Chapter 235: The Great Battle Imminent

  In the very center of Whispering Woods, next to the Sunwell, stood a colossal tree, so immense it was almost hard to believe it was a tree.

  Beneath the tree, several thick roots plunged into the well. The once shimmering well water now had only a shallow layer left at the very bottom. The well water and the boundless divine power it contained were being used as nourishment to supply the growth of this gigantic tree.

  It was indeed growing. Every single branch of this tree was lengthening, thickening, and growing larger, sprouting new branches and leaves at a slow, snail-like pace. But when this speed was manifested on the tree, it seemed it couldn't be described as 'slow'. Even 'fast' couldn't be said; it could only be described as somewhat uncanny.

  Growing at this very speed for just a full day, the War Ancient Tree sapling, which had originally shrunk to the size of a large treant, had already become a gigantic tree with a diameter of over half a li. But this was still not the end. It would take about another full day for the Elven War Ancient Tree to complete its growth fully.

  A day later, the Sunwell's divine power would be restored, and combined with the power of the War Ancient Tree, Whispering Woods would be able to stand fearless against any force on the continent. The Elven race would also have sufficient capital to negotiate with any power.

  Whispering Woods had now also almost completely changed its appearance. The Elves had practically moved the entire Tulalion forest over. Although the treehouses could not be moved, in this sacred land of their race, rich with elemental magic, the spells of the Elven mages were nearly doubled in effect. In just over a day, they had carved out a huge settlement in Whispering Woods, laid out according to the pattern of Tulalion.

  This work was all being directed by the other Elven elders. Luya, atop the War Ancient Tree, looked at the bustling scene below in the distance and couldn't help but reveal a smile. Her silver long hair danced in the wind. Her star-like eyes twinkled, curved like the moon. Her smiling face was not like a flower; no flower of any kind could possibly display half the grace and charm of her smile.

  In the lineage of Elves of Whispering Woods, passed down for over ten thousand years, she was the only one who had survived. The ancient, rigid Elven culture of the past had vanished without a trace in that great fire. The Elven race now rising again here was the strongest. Although they had lost those ancient, rigid traditions, they had gained brand-new vitality and hope.

  Yes, it must be so. Mafa would surely accept this change with joy, Luya was very certain.

  She didn't know if it was because she had gone out and tempered herself in the mortal world for a bit. Her current mindset was now more enthusiastic about how to better develop and control what was in her hands. The female Chancellor she had seen in the royal capital was actually the person who had once haunted his dreams. This was something she learned from stories she heard later on her journey. His act of going alone to rescue her from an army of tens of thousands had long become a story known to all.

  The astute and capable demeanor and aura of the female Chancellor had a significant influence on her. It gave her a feeling that was a mix of envy and jealousy. In front of such a human woman, she seemed as naive and innocent as a child.

  I must be mature, capable, and strong enough. She had been constantly telling herself this ever since she left the royal capital.

  This was also the reason why, after seeing Yabin and Aimee, she took the opportunity to have the two Pegasus knights pay a visit to the Tower of Fangs. Elves actually have far stronger magical talents than humans, but very few in the race practiced elemental magic. They had never had the conditions for learning this type of magic. And if they had a good relationship with the Tower of Fangs, it would seemingly be of no small benefit.

  "Elder Luya. There is a very strong elemental fluctuation approaching from the south. A very strong magical fluctuation, it seems even stronger than those three Necromancers from last time." An Elven scout on a high branch reported loudly. Beneath him was a magic formation used for reconnaissance.

  "What?" Luya froze. She immediately asked loudly, "Can the Atmospheric Sensing magic array be activated now?"

  "It can, but it can only be used once. And using it at this time seems like it will slow down the growth speed," answered two other Elves nearby. Even though the War Ancient Tree had not finished growing, some of the special magic arrays and functions on the ancient tree were already usable.

  "Never mind, activate it immediately and let's see."

  The two Elves circled a section of branches, chanting incantations. A scene shrouded in mist immediately appeared among the branches. At the very edge of the scene, over a hundred overlapping specks of light were converging toward the center, of which more than a hundred were bright red, and several dozen were gray.

  The two Elves discerned for a moment, then shouted loudly, "There are over a hundred senior mages, and around fifty... I don't know if they are puppets or elemental beings..."

  Over a hundred senior mages coming from the south, that should be the people from the Tower of Fangs, right? They responded so quickly? Luya felt a faint sense of unease. Over a hundred senior mages rushing over in such a hurry. This didn't seem like a formation for offering congratulations.

