Heavy hoofbeats echoed among the burning ruins, the firelight reflected by armor like moving metal walls, becoming a psychological deterrent more effective than swords.
A portion of the heavy infantry phalanx, coordinating with the cavalry, advanced from the rear with a solid shield formation, cutting off escape routes in certain directions, while simultaneously roaring like thunder: “Lay down your weapons! Surrender and live! Migrate to Deherim!”
The people who had been cowering and trembling in dark corners, facing such a massive military encirclement, completely lost any last shred of hope of slipping away.
Scattered escapees, driven out from the ruins and intercepted by the cavalry, were like helpless fish and shrimp caught in a wave, eventually guided by the Holy Tree Knights to a temporarily designated open area away from the core battlefield, where they were gathered.
Fear was still etched on every face.
But seeing that the soldiers were mainly herding rather than slaughtering, the despair in some people’s eyes receded slightly, replaced by a numb obedience.
The crowd grew larger and larger, a dense mass, filled with uneasy whispers and sobs.
Shen Mu remained seated on his horse, observing everything from above.
In the distance, under the concentrated fire of ballistas and rockets, a huge, burning branch of the War Tree snapped and crashed down with a roar, hitting the ground and raising a cloud of sparks and dust, as if adding a new footnote to this bloody conquest.
His gaze shifted from the burning tree and the orderly army, falling upon the Blue Star Humans who were being herded together like an ant colony, small and full of uncertainty, and an almost imperceptible curve formed on his lips.
Destroying the enemy was easy, but digesting “resources” had only just begun.
Amidst the embers of fire and death, the forced migration to Deherim began.
However, Shen Mu did not pay much attention to the migration of these Blue Star Humans.
He merely glanced at them calmly before withdrawing his gaze.
He cared more about the Wood Elf Village, which had already turned into a hellish inferno before him.
Thick smoke billowed, obscuring the remaining starlight in the sky; the core area of the burning Wood Elf Village, wasn't it just like hell?
The War Tree, that grotesque monster composed of twisted wood, decaying flesh, and dark brown slime, now stood amidst the towering flames, futilely waving its terrifying bone claws and barbed vines.
“ROAR—!”
A painful roar vibrated through the burning air; it was the ancient consciousness, forcibly awakened but deeply entrenched in agony, screaming.
But its power was firmly bound to the earth.
With every attack, its bone claws as massive as beams, and its vines writhing like venomous snakes, despite expending all its might, could only barely sweep a radius of over a hundred meters, kicking up shattered charred wood and splashing slime, then powerlessly droop or retract, only to twitch and burn futilely in the flames.
“No! Attack! Attack!”
Deep within the treehouse, the core room that once symbolized status was now nothing but shattered walls and a charred stench.
Half of Yang Di’s body was crushed by a falling burning beam, blood mixed with ash, turning him into a blood-soaked specter.
He huddled in a corner, his sole remaining eye wide like a copper bell, staring fixedly into the distance through the thick smoke and cracks in the ruined walls.
There stood the cold, formidable defensive lines of the Deherim army.
Over two hundred meters away.
Rows of cold siege ballistas, like silent behemoths, launched thick bolts with each taut release, striking the ancient tree’s massive trunk like battering rams, producing dull, soul-shattering impacts!
Wood splinters mixed with brownish, foul-smelling sap flew everywhere.
Arrows, endless arrows!
The Kujit’s flaming arrows, like a fiery meteor shower, continuously embedded themselves into the ancient tree’s body, igniting its decaying flesh.
The Rodok’s heavy crossbow bolts cunningly sought out gaps in the vine roots and flesh tumors.
The Holy Tree Knight Order’s longbowmen’s feathered arrows obscured the sky, raining down comprehensively on every corner of the colossal creature.
Shen Mu’s army, like the most precise killing machine, systematically carried out the execution.
They stood there, cold, efficient, and absolutely safe, positioned at a deadly distance beyond the War Tree's reach!
“Fools! Idiots! What are you doing? What kind of warriors retreat so far?!”
Yang Di clutched his hair, stained with blood and dust, his voice hoarse like a scraping gong, carrying a nearly collapsed frenzy: “Come back! Shen Mu! Make your men come back! I’ll crush you! Tear you to pieces, ahhh—!”
