Chapter 645 Sleeping
Chapter 645 Sleeping
All things had fallen silent, the whirring and roaring of the two worlds as they collided had vanished, the earthly colors and sunlight had melted away in the final Great Annihilation, and in the chaotic darkness that followed the silence of all things, the Tree of the World of Death was still growing silently.
New corpses grew from corpses, and new ruins grew from ruins.
She had forgotten about the elves, about herself, about the beginning and the end of everything – to grow, to spread, to continue to grow, these became Silantis’ only obsession after the end.
But the Lost Country came to the growing corpse, and the eerie green fire that spread out in the darkness became a barrier that stopped Silantis from continuing to expand.
The dead World Tree finally reacted.
Duncan saw an unusual light suddenly floating through her wreckage – a hazy mist, a grayish-white haze that seemed to hide indeterminate limbs and shapes, the edges of which continued to spread out from the tree’s canopy like tentacles and curving roots.
He associated it with those hazy mists that floated over the Church of the Four Gods’ Patrol Ark.
But before he could think about it in detail, a bigger change occurred – the “river” that surrounded Silantis and was composed of countless tiny points of light suddenly disintegrated, and countless starry glows merged into the mist floating in the air above the World Tree, and in the next second, the seemingly illusory and powerless mist suddenly disintegrated. In the next second, the seemingly illusory and powerless mist solidified violently and expanded wildly outward!
The boundaries of the mist turned into sharp vectors, slamming as hard as they could into the sea of spirit fire that filled the area around the Lost Country.
The darkness seemed to resound with a low, illusory roar as Silantis’ impacts sent ripples through the spirit fires, yet only more flames emerged from the nothingness and gradually colored the chaotic, pale mists with a layer of ethereal green–but Silantis continued to impact, even though each impact was causing her fatal ablation, this crashing did not stop for a moment.
Duncan even felt a wave of dismay.
This was the first time that a being had appeared who dared to actively charge at that spiritual fire.
And the next moment, in one of Silantis’ crashes, he saw a hazy entity gradually taking shape in the mists above the World Tree.
It was a shimmering light, a shimmering light in which no outline could be seen at all, as if it were a brewing soul that had not yet had time to take shape.
But Duncan realized immediately that it was Silantis.
“There’s no point in doing this,” he couldn’t help but say to the shimmering light, “There’s no way you’re going to break through this barrier, and you’re going to become part of it yourself soon enough.”
The shimmering light did not respond, however, and only continued to crash, the boundaries of the mists dissolving with each impact, the low rumble turning into a clear “thump”, over and over again.
Duncan watched the scene with a tense face, and after a long time, he slowly raised his hand.
The flames rose in the illusion and slowly flowed through the darkness towards Silentis’ body.
“Release the elves, and those you have devoured, and return Lightwind Harbor to the real world,” he said in a hushed voice, “before it is too late and there is still a chance to salvage it.”
The hazy shimmering light finally responded, it suddenly flickered while a sharp, childish voice came from the darkness, “They’re not elves!”
The points of light wandering and converging around the wreckage of the World Tree suddenly stirred violently, and more light converged into a flowing stream that surged towards the misty path above Silantis!
However, just as the mist was preparing for the next impact, the agitated points of light suddenly experienced another violent tremor, and immediately afterward, many of the rays of light that had already merged into the mist suddenly experienced a “reversal of the flow”, and began to break away from Silantis’s “attraction”. “Starry light is like scattered petals falling down from the World Tree, like stars surrounding the giant tree.
In the next second, one of those falling points of light swelled up and gradually transformed into an illusory shadow — it was a not-so-tall man.
That is a not too tall elf, his hair is already white, wearing a dark blue college robe, his face seems to carry a never-ending fatigue, but at this moment, his eyes calmly stood between the countless scattered floating points of light, quietly confronting the “World Tree” that stands in the darkness and is as huge as a mountain.
The secret keeper of the truth of the light wind harbor, Ted Riehl.
Duncan looked at the figure that suddenly appeared with some surprise: “I thought you were gone.”
Ted Riel, however, just shrugged, “It’s just a nightmare – still no better than grading the assignments and papers that those students rushed out on the last day of vacation.”
Perhaps due to the large number of elves suddenly out of control, Silentis’ mental entity seemed to fall into a short period of bewildered dismay, but soon her voice reappeared in the darkness, “Come back you guys …… Come back now, it’s dangerous out there! Come back …… We’ll wait together for Sasloka to come home, okay ……”
At the edge of the Spirit Fire, the massive black male goat suddenly stepped out of the flames, He raised His head and gazed silently at the pale and twisted World Tree, “I’m right here, Sapling.”
Silentis was suddenly struck dumb, her mental entity wavering in the mist, seemingly unable to discern whether the black goat in the flames was or was not the same creator she remembered, and for a moment she seemed to waver as the mist spreading out from the edges of the tree’s canopy closed in silently, and yet the next moment a sharp whirring and ear-piercing noise suddenly swept across the entirety of darkness once more:
“No! Not! You’re not! None of you are! You ……”
She stopped abruptly, lowering her voice as if talking to herself in a daze, “None of you …… you’re dead ……? You are dead …… you are not elves …… I ……”
“Indeed we are not the elves you remember, Silantis.”
A voice appeared abruptly, interrupting Silantis’ thoughts in his bewildered sleep.
The voice was not large, yet it seemed to echo directly throughout the space, sounding old, yet seeming to carry a stabilizing power.
On the deck of the Lost Country, an old man with a hazy, illusory body slowly walked up.