  "Quickly, stop the War Ancient Tree from absorbing the well water," Luya shouted, striding quickly toward the magic image formed by the Atmospheric Sensing magic.

  On the image, the red specks of light were already very close to the area representing Whispering Woods. And the leading speck of light was very red, very large, almost like a large drop of boiling blood.

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  Whispering Woods was already visible. Master Aiden, flying at high speed, still had a face as cold as ice, but his eyes had been reddened by the desire and killing intent simmering within. They were somewhat like two large drops of boiling blood.

  "That is Whispering Woods there. Master Aiden, are you going to negotiate with them first and have them hand over the thing..." a great mage beside him began to say.

  Master Aiden did not speak, did not pause. With a wave of his hands, a white thunderball had already left his hands, shooting directly into the forest.

  With a deafening explosion, two trees on the edge of the forest became two tree stumps and sky-full of fragments under the Thunderblast Bomb. Master Aiden smiled, his eyes even redder. The Sunwell's barrier was indeed temporarily useless.

  "All of you, follow me up," Master Aiden said coldly, his figure suddenly shooting up, coming to the high sky above Whispering Woods.

  Not all the mages followed. Only a dozen or so mages from the Tower of Wind followed behind Master Aiden. The rest stopped outside Whispering Woods. They could sense that this forest was unusual, and Master Aiden's actions were already making them feel a bit strange.

  "Tower Master Aiden, the magical fluctuation in this forest below is very strange. Shouldn't we ask first..." the two great mages behind Aiden asked.

  Master Aiden opened his mouth, but it was not to speak. Instead, it was the ancient language of magic. At the same time, his hands continuously drew magical runes before him. A dense magical aura continuously spun around his body, sketching out one magical rune after another, which then immediately dissipated into the air.

  The faces of the two great mages behind him changed. Only they knew best just how masterful this grandmaster of air magic was. And what was now swirling around his body was the purest fluctuation of air-type magic. Even a top-tier Thunderblast Bomb could be cast as casually as a lowest-level fireball in his hands. So what kind of magic was this that required him to slowly chant an incantation?

  The clouds in the high sky were continuously drawn by the magical elements around Aiden, gathering and compressing from the surroundings to form a cluster of clouds a hundred meters in diameter, with Master Aiden at its center. The faces of the two great mages behind Master Aiden were already ashen. They could feel that this cluster didn't seem to be clouds, but rather an ocean woven from countless tiny bolts of lightning.

  "Falling Stars?" the two great mages cried out in alarm at the same time. Both of them were great mages of the air element, but they were greatly frightened by this magic, which was also of the air element.

  This was indeed not a Forbidden Spell, but in terms of its lethality and range against people, it was comparable to a Forbidden Spell, belonging to the legendary pinnacle of single-element great magic. It could only be used by cultivating a single element of magic to a level even more refined than mastery, to the absolute peak. Even among the four Tower Masters of the Tower of Fangs, whose elemental magic was considered top-tier on the continent, only Master Aiden and the former Tower Master of Water could use this ultimate single-element magic.

  There was already some cold sweat on Master Aiden's forehead, but his expression showed no sign of weakening. Instead, he smiled like a wolf looking at a rabbit under its paw, then shouted down at Whispering Woods below: "Hand over the Leaves of the World Tree, or I will raze Whispering Woods to the ground!"

  The voice, amplified by air magic, was like a clap of thunder, covering the entire sky above Whispering Woods. But no matter how loud a thunderclap was, it could not be mixed with the bone-chilling cold that this voice carried.

  "It's the Necromancer!" Luya looked up at the vast expanse of clouds containing infinite lightning elements and the human figure floating in the center. Terror had already distorted her beautiful face. She rushed swiftly towards the center at the top of the War Ancient Tree, where there was an altar formed by a natural protrusion of the ancient tree.

  Although she didn't see if the person in mid-air was wearing the distinctive silver mask of a Necromancer, the familiar voice, and the fluctuation of air magic that could be felt even from such a great distance, had already proven that this was the culprit who had burned Whispering Woods a year ago and the Necromancer who had hunted them down later.

  It wasn't just her who knew. Almost all the Elves who heard Master Aiden's voice also realized it.

  Master Aiden's shout was not a threat; he had no intention of threatening at all. Following that loud cry, the clouds he had condensed with magic flared with brilliance, condensing.

