"Because..." The tree I was sitting on answered me again, "Because there was no king in the kingdom of God before."
"king?"
"Yes... This place is called the Kingdom of God, but in reality it is just an abandoned and rotten land. The lives that know this are trying to find opportunities to transcend, whether it's turning into humans or something else, we all want to leave here."
"What's going on with the king?"
"I don't know! A king suddenly appeared, and no one knows where he came from. The only thing that is certain is that he is also a human. You humans will enjoy happiness from now on..."
It turned out to be the case.
Because he is the human king, he protects his own people. It is this thing that forces the Blood Bone Forest to find a village to rely on.
But he chose me.
They said it had nothing to do with the prophecy, and I didn't dare believe all of it.
Chapter 61: End of the Retrospective Ceremony
Time passed, and in the blink of an eye, I was 16 years old.
I have grown taller. Although I am still not half the height of the giants in the village, I am taller than my petite self when I was 6 years old.
My hands and feet are slender and long, and even my fingernails are white and shiny. My face - according to my tribesmen, it is even prettier than that of a woman. There are many people who are theoretically of the same sex as me who have shown interest in me, and even the rain can't help but show its love to me.
As time goes by, the Yifan Village no longer exists. We now live entirely in the blood-bone forest, living in tree holes and building tree houses. When the forest migrates, it will carry us along, which is much more convenient than before.
The only bad thing is that no one knows when this journey will end.
I asked the blood bone trees, and they said that this migration began in ancient times.
Compared to humans and blood beasts, the Blood Bone Tree has memory inheritance. Although this kind of inheritance is very limited and 90% of the memories will fail to be inherited, it has also accumulated a lot of exclusive secrets over the years, which is just right for me to relieve my boredom.
"We have lost track of the purpose of our migration," they said. "You can think of this as a kind of stubbornness, just like your stubbornness in wanting to get married and reproduce, and your stubbornness in wanting to become stronger."
"Is the last sentence mocking me?" I was unhappy because I had indeed been pestering them all these years, asking them how to become stronger.
Strength is not a general thing. I control the Blood Bone Forest, which gives me prestige and power. People begin to respect and fear me from the bottom of their hearts. Those blood beasts dare not rashly invade us.
But that is not true strength. I still don’t dare to go into the thick fog, and I still cannot become the Lord of the Blood River.
"You want to be the Lord of the Blood River, but this may be more difficult than becoming the Human King." The Blood Bone Tree, who is closest to me, comforted me, "Do you know how long the Blood River has existed? It even exceeds our memory... It has existed in the oldest memory."
"I don't necessarily want to be the Lord of the Blood River." I said, "I just want to become stronger."
After getting to know them, I found that they are not as bad-tempered as rumored.
When they were still doing business with the village, they had a very bad temper and would not allow people to come in easily. Branch pickers had to get their consent before picking branches.
But what did they do wrong? This is a transaction. They never used violence to coerce us, never lied, never cheated us. This is just a transaction with a clear price tag.
Not to mention that we now have a truly symbiotic relationship, because I am in charge of this forest, and they no longer insist on eating the people in the village. In return, we often send teams out to explore, with the goal of digging up some strangers' bones and feeding them to the trees.
"You have many ways to become stronger," they said. "Your talent is so great... you just need to be patient."
"But I don't want to wait any longer!" I said impatiently, "I want to become a strong man now, at least stronger than the Blood Slaughterer!"
"This is not a good idea, dear." The gentlest blood bone tree lamented, "We will not tell you, those methods will only hurt you."
This made me extremely angry - if they had lied to me and told me they didn't know, I wouldn't have done this, but they clearly knew but didn't tell me, and I felt they did it on purpose - just to be more afraid of me so that they would never be able to get rid of me again.
So when the rainy season comes and the heavy raindrops tap on the windows of the tree house, using the movement to express their love to me, my first reaction is to list the conditions.
"Want to be with me? No problem, but you have to teach me how to be strong."
I didn't completely lose my mind, because I remembered what Blood River said, the wind, rain and clouds would teach me what to do.
"This is very dangerous, dear." Rain's voice was very pleasant, and there was a crisp and transparent feeling when knocking on the window. "Let me think... Why don't you wait a few more years? You have an outstanding natural fortune..."
"But the problem is that I may not want to see you again in a few years." I tried my best to look cold, "You have to tell me the solution now!"
"Let me think... honey... let me think..."
We both knew that time was tight, because a rainstorm usually didn't last long. She had to give me an answer before the rain stopped.
"Got it!" The knocking became louder, and I heard her ask, "Do you know how rain is formed?"
"It is the water vapor on the ground that converges into the clouds...and clouds are changeable and unpredictable...they can contain many things."
"What do you mean?"
"The so-called blood slaughterers become stronger by eating the essence of blood beasts." Yu said, "They kill blood beasts and devour their essence - that is, their internal organs and brain marrow. Their bodies gradually develop the characteristics of blood beasts, and their personalities become more and more violent."
"This is not a smart move, because it is equivalent to giving up the advantages of humans to learn from beasts. It has limitations, and even if you go to the end, you can't transcend it."
"But you..." She sighed again, her tone full of admiration, "Alessia, you are different from anyone else, like a natural gem that has yet to be carved."
"Carving?"
"You can have a broader pursuit." Yu said, "Think about what the blood slaughterers do. What do they want to gain by eating those things?"
"According to what you said, it is to gain the power of the blood beast."
"Yes... but that power is mixed and inferior, far less pure than the power that humans possess."
"...You want me to eat people?"