Lune turned back and gave Duncan a slight nod of greeting, then he turned around tersely, his expression calm as he gazed at the giant tree in the darkness.
That was the World Tree of Elven legend, their homeland, mother, myth, heritage, the starting point of all legends, the source of glorious civilization.
Now, she had died for a long time, but her corpse was gradually getting out of control and proliferating in death. Lune had never seen such massive trees-as an elf, he had never even seen a forest or known how to survive in one; he had never seen a meandering river running through a valley and turning into a babbling brook in a forest, had never seen birds and animals roosting in a forest, flowers blooming in a forest clearing, and had never heard the winds coming through the night and the sound of the forest sea.
It is said that the elves of those days lived even longer than they do today – their lifespans were near eternal and they could regenerate from death under the shelter of the World Tree, and they were lithe and fit enough to run among the canopies of the giant trees in the sky ……
But Lune had never seen one.
He was born after the destruction of all that.
He came to the end of the deck, his back slightly stooped with age, and his body a little fat from years of working at a desk and a less-than-stellar lifestyle, and when he looked up, wrinkles piled up and furrowed his forehead.
“We’re quite different from how you remember us, aren’t we?” He said to the World Tree.
Silentis didn’t speak, the shimmering light just trembled slightly in the mists, and from deep within the pale, twisted remains of the Tree of Worlds came a subtle rustling sound as if the leaves were waving.
After a long time that childish voice sounded hesitantly, “What are the grooves …… in your face?”
“It’s wrinkles, when mortals get older, their skin loosens and wrinkles and becomes like this,” Loon said slowly, “And on cloudy days when it rains, I still feel a backache because I’m old and have been living at sea… …My bowels are not very good now, and my teeth are mended, and perhaps in a few years I will die like all the others who grow old, and I will become ashes in the fireplace, and sustenance in the plantation …… We will not return to the Tree of Worlds, and we will not be regenerated in the giant seed pods ……”
He paused lifting his head and gazing at the distant shimmering light.
“Quite a difference from what you remember, isn’t it?” He said once more.
A slight rustling sound resounded once more from deep within the wreckage of the World Tree.
“…… Isn’t it, none of it can come back ……”
“Yes, it can’t come back, none of it can come back, and even if it does, it may not be as you recognize it,” Lune said slowly, “but …… there’s something I want you to see.”
As he spoke, he reached out and fumbled in his arms, and after a moment he pulled out a book.
The book was old and looked as if it had been pored over often, while the cover bore an elegant alphabet unlike the common language found in most city-states.
He opened the old book, found a passage on it, and slowly read, “…… The first rays of sunlight appeared on the boulders, and the traveler packed his bags; he was to cross the Flowering Hills and arrive at the hillock of Roland Naim before evening… …”
“This is the Long Poem of Horro Dazzo ……”
“Yes, it’s that poem, long ago, explorers found tablets inscribed with that poem on dark islands, along with many other records We’ve spent a thousand years trying to retrieve the meaning of those words, and thousands of years searching for the Flowering Hills and the hillock described in the poem …… But we haven’t find it, even those dark islands that were there in the first place disappeared into the fog at the border one day ……”
Lune said in a low, slow voice as he put down the scroll and looked again at the shimmering light in the distance.
“We have recovered many things, half of which, to this day, are beyond our comprehension, but compared to the humans and the Sanguin, the elves have had the most complete historical legacy, and we remember, at least, that the Creator awoke in darkness and planted the original tree in the dream of origins …… four hundred years ago. We restored the craftsmanship of the ‘Ringtailed Harp’, which has a crisp sound, as recorded in the ancient scrolls, and seventy-six years ago, we restored the last chapter of the Hedland Psalter, which is the subject of many interesting stories, and is said to have been dedicated to the gods ……
“But there are more, which we still do not know, and will never know again, those which were lost in the Great Annihilation, and are no more to be found in the Age of the Deep, like those dark islands lost in the mist.
“Silentis, I’m sorry to say that we are not the elves you remember, we are merely picking up pieces of the past from the long river that runs on and leaving as many traces as we can in the world after the end of time …… I don’t know if this is any consolation to you at all but ……
“That’s really all that’s left.”
In the darkness, the shimmering light floated quietly, while the hazy and pale mist was gradually shrinking, and unconsciously, those deathly twisted branches at the edge of Silantis silently dissipated, while the ghostly green flames quietly surrounded the giant tree, like …… the forest that died out so long ago.
Duncan raised his head and looked toward the huge black male goat.
After a few moments of silent communication, he nodded gently.
The black male goat stepped away, stepping through the void and slowly coming to the foot of the giant tree.
“…… You’ve grown so big.” He raised his head and sighed softly.
The shimmering light in the darkness trembled gently, “I …… didn’t accomplish what you entrusted to me.”
“No, you’ve done well,” the black goat slowly lowered his head and gently touched the dry and torn trunk with his horn, and at the tip of the horn, a bit of ghostly green flame quietly burned, “Now the good boy is going to sleep, little sapling.”
The shimmering light faded in the pale mists, the wind and the rustling of the leaves finally ceased, and the stars of light gathered into a river that silently encircled Silantis’s feet – in the deepest recesses of the Tree of Worlds, a howl finally came from the deepest recesses of the Tree of Worlds.
The ghostly green fire of the spirit body rose into the air, enveloping the entire giant tree in an instant, illuminating the entire darkness after the silence of all things.
(I have to travel again, or go to a meeting, just as the Light Wind Harbor chapter is also over, the next is still a single shift for a few days, when I come back to resume.)
(End of this chapter)