CHAPTER 265: MOIRA'S PAST AND THE WORLD-EATER

In the elven capital of Liaheim, Moira focused intently as she carefully held a sliver of crystal with her tweezers and brought it to the flame kindled upon her right palm. Her slightly clouded eyes watched the slow shift in the crystal's hue, waiting for a precise moment.

When the surface shimmered with a sheen of "iridescent black"—a darkness laced with hints of shifting color—Moira swiftly dropped the fragment into a vial she had prepared beforehand.

A sharp crack echoed through the room, unpleasantly loud to the ear. The gray-white crystal shattered as its fragments slowly sank to the bottom of the vial.

"The seventh failure," Moira muttered with a sigh. "I really am getting old. Nothing works the way it used to. Without Wang Yu around, even processing materials has become a monumental task."

She tossed the ruined vial and its contents into a small incinerator set in the middle of the room. Despite its difficulty, the process of refining a volatility-transmuted flame crystal had never stymied her like this in the past.

She even used to chide Avia for lacking practice in handling materials. To Moira, mastery of materials was second only to innate talent in alchemy—it was a core skill that every true alchemist had to possess.

But after relying on Wang Yu for so long, she'd come to understand the reason for Avia's lack of expertise. Wang Yu's ability was dangerously addictive.

All she had to do was hand him the raw components and a recipe. Then, before she could even blink, perfectly treated materials would be laid out before her. There would be no fuss, no mess, no risk of failure... The entire laborious and error-prone process, gone. Without him, everything felt off.

She shook her head. When had she become so complacent? In her youth...

Well, to be frank, if her younger self had met someone like Wang Yu, she'd probably have relied on him all the time, too.

"..."

Her gaze drifted. When had she start slipping into these sentimental daydreams? Perhaps it was the influence of those two new disciples. After all, it was their reckless ambition that had reignited her own pursuit of the impossible.

And with that thought, her mind slipped further into the past—to someone she hadn't seen in decades: her old classmate and closest friend.

"Ugh. Growing old really does make you maudlin," she muttered. "These wandering thoughts just won't stop plaguing me."

When she had first arrived in Liaheim as a student, Moira's genius quickly earned her a name among the elves.

That was how she met Kate, her first elven friend. She was a quiet, silver-haired girl likewise gifted in the art of herbalism. Their chance encounter arguing over a point of alchemical theory sparked the start of a lasting friendship.

It wasn't a dramatic tale—just two people from different races becoming friends.

Back then, Moira had been far more brazen, and their interactions had been rather provocative—almost as if they were college roommates.

When Moira learned that Kate, who looked even younger than she did, was actually several centuries old, Moira took to calling her old hag.

Kate, demure though she seemed, was no pushover. Her retort? "Call me Mommy."

It was a simple, silly friendship, the sort that you could only find in the sheltered halls of academia.

"I wonder... If you could see me now, Kate, what would you say?"

Moira pinched the wrinkled, loosening skin on the back of her hand. She was old and growing older. If Kate were still alive, she would barely have been affected by the passing decades.

Moira was no knight. Her frail magician's body could hardly endure the drugs that granted youth or prolonged life in an unnatural fashion. Unless she were to transcend the mortal coil entirely, her lifespan would be a curse she could never truly escape.

Kate had a brother: Gewen, Sieg's old friend. The three of them had all been close friends, and Gewen's position as an elven elder had helped Moira more than once in the past.

What had happened between Moira and Gewen to cut short such a promising friendship?

The incident that had sparked the rift had been a joint extermination campaign against orc marauders, with elves and dwarves united in force. Moira and Kate had volunteered as field medics.

No one could have foreseen that an orc champion, the wielder of the legendary Frostfire and a former commander of the orc kingdom's royal army, would have been among the raiding party.

A sudden assault by the Frostfire-wielding grand knight had decimated the joint elven and dwarven forces.

