The smoke and fury of the Eight Mile River Twilight Realm were separated by the plane barrier, confined to another dimension.
Deep within the layers of spatial fissures, a meticulously guarded emerald secret realm lay like a slumbering jade.
Here, life essence, so rich it almost solidified, permeated the air; springs tinkled down from crystal-like rock walls; and exotic flowers bloomed with an eternal glow in the sunless twilight.
The air was as fresh as the first breath of a nascent world, invigorating and uplifting.
This was Ariendor, the core holy sanctuary of the Wood Elf Plane—the Emerald Sanctuary.
The magnificent council hall in the center of the Sanctuary had a dome not of wood or stone, but woven from billions of shimmering, living tourmaline leaves, casting a soft, spiritual light upon the twelve vine thrones arranged in a circle.
Each figure seated upon them embodied an unimaginable accumulation of ages; they were the oldest, wisest, and most powerful beings in the Wood Elf Plane—the Wood Elf Council.
At this moment, this space, which had flowed with peace and sanctity since ancient times, was enveloped by an invisible rage and deep regret.
The eternally spring-like air within the Sanctuary became stagnant and heavy, like the low pressure before a storm.
At the head of the table sat the Great Elder who had spearheaded the “harvest” operation in the Eight Mile River world—a male named Alegoros.
His face was deeply contoured, like the weathered texture of an ancient oak; his eyes, which held galaxies, were now downcast, and his silver-grey hair stirred slightly without wind, exuding an indescribable icy majesty.
The surrounding space seemed to subtly warp with his emotions.
A psychic projection, condensing the final scene of the battlefield, hung suspended in the center of the circular council hall—
It was that sudden plunder: a dazzling, heart-stopping emerald green light pillar tore through dimensions, instantly obliterating the burning, struggling deteriorated War Tree and the core of the earth where it stood, leaving behind a gigantic, bottomless pit with edges as smooth as a mirror.
The image finally froze at the moment the light pillar vanished and the spatial rift closed.
"The cost!"
An old but powerful voice broke the deathly silence.
The speaker was an Elder named Thorindil, known as “Throat of Roots.”
His throne was formed by gnarled, crystallized giant tree roots, and he himself seemed to have grown from the roots, his body entwined with vines, his face covered in deep wood grain.
At this moment, his eyes, capable of seeing deep into the soil, were fixed on the vanished location of the ancient tree’s core in the projection, filled with undisguised regret and anger.
"Alegoros," Thorindil's voice rumbled like two massive rocks grinding together, deep and unsettling, "We watched as that ancient seed of life was awakened and twisted by those ignorant, vile humans, forcibly pulled up in your final 'extraction'! What a magnificent foundation it was! What deep potential!"
He abruptly pointed at the projection, emerald green arcs of electricity crackling from his fingertip, spitting in the air: "Give it time! Give it pure Nature's Will to permeate it! It should have grown into a true 'Elf Ancient Tree'! Even if it couldn't reach the supreme, becoming a perfect 'War Barrier' to guard our new coordinates would have been effortless! And now?!"
Thorindil’s questioning was laced with sharp anguish: "Look at what you brought back?! A deformed, contaminated, growth-less piece of waste! The fragments of Nature's Will contained within are pitifully thin! And it carries the desperate, foul aura of those lowly humans’ dying moments!"
"Thorindil!"
Another Elder, Ilmarien the “Star-Speaker,” spoke.
Her voice was ethereal, like mist over distant mountains; her throne seemed woven from moonlight-condensed vines, and her body was enveloped in a hazy starlight. Compared to Thorindil's anger, her voice held more of a cold assessment and concern.
"An Elf Ancient Tree? That is merely a beautiful vision, or rather, an excuse. Expending our plane's core energy to forcibly project power for such a precise cross-dimensional 'harvest,' the returns are far below expectation. This is not a normal return on investment. Great Elder Alegoros, in this emergency, did you use reserves that should not have been used?"
Her gaze sharply pierced towards the Great Elder at the head of the table.
Upon hearing her words, the others’ expressions also grew solemn, and they all looked towards Alegoros.
