“This is everything I have experienced. I have sealed it all within this crown. If I fail to change the Holy Tree, then you must deliver this crown to the newborn twins. They will learn the truth from my memories.”
“As for what you do after that… that will be entirely up to you.”
In the year 257 of the New Era, sensing his body had reached its limit, Anaris summoned Aldorin and Sylvie to the Holy Grounds to give them his final instructions.
Twenty years had passed.
This king, who could truly be called a legend, bore no trace of his youthful appearance.
Countless vines were deeply embedded in his body, greedily siphoning his life force, bringing him endless pain with every passing moment.
Fortunately, his sacrifice had yielded considerable returns.
Laughter once again filled the streets and alleys of the City of Emerald Shadows.
Residents would fret over daily trivialities; couples would laugh at their children’s antics; students would groan under the weight of their studies…
These most ordinary lives were the very reason he sat here.
Even if, in the eyes of all elves, he had become a tyrannical madman.
But he did not care.
A true king must bear all burdens to protect his people.
It was just a pity that his body had reached its limit.
“Teacher, Sylvie and I… our strength is still not enough to protect the elf race.”
Aldorin lowered his gaze.
He and Sylvie had worked hard enough.
For these twenty years, they had either been training to increase their power or studying statecraft, with less than twenty hours of rest per week.
Yet even so, they had only just reached the Ninth Tier.
The distance to the Saint Realm was still vast.
“I know.”
Anaris pointed a withered finger towards the branches of the Holy Tree, where two vibrant fruits were nearing maturity.
“The Holy Tree does not need my Douqi or Mana. They have all been stored within those two fruits. When I return to the soil, those fruits will fully ripen.”
“Eat them, and you will receive all of my Douqi and Mana. I cannot say how much you will be able to convert for your own use, but it should be enough for you to ascend to the Saint Realm.”
“After that… the future of the elf race will be in your hands.”
Anaris’s voice grew softer and softer.
By the time Aldorin and the other realized something was wrong, his body completely shattered, turning into countless fragments that mixed with the soil, becoming indistinguishable from it.
In the year 257 of the New Era, the first Elven King, Anaris, returned to the Holy Tree.
The Light Elf Aldorin inherited the position of Elven King.
He selected five elves who had witnessed the Holy Tree’s descent during the War of Divine Fire but had not received its blessing, establishing a new Council of Elders to reassure those citizens who feared the Elven King held too much power.
That same year, the Holy Tree gave birth to the third-generation twins, Kalimudo and Arania.
Aldorin personally took on the responsibility of raising them and handling all political affairs of the Natural Forest.
Sylvie, meanwhile, led the new Council of Elders in establishing the Sacred Wood Monastery, serving as its bishop and conducting research on the Holy Tree.
During this time, Sylvie also went beneath the City of Emerald Shadows in search of clues.
There, she ultimately found a trace of unclaimed Spiritual Power.
It belonged to the first Dark Elf, Ashlin.
Slaanesh had left an extra strand of Spiritual Power within each of the first twins as an insurance measure.
This way, whether Anaris killed Ashlin or Ashlin killed Anaris, His avatar would descend upon the world.
The extra strand within Anaris had transformed into her and Aldorin.
But the strand within Ashlin, due to the disappearance of Slaanesh’s consciousness, had become pure Spiritual Power.
Sylvie tried to control it but found she was not qualified.
Only an existence possessing the status of an Outer God was qualified to use Spiritual Power.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t make use of it.
Sylvie began her preparations.
Magic was a gift from the gods, and Mana, fundamentally, was degraded Spiritual Power.
When faced with higher-grade Spiritual Power, unclaimed Mana would exhibit a characteristic of fear and move away from it.
Mimicking this characteristic, Sylvie created a new form of magic—Isolation Magic.
It could disperse unclaimed Mana, allowing the magical formulas within to remain in their complete form without being activated by the Mana present in the environment.
Sylvie planned to use this magic to establish a magical library, collecting all the magical formulas known to mages for future generations to learn, in order to close the vast gap accumulated over nearly three hundred years between the Natural Forest and the other six nations.
But this magic itself required a massive amount of Mana to sustain, which troubled Sylvie for a long time.
In the end, she couldn’t think of a good solution, so she chose the most extravagant method.
She dug a well and, day after day, concentrated her own Mana into a liquid form and poured it into the well.
But this presented a new problem: the Mana would dissipate into the environment, causing the amount in the well to decrease.
To solve this, Sylvie placed a teleportation magic circle at the bottom of the well, with the other end connected directly to the prison containing the Spiritual Power.
The dissipation problem was solved, but relying on Sylvie alone, it would take at least a thousand years to fill the well.
So Aldorin fabricated a lie.
He claimed that by contributing Mana to the well, one had a chance to receive the blessing of the Holy Tree.
The more one contributed, the greater the possibility of receiving a blessing.
For a time, all the mages in the Natural Forest flocked to the City of Emerald Shadows, day and night, tirelessly offering their Mana to the well.
“Don’t you feel even a little guilty deceiving your own people like this?”
When Sylvie finally got some time to rest and met with Aldorin, she rolled her eyes.
Aldorin just chuckled.
“You’re the bishop of the Sacred Wood Monastery. Don’t you have the authority to interpret matters concerning the Holy Tree?”
“Besides, I am the Elven King. As long as their wishes aren’t too outrageous, I can help fulfill them. It’s not really a deception, is it?”
Aldorin embraced her from the front, rubbing his chin affectionately against her cheek.
“Most importantly… you haven’t spent time with me in so long.”
“…So isn’t that why I came back today?”
Sylvie responded to his expectations with an embrace and a passionate kiss.
Their long separation made their actions especially wild.
The man’s muffled groans, the woman’s moans, and the sound of bodies colliding filled the entire room.
But neither of them could have imagined that this night would be their last moment of warmth together.
In the year 310 of the New Era, the Holy Tree erupted in turmoil once again.
The City of Emerald Shadows underwent a drastic transformation overnight.
Every elf seemed to turn into a rusted puppet, stiffly performing a play called “Daily Life.”
It was only at this moment that Aldorin and the others truly witnessed for the first time how bizarre and terrifying the elf race was under the Holy Tree’s control.
They had the same faces as you, but their movements, their expressions, their every word gave you a profound sense of dissonance, making you clearly perceive that what stood before you was not your kin.
And the Holy Tree’s resurgence meant one thing—Anaris had completely lost himself in the struggle against the Holy Tree’s instincts.
They didn’t even have time to grieve.
To save the residents of the City of Emerald Shadows, Aldorin, like Anaris before him, sat beneath the tree, using his own life force to resist the Holy Tree’s influence over the elf race.
The City of Emerald Shadows returned to normal.
However, the elves living there were surprised to find their king rarely appeared anymore, and the monastery’s bishop grew increasingly cold and distant.
She spent almost all her time researching the Holy Tree and establishing the magical library.
Unfortunately, in the end, she never saw the great project she was responsible for come to fruition.
In the year 360 of the New Era, Aldorin and Sylvie, like their teacher, returned to the Holy Tree to struggle against Its instincts.
Kalimudo and Arania consumed the Sacred Fruits containing their predecessors’ power, becoming the new generation’s Elven King and Bishop of the Sacred Wood Monastery.
Ten years later, thanks to Kalimudo’s vigorous promotion, the magical library Sylvie had longed for was finally completed.