Chapter 1057

"Wrong, this isn't fairy wood…" Xiaodie leaned in, carefully examining the blue specter before her, "…this is the shadow of a dead fairy tree."

But need to keep Chinese punctuation? Usually we translate to English punctuation. Use English quotes? The instruction: translate faithfully, not necessarily keep Chinese quotes. We'll produce English sentences with appropriate punctuation. Probably keep the double quotes as they appear? Safer to keep the Chinese quotes? The source lines include Chinese quotation marks 「」. We should translate content, not keep the marks. The instruction: translate faithfully, never skip, summarise, or merge paragraphs. It doesn't say to keep the Chinese quotation marks. Usually we replace with English quotes. We'll output English sentences with standard double quotes.

Thus 【1】: ""Wrong, this isn't fairy wood…" Xiaodie leaned in, closely examining the blue specter before her, "…this is the shadow of a dead fairy tree.""

But need to keep the ellipsis? Use … as in source. We'll keep three dots.

Let's produce.

"Dead fairy wood…"

"…its shadow?" Tia scratched her head, indicating she didn't understand.

Long line. Translate: ""They… strictly speaking are plants, having gained intelligence through the equal blessing of Seathis, but compared to humans they are very limited. These little fellows before us have already died… leaving only a faint trace of soul." Xiaodie explained, "However, this also means that the golden thread is indeed connected to the Titan's manifestation—without the golden thread outlining them, we would never be able to see them.""

By Seathis's equal blessing.

Titan's manifestation.

"Then… what exactly happened to them? Why are only tiny shadows left?"

Xiaodie looked at Mimi beside her: "Mimi, could you try to sense the memories they carry?"

"I'll give it a try. Mi… Mimi…"

Mimi closed her eyes, earnestly sensing the lingering soul before her; after a moment she opened her eyes and slowly muttered a few vague words.

"Black… cloak… sword…"

"Toward the big tree…"

"…Mm, that's all. Their memories are very thin, with no images, only these few vague words can be heard."

A bead of cold sweat slid down Xiaodie's forehead: "…Everyone, I have a bad feeling. Senatos's death mist… seems to be approaching."

Xing discovered near the fairy tree's lingering soul another memory shard; upon activating it, she saw two figures appear around her.

A young scholar rose from the ground and reported to the other party: "Lord Kalinikus, we have installed the bronze detonators on part of the main roads of the Arboretum as you requested."

"Not bad, can it be activated as planned?"

"Technically there's no problem. We've conducted a test blast; it can indeed injure the Titan's divine body, but…"

The man turned around: "Just?"

The young scholar showed a troubled expression: "Just… to use such means to desecrate the gods…"

"Hah, in a crisis we shouldn't worry about that; slowing the Heichi invasion as much as possible is what matters. Who would have thought that at this critical juncture we'd have to resort to Ke Xia's heretical ways? Other scholars have always revered the gods, yet never studied such sorcery."

"Sigh… even if the Titan disagrees, it can't make a sound."

"Then we can only entrust the spark to that woman."

Attack on Titan.

The Heichi have surged over; those people of the Arboretum are already all dead…

Note: "Gravitas" is a name, transliterate as "Gravitas". Good.

"Then we can only entrust the spark to that woman."

—— => This line is just an em dash? We need to output translation. The source is "——". Likely a separator. We should translate as an em dash? Probably keep as "——". But we need to output a translation line. Since it's just punctuation, we can output the same: "——". However we need to keep it as a line. We'll output "【23】 ——". But the instruction: Output 【N】 for every line, keep each translation on a single output line. So we output "【23】 ——". That seems fine.

Attack on Titan.

The Heichi have surged over; those people of the Arboretum are already all dead…

Ai Lun drew a sharp breath, not daring to think too deeply in the most brutal direction; if the Tree Court's students had been slaughtered to the last, there should be corpses strewn across the ground. Yet now the Tree Court shows not a trace of blood—perhaps they all fled to refuge together.