His screams echoed within the treehouse, but were completely drowned out by the ancient tree’s roars, the ballistas’Boom, and the crackling of flames outside.
He saw the cold eyes of the soldiers on the front line, saw the calm demeanor of the generals riding back and forth to relay orders, and saw the young figure in the distance, surrounded by Holy Tree Knights, looking down on the battlefield like a king—Shen Mu!
That indifferent face, that posture seated on horseback, every detail mercilessly mocked his struggle!
Despair!
Despair that pierced to the bone!
Like icy venom, it instantly infected every inch of his flesh!
His foundation was ruined, his people dead or defected, and his final, proud trump card, for which he had spared no expense, had become a giant, stationary target!
He could only be trampled like a dead dog by the enemy!
“Why?! Why—?!”
Yang Di furiously pounded the scorching floor with his fists, oblivious to his knuckles splitting and bleeding. His single eye was bloodshot and nearly shattered: “Plane… Wood Elf Plane! Great Elder! Where are you?! Power! Give me power! Make it move! Make it charge and crush them!”
As if his hysterical cries, filled with the deepest malice and despair, pierced through the chaotic space and fragments of the plane barrier.
A vast, ancient, yet intensely angry and questioning mental wave, like a cold iron awl, fiercely pierced into his already chaotic mind!
A majestic and enraged voice, as if exploding directly in Yang Di’s chaotic mind, drowned out all his frantic screams:
“Yang Di!!!”
Just a name, yet it contained overwhelming fury.
“You blasphemer! You greedy wretch! What we bestowed upon you was a bridge to communicate with nature, a seed to sustain the ecosystem! How dare you… how dare you use it to extract the last fragments! Wasting countless precious spiritual powers to prematurely develop… this twisted, unformed, and inferior ‘War Tree’?!?”
The voice was like ten thousand years of ice, carrying the ultimate contempt and disgust of a higher being for a lowly creature.
“The plane’s wrath is burning! Those remaining fragments of Nature's Will were meant to stabilize the passage and guide the last vestiges of life! Yet they were squandered on your futile, hateful revenge! Do you know what that means to us?! That is an unforgivable extravagance!!”
Yang Di’s mind went blank from the sudden reprimand, and then, a hundredfold stronger rage and malice erupted from the depths of his heart!
“Ahhhhh—!!”
He clutched his head and screamed, not just from physical agony, but from mental crushing. But he suddenly lifted his head, his sole remaining eye gleaming with a fiendish light, and with all his remaining mental power, he unleashed a hysterical curse at the source of that cold questioning:
“Go to hell! Wood Elves! Pointy-eared rats!”
Yang Di’s mental echoes were filled with obscenities and desperate madness:
“My loyalty?! Our sacrifice?! Decades of Green Leaf Group’s foundation, thousands of lives thrown in!! All to be your watchdogs!! Zhang Song! Zhang Bo! So many Wood Elf warriors!! All became your cannon fodder!!”
“Now! Now you sit idly by while I am besieged by that bastard Shen Mu! My village is burning! My warriors are wailing! I call out to you! Call out with my life!! But what about you?!”
His “voice” was like a wailing, blood-spitting vengeful spirit:
“You sealed the plane passage! Cut off the rune connection! You threw me away like useless trash! You watched us head towards destruction! And now you have the nerve to question me about expending power?! Am I supposed to just wait for Shen Mu’s men to cut off my head and kick it like a ball if I don’t fight for my life?!”
The other party's response was quicker and colder, like a whip lashing Yang Di's fragile spirit:
“Silence! You lowly worm! Green Leaf Group is merely a humble swamp that caught a glimpse of our glory in the apocalypse, meant to survive or perish in the storms! Our protection, our bestowal of runes, was already a great favor! It is your incompetence! Your uselessness! You have progressively ruined the situation beyond repair!”
The voice was filled with disdain and impatience:
“Your lives are no longer worth even a shred of the plane’s power! As for your final desperate struggle—that useless thing forcibly nurtured by burning fragments and spiritual power!”
The Elder’s icy mental fluctuations carried a sharp mockery:
“Look what you’ve created?! A deformity! A bloated mess! A defective product that can’t even coordinate basic plane traction, can’t stand firm, and can only wait for death in place! It can’t even traverse mountains like a true War Tree, even while rooted to the earth! Now it can only writhe in the fiery grave you dug for yourself! This is the ultimate blasphemy against nature’s might! A complete failure! You squandered our precious heritage, only to create a larger pyre and a laughingstock!”