Facing the interrogation, Alegoros slowly raised his eyes, which contained endless ages.
The previous anxiety in his eyes was gone, replaced only by bottomless coldness and an undeniable authority.
"An Elf Ancient Tree? A War Barrier?" Alegoros's voice was calm and unruffled, yet like an undercurrent beneath ice, it carried a soul-chilling power: "Thorindil, have you been blinded by your long life? Or have you developed an undue sympathy for such lowly creations as humans?"
He slightly raised his hand, and the central image of the council hall shifted, no longer showing the abrupt plunder, but a macroscopic projection of the Wood Elf Plane itself.
The core of that emerald star now showed subtle, faint crack lines!
A barely noticeable aura of decay permeated the air!
"Look at the core of our world!" Alegoros's voice suddenly rose, carrying an unprecedented weight: "Since that ancient catastrophe, it has never truly recovered! Every projection of power, every loss of a sub-world, accelerates its decay! That tiny 'root' connecting to the Eight Mile River Twilight Realm was once a new 'branch' into which we poured resources and placed great hopes, expecting that Yang Di and those Wood Elf 'servants' could become our feelers for drawing nutrients from the Deadlands!"
His gaze swept over all the Elders, cold and sharp: "And the result? What did they do?! Low-level internal strife over resources! Foolish strategy when facing that human force named Shen Mu! Repeated failures! Finally, at the brink of destruction, that greedy, short-sighted human leader, Yang Di, dared to exhaust the precious Nature's Will fragments we left him to stabilize the passage! Burning the filthy collective will of humans! Forcibly Birth a sub-node with infinite potential into an immovable, chaotic, burdensome entity that could only consume and not give back—that so-called 'War Tree' was simply a festering sore on the verge of exploding out of control!"
Alegoros's voice was decisive, carrying resolve: "In that state, every moment it existed, it was frantically consuming the precious energy at the end of that fragile plane root! Worse still, Shen Mu of Deherim controlled a military force far exceeding our estimates! Those warriors were no ordinary humans! Their discipline, equipment, will, and that almost soul-deep coldness and efficiency… I even smelled a certain… embryonic form of ancient rules within them!"
The council hall was in deathly silence, only the fine cracks on the World Tree core projection silently spoke of the crisis.
"If we allowed Shen Mu to completely destroy the festering sore and occupy the node."
Alegoros's voice was like a heavy hammer, striking at the heart of every Elder: "He would absolutely discover fragments of the passage! And then? An ordered human force capable of rapidly rising in the Deadlands—would they be docile neighbors, or… the next greedy jackals sniffing out a food source? Elders, we cannot afford a second war! Especially not with an opponent who rose from destruction and whose potential is unknown!"
He surveyed the room, his silver-grey hair stirring without wind: "Therefore, I had to act! Before that festering sore completely exploded out of control, or was cut open and investigated by Shen Mu, I had to sever this already rotten, diseased branch that was drawing sustenance from our core! Erase all traces of its existence!"
He paused, his voice revealing for the first time a hint of undeniable weariness and gravity: "That is why I used the 'Root of Barrier' energy reserves. Profit? Yes, far below the investment. But what's important is stopping losses! It's isolation! It's preserving our remaining Arien world itself before we are completely exposed and attract the covetous gaze of jackals!"
Alegoros's gaze finally settled on the projection of the World Tree's core, his eyes filled with sorrow and determination: "We don't have time to cultivate a perfect new sprout. What we need now is… absolute safety and concealment. Until the World Core recovers its vitality."
"Root of Barrier…"
Galadriel the “Shepherd”—an Elder with a gentle demeanor like the morning light in a forest—her face suddenly changed dramatically.
She oversaw the pulse of the plane's life and knew what “Root of Barrier” implied.
It was the World Tree's last remaining reserve of defensive power, used to resist plane erosion!
She looked worriedly at the World Tree core projection, then at Alegoros's cold and weary face at the head of the table, and said softly: "Alegoros, your decision… perhaps it is correct. But the cost is too great. The Root of Barrier is weakened, if there is another accident…"
She did not finish, but the worry in her words was clear.