His flanged mace, wreathed in searing frostfire, turned countless elves and dwarves into smoldering ice sculptures.

Fortunately, the battle had erupted on the outskirts of the Forest of Origin. Swarms of tree spirits and war-trees descended in a tide of roots and wrath, smothering the monstrous orc with the help of sheer numbers.

Poor Kate, caught in the fringe of the explosion, had been struck by Frostfire's lingering curse.

The curse had frozen Kate's body on the outside even as flames seared her body from the inside. A direct hit from Frostfire would kill anyone; glancing hits were usually as fatal, though on a longer timeframe.

Such a curse was almost impossible to dispel. Only a divine miracle, or an artifact of a higher tier than the legendary weapon itself, might suffice.

Kate's condition hadn't been too severe, not at first. She had simply fallen unconscious. Moira, master herbalist that she was, knew of one possible cure: immersion in the Heartpool beneath the Tree of Life.

For non-elves, the Heartpool was an incredible boon, nothing short of rebirth—it granted them renewed vitality, an extended lifespan, and even boosted their natural talents.

And for elves, the Heartpool might as well have been true rebirth. It was a panacea against pain and would heal all their old wounds, scars, and maladies. It could purge the taint of Frostfire completely.

Given Gewen's status as an elven elder, Moira had believed that Kate's salvation was assured. But Gewen... had declined. With cold formality and a tight-lipped expression on his face, he had told Moira that assisting Kate in this manner would have been against elven law.

Moira's heart had frozen and never since thawed. "So... if I ever complete the Wish Elixir," she murmured, drumming her fingers on the desk, "maybe I should wish to rip that insufferable Tree of Life from the earth..."

She glanced out the window at the tree in question, its canopy ablaze with impossible color.

"Heh. Who am I kidding? This half-finished elixir probably can't even grant a proper wish. It'd be better for me to wish for a few drops from that Heartpool—I'd prolong my life and maybe even learn something new. It's far more realistic. Plus, I'd love to see that stick-in-the-mud Gewen's face when someone breaks his 'sacred laws.'"

A wry smile appeared on her usually impassive face.

Moira had more or less made peace with the past. Had Gewen been wrong to deny his own sister salvation? Perhaps not. As an elder, he shouldered responsibilities that had to be prioritized over kinship.

"I wonder how my two disciples are faring... If what they said about corruption is true, the Sorensen Mountains won't stay quiet for long. Hopefully, they won't overextend themselves."

Moira shook her head, freeing herself from the chains of her past. She rose and walked over to the alchemy table, where she picked up a specially crafted container.

Inside swirled a deep, shimmering violet fluid laced with starlight. This was the fruit of her labor, a half-finished Wish Elixir, perhaps the best she could do given her age.

She had named it the "Lucky Coin." What she sought now was the final step: to elevate it from mere luck to something truly miraculous, to cross that chasm from chance to desire made manifest. To forge a true wish.

Back in the Sorensen Mountains, Wang Yu and Avia were following Sif's lead, guided by the subtle current of natural magic that pulsed through the forest.

After Holo reached out via the moss that had run rampant, the trio quickly set off. Sif was guiding them toward the place where Holo, their old acquaintance, awaited.

"Your Holiness," Holo had said through the moss, "I never expected to see you again, least of all here. We may be running out of time... but to meet you at this hour is a blessing all the same. May I trouble you for one final favor?"

After winding through the woods, the three arrived at a cliffside halfway up the Sorensen range. The trail of natural magic ended here.

As the trio arrived, the cliff face began to crack and split open. Thick, sinewy vines forced their way out of the rock, writhing as they pushed apart the stone and unfurled a passage leading into the heart of the mountain—a path clearly prepared for them.

After confirming that a Gate of Phases could be activated at a moment's notice, Wang Yu, Avia, and Sif stepped into the vine-framed corridor and into the belly of Mt. Sorensen.