“Immature power breeds immature monsters—”
The Elder’s final conclusion was like a verdict:
“Your foolishness has doomed Green Leaf’s last chance at survival and completely exhausted the plane’s remaining patience and investment!”
Boom!!!
Another massive, blazing branch, struck by ballista fire, snapped from the ancient tree’s main body with an earth-shattering crash,
And fell heavily near the remnants of the treehouse where Yang Di was hiding, sending up a shower of sparks and a scorching shockwave!
The immense tremor caused the already precarious house structure to completely collapse!
Yang Di was thrown by the air current, slammed hard against the charred wall, and then rolled onto the ground.
The cold, cruel conclusion from the Wood Elf Plane Elder, the revealed fatal flaw of the ancient tree’s immobility, along with Shen Mu’s distant mocking gaze, were like countless red-hot steel knives, utterly shredding his last nerves.
From the ruins, no longer came a human scream, but a horrifying, broken, and shrill shriek, like a dying beast compressing all its despair and malice to the extreme.
The cold, cruel conclusion from the Wood Elf Plane Elder, the revealed fatal flaw of the ancient tree’s immobility, along with Shen Mu’s distant mocking gaze, were like countless red-hot steel knives, utterly shredding his last nerves.
From the ruins, no longer came a human scream, but a horrifying, broken, and shrill shriek, like a dying beast compressing all its despair and malice to the extreme.
“ROAR—!!!”
The War Tree seemed to sense its core controller nearing complete collapse, letting out an even more painful and frantic roar, its massive wooden body violently twitching and fragmenting under the sustained barrage of ballistas and rockets.
Just as Yang Di’s scream was about to be swallowed by boundless darkness and physical agony, the cold and powerful mental link representing the Wood Elf Plane Elder suddenly vibrated again!
This time, it was no longer just a reprimand; it carried a hint of… urgency, barely perceptible?
“Yang Di! Listen to me!”
The Elder’s icy mental fluctuations forcibly cut off his wailing, carrying an unquestionable command: “The plane is enraged, but you… still have one last chance!”
Yang Di’s shattered mind jolted as if struck by an electric current.
Chance?
There’s still… a chance?!
His eye, not yet obscured by blood, widened, shining with an intensely frantic yet morbidly hopeful light in the smoke of the ruins.
“Ha… haha… a chance?” He squeezed out a hoarse, broken laugh from his throat, mixed with blood he coughed up.
“Do not question! You have no other path!”
The Elder’s mental power, like cold iron bands, firmly locked onto his wavering consciousness, conveying clear instructions: “Abandon your control over that inferior creation! Immediately, completely extract all the spiritual power accumulated within your Lord’s Core! Not a single shred left… integrate it into your own spiritual core!”
Yang Di froze.
Extract all the Lord’s power?
Integrate it into himself?
That meant completely abandoning control over the War Tree, and abandoning the last connection to this “territory” that was about to be utterly destroyed…
That giant monster would immediately lose its last guiding force, turning into a purely rampaging beast!
What did the Elder want to do?
“Then, open your ‘Spiritual Beacon’! Set yourself as the coordinate point, at maximum power!”
The Elder’s instructions were unquestionable, filled with an oppressive force that suppressed his hesitation: “The plane passage needs to precisely locate and lock onto you! This is the only way to save your life! Hurry!”
“Spiritual Beacon… coordinates… save me?”
The last shred of survival instinct in Yang Di’s chaotic mind was fiercely gripped by the words “save your life.”
“What are you hesitating for?! Foolish! This is an order! Not for you to consider! Execute it immediately!”
The Elder’s will lashed at his spirit like a whip, carrying extreme impatience and a kind of almost uncharacteristic anxiety that Yang Di had never felt before.
As if if he didn't comply immediately, they would miss something crucial!
There was no time left!
Despair was like the final death warrant!
Yang Di’s remaining sanity was completely shattered.
He suddenly closed his eyes, like a drowning man grasping at a last straw, following the final connection deep within his soul to the Lord’s Core, using all his remaining mental power, and fiercely “pulled”!
Om— (End of Chapter)