Thorindil opened his mouth, looking at the cracked projection, his Adam's apple bobbed a few times, and he ultimately did not question the prematurely “harvested” defective War Tree again.
The regret in his eyes transformed into deeper concern and a sense of bewilderment about the plane's future.
Ilmarien also did not press further; her eyes, shrouded in starlight, only gazed more deeply into the World Tree core projection, attempting to deduce future stellar trajectories, but only seeing a more chaotic mist.
The council hall fell into a long silence.
The previous indignation and regret were now replaced by a grander, colder, and more suffocating sense of existential crisis.
It wasn't just a pawn that failed; it exposed the alarming fragility of the entire Wood Elf Plane.
The Elders' faces no longer showed ease, only the deep gloom shrouding the Wood Elf Plane, and the invisible pressure brought by that distant Eight Mile River world and the figure named Shen Mu.
The atmosphere was oppressive.
Great Elder Alegoros's declaration was like a heavy boulder thrown into stagnant water, stirring not waves, but a deeper silence.
The previous disputes, regrets, and anger were now replaced by a grander, chillingly stark reality.
Survival itself.
It was Ariendor's greatest challenge.
"Root of Barrier…" Shepherd Galadriel's voice trembled slightly, breaking the suffocating silence.
Her slender fingers unconsciously caressed the armrest of her vine throne, her gaze once again turning to the World Tree core projection where fine cracks spread: "That is one of the last cornerstones maintaining the plane barrier. Using its reserves… Alegoros, this means our gate is left even more ajar."
Thorindil's deep wrinkles seemed even more pronounced, his heavy breathing like bellows pumping.
He looked at the forcibly erased “festering sore” in the projection, imagining Yang Di’s final madness and despair, then recalled the Deherim leader named Shen Mu, described by Alegoros as possessing formidable militarized power…
A mix of disgust and a hint of imperceptible apprehension surged within him.
He opened his mouth, ultimately only letting out a dull, thunderous groan, much like the low growl of a wounded beast, but he no longer questioned the value of that defective War Tree.
Compared to the plane's survival, the gain or loss of a sub-world was indeed insignificant.
The starlight enveloping Star-Speaker Ilmarien seemed to dim slightly.
Her eyes, capable of peering into star orbits and perceiving threads of fate, were now deeply fixed on the image of the World Tree core.
She was deducing.
But everywhere her gaze fell, there was only a chaos shrouded in an even greater mist.
"Alegoros's choice… is the only feasible way to stop the bleeding." Her ethereal voice carried an unprecedented weight: "That 'Ancient Tree' was already a pure liability; not only could it not give back, but it was frantically draining the already meager nutrients from our 'roots.' More importantly, it had become an extremely vulnerable node exposed to a powerful enemy. Severing it, though painful, cut off the source of inviting wolves into our home. The consumption of the Root of Barrier… is the price we must pay for strategic errors and Yang Di's foolishness."
She turned her head slightly, her gaze seemingly piercing through the Emerald Sanctuary's dome, looking towards the unknown dimensional currents: "That Shen Mu… the form of power he established in destruction, and the rigid efficiency and cold will displayed by his legions, are certainly not something an ordinary human kingdom could forge. Alegoros's concerns are not unfounded; he indeed might… or even already has become a variable we need to be wary of."
Another Elder, who had been silent, Karis Root-Vein, the “Ancient Whisper,” slowly raised his head.
His throne seemed to be formed by the natural growth of countless gnarled ancient roots, almost merging with his withered yet resilient body.
He spoke in a slow, hoarse voice, like the decaying hollow interior of a thousand-year-old ancient tree: "The price has already been paid; discussing whether it was necessary is meaningless now. The question now is: what next? The 'Emerald Veil' of Ariendor has a weak point, and the Root of Barrier's power deficiency has reduced our resistance to external fluctuations. Great Elder Alegoros, do we… need to enter a complete 'Slumbering Echo'?"
This suggestion made all the Elders present shudder. (End of Chapter)