The walls of the passage were threaded with creeping vines that both reinforced the structure and served as the very tools that had carbed it out. The familiar essence that lingered in the vines told Wang Yu all he needed to know—awaiting them at the other end was none other than the dark elf druid who had once fought beside him in the capital's shadow, Holo.

"Ahem! Lord Wang Yu, forgive me for meeting you in such a state," came a hoarse, strained voice from deeper within the cavern, dry and ragged—so unlike the gentle tone Holo had once spoken with. "I can't even offer you a proper bow now."

Wang Yu's Chariot had already locked onto Holo's form. The druid's voice alone spoke volumes about his condition, but what Wang Yu now saw was far worse.

Holo barely looked like an elf any longer. Vines as thick as arms stretched from the stone itself, winding tightly around his body, suspending him against the cliff wall.

But this was no simple imprisonment—Holo's lower half had completely transformed into vegetation. The vines were not merely wrapping around him, but rather growing from him and branching outward into the walls of the cave.

Countless root-like tendrils emerged from the surrounding rock and embedded themselves into Holo's upper body like a second nervous system, pulsing faintly with an unnatural rhythm.

Only Holo's head remained visibly whole. He looked upon his three guests with a bitter, weary smile.

"You... why go this far?" Wang Yu asked softly, half in sorrow, half in exasperation. Holo, like the druid they had encountered within the giant mushroom, had offered up his own body to the vines.

"You must have learned of the state of this land by now," Holo replied, his voice a frayed whisper. "After I saw what my brethren had done here, how could I turn away? Even if... even if all I could do was buy a little time."

Holo's bitter smile deepened. Wang Yu hadn't wasted time trying to dissuade him—and that, more than anything, proved to Holo that Wang Yu understood what had happened at the Sorensen Mountains.

"Corruption. Famine. And this new ecosystem the druids have created," Wang Yu said, cutting to the heart of the matter.

Holo nodded. "Indeed. Everything you see here—the forest, the creatures—was born of famine-torn land and reshaped by the druids of my homeland."

"But if that's the case," Wang Yu pressed, "if the druids managed to reclaim the land... then why do this? Why subject yourself to this state?"

There was a long silence. "Because they couldn't, not truly," Holo said at last. "The corruption beneath the mountain was too vast, too deep. The druids lacked the strength to face it. So they turned to the one source of power that might answer them..."

"The Tree of Life," Wang Yu murmured.

A faint, reverent nod. "Yes. Even though the elves don't acknowledge us dark elves, we are still the Tree's children. When the druids offered their lives and prayed to their Mother, the Tree could not turn them away.

"Through the Tree's blessing, they traded their lives to birth a new ecology upon this corrupted soil. But the corruption beneath the mountain never left. It remains slumbering."

Holo's voice turned grim. "Over the years, it has grown ever more ravenous, hungering for the Tree's vitality. It drinks from her roots and swells with stolen life. Now, it is on the verge of waking. All I can do... is send it a false message. That its hunger is not yet fulfilled. That it is not yet time to rise.

"I cannot hold it for long. A week at most. After that... I don't know what it will do. But whatever it becomes... I fear it will rain calamity upon this land."

As Holo spoke, he called upon the last dregs of his druidic power, shaping nature magic into a vision and presenting it to the three who stood before him.

Within the vision was a chamber of gloom, hidden far beneath the Sorensen Mountains. Within it lay a grotesque, mountainous worm coiled up within a cavern, its pallid, roiling mass tethered by countless sinews of flesh and roots. The roots—some from the Tree of Life, others unnatural—fed into its body and pulsed with stolen nutrients.

It slept, but only barely. Dozens of malformed eyes lined its grotesque bulk, most closed. Yet some had begun to crack open, revealing filmy, yellow-gray orbs swimming with decay—a sign that it was waking., "A World-Eater..." Wang Yu said under his breath, recalling similar legends from Earth. And so the beast was named.