Chapter 1383

The four sisters were all disciples of Elder Murphy, so in theory their status was equal, but Vanessa was the strongest among them, so after Elder Murphy collapsed, command fell to Vanessa.

The one asking was Lisa, the second-strongest elf, who was puzzled.

Their mission was to rescue the elf Valkyrie Ailin; especially after learning of Ailin's identity, and of news concerning the Faith God Tree, they had not even bothered to confirm whether the news was true, nor had they left anyone stationed here.

Turning around and leaving — that seemed like the kind of behavior humans would call cowardly.

"Mm." Vanessa nodded, her expression unreadable, leaving the other elves unable to guess what she was thinking.

She was thinking about love!

More precisely, she was wondering whether the power of love really was this terrifying — that it could make an elf betray her own race and faith, and throw herself wholeheartedly into a human's embrace?

Simply because humans had saved the elves, and protected and cared for them, must the elves therefore repay them with love and self?

She did not understand.

The clan chief had once said that elves' lives were very long, with enough time to study whatever they wished to study.

But most elves did not need love; the so-called love had wounded them deeply.

That was how they put it — whether older male elves or female elves, they all seemed to be lonely.

Within the clan, elves who became mates were rare; when one asked mated elves what love was, most of the time they would only smile it off, saying words the elves could not understand.

"You'll understand later." Exactly when?

Vanessa was curious, but not expectant, because so far everything concerning love had always been more terrifying than beautiful — she was afraid.

By the time Vanessa and her party returned to the clan, it was already deep into the night. As always, she took Elder Murphy's place and went to report to the clan chief what they had encountered that day, especially recounting the matters of Valkyrie Ailin and Lin Cheng, and the Faith God Tree — though she could not be certain whether this was true or false. The clan chief's reaction was unusually calm; with a light wave of her hand, she seemed not to care at all.

"Go back and rest well, Vanessa."

"Mm."

Vanessa lingered, taking three steps and pausing, slowly withdrawing. The clan chief had given no answer, yet she could not ask directly — she could only hope the clan chief would give one soon.

Everyone was hoping dearly to welcome the God Tree back.

How could the clan chief not know what was on Vanessa's mind? But this matter truly required careful consideration. After Vanessa left, a long sigh drifted out from the clan chief's room.

In the end, the clan chief still summoned an elf of equal standing to herself.

"Sasha, have Louise come by — I have something to discuss with her."

"Yes, Clan Chief."

"Orianna, what matter did you summon me for?"

An elf maiden with an unusual hair color quickly entered the treehouse where the clan chief was; her hair was deep green, more profound than that of ordinary nature elves.

Louise was also the only special Nature Priestess within the nature-elf clan, known as the God Tree Priestess. Put plainly, she was the God Tree's nanny!

She could sense the God Tree's condition, including sensing the God Tree's location.

In the face of Vanessa's report, the reason Orianna had been able to appear so composed was that she had long known of the God Tree's appearance.

Being able to track down the God Tree's traces so quickly — she was only a little unsettled inside. According to Louise, the God Tree was still in its infancy, and would need at least several hundred years to reach its growth period.

Even if the God Tree were now in human hands, it did not matter — human lifespans, fundamentally, could not compare with those of elves.

The God Tree's traces had been located — it was inside the Bastion Fortress of the Emperor Tianwu Empire, in the hands of an eighth-tier Forger named Lin Cheng Tute.

"Lin Cheng Tute." Louise murmured the name softly, her gaze drifting into distant recollection, but after carefully searching her memory, she seemed never to have heard this name.

The Tute family, however, left Louise with some impression — supposedly a craftsman family within the Emperor Tianwu Empire, whose skills in some ways rivaled those of the elf clan.

Seeing Louise's utterly blank look, the attentive Orianna explained it to her as well.

"Your information is a bit behind. According to the results of Vanessa's investigation, the Tute family declined rapidly within the last hundred years; now the Tute family consists of only Lin Cheng Tute."

"And now he is rising again."

"So that's how it is." Louise nodded and sighed as well, "Human lives really are short, aren't they."

"There's one more piece of news — one that, for us, is not exactly good news."

"Mm."

"Lin Cheng Tute contributed a complete compendium of inscriptions to the Emperor Tianwu Empire, while ours is…"

"Sigh, is this some kind of cycle?" A hint of desolation immediately fell across Louise's eyes.

Ten thousand years ago, when they lost the Faith God Tree, the elf clan split apart rapidly over the following century; the complete compendium of inscriptions within the clan was also damaged at that time, and was even split into several parts.

With the passage of time, even if the damaged compendium of inscriptions could now be pieced back together, it would probably have been altered beyond recognition — no longer a complete compendium of inscriptions at all.