Arania named it the Fountain of Memory and recorded all the magic she knew within it for mages to study.
This was a good thing.
Even Kalimudo felt a genuine flicker of joy.
Ever since inheriting the title of Elven King, a shadow had loomed over him.
That was the fact that after Aldorin and his wife returned to the Holy Tree, no new elf twins were born.
Had the capricious evil god changed His mind?
Or had Aldorin and the others failed to meet the requirement of killing the other twin to become a Great Demon?
Kalimudo couldn’t guess the answer.
Lacking successors, they had to act with even greater caution.
Fate, however, loves to play tricks.
The new Council of Elders, after a century of research on the Holy Tree with no progress, made a huge breakthrough in the second year after the Fountain of Memory was built.
“Using this magic, our souls can enter the interior of the Holy Tree.”
Arania looked directly into Kalimudo’s eyes, speaking resolutely.
“This is our only hope of defeating the Holy Tree. Even if we fail, we will understand It better.”
“Kalimudo, the Holy Tree has not bestowed new twins. We cannot both go in. The price of failure would be too great for the elf race to bear.”
“So, this time, only I will enter the Holy Tree. If you notice anything abnormal, quickly kill my physical body. Become a complete Great Demon, and protect the elf race with my share of the burden.”
Kalimudo didn’t know how to stop her.
He had no reason to stop her.
All he could do was guard Arania’s body beneath the Holy Tree’s branches.
But when she returned, she brought disaster for the entire elf race.
“The Holy Tree has awakened!”
Her face was filled with terror and remorse.
“To save me, our teachers exhausted the last of their strength. But I was still influenced by It!!!”
Arania clawed at her own face.
Deep within her usually calm, beautiful eyes, a speck of pink was quietly expanding.
“Kalimudo, kill me!!! Before I completely become Its puppet, kill me!!!”
“Then, use the magic I taught you to seal It! Once the Holy Tree fully awakens, the entire continent will become a hellscape of nothing but mindless indulgence!!!”
“Hurry!!! Do it!!! I can’t hold on much longer!!!”
Kalimudo remained silent.
He merely lowered the sword in his hand under her pleading gaze.
Arania, like her predecessor Ashlin, chose to die in the arms of the one she loved most at the end of her life.
Whoosh~
Before Kalimudo could even process his grief, he suddenly felt a gust of wind.
He turned his head and saw two male infants floating quietly before him.
A new generation of elf twins had been born.
Kalimudo reached out to take them, but when he looked at the black-haired infant, his body shuddered violently.
On the baby’s body were pink markings—the symbol of the Holy Tree’s control!
Kalimudo’s worst fear had come true.
The Holy Tree’s influence wasn’t limited to Arania.
From now on, every Dark Elf born would be affected by Its madness, eventually becoming Its loyal puppet.
If even Arania couldn’t withstand the Holy Tree’s corruption, how long could a newborn infant hold out?
Kalimudo’s initial shock gradually solidified into resolve.
First, he used the newly acquired power of a Great Demon to seal the recently awakened consciousness of the Holy Tree.
Then, he made the newborn Light Elf a Great Demon and brought him back to the City of Emerald Shadows.
By now, the City of Emerald Shadows had completely transformed into a theater.
Every resident had become a poorly acting performer, stiffly continuing to play out their past lives.
Kalimudo ignored the city’s bizarre sights and went straight to the Sacred Wood Monastery, only to find the situation there even worse than in the city.
They had directly faced the evil god’s corruption and lacked Arania’s inherent resistance, being born from the same source as the Holy Tree.
The moment they witnessed the evil god, their souls shattered, turning them into mindless husks that only screamed “Slaanesh.”
Slaanesh.
Kalimudo knew that was the Holy Tree’s true name.
It had awakened from its slumber and, with absolute, overwhelming force, had shown him its terror.
Was there anything in this world that could resist It?
Kalimudo couldn’t think of anything.
In that case, until he found a way to deal with Slaanesh, the fewer people who knew the truth, the better.
He sealed off the entire Natural Forest, erased all information about Dark Elves from the elf race’s records, and disguised the elves’ loss of emotion as emotional dullness brought on by longevity.
From then on, only successive Elven Kings would learn the truth of history from the crown.
In the year 410 of the New Era, to combat the increasingly powerful will of the Holy Tree, Kalimudo returned to the Holy Tree.
The fourth Elven King, Alvain, succeeded him.
During his reign, the Savage Bear Tribe from among the Orc Tribes launched a sudden and fierce assault on the Natural Forest.
The war lasted a full ten years.
