Chapter 332: Let Me Think About It Again

Watching Aistodolia carefully hold a two-meter-long stick to pick up those farmyard manure buckets, everyone felt a strong sense of incongruity. Goddess of Truth, and so beautiful at that — if the elves saw this, they'd be furious, right?

But when they saw the holy, fair-skinned little angel carrying a bucket, fluttering past with a rustle, everyone instantly felt harmony restored. Even the holy spirit angel had to carry one, so what was an elven goddess of law?

Lisa said in vexation: "I thought she would back off in the face of difficulty, but I didn't expect she could really steel her heart. This is troublesome now — I've completely offended her. Why on earth does she insist on serving my lord?"

Nai Ge Li Si glanced at the shepherd tree on the treant Gor's body in the distance and muttered: "The elves have it rough, you know. Their goddess has run off, and besides, she's not here to serve Seeing Ange — she's here to serve the little sapling."

The elves have it rough. In the past, the Goddess of Life would occasionally respond to them, but now there's no response at all — no idea whether she burned to death or what happened.

After losing the Goddess of Life, the elves' days became very difficult. They were like a group of spoiled children who never grew up — once they lost their protection, even survival required tremendous effort.

The Tree of Life was not only their goddess, but also a giant tree with inexhaustible resources. Its branches could be made into bows, staves, and clothing; its fruit could be eaten; its hollows could be lived in. Without any special needs, an elf could spend its entire life on the Tree of Life without ever touching soil.

Even children born on it could be left to play with peace of mind — the Goddess of Life would protect them and keep them from falling off the tree to their deaths.

But during this recent period, three elves had fallen to their deaths — two little elves and one adult elf.

Yes, without the protection of the Goddess of Life, even adult elves could fall off the tree.

Because of this, the Tree of Life was no longer a safe dwelling, and everyone had to move down to the ground.

Actually, they had already moved to the ground before. When the Goddess of Life got angry and released the green mist, they had already come down to the ground — but that time it was only a stopgap measure. Now, however, they realized that they seemed to have lost their goddess forever.

Moving from the tree to the ground was not merely a change of living environment, but also a rise in the cost of living. Now they had to specially assign some elves to act as nursery teachers to watch over and instruct the young elves.

Besides that, beds, chairs, tables, pots, bowls, ladles, basins, and even tents and curtains had all become necessities, because there were mosquitoes and insects on the ground. In the past, living on the tree, those harmful insects couldn't get up.

These things they didn't produce themselves, so they could only purchase them from humans. This forced many elves back up the trees — they couldn't be bothered with the risk of falling to their deaths anymore and could only be more careful in daily life, nailing ropes across activity areas as barriers.

Most elves adapted well to life on the trees, as long as they kept an eye on the young and the old.

However, this was only one of the problems. Having lost the protection of the Goddess of Life, there were too many things they needed to adapt to. In the past, within the range of the Tree of Life, it never rained — all rainwater was broken down into mist and evenly sprinkled over all the crops.

Now that no longer worked — it rained. Especially after the Tree of Life had been burned, although Seeing Ange had saved it, the leaves were far less lush than before, and rainwater would penetrate the branches and drench them into "soaked elves."

This needs some explanation — "Soaked Elf" is a very famous painting among humans. In it, a delicate elf is completely soaked, her clothes clinging to her body, outlining a moving curve and the faint texture of her skin, looking ahead in panic. That expression — tender yet flustered, startled yet charming — was exquisitely beautiful, and was hailed as one of the top ten works in human art history.

Yet elves are not delicate at all — but the problem is, no matter how sturdy an elf is, getting drenched makes them very prone to illness.

Oh, right — illness. Now the elves' rate of getting sick was also much higher than before, and some elves had even developed insomnia.

In short, every aspect of life had been seriously affected, but everything could be overcome. The one thing that could not be overcome was that the Tree of Life no longer grew Life Fruits.

Elves were a long-lived species, with lifespans as long as a thousand years. Yet outsiders did not know that only elves who had eaten the Life Fruit could have a thousand-year lifespan. If an elf never ate the Life Fruit after birth, their lifespan would shrink to two hundred years.

If the Goddess of Life never returned, it would mean that from now on, all newly born elves would degenerate into a short-lived species.

Over the next few hundred years, newly born elves would age and die earlier than their parents, and this process would continue until all the long-lived elves who had eaten the Life Fruit died off.

Only at this point did Aistodolia truly realize how laughable her previous thoughts had been. It was not that the Goddess of Life belonged to the elves, but that the elves could not do without the Goddess of Life. Without the Goddess of Life's protection, even living had become difficult for them.

