Chapter 149: 081. Aslan’s Saviour -2 (Part One)
-Along with the sacred angel, the chosen princess will bring salvation to Aslan’s lands.
The prophecy made by the soothsayer was right.
With the summoned tree spirit as the centre, all types of grass suddenly grew on the withered land, turning it into a verdant field.
To Aslan, this sight was her dream, her path to salvation – and now it was coming to reality.
The tree spirit looked down at Tina on the ground. An expression of deep intrigue floated up on its wrinkled face as the creature slowly stroked its beard-like trunk.
-You are one of the fairy races, I see. But to think that I was summoned by a Dark Elf, not the usual High Elf. I also sense not just Mana, but even divinity permeating in you. That is quite a unique power you have there, child.
The tree spirit then turned its head, and after spotting Allen Olfolse under his bone armour, a look of surprise appeared on its face next.
-Was it because of that person’s influence? Is that why Mana and divinity were combined as one?
Tina’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. That’s because what she intended to summon to this world was not a tree spirit, but the spirits of ‘nature’ instead.
When the tree spirit lowered its head, a pleasant aroma of fresh grass lightly tickled Tina’s nose.
She gasped out in stupefaction. “But, how did the tree spirit…?”
-Ah, I see… What you were calling wasn’t me, but the other children, wasn’t it?
All sorts of little spirits began jumping out from the lush leaves adorning the tree spirit.
The spirit of wind had the appearance of a bird; the spirit of fire with the appearance of a little child; the spirit of the earth that looked like a snake; the spirit of water with the appearance of a turtle, etc…
They either flew around the tree spirit, or hid themselves back within the lush leaves and glanced curiously at Tina.
-Come, children. You should greet your contractor.
At the tree spirit’s urging, the little spirits cautiously approached Tina. She lowered her head and stared at them.
The spirits climbed up to her knee and looked up at her, their eyes sparkling brightly.
-Huhuhuh, since a child capable of summoning spirits has finally appeared for the first time in two thousand years, I came here to see for myself out of curiosity. Of course, the resulting backlash is as severe as expected, but still… it was worth it.
The tree spirit raised its head back up and smiled with its eyes.
“May I ask, who are you?”
She sensed a truly sacred aura coming from this tree. This existence couldn’t have been a regular tree spirit at all.
-Oops, it looks like I forgot to introduce myself. I am called Yggdrasil. I’m also the world tree that maintains the balance of the world.
Tina’s jaw nearly hit the ground.
Once upon a time in the ancient era, there supposedly existed a tree of life that connected all the worlds into one. It formed the centre of the worlds and acted as the foundation of the great mother nature. It could also control different facets of nature as well.
And the name bestowed unto the world tree was…
…Yggdrasil.
And the tree spirit said that that was its name.
“B-b-but, the books say you’re a huge tree only existing in the spirit world, so how…”
The records did say that the world tree was a gigantic and ancient tree several kilometres tall.
-This body is merely a clone. Even for me, breaking through the dimensional wall is still too difficult. I can only recreate a small portion of my actual body like this.
“A-are you saying that I succeeded in summoning a portion of the world tree?!”
The tree spirit shook its head.
-No, that’s impossible. It has been truly a long time since someone called out to our children from another dimension. I decided to come here out of curiosity, that is all.
The huge tree spirit then turned its gaze away, and stared at the barren and withered landscape all around them.
A desert with cracked soil and dried sand stared right back at it with no detectable signs of life anywhere.
The tree spirit shifted its gaze once more, and looked at the stand-off between the human radiating the aura of life around him, and another human with the aura of death gushing out from his body.
The tree spirit’s eyes narrowed to slits as it observed this scene. Then it glanced at Tina before saying something.
-I now understand what you’ve been feeling when calling out to our children. However, I can never take away someone’s life. Maybe others can, but not me…
The tree spirit raised its hand, and then slammed it right down to the ground.
THUD-!
The land resonated and quaked.
The earth below split open and water began gushing out like a burst geyser. Streams of water quickly flooded in every direction.
The once-withered ground was soaked in water and stems of various plants began sprouting out. A huge lake was soon generated as greenery continued spreading out even further.
The surrounding landscape started changing rapidly. It felt like this whole area was transforming into a brand new world when compared to only a few minutes ago.
-…I can certainly scatter seeds of life in this land.
Tina became completely stupefied as beautiful mother nature sprouted out all around her. The origin of Mana, the world tree, had combined itself with the origin of life, divinity, quickly dyeing the surrounding land in the rich verdant hue.