It finally ended when Alvain beheaded the Savage Bear Tribe’s chieftain, leading to the rapid defeat and eventual absorption of this strongest orc tribe by other tribes.
The losses for the Natural Forest were also severe.
A full third of the elves perished in this war.
When a weary Alvain returned to the City of Emerald Shadows, he found that the seal Kalimudo had placed on the Holy Tree was showing signs of loosening.
Thus, Alvain, having just finished a major war, spent another five years reinforcing the seal.
On the outside of the original seal, he added another layer—one that could not be broken by external force unless both a Light Elf and a Dark Elf were sacrificed simultaneously.
At the same time, he intensified the containment of the Natural Forest.
From then on, the elf race completely vanished from the continent’s stage.
In the year 479 of the New Era, Alvain returned to the Holy Tree.
The fifth Elven King, Veronica, succeeded him.
She invented Wood Soldier Magic, which could, when necessary, transform all the trees of the Natural Forest into soldiers with the combat power of Second Tier mages, filling the elf race’s lack of military manpower.
In the year 593 of the New Era, the sixth Elven King, Selena, succeeded.
By this time, the entire elf race had turned into puppets that only acted according to commands.
No matter how much life force Selena sacrificed, they showed not a flicker of emotion.
So she focused more of her energy on how to deal with the Holy Tree.
During her reign, she compiled the research on the Holy Tree conducted by successive Elven Kings and formulated a series of targeted, feasible countermeasures.
Beyond that, she also conceived of a method that might completely eliminate the evil god.
But this method still required possessing the status of an Outer God.
Apart from hoping for a new, benevolent Outer God who might descend to this world at an unknown time, Selena could only do her best to buy time.
In the year 726 of the New Era, Selena returned to the Holy Tree.
The seventh Elven King, Dylan, succeeded him.
He broke the decision made by the third Elven King, Kalimudo, to seal off the Natural Forest, attempting for the first time to cooperate with the outside world.
He traveled to the three great human kingdoms, only to find that the fear caused by the elves during the War of Divine Fire still lingered in human hearts.
Coupled with the Natural Forest’s five-hundred-year isolation, elves had become, in people’s mouths, creatures akin to monsters.
In their descriptions, elves had become monsters obsessed only with reproduction and war, short in stature and ugly in appearance.
Humans called them Goblins.
The three kingdoms had no Outer Gods, and with humanity’s hostility towards elves, apart from the Alendine Kingdom being willing to engage in trade with the Natural Forest, Dylan achieved nothing.
He went to the Orc Tribes, only to find the place had long since descended into a chaotic battleground.
For so-called blessings from the War God, even children who had just shed their milk teeth were forced to take up blades and charge at other tribes.
Relying on the power left by successive Elven Kings, Dylan managed to meet face-to-face with the chieftains of the four major tribes.
Without exception, his proposal for the orc tribes to join forces against the evil god was met with relentless pursuit from all orcs.
In the most dangerous instance, the chieftains of the four major tribes actually formed an alliance to corner him.
Fortunately, his strength was sufficient, and he fought his way out of the orc lands.
This place was already completely ruled by an evil god.
The look Dylan cast back at the orc tribes was filled with pity.
The pity of fellow sufferers.
He went to the Robert Empire, met the then Emperor and the Duke of Trenton, and learned from them how the first Robert and Trenton had sealed the only evil god still active after the War of Divine Fire.
It was a magnificent conspiracy, but unfortunately, it held no practical value for Dylan—the most crucial part of this conspiracy was that the evil god had betrayed itself.
Regardless, the trip to the Empire finally yielded an achievement.
Dylan, representing the Natural Forest, secretly formed an alliance with the Empire before departing.
He went to the Demonic Abyss.
In this westernmost land, led by the current Demon King, he met the most “benevolent” evil god.
It lay quietly in the depths of the Abyss, had done so for centuries, and had never shown any abnormality.
But the intuition of a Great Demon told Dylan that It was still alive.
Not only that, It was the one in the best condition among the current four evil gods.
It had no desire to forcibly control the demons, nor did It seek to rule the world.
It simply slept quietly in the depths of the Abyss.
There was even a river containing Its power flowing from the depths.
One only needed to drink a mouthful to gain strength that would take other races years to obtain.
“The Gift of the Gentle Father grants us unparalleled power. The price is merely the corruption of the weak-willed.”
“Fallen demons are purged internally by our demon race. You need not worry they will harm the lives of other races. Similarly, our internal affairs are of no concern to the king of a foreign race.”
The Demon King, a being whose individual strength was not far from his own, refused his proposal for cooperation.
Dylan returned to the lifeless City of Emerald Shadows and sat back upon the throne.
Looking back on his twenty years