Translator: Silavin
“These threads…”
Qin Yichen’s pupils contracted. Within his Knowledge Sea, the Spiritual Body within stirred, and the Divine Eyes snapped open in an instant.
His gaze followed the path of that dim, faded thread upward along the Tree of Life.
Beneath the scrutiny of the Divine Eyes, the Tree of Life, ordinarily so dense with vibrant Life Force, revealed one particular region that presented a condition of withering decay. Along that stretch of branches and trunk, a sense of deathly stillness pervaded, utterly at odds with the teeming vitality surrounding it. It had a barren and lifeless emptiness to it.
“The Tree of Life is withering?” A look of profound shock rose in Qin Yichen’s eyes, his mind full of disbelief.
The Tree of Life was said to be the Source of Life of all things. How ancient was its existence? How long had it stood? Before the Human Race had even e into being, the Tree of Life and the Elf Race had already existed.
“Oh?” In the midst of Qin Yichen’s astonishment, the Elf Queen too had sensed something was different about him, and said with a trace of surprise, “You noticed?”
Without the Divine Eyes to probe, Qin Yichen would never have perceived the anomaly.
To all appearances, the Tree of Life showed no sign of anything amiss, its vitality as rich and abundant as ever. Yet under the penetrating gaze of the Divine Eyes, its true nature was laid bare, and the irregularity concealed within was revealed.
Upon seeing Qin Yichen give a faint nod of confirmation, the Elf Queen’s elegant brows drew together in an involuntary furrow.
In truth, the Tree of Life harboured a secret, and even among the Elders of the Elf Race, very few knew of this secret, that the Tree of Life was withering.
It was unclear precisely when it had begun.
The Elf Queen of that era had been the first to detect the anomaly within the Tree of Life. The entire Tree was like a great dam from which a crack had been breached, its Power of Life draining away in a ceaseless flow.
At the time, the entire Elf Race had exhausted every conceivable method, and yet none of it had made any difference. In the end, it had been the Elf Queen of that era who had resorted to a Forbidden Technique, offering herself as a sacrifice to the Tree of Life, and only by that means was the breach barely sealed.
Even so, this had been no more than a remedy for the symptoms rather than the root cause.
The Tree of Life continued to wither. The pace was so gradual as to be almost imperceptible, and in relation to the sheer enormity of the Tree of Life, it amounted to no more than one hair from nine oxen.
Yet across the endless passage of ages, the cumulative loss had already caused one portion of the Tree of Life’s branches and leaves to wither away.
If this trajectory continued, then in perhaps another hundred thousand years or so, the Elf Race’s Ancestral Tree would in all likelihood wither pletely.
Should that day e, whether the Elf Race could continue to survive within this territory, coveted on all sides by countless other Races, would bee an extraordinarily grave question.
This secret, within the Elf Race, was known only to the Elf Queen and a handful of the most ancient among them. Now, an outsider had stumbled upon it, and within the Elf Queen’s heart, the thought of silencing him rose and took shape.
After all, if this matter were ever to spread beyond these borders, it would bring catastrophic panic crashing down upon the Elf Race, and those other Races, who watched from the shadows with hungry eyes, would in all likelihood unite and act together to carve the Elf Race apart.
The secret of the Tree of Life could under no circumstances be permitted to leave this place.
“The Tree of Life seems to be missing something.” Yet Qin Yichen, as though entirely unaware of the killing intent that had taken root in the Elf Queen’s heart, pressed his eyes shut.
His Divine Eyes swept along the path of that veiled thread, sweeping back and forth, as though searching for something.
The Elf Queen, too, had sensed his strange actions. Though the impulse to suppress him and keep him locked up within the Elf Race was still there, she did not move to act on it just yet.
“There…” All at once, a tremor passed through Qin Yichen’s heart, as though some peculiar vibration had reached him from a distant point. In the next instant, his eyes flew open, and his hands drove sharply downward into the earth.
*Slash. Slash.*
With the physical constitution Qin Yichen possessed, even ordinary iron could be torn apart without effort. Clump after clump of dust and earth churned upward as his hands moved in sweeping arcs, scooped and hurled aside in rapid succession.
Such uninhibited and unrestrained behaviour would ordinarily have drawn an immediate response from any Elf who happened to witness it, yet at present, there was no one else nearby except for the Elf Queen herself.
And the Elf Queen made no attempt to stop him.
However, upon her face, there seemed to flicker something that could only be described as a deeply moved expression.
Time passed, difficult to measure. Beneath the Tree of Life, a pit had been dug down to a depth of roughly one metre, just wide enough for a single person to pass through, dropping away into a darkness with no visible bottom.
And Qin Yichen’s silhouette had vanished into it.
At that moment, Qin Yichen’s pupils were clenched tight, and his hands had stopped moving.
There, within a mass of earth and dust directly ahead of him, he saw it. The dim thread of light, within which countless black specks drifted and floated.
These black specks stirred a sense of familiarity in him, something he could not quite place yet could not dismiss, something eerie and malevolent, devouring every trace of life they touched.
Qin Yichen’s expression grew grave. These black specks bore a striking, almost unsettling resemblance to the evil things he had witnessed in the inheritance of the Demon Subduing Great Saint. It was a resemblance so close it felt as though they shared the same origin and root.
“The Tree of Life is suppressing something. By the look of it, the seal must have suffered a breach, and that is how these evil things have begun to erode it.”
Qin Yichen’s expression was grave. He dared not dig any deeper. If he were to disturb whatever was being restrained, his current strength would not only prove useless. In fact, it might well bring a devastating calamity down upon the Elf Race.
“You have found something, right?”
After Qin Yichen emerged, the Elf Queen gave her sleeve a light sweep. Dust billowed and swirled, and within moments the patch of earth had restored itself to its original state.
“The seal is damaged.”
Qin Yichen pondered briefly, then answered.
“Worthy of being called the finest of the Human Race.”
The Elf Queen’s eyes narrowed slightly, a cool smile crossing her lips, though within those eyes, a cold gleam flickered.
“That was what Your Majesty spoke of earlier, no? This is the reason.”
Qin Yichen said.
The Elf Queen paused for a moment, understanding immediately that he was referring to the ‘difficult’ matter of the Life Scripture.
“I wonder if Your Majesty might permit me to go and see the damaged portion of the seal for myself?”
Observing the Elf Queen’s expression, Qin Yichen knew his guess had landed close to the truth.
The Life Scripture must indeed be meant to be prehended within the Tree of Life itself, and the Royal Palace the Elf Queen had spoken of was surely only a secondary option.
He did not know how immense the difficulty of prehending the Life Scripture truly was, yet regardless of the oute, there was only one thing he wanted, to give Little Ling’er nothing short of the best.
“Are you sure you wish to see it?” Faced with the seriousness in Qin Yichen’s tone, the Elf Queen let a faint smile curve the corner of her lips and asked.
“I respectfully request Your Majesty’s permission.” Qin Yichen cupped his hands and answered.
Within his heart, he smiled a bitter smile to himself. [I know that the more I learn, the more danger I’m placing myself in. Even within the Human Race, one could not reasonably expect to permit an outsider to learn the secrets of such weight and then simply allow them to walk away.]
It was now obvious that the Elf Queen harboured thoughts of detaining him. Perhaps, even of silencing him permanently. However, he had no other path left available to him. He had already stumbled upon this secret, and the Elf Queen already knew about it.
For now, all he could do was try his utmost to secure an opportunity for Little Ling’er to e into contact with the Life Scripture within the Tree of Life, and beyond that, he could only wait for Avril’s baptism to end, in the hope that she might intercede on his behalf and preserve his life..
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