“The world tree…”
The hashashins took off their steel masks while their jaws all went slack from shock. They could vividly sense the aura of pure nature on their skin. They knelt down and began stroking the ground in disbelief.
The ground no longer resembled the barren wasteland they were used to, but a living grassland that felt soft to the touch and green to their eyes.
Faint but inviting scents of grass and fertile earth were rapidly unfurling itself to the surroundings, refreshing breezes and warm early morning sunlight accompanied them.
-As I am nothing more than a clone, I cannot remain in this world for long. This is all I can do for you. That’s why…
The tree spirit looked down at the still-dazed Tina on the ground.
-We should quickly finish what you wanted to do.
The spirit powerfully stomped the ground with its foot. That foot transformed into tree roots and dug deep into the ground below.
The tree spirit closed its eyes and its wrinkled face gradually ‘hardened’. And eventually, the spirit at least eight metres tall was planted in front of the city of Evelyum as a giant tree.
But at the same time, a huge wave of Mana spread out from the giant tree’s vicinity. And unsurprisingly, the Mana wave even affected the two humans colliding against each other while using the auras of life and death as well.
“What in the world…?!”
King Rahamma freaked out at the shockwave of Mana reaching him.
-The land of death that no other kings in history managed to solve, it will soon feature hues of green so lush and blessed that no other lands can ever rival it! Yes, it shall turn into the chosen land instead!
The words of the soothsayer from that day rang so clearly in Rahamma’s mind – followed soon after by the echoes of ‘history’s worst king, the foolish and arrogant king’.
He hurriedly cast his gaze below. Plant stems were travelling up his legs, trying to reach his torso.
A chill ran down on his spine.
If everything the soothsayer had said was correct, then he would be…
Rahamma urgently shook off the plant stems. But when he turned his gaze back to his front…
“What the…?”
The tree stems began wrapping around the body of the angel.
Mana resonated in the surroundings as if to protect him.
“This doesn’t make any sense…!” Rahamma gritted his teeth before loudly shouting out at the hashashins, “All of you! Sacrifice yourselves to me! I require all of your life ener…?!”
Rahamma couldn’t finish the rest of his sentence.
The hashashins were all kneeling down to offer their prayers already. However, they weren’t praying to him, but to the huge tree right next to Tina.
They were demi-humans, after all. They were people of nature who worshipped the elemental spirits and swore to protect the world tree.
Rahamma’s expression crumpled unsightly.
He turned his head once more and discovered that the tree stems had finished enveloping the angel’s entire figure, and an incredible amount of Mana began writhing ominously.
**
(TL: In 1st person POV.)
My fatigue was being washed away. Even the heavy pressure crushing down on me was dissipating. And then, this fragrant scent of grass cleansed and purified my murky consciousness.
What’s going on here…? Maybe recovery magic?
It felt like a large chunk of the penalties when using Amon’s relics had been taken off.
While feeling really surprised by this development, I quickly turned my head to stare at Tina. There she was, resolutely holding a staff and standing in front of a huge, ancient-looking tree while lots of little spirits flew around her.
-Uh? I did it!
I remembered that she tried to summon holy undead back in Evelyum. But from the looks of things, what she managed to summon back then wasn’t an undead, but a spirit instead.
Holy cow, what an incredible power this was. So incredible that even I was rendered speechless. To think that it’d be powerful enough to lessen the side effects of using Amon’s relics.
Not only that…
-Do you want us to help? Ng? Should we?
The little spirits were circling all around me. It felt like I was looking at a group of innocent children from the way they giggled away.
I stared back at them and asked, “Help me? How?”
-Yup, we’ll help you!
The fire spirit with the appearance of a little kid bounced around energetically before stroking Amon’s staff in my grip with both of its hands.
Almost right away, intense flames enveloped the staff. The spirit of wind wrapped around my whole body while the spirits of both earth and water continued circling all around me.
Were they granting me with elemental attributes?
The spirits’ powers permeated into my body as the equipment on me kept getting upgraded higher and higher. This seemed like a different type of enhancement ability when compared to [Divine Aura].
“How dare a measly little slave…!”
I turned my head and stared at Rahamma.
His face was filled with unchecked rage. To make matters worse, he wasn’t even staring at me anymore, but shooting a murderous glare in Tina’s direction.
This as*hole was looking at his own daughter with a shocking level of hatred in his eyes.