It has come to using detonators to blow up the sacred tree, not hesitating to employ this 'self-destruct' method against the Heichi; Ai Lun finds it hard to imagine what kind of disaster this specifically is.

Could it be that they are like giants… beings that pure human strength cannot contend with?

""Black, cloak, sharp sword…… Could it be referring to the Heichi monsters?""

A'ermin pondered these words, barely managing to sketch in his mind the image of a humanoid warrior; if the Heichi are a group of humanoid monsters, then the strategies to deal with them are still relatively many.

He most fears that the Heichi will spawn bizarre creations that are hard to imagine with common sense, or those that are hard to exterminate by 'physical' means; A'ermin believes that as long as these Heichi monsters can be killed, there will surely be a countermeasure afterward.

""A'ermin, what do you think of these Heichi monsters…… Do they have self-consciousness? Or rather, does some kind of consciousness behind them guide their behavior?" Rang, looking up at the sky canopy, suddenly asked.

""What does that mean?""

""I want to know whether the Heichi are truly a natural disaster, or if someone with intent wishes to use the Heichi to wipe out humanity and the Titans," Rang said, "If it's the former, I think we only need the Golden Descendants and the Train Crew to join forces to gradually bring it under control. But if it's the latter… imagine if someone truly intends to use the Heichi to exterminate all living beings of Weng Faluo; what would their purpose be?""

""Destruction.""

""Well, only 【Destruction】 needs no purpose." Rang drew a deep breath, his face also sinking completely, "... the worst case scenario is that Weng Faluo is a planet targeted by 【Destruction】, but as for why it isn't a legion being sent but rather the Heichi being used, and the origins of the Heichi… I just don't know.""

——

""The crowd continued deeper into the Tree Court, until before a platform, only to see countless twisted monster corpses lying haphazardly on the ground, interspersed with many Tree Court scholars.""

""Besides that, deep red grid-like erosion patches appeared on the Tree Court's ground and stone pillars, obstructing the crowd's advance.""

""Ti An instinctively hid behind Xia Die, whispering: 'This… is so scary…'""【41】 ""Mi Mi curiously examined these dead monsters, asking: 'What are these… beasts? Or the retinue of the 【Death】 Titan?'"

「Mimizé curiously examined these dead monsters: "What is this… a beast? Or a follower of the 【Death】 Titan?"」

""Not at all," Xia Die shook her head. "These are Heichi spawn—bodies twisted and hollowed by erosion. Everyone, stay alert… no matter what happened in the Tree Court, to see Heichi remains here is absolutely no good omen.""

""Mi Mi: 'But these pitch-black fellows… shouldn't be appearing here, right?'"

""Although the Tree Court's location is relatively remote, the Heichi have spread this quickly……" Xia Die frowned, "The world lost to 【Strife】 is likely far more perilous than we imagined.""

""Ah, then Aohema isn't also in danger, is it?""

""Xia Die, lost in thought: 'Just looking at this mess… the scholars should have at least blocked the first wave of attack. But we don't know what price they paid……'""【47】 ""……""

"……"

""Meanwhile, Aohema.""

""Lady Aglaea, the patient who appeared in the outskirts of Aohema City, after several days of major and minor surgery, is now out of danger.""

""You've added unnecessary trouble for me, Feng Jin.""

""Feng Jin's face still looked grim: 'He's been affected by the Heichi; organ fibrosis is especially severe. That he's alive is already a miracle—I can't guarantee when he'll wake up.'"

""Don't pressure yourself; you've done your duty. Don't rush back to the Tree Court now—first get proper rest.""

""After seeing Feng Jin off, Aglaea called Ti Bao aside: 'Master, I still have something I want to say to you. That patient's background… is somewhat suspicious.'""

"He is not an Aohema person. The way the stitching is buried in his clothing is quite special… it's the Arboretum's craftsmanship."

Yes we have up to 【54】. So we need to translate lines 1-54.

Now we need to produce translations for each line.

We must keep each translation on a single line, with 【N】 prefix.

We must not add any extra commentary.

Ulfaross 3.1 (103)

Then