I was horrified, and suddenly I understood why the blood-bone trees kept their secret from me.
All creatures on this land rely on cannibalism to become human-like, but I never thought that even humans have such ability?
"It's not just people..." she said faintly.
"People, blood beasts, trees, earth and rocks."
"Even wind, rain, thunder, lightning... all these things, as long as you are willing, you can take them as food."
"Well, are you satisfied with my answer?"
I was silent for a while, and then I said to her, "I am very satisfied."
So I walked out of the tree house, climbed to the top of the blood-bone tree on the branches, and completely exposed myself to the rain, allowing it to wash me, lick me, and collide with me naturally between heaven and earth.
She was happy, I could feel it... There was whistling and thunder in the wind and rain, I closed my eyes and enjoyed it with her.
Until I made up my mind and opened my mouth towards the sky.
"……Um!!!"
Suddenly awakened, the delicate girl twitched on the table, her face full of surprise and fear.
"Aisun?"
A concerned voice came from the side, and a pair of gentle but strong hands helped the girl up and pulled her into his arms.
"What did you see, Aisuen...don't scare me like that...speak?"
Xia Yibing swayed there for a long time before Hitzfeld finally woke up from his long flashbacks.
She finally realized she was back.
She is not Alessia Berenkrud, but Aisun Hitzfeld.
A detective and the current captain of the Pierre.
When he opened his eyes and looked carefully, he saw dark green smoke coming out of the jar in front of him.
They seemed to have run out of energy and were fading little by little, and after a few breaths, they would turn into transparent white smoke.
"Aisun?"
Xia Yibing waited until her breathing stabilized before asking, "What did you see in there?"
"I saw his past and his life."
Hitzfeld exhaled.
"It's really extraordinary and wonderful. I didn't expect the world in the gray fog to be so colorful..."
Animism is just a slogan. Even the most extreme schools of thought do not really want it to become a reality.
But under the surge of gray fog, it came true.
The river can speak, the trees can speak, and the wind can speak.
Even the scattered raindrops can speak.
what is this?
Anthropomorphize everything that occurs naturally?
What kind of great power can achieve this?
Could this be the Elsa Continent shrouded in gray fog?
The kingdom of God that the Blood and Bone Tree is talking about... is it the Kingdom of Corrupted Blood?
Too many surprises were shocking her, making it difficult for her to say anything too specific for a while. She could only pick and choose, and retell to the woman intermittently, telling her about the fantasy experience from that perspective.
Xia Yibing also stared when she heard this.
If it hadn't been Hitzfeld who was saying this, she would have thought it was a story made up by some asshole.
"But it's not terrible, is it?"
She asked again at last.
"How could I scare you like that..."
She didn't want to use the word "scared", but the girl's appearance at the time was certainly close.
She was curious.
In her impression, Hitzfeld rarely lost his composure like that.
"horrible?"
The girl repeated with narrowed eyes.
She thought of the distant scene again.
Thinking of that slender figure suddenly opening his mouth wider than the forest, he swallowed all the falling rain in one gulp.
Thinking of this he turned back and looked at the blood river beside the woodland.
indeed.
That scene was quite scary.
Chapter 62: Aisuen Hitzfeld's Only Weakness
"That is to say."
The long narrative came to an end. Xia Yibing shook her high ponytail and speculated with a frown: "The thing in this jar was originally a person. His name is Alessia Belemkulud?"
"That should be the case." Hitzfeld turned his body slightly and put his legs outside the edge of the table. "The liquid inside is not all of it... This is what we guessed a long time ago. This memory is also incomplete. There should be many more crucial things later."
"for example?"
"For example, how did it become this form?" Hitzfeld said, "From the information we got from the retrospective, it has a 'gift' and is born with the ability to gain strength by eating. Don't you think this is unusual? There is a problem with its identity!"
"According to the information, it can eat the rain clouds, the blood bone forest, and its original tribesmen. It is also possible that it will eat the blood river later." Xia Yibing nodded, "This is not normal."
It’s not that the incident itself was so strange—it was not like that. In a world shrouded in gray fog, anything that happened was not unusual. Her heart was strong enough not to make a fuss about it.
But that has a prerequisite. For example, in the birth process of a monster, it may have been originally a human being, an ordinary person, a normal person. It was bewitched and corrupted by evil gods and gradually abandoned its human identity.
What Xia Yibing could accept was this kind of development, not just any random baby who grew up normally, without being bewitched or corrupted, and was born with that kind of weirdness.
That would be really abnormal...if you dig deeper into the information inside, it might be very terrifying.
For example, since Alessia possesses such a talent, his parents cannot be ordinary humans.
Is it possible that he was not a human being from the beginning?
Perhaps he is a monster's child, deliberately molded into that appearance to infiltrate the human village, and the person who manipulated all this had obviously paved the way for him long ago. Whether it was the prophecy of the Lord of the Blood River or the loyalty of the Blood and Bone Forest, this path to promotion had almost no twists and turns.
As for the deeper ones, Xia Yibing herself did not dare to think about it. One reason was that she felt it was unlikely, and the other was that she did not want to face an evil god again so early.
"The situation in the Kingdom of Corrupted Blood is much more complicated than we imagined." Hitzfeld was determined to face this difficulty head-on. She swung her calves and listed all the possibilities for the woman.
"Have you noticed? They may not be unified internally."
"The Human King... the Blood Beast... the Blood Slaughtering Human Race... the Blood River Human Race... and the natural 'aliens' like Alessia. This shows that it's not just the two great kingdoms that are competing, even within a single kingdom there are many different voices."
