great Oracle—sacrificed her entire life and soul, offering the most devout prayer to the Lord of Boundaries. The deity… responded to her.”
“This sacred relic, the Isolated Remains, was the grace bestowed by the gods. Its power could effectively harm and block the life force erosion of the Flesh Broodmother. Thus, we built a great defensive line around the Broodmother with it as the core, imprisoning it forever in the Hall of Life.”
He paused, his tone growing even colder and harsher.
“To completely suppress it, we extracted the purest and most powerful force from the relic.”
“It was an ultimate weapon specifically targeting vitality, capable of ruthlessly devouring all life.”
“This weapon was used directly on the core of the Flesh Broodmother, to restrain its terrifying regenerative ability and prevent it from expanding outward.”
Hearing this, Lin En’s heart stirred.
He reached into his bag, producing several pitch-black, faintly withered Mimic Blight Fungus samples, placing them on the ground.
Next, he took out a fragment of a Golden Armored Devouring Locust’s carapace.
Though its energy fluctuations differed in form, in essence, they were identical to the fungus.
Finally, he exchanged a glance with Elaine.
The aged chief alchemist immediately understood, stepped forward, and opened another Alchemical Sealing Box designed to block energy contamination.
Inside was a small handful of Gray-white Soil eroded by the Withering Plague.
The three items lay side by side on the ground.
Though their power was far weaker than the relic fragment, their shared aura wove a silent web pointing to the same source.
Only after doing all this did Lin En raise his head, his gaze blazing as he looked at Magis.
“Lord Magis, these things were found at the edge of the forest. Their power is also of the same origin as your relic, but seems… less strong and stubborn than Wither Fever. Are they your weapons as well?”
Magis’s eyes fell upon the three pieces of evidence, his mountain-like composure once more shattered by shock.
Magis took a deep breath, his voice carrying an unhidden sense of defeat for the first time.
He nodded heavily, pointing at the three items on the ground as he continued hoarsely:
“On the outer defenses of the Flesh Broodmother, we used diluted power to create what you call ‘Mimic Blight Fungus’ and ‘Withering Plague’ as defensive measures.”
“They serve two purposes: first, to reinforce the cage and prevent the Broodmother from escaping; second, to devour any foreign life attempting to approach, lest the Broodmother absorb their vitality and grow stronger.”
So that’s it.
Lin En instantly understood everything.
If the Flesh Broodmother at the forest’s core was a super-cancer cell capable of destroying the entire ecosystem, then everything the Dark Elves had done over a thousand years was to build a vast, intricate, and layered “Immunity System” around this cancer cell!
This immunity system even mimicked biological instincts.
The outer skin and mucosa were the seemingly natural geographical barriers, along with broad-spectrum, low-intensity environmental modifications like Mimic Blight Fungus and Withering Plague.
Their function was “non-specific immunity,” blocking most low-threat “bacteria” and “viruses” (foreign organisms) from approaching and being devoured by the “cancer cell,” preventing it from gaining more nourishment.
The patrol soldiers inside—the macrophages—were the Golden Armored Devouring Locusts.
They were the “phagocytes,” actively patrolling and eliminating more dangerous “invaders” that breached the first line of defense, nipping threats in the bud.
And the Beast Tide?
Those raging demon beasts, seemingly controlled by an unseen hand—
That wasn’t regular defense.
It was… an emergency response!
The immunity system, upon detecting a “high-threat intrusion”—like an entire team invading—would instantly activate and trigger an “immune storm!”
Through some unknown mechanism, the system would temporarily commandeer and enrage all native creatures within the area, turning them into a one-time, all-out assault wave to saturate and annihilate the intruders!
It was a wild, chaotic, but brutally efficient cleansing method, like the body raising a high fever to kill a virus, even at risk of self-damage!
And the final, ultimate attack aimed at the core disease was the purest ultimate weapon, Wither Fever, extracted from the Isolated Remains.
It was like the T-cells of the immunity system—precisely and lethally targeting the “cancer cell” itself with a “specific immune attack”!
This immune system was meticulously divided and logically airtight, forming a theoretically inescapable death cage from outside to inside.
Realizing this, the confusion in Lin En’s eyes vanished, replaced by absolute calm born of understanding.
He looked up, his gaze passing over Magis, as if piercing layers of rock to see the cancer cell core battered by Wither Fever for centuries.
A normal immunity system could not simply produce a fragment of power lost to the outside.
The only explanation was—
That cancer cell, after enduring a thousand years of immune attacks and sieving, had not only survived but… evolved!
Like a cunning virus, it disguised itself as immune cells to fool the entire defense system!
Magis turned back to Lin En.
“Wither Fever is our core, most lethal weapon. It is strictly confined to attacking the Broodmother’s core and personally overseen by me. None of us… know how it could have leaked outside, even into the world…”
This ultimate puzzle pressed upon everyone like a mountain.
“Unless…”
Elena, who had been silently pondering, suddenly reacted, her voice trembling.
“Unless something happened on the Broodmother’s side!”
“That’s it!”
Elaine also grasped the key point at once.
“If the relic itself is intact, the only explanation is that the Flesh Broodmother—after centuries of Wither Fever assault—underwent an unpredictable mutation in its core region! It… somehow spread the power of Wither Fever outward!”
This deduction struck like lightning, piercing everyone’s confusion in an instant.
Purification or annihilation?
The path the Dark Elves had debated for centuries now seemed pale and laughable.
Before them stood a common enemy—one that had undergone unknown evolution, becoming even more terrifying.