CHAPTER 272: A MOTHER'S OVERINDULGENCE

"Why? Why can I no longer attack it? What is this... What force is restraining me?!"

Near the crystalline spire, an elven magician stared in disbelief at his own hands, now halted mid-incantation. He had been forcibly withdrawn from controlling the spire's assault.

His thoughts whirled, yet no answer came to mind. Something had suddenly changed. He found himself utterly unable to direct any aggression toward the World-Eater, who was now heading into the Forest of Origin.

No matter how he struggled to reclaim control over his body, the moment he so much as attempted to launch an attack—or assist in one—his limbs would resist his command. Worse, his body would even take countermeasures to erase anything that might pose a threat to the World-Eater. It was as though his very flesh had turned traitor.

On the eleventh attempt to reassert control, his body acted on its own, ramming his staff directly into the control core of the crystal spire before him.

Though bereft of a soul's guidance, the staff's embedded mana crystal still resonated with the core's rampant magical energies.

Violent waves of power surged outward. Fire, drawn from the crystal's essence, mingled with the volatile magical energies and triggered an explosion, devouring the mage in flames.

When the smoke and fire dissipated, he stood—charred, yet alive—encased in a shimmering shield of magic, his face twisted with grim realization.

He had survived, thanks only to his innate spellcasting and the enchanted defenses he bore, but...

The rock spire that held the charged crystal crumbled into debris. The once-lush vines withered and fell away. The crystal, now devoid of energy, turned dull and fell with a hollow thud to the forest floor.

One of Liaheim's mighty crystal spires had been destroyed not by the enemy, but by the very magician meant to wield it.

Across the forest, one by one, more magicians found themselves in the same plight, each unable to raise a hand against the World-Eater. With every failed attempt to wrest back control, their bodies turned against them, sabotaging the spires they once commanded in a hundred different ways.

"This can't be..."

The elven commander stared in disbelief at the images relayed through a Magician's Eye. Among the war-trees bristling with alchemical cannons, druids were smashing their weapons against the very trees they had bound themselves to protect.

In the ranks of the magicians manning the crystal spires, the same madness reigned: senseless destruction, spires shattered by the hands of their guardians. Had they all gone mad at once?

"What are you doing? Keep atta—"

He tried to bellow the order through a communication spell, but the word "attack" stuck in his throat. No matter how he strained, he could not force the command from his lips.

Eyes wide in shock, his mind raced. And then, a dreadful epiphany took root.

Thoughts raced through his head. "A force is stopping us... preventing us from attacking the Devourer. But what kind of power could suppress so many of us simultaneously? Spells? Curses? A devil's influence? No... I would have sensed such disturbances, especially on this scale. So then—"

His breath caught. "The power stopping us... comes from within?" That conclusion was absurd, yet undeniable. What refused to move wasn't some external curse, but their very bodies. Their souls could no longer command their flesh.

The World-Eater stirred.

Though moments ago it had been but a mangled, tattered mass resembling a heap of dead tendrils, its monstrous regenerative power now revealed itself in full. Within minutes, the overwhelming life force it had stockpiled began to knit its wounds shut and regrow its limbs. Its colossal, worm-like form rose again and charged forward, crashing through the Forest of Origin like a juggernaut reborn.

"We can't let this continue... but what do we do?!" the commander thought, despair clawing at him. "Wait—the maze-lock!"

Unlike the crystal spires, the maze-lock—Liaheim's living city-wide defensive formation—required no operator.

If the World-Eater got close enough to Liaheim, the formation would automatically classify it as a threat and unleash its stored magical fury on it.

"Even with its regenerative powers, it won't survive a direct hit from the maze-lock's outer shell..."

The commander clung to that hope as he continued observing the Magician's Eye, attempting to bypass the restrictions that had suddenly been imposed on his body.

Even now, the resistance from his own flesh remained overwhelming. He couldn't give any attack commands or even think maliciously about the World-Eater without provoking violent revolt from his own body.

He forcibly tamped down the killing intent that rose within him. Only then did his body stop trying to destroy the communication array. Just as he let out a breath of relief, the Magician's Eye displayed a new image—one that froze the blood in his veins.

The view had shifted to reveal the city of Liaheim itself, with a subtle but unmistakable change: the maze-lock had gone silent. It had been deactivated from within.

And only a privileged few held the authority to do that—the elven elders, guardians of the Eden Plain atop the Tree of Life.

"No... Were the elders affected too?!"

A shadow of despair and fear passed over the commander's face. He knew, with all the clarity of a battle-hardened strategist, what it meant when collapse came from within.

High above, in the courtyard atop the Tree of Life, an elven elder stared in horror as his body moved against his will—his hands reached out to shut down the maze-lock, severing Liaheim's final line of defense.

"The signs were always there... not just in our distorted view of the dwarves, not only in our understanding of the Root Network... but in our blind trust of the Tree of Life itself.

"It links every elf in Liaheim... only she, our Mother, could touch us all..."

Breathless, he fought to speak even as his body betrayed him.

"The devils... they used the Tree to project their distorted magic across us all..."

His voice fragmented as his mind strained against his flesh. He had finally realized what had been distorted most insidiously of all: not their perception of the dwarves, but their perception for their Mother, the Tree of Life.

To elves, the Tree of Life was a mother. Reverence, awe, and devotion were sacred instincts owed to her. But love—true love—also required vigilance, concern, and doubt.

The devils had exploited the relationship between the elves and their Mother masterfully. Hidden behind layers of distorted understanding lay their real weapon: absolute trust, twisted into a leash.

