A World AssimilationChapter 15

Taking refuge behind taller huts, Shen Yu moved closer to the location where other elves had gathered. His hearing was not as sharp as his eyes, so he stepped even closer. When he was close enough to hear them speaking, he sat still behind the bushes. He found the bushes were rather normal looking, and since they were planted around someone’s house, he figured it wouldn’t be poisonous. 

The elves he saw were like him, pointy ears, beautiful features, albeit weak and dreadfully tired. They didn’t look alive, there was a depressing air around them.  BCjoWN

As for the dress code, majority of elves wore only a leaf wrapped around their private parts, remaining decently naked, but nobody was behaving oddly about it.  

Shen Yu was feeling slightly overdressed now. 

Chrysanthemum Garden.

The wind carried with it a faint scent of sweet herb, one which Vinir’s instinct recognized but Shen Yu couldn’t relate to it without a solid source of memory.  

He focused as he heard a tall male elf speaking to the tree in a fearful manner. Elvish language was not foreign to Vinir, so Shen Yu understood, and his expression instantly turned grave.  u09tKS

These people, no elves, they were talking about sacrificing a newborn to protect their village from the dark elves, the fresh blood of a newborn will seal the land with a stronger ward. 

Atrocious! Shen Yu hated the term ‘sacrifice’ with a passion, he knew how it felt to be sacrificed for a ‘just’ cause. 

Was this why so many huts had been vacant? What happened to Vinir? Had he been drugged to be brought in as the next sacrifice, or died trying to run away from here? This situation didn’t look very optimistic. But this was a Gold Mission Task, of course, it won’t be easy.  

Generally, all Golden Ticket Masters were 4th stage or more. Even those who came for the first time were unlike Shen Yu, who got tired just walking around, with nil cultivation base. His clan feared he would suffer if he was unable to cultivate, and they couldn’t send another Golden Master because both seniors were busy with their own mission. So, there was no one to take care of him here… Shen Yu had known something might happen. 

Would he not be able to cultivate here? But he had to give cultivation the priority, or else he would die before even the day was over. 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

Shen Yu noticed the number of Scavendel residents were alarmingly sparce, the population had either been this low from the very beginning, or they had dwindled over time. And listening to the tall male elf, they were in grave danger again. Their enemy seemed to be the dark elves. 

Shifting to lie down on his stomach, Shen Yu pressed his ear against a strong tree root jutting out at the corner of the pebbled path, he could hear a strong vibration from within, which confirmed his theory. This abundant spiritual energy was coming from the central tree, and this tree was alive, almost sentient. The sweet smell of herb was probably spreading outwards from the tree itself. This entire elven land was a part of this mother tree. 

From his research, one thing he knew about elves was that, they loved their mother tree, and mother tree loved them in return. Mother tree gave birth to new elves, and fed on naturally available energy in the land, even the elves’ worshippings could make these trees stronger with time. The older the tree the more flourishing the tribe.   dsOR9D

The mother tree was considered to be a godly being, one of the Light, and it would never ‘eat’ its children to bring up land barriers. There was something very wrong with this manner of thinking, and these Scavendel residents looked almost hollow, as if they were… sapped of energy? 

Shen Yu was in a dilemma, the hidden mission was to gain recognition from the tribe, but these residents might just die if he wasn’t quick enough to save them. And although he found them disgusting for sacrificing the newborn, he may have missed some detail. 

Elves were brought up in community. They never killed their own kind unless they were facing a traitor or a dark elf. It was said the elvish community was a tight knit society and they valued their young ones more than any other tribe. 

For races like elves, newborn elves were their future and bearer of responsibility.   0KE 5R

Shen Yu stared at the tall elf who had now started chanting under his breath, he didn’t wear any special dress, and didn’t seem like the priest. His eyes were leaking terror, there was no other term for it, on a closer inspection, he was trembling quite terribly. 

Frowning, Shen Yu hid behind a shaded space, wiping away his sweat. Since coming here, his core had become more settled, and the energy around was helping him maintain his foundation. The only eye sore was the source of this abundant energy and the problem that came with it. 

He was unable to distinguish whether the land was a part of the tree’s energy influence, or if the land also had its own abundant energy. He didn’t want to feed on this tree’s source, he felt dirty just thinking about sacrifices.  

Considering it more carefully, it was advisable to run away from this place, if these people were after his body, he might turn up dead within a day of transmigration. A new record, really.  PVrd8Y

Just when he wanted to sneak away, he suddenly felt a strange headache piercing his mind, and a rush of memories that didn’t belong to him came over. He was startled, these were Vinir’s memory, it was coming late to him, but it could have been triggered by his thought process. 

