Book 9, Chapter 133

The Final Tour

While the combination of the Golden World Tree and broodmother could go a long way, blank souls were terrible for a species to advance. In order to address this issue, the two had built a system of faith with the assistance of the evernight elves. The Tree itself was their ultimate divinity, but Zealor acted as a god that would be a conduit for this faith. This cycle made for a source of power, and it also nourished the blank souls.

Zealor was extremely useful in this system; having been created with such care that the clone couldn’t even create as one that had robbed the clone’s ability to create any more special units, his soul was the most flawless amongst all the drones and special units either broodmother had made. His existence was the end point in the evolution of the night elves, forming a frame of reference that the others could strive towards. As a perfect soul, Zealor had no bottlenecks in the path of his evolution. His strength could rise to whatever the upper limits of the plane’s laws allowed, so he would be the eternal guardian of this new race.

The plan itself was astonishing, but it had actually succeeded. Richard was surprised to be told that the supposed deity was already level 27, having become an epic being without much trouble. He himself was only level 28 if one measured mana, but of course that was no longer an accurate way to estimate his power. Outside of Nasia, who used external power to get there, Zealor was the first of his followers to become an epic being.

“What is Zealor doing?” Richard asked. He had tried sending a command to the special unit, only to find that their connection was far too weak for that. With the so-called god constantly gathering the power of faith, any restrictions on the soul were bound to fade away.

The clone was the one to reply, “He’s in the depths of the sea of trees, looking to destroy the original world tree. This world doesn’t need a second.”

“So he’s trying to get stronger,” Richard responded as he continued to digest the information given to him.

“Yes. Chasing perfection is his natural goal.”

He smiled, “Mm. He’s designed to surpass me sooner or later, huh.”

This time, she took a moment to respond, “… It should only be a matter of time. This is a being close to perfection.

“He should succeed in level soon enough,” Richard dismissed. He understood why a creature like the broodmother would think levels were everything, but he knew the truth behind the matter. He hadn’t even been level 27 when he grew strong enough to routinely kill archlords that were level 30 or stronger, and he had even taken out a powerful devil that was level 35.

The clone clearly didn’t understand this implication, pausing for a moment before saying solemnly, “Your Majesty, I have no intention of making an enemy of you. Since you’re back, I’ll continue to obey your orders in the future. My reserved elven warriors are still your weapons; I only ask that you preserve these ones. Allow the night elves to become a true race.”

“Sure,” Richard nodded, turning around and drawing a huge portal in mid-air. It took a few minutes to finish, but as he walked in the clone’s entire body shuddered while the Golden World Tree’s branches shook. They had both felt the aura of Faelor through the portal, which was a testament to his mastery of space and time. If he didn’t even need to go to the void to move between planes, his power was unimaginable.

……

In another end of the sea of trees, Zealor suddenly stopped and looked at his surroundings vigilantly. His face paled and unease flashed across his eyes as formless energy wrapped around his soul, jarring him to the point that the epic being almost fell out of the trees. Fear flooded his mind, but he couldn’t think of any existence even capable of striking such fear into him. Even when the energy faded away, that moment of terror had been burnt into his soul, almost like he had met a natural predator that left him unable to react.

He breathed in deep and forced himself to calm down, slowly returning to normal. After moving for some more time, he suddenly drew his enormous bow and summoned a line of energy to serve as the arrow. Multiple mana arrows were shot into the sea of trees, drawing screams from as much as a thousand metres away.

Zealor had just effortlessly shot down multiple saint-level archers and druids, but he didn’t feel the slightest trace of happiness. That chilling fear instead rooted itself within his heart, turning his entire body cold.

However, the perfect elf wouldn’t allow such an accident to mar his path to greatness. Suppressing the unease in his heart, he continued forwards and spotted an enormous canopy in the distance. He was finally at the ruler of this plane.

Under the World Tree were the strongest elves in the sea of trees, but they were harmless bugs in front of Zealor’s power. Both Grand Druid Jadering and High Hunter Wildrage perished to a single arrow, and the excited elf increased his body temperature to fight off the cold. He grew incomparably excited at the thought of success, not only as repayment towards the Golden World Tree but also so he could absorb the strength of this enemy and grow in level once more.

Would he surpass Richard once he reached level 28? Zealor chuckled at the thought. Richard had only been level 26 in Arbidis, and while it had been some time since that war it was unthinkable for him to have levelled up thrice. The flames of desire burnt in the perfect elf’s eyes as he jumped into the sky towards the distant tree.

……

While Zealor was busy killing the World Tree, Richard arrived at Faelor and teleported to the Land of Turmoil. This plane was still rebuilding after its near-destruction, and the broken ecosystems were making that a long and difficult process. Policies to encourage dozens of children had exploded the population at a quick pace, already having doubled from just after the war, but even that rapid growth would still take time to bring numbers back to what they once were.

The Land of Turmoil itself was more or less the same as ever, only with even stranger and more powerful drones. Giant insect warriors were crawling all around, each one easily hundreds of metres long with strength to match that size. Some of the elites were even level 20, and considering the fearlessness and recovery of the Mountainsea’s drones their real strength was beyond even most sky saints.

He sighed as he paused in the sky; now that he was at the peak, he suddenly found that he didn’t really need such an army anymore. The seed of war and destruction had finally germinated into a powerful military force, but in the process of getting it all the way he himself had outgrown it.

However, his focus quickly shifted to Mountainsea herself. Her enormous body had completely changed in his absence; she was more slender than he had seen her before, and dozens of feelers danced around her body and kept her constantly airborne. She was now over five kilometres in length, but her entire body had a streamlined elegance to it that appealed to even his aesthetic senses. The mysterious golden patterns running across her body almost screamed speed and flexibility.

Atop this graceful body was a small figure, hugging her knees and staring silently at the distant sky. Richard slowly landed in front of her, but it took a moment for her to respond.

“RICHARD!” she shouted immediately, directly jumping into his embrace and pushing him down.

He simply relaxed, allowing himself to snuggle into the broodmother’s body, “How much longer until level 16?”

“I’ll be done soon, I just need three more months,” she said with a yawn, clearly not fully awake. She soon buried her small face into his chest, her breaths slowing down until she stopped moving and started snoring like a lioness.

Richard didn’t move from this strange situation where he was snuggled into someone who was snuggling into him. He slept for what felt like the first time in forever, and it was three entire days before his eyes opened once more. Mountainsea was still asleep, so he put her down gently before floating up to survey the Land of Turmoil. The next time she woke up, she would truly become a matriarch and break through the restrictions of any single plane.

In reality, matriarchs were a nightmare to all living beings. It was only this incarnation of sloth that was different. One form was a lord of millions, and the other a lady of creation. She had completely broken away from her destiny of war.

He silently opened a portal and left Faelor, arriving at the Resting Orchid Plane instead. He silently headed north into the Godnest, this time analysing all of its secrets with ease and breaking through the forcefield to enter the abandoned battlefield. Now he was certain that this was the aftermath of the ancient celestials fighting the reapers, and the giant ships here were designs he hadn’t seen himself. He silently supplemented the information he already had; while the reapers that had attacked Faelor were a planar combat force, this fleet used the void as its main battlefield.