  Looking up from Whispering Woods, one could see that the small patch of golden clouds suddenly vanished, transforming into countless small white orbs that fell like hailstones in the height of summer. These small white orbs did not fall straight down. Instead, they spread out in a fan shape, raining down towards a large area below Whispering Woods, forming a small meteor shower.

  Just as these small white orbs were about to make contact with the forest, the giant Elven War Ancient Tree trembled, letting out a low hum, as if a sky-supporting giant had moved. A screen of green light subsequently appeared above the forest. The small white orbs seemed to be falling not too fast, and their force did not seem too great, but the moment they touched the green magic screen, they immediately produced a violent explosion.

  The explosive force of a single orb could not compare to a magic spell like Thunderblast Bomb, but three or four together were about the same, and the ones showering down from the sky numbered at least several hundred. The combined power of these magic orbs, which also contained lightning elements, added up to the destructive force of at least a hundred Thunderblast Bombs.

  The dense, massive explosions merged into an incomparably immense wave of sound. In the blink of an eye, the sky above Whispering Woods became an ocean of continuous explosive flashes. The ground trembled, and the explosive blast waves even knocked the mages and their air element mounts, who were watching from the outskirts of Whispering Woods, off balance. From such power alone, everyone could imagine the forest looking like a screen pierced by ten thousand arrows, riddled with holes and falling apart.

  But what stunned everyone was that after the flashes and sound waves of the explosions, not a single tree in the entire forest, not even the shortest branch, was damaged in the explosions. It was as if the massive explosion and blast wave from moments ago were just someone setting off a huge string of firecrackers.

  The forest was unharmed because people were harmed, the tree was harmed.

  Except for Luya herself, no one heard the continuous low hums the War Ancient Tree let out during the massive explosion. It was the mournful cry of its internal structure cracking and collapsing. The War Ancient Tree was originally in its growth period, and the defense it had just mounted against the magical explosion was far too strong, like an underage child being forced to bear a weight of several hundred kilograms. Many growing branches immediately withered and fell.

  Luya also heard the sound coming from within her own body; it was the sound of her blood vessels and nerves bursting from the overwhelming magical force. She opened her mouth and spat a large mouthful of fresh blood onto the altar. Her face was already as pale as paper, but fresh, dark red blood seeped from her nostrils, under her eyes, and her ears.

  She forced herself to pick up the Leaves of the World Tree and place it on herself. The green light of the Leaves of the World Tree then permeated the area around her body. The wounds inside her body slowly healed.

  She was just a hair's breadth away; just a little more, and the energy expended to force up the magical protective shield would have truly torn her apart. If that rain of lightning orbs had been just a dozen or so more, she would have absolutely had no chance to pick up the Leaves of the World Tree to heal herself.

  The vast majority of the Elves were still reeling from the shock of the massive explosion from moments ago. They could all feel that the violent magical elements contained in the explosion above their heads just now were enough to flatten a good half of the forest.

  "Good." Master Aiden's old face twitched. He hadn't thought that the War Ancient Tree could still withstand his full-power great magic. He had originally thought that this one wave of Falling Stars would have been enough.

  But he could also feel that after the confrontation just now, the magical fluctuation and elemental power of the Elven War Ancient Tree had completely weakened. He waved his hands again, and two Thunderblast Bombs left his hands, while his own body also swayed in mid-air. The previous Falling Stars had nearly depleted his magical power, and these two Thunderblast Bombs almost made him unable to maintain his flight spell.

  But these two Thunderblast Bombs were already enough. The lightning-wreathed orbs whistled and flew off in two directions. This time, there was no barrier to stop them. One struck the edge of the forest, while the other landed in the residential area where the Elves were gathering.

  With a deafening boom, mud and wood chips flew upwards like a geyser, scattering everywhere. Several Elves in the center of the explosion were turned into sky-filled fragments. Blood and pieces of flesh scattered like rain. Several nearby Elves were also thrown by the blast wave. Wails and screams spread along with the sound of the explosion.

  Once blood was seen and people died, everything would be much easier.

  "It's the Necromancer, everyone, prepare for battle!" The Elven female scout Kaelin, holding a black longbow, charged out from under the War Ancient Tree. "All Pegasus knights, go up and deal with those mages. The rest, grab your bows and follow me." Her valiant face was now contorted with fury, her eyes completely bloodshot. With her eyesight, she could clearly see how those Elves had been blown to pieces under the Thunderblast Bomb just now. She looked in the direction of the other explosion. "Over there. This time, I will definitely take their lives."