Calming down, he concentrated on gathering information. 

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Turns out, he was right in assuming that something was wrong with the tree. Vinir was a newborn, but instead of being born an infant, he was born a young teenager. Yet, he wasn’t the only strange one, there were several like him who were born the same way, and the Scavendel elves were clueless on what was causing this.  

Vinir hadn’t lived very long when he felt an intent marking his body, it was his elven heritage which recognized the marking.   iDQdfH

With deep fear, he had realized he was ‘marked’ by the mother tree. And upon asking the priest elf, Vinir found out that the priest was strangely enough, afraid to talk reason. 

The first newborn to die was Vinir’s friend, who was also born a teenager, hadn’t lived long. He died eventually by a lack of light energy, which was odd considering how the mother tree kept revitalizing the elven land with abundant light energy, his death was mysterious, so the resident elves also tried to look into it. They were afraid of finding something terrible and in the end they did.  

The Mother tree absorbed the newborn body and strengthened the shield which protected the land. The newborn could be considered a ‘sacrifice’ and the ritual complemented the land. 

Although the residents were shocked seeing such dark ritual, they couldn’t do anything to the mother tree without harming its roots, so they left it be. Who knew that 6 months later, another newborn died due to lack of energy and was eventually ‘sacrificed’ to the mother tree.  Z7Syj

This repeat incident made many residents fearful; they wouldn’t know if they were next in line, and what mother tree was planning to do with them. It instilled fear in them and they started to plan an escape in order to find help from other elven priests. 

Some even wanted to let the newborns escape in the wild, but the protection spell guarding the land, activated on its own when the newborn tried escaping, it sapped the newborn of all energy, the escaping newborns died. Seeing such tragic example, the others didn’t dare try anything else. And it made the residents even more fearful.  

The mother tree had gotten angered into forcefully killing off the escapist newborns, they didn’t want to contribute to such tragedy again. 

As if things weren’t terrifying enough, the dark elves started to invade their territory and hunted down light elves for their own unspecified reasons. The residents felt they would be killed off sooner than later, but fortunately, the protection spell that had been activated by the sacrificial ritual, ended up saving them.   rxnV G

The dark elves kept trying to invade, and the light elves were only protected by their mother tree. Their priest finally gave up hiding the secret prophecy, stating that, their mother tree was guarding them against the dark elves, reason why it forced this kind of sacrificial ritual. 

Although not pacified, many elves started to believe in the mother tree again. They felt it must be a one-time thing, and would soon stop, but the dark elves continued targeting them, weakening the barrier. It forced the elves to cooperate with the ritual after every 6 months, a newborn was sacrificed repeatedly in order to keep peace and protection. 

During this duration, their mother tree did not give birth to another batch of offspring. Those who went out were killed, those who were ‘marked’ were sacrificed, and those who wanted to live were getting tired of these continuous horrors. By nature, Light elves loved peace and harmony, this ritual went against their very nature. 

Vinir had felt that he wasn’t the only one who was not getting fed with light energy, but even those who were the residents of Scavendel didn’t seem to be gaining much strength from this ritual. Until the end, Vinir didn’t know the entire reason for why the dark elves were haunting them, and what prompted the mother tree to become so vigilant.   Pdf 4T

Vinir died the exact same day he was meant to be sacrificed, his energy was fully sapped; the residents had already prepared a beautiful dress for him as a sign of proper farewell, letting him rest peacefully in his hut for the last time. Vinir was smiling at the end of his life, he felt it was his duty to be sacrificed and he was special in the eyes of their mother tree, despite the horrendous end he was to meet. 

Shen Yu called it b*llshit. Although he pitied Vinir, he was also someone who wouldn’t accept his death so calmly. If Vinir was around still, Shen Yu would have protected him. 

Feeling stuck, Shen Yu opened his eyes and looked around the desolate residences. No wonder the residents were terrified and afraid of what was to come. They didn’t want to kill the newborns but they were also a part of this carefully executed murder plan in order to save themselves from harm. Talk about being selfish. 

What Shen Yu now had to think about was the source of this trouble, which started with the dark elves. It was also the reason why mother tree was trying to do this ritual. Such godly entities had the power to foretell foreseeable future, it wasn’t strange to believe the prophecy. But how true was it, and why was it happening?  EddCbY

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