All their refinement and elegance was bestowed by the Goddess of Life. She erased the most trivial matters of survival — elves didn't have to get up every day to hunt and gather, didn't have to crawl through forest ditches mining every day, didn't have to bear the troubles of childbirth and child-rearing — so naturally they had plenty of time to be refined and elegant.

Aistodolia thought of those insects parasitizing the great trees — how similar were the elves to them?

If before, Aistodolia had still clung to: I am the elven Goddess of Law, I have come to serve the little Goddess of Life, you should feel honored and grateful to share in her glory.

Now she didn't dare think that way anymore. She was just a pitiful bug abandoned by her goddess — well, not even pitiful, just a bug, and she had brought it on herself. Just as Kelandail had been nagging lately: the Goddess of Life doesn't like elves…

With this clear understanding, she set her attitude very properly this time. If she was told to carry farmyard manure, then carry farmyard manure — what's the big deal?

But… but… smelling the odor wafting from the bucket, Aistodolia felt her scalp tingle. Lisa had an advantage here — she couldn't smell anything.

Obviously, just holding a long stick couldn't pick everything up — she nearly knocked the bucket over. The contents sloshed inside and splashed out a little.

Aistodolia shrieked and sprang back several meters, even though she was already wrapped in several layers of shields — even if sparks splashed out, they couldn't touch her.

But even if they couldn't touch her, touching the shield was also unacceptable. If they really did touch it, she'd rather not have the shield at all. Even though the shield was invisible energy, it still felt disgusting.

Fortunately, nothing touched her. Then she came to her senses and slapped her own head hard — just now she had been goaded by Lisa and forgotten that she was a Truth Mage. No one said she couldn't use magic to pick things up.

Aistodolia pointed a finger, and powerful elements surged into the stick in her hand.

Once Aistodolia switched to thinking about the problem with a magical mindset, things became simple. It was just using a stick to lift two wooden buckets — for a Truth Mage, this was already so simple it didn't require magic.

Elements surged into the stick, forcibly altering its elemental affinity. Normally this should have been a very lengthy process, because the stick was just ordinary jujube wood, not an elemental plant, and its affinity was very low — it required long-term elemental infiltration, or else alchemy.

But Aistodolia preferred to brute-force it. After all, the stick didn't need to last long — brute-forcing it was fine.

With its elemental affinity altered, the stick could be moved using ordinary elemental manipulation techniques.

The wooden stick was seen flying up on its own, plunging itself into the bucket, and moving by itself.

A lone wooden stick, carrying two wooden buckets, drifted away. Aistodolia fanned at her nose and drifted along after it.

Well, she had done it. But when she drifted back and looked, Seeing Ange had already gone off somewhere, and everyone had scattered, busy with their own things. Who had time to watch you carry manure?

Aistodolia felt a grievance of being looked down on. She pressed her lips together, held it in, and encouraged herself: "Does this mean I'm allowed to stay? Alright then, I'll stay."

Just as she was searching all over the streets for Seeing Ange, she suddenly sensed a presence and sharply turned her head toward a building by the road.

A large, glittering nail-shaped sign hung at the entrance of the building. According to Lisa, this was a nail salon. A pretty, cute little loli stood at the door, holding up her own sparkling hands and turning them in the sunlight.

With every change of angle, the patterns on her nails showed different effects — very dazzling.

Yet this little loli carried a presence that put Aistodolia on high alert — she was a mage of the same level as herself.

The moment Aistodolia sharply turned her head, the little loli sensed it too. She turned her head, saw an elf, and with a whoosh tucked both hands behind her back. She drifted over slowly and said with a smile: "Little one, want a manicure?"

Little one?! She actually called her little one? An elf several hundred years old being called little one? And by a little loli at that?

Before she could react, the little loli extended that nail-sparkling hand and handed her a card: "Use my name, get ten percent off."

Aistodolia took it and looked — it was an all-black wooden card with a name written on it: Dead Star, Aobenli.

Aistodolia instantly recalled the name. As a Truth Mage, she naturally kept track of information on strong ones of the same level — even if she hadn't met them in person, she had certainly heard the name.

"So it's her. No wonder she called me little one. Is this a lich? How can she be so pretty? A manicure? What kind of monsters are here?" Aistodolia sighed.

In Meishencheng, bumping into someone at random meant running into a monster on her level — no wonder Seeing Ange didn't value her service.

Just then, Aobenli, who had just drifted away, drifted back again and waved at her: "Come on, let's go join the fun."

When Aistodolia followed Aobenli outside the city, she found that most of Seeing Ange's top combat forces had already gathered here — clearly the look of some major operation.

Aistodolia's heart tightened, and the first thought that popped into her mind was: if I perform well, I won't have to go back and carry manure.