The elves had never considered the unthinkable—that the Tree of Life, their Mother, had long since been altered from within.

Twisted and subverted, her link to her children was now used to stay their hands—to stop these "siblings" from harming one another.

"Please, Mother... wake up! That thing... is our enemy...!"

Veins bulging, the elder snarled as he fought his own limbs. But try as he might, still they moved, slow, steady, and inexorable.

The Mother who had once nurtured them responded not at all to his pleas.

With a faint mechanical sound, his unwilling hand fully deactivated the maze-lock.

And with that, the great living array that shielded all of Liaheim vanished, leaving the elven city exposed and defenseless, naked before the rampaging maw of the World-Eater.

The World-Eater thundered through the Forest of Origin. Countless limbs flailed against the ground, propelling the monstrous worm forward, each heave of its bulk hurling soil and stone high into the sky.

From the multitude of eyes embedded in its segmented form, a viscous yellow liquid began to gather. These grotesque tears welled along their rims and fell, each steeped in concentrated corruption.

And where that yellow liquid touched the earth of the Forest of Origin, it seeped downward, infiltrating the root network of the Tree of Life. Instantly, the roots began to shrivel, snap, and wither away, their life force utterly drained by the corruption.

And through those very roots, the corruption reached the Tree of Life.

But when that sickly liquid met the roots of the Tree itself, a curious transformation occurred. It did not continue its spread unchecked. Instead, the yellow hue faded as the liquid turned clear—as pure as spring water. The corruption had been purified.

Just as Holo had once told Wang Yu, overwhelming vitality could resist the advance of corruption. The Tree of Life's boundless life force temporarily smothered the gluttonous hunger of the corruption—but only temporarily.

Unlike the ordinary flora of the Forest of Origin, the roots of the Tree of Life weren't immediately destroyed, but signs of atrophy were spreading deep into the heart of the Tree's roots. Even its vast supply of life force had a limit. The relentless siphoning of its energy would surely wound it.

A wave of pain swept through every elf's soul. Their Mother, the Tree of Life, was crying out in agony. And through the ancient bond they shared with her, the elves felt her pain as their own.

Yet even as the World-Eater savaged her, the Tree of Life, whom Moira once claimed spoiled her wayward children, did not retaliate. She made no move against the traitor who now sought to consume her.

"Why? Move! Let me do something—anything!"

Surely that was the silent scream echoing in every elven heart.

Helpless, they watched as the World-Eater burst free from the Forest of Origin, its immense body crushing the outer districts of Liaheim beneath it. They could do nothing—neither strike nor stand in its way. Any attempt to halt the creature proved utterly futile.

The corruption spread, draining all surrounding life and replacing it with lifeless silence. And in the core of its central eye burned a singular focus: the Tree of Life at the heart of Liaheim. Only there, perhaps, could its infinite hunger be satisfied.

It trampled buildings, flattening them under its weight. Any elf who stood their ground—whether too slow to flee or too stubborn to yield—was obliterated beneath its advance.

It was absurd, grotesque, and unstoppable.

This aberration had torn through the elven defenses—defenses capable of slaying even multiple legends—with pitiless ease. Now it would pierce through Liaheim itself and reach the Tree of Life. Before the horrified, grieving eyes of the elves, their Mother's wayward child would commit matricide.

As the World-Eater stormed through the middle of Liaheim, a series of explosions erupted across its massive body. Fiery detonations burst again and again—less powerful than alchemical cannons, but staggering in their sheer number.

Narrow rifts in space blinked open above its segmented body and spewed out a relentless barrage of iron swords, short axes, war hammers, and spears—a machine-gun storm of shrapnel.

Atop a towering tree crouched a black cat, its gaze fixed coldly upon the charging monstrosity. In those feline eyes burned something profoundly human: loathing and icy resolve.

It was Ahn, the black cat renowned for its mastery of spatial magic. Now, it held nothing back. Its magical arsenal unleashed a ceaseless onslaught. Each weapon struck true, battering the creature's hide with magic-infused explosions strong enough to wound even a grand knight.

The barrage continued seemingly endlessly. Rifts continued to open, launching weapon after weapon in rapid succession—and all this from nothing more than a small black cat.

Thousands of explosions wracked the worm's hide. Its flesh and rotten carapace were shredded, and one segment of its body was torn nearly in half.

Then the World-Eater's monstrous regeneration took effect.

From deep within, torrents of life force surged through specialized organs. Its gaping wounds were sealed with impossible speed—faster than when it had previously healed its entire body. Even as Ahn's weapons continued to fall, the World-Eater forced its flesh to knit shut, its bones to realign.

Then it turned. It charged at the source of its pain—at the small black cat that dared wound it.

But as it thundered forth, crushing buildings in its wake, a divine silver blade cleaved down from the heavens. Alongside it crashed a blinding bolt of lightning that smashed into the creature's flesh.

The fifth-tier Blade of Argent Glory, divine spell of the Goddess of Fortune...

And the fifth-tier lightning spell, Thunder Calibration.

The silver blade infused with divinity split the worm's head clean in two, carving more than thirty meters deep into its body before it halted. The lightning that followed seared the gaping wound, sending arcs of electricity whipping across charred flesh.

Across the rooftops of Liaheim, figures began to appear.

"Damn it... I came to trade with elves, not to fight this monstrosity! That divine spell alone cost me two hundred gold! What the hell are the elves even doing, leaving us foreigners to handle this mess?"

A bald, rotund merchant stood