Aobenli also drifted over with great interest: "Are you guys going to fight? Count me in."

Seeing Ange nodded nonchalantly.

Nai Ge Li Si was a little dumbfounded, watching O'Benli and Aisidoliya come in.

Without a doubt, O'Benli represented the Stellar Republic, Aisidoliya could represent the Elves, plus Brusker coordinating overseas, and the Dwarf King and Anthony secretly colluding — didn't that mean that out of the seven powers at the Plane Security Council, five had taken part in this operation, preparing to deal with the sixth?

Glory be — Dai Sen could die in peace now.

Unaware that he had already been targeted, Dai Sen was also making battle preparations. Two days earlier he had already finalized a plan with the Dwarf King: he would provide high-end combat power, the Dwarf King would provide aerial support and ground troops, to launch a surprise attack on Meishencheng.

The Dwarves' Goat Cavalry and Gryphon Knights were the forces he valued most, but with the lesson of the Wyvern Knights fresh in mind, Dai Sen didn't feel it was very safe, so he continued to draw out more of his hidden cards.

Passing through a teleportation array, he arrived at an unknown plane. The moment he stepped out of the array, what greeted his eyes was a vast expanse of gleaming white bones — endless bones stretching beyond sight, scattered across the great plain ahead.

Dai Sen held his breath and cast a Breath-Holding Art upon himself. This plane had no air; apart from the undead and elemental beings that didn't need to breathe, living creatures could not survive here.

Sensing the movement, a skeleton lying at the edge of the teleportation array raised its head, saw Dai Sen, then lay back down again.

Dai Sen restrained his Holy Light of Radiance, not daring to let a single drop leak out — otherwise, if he alarmed the undead that filled every hill and valley, he would die a terrible death.

Leaving the teleportation array, he walked forward. Along the way, skeletons would occasionally raise their heads to glance at him, then lie back down again. Dai Sen's appearance had already been spread around by the king of this place; everyone knew him.

Seeing Ange had actually seen three groups of undead sent out by Dai Sen — one was Gold Tooth, one was the corpse remains thrown into the Abyss of Rest to spread undead plague, and one was the Black Warriors that had infiltrated Meishencheng.

Dai Sen said they had been captured in the Sunken Lands, but he had never said whom they served — even Guli Anni didn't know.

Yes, although with Guli Anni's help Dai Sen had ignited the Divine Fire and explained many things, this one matter alone he had kept hidden.

Passing through countless corpses, Dai Sen arrived at an open patch of ground in the center of the plain where there were no corpses. Viewed from the air, one could faintly make out a sigil — the sigil of the God of Oblivion.

Within the bounds of this sigil, a purple-gold skeleton sat with its fist propping up its jaw, on a raised patch of earth, as if pondering something.

Sensing Dai Sen's approach, purple flames ignited in the purple-gold skeleton's eye sockets, and it blankly raised its head to look at Dai Sen: "Who are you…?"

A familiar scene, a practiced response — Dai Sen said: "I am your servant, Dai Sen."

"Servant? Who am I…?" the purple-gold skeleton asked blankly.

"You are the Lord of Mourning, Jian Gu Luo Ke."

"Jian Gu Luo Ke? That doesn't seem right, I hate that name — how did I end up here?" the purple-gold skeleton asked blankly.

"You fought the God of Oblivion and were struck by his Sigil of Oblivion, causing you to forget many things. Only the God of the Undead can help you recover your memories. I am the servant sent by the God of the Undead to attend you. The God of Oblivion's running dogs have mobilized again — Lord Luo Ke, I need your power to help me make my enemies vanish."

The purple-gold skeleton first sat there racking its brains, and as it thought it squatted down onto the ground. After quite a while it said distressfully: "I can't remember clearly, let me think some more."

Dai Sen inwardly sighed in regret — another failure. Of course this purple-gold skeleton was not Jian Gu Luo Ke, but struck by the Sigil of Oblivion, it also no longer remembered who it was.

As long as he repeated it over and over, ten thousand times, and waited until it accepted the new identity he had fabricated for it, he could completely control it.

"Take your time thinking, don't rush — but the God of Oblivion's running dogs are about to break in any moment now, you have to help me hold them off." Dai Sen said.

The purple-gold skeleton fell to thinking again. After a good while, it seemed to recall something, and reached out a hand to pick at it — its hand had only four finger-bones, the ring-finger bone was missing.

With its movement, a corpse suddenly burrowed out of the earth. Its skin was deathly white, its expression dull, like a zombie that had only just died — but the sigil on its forehead shook Dai Sen to the core. Was this the body of the God of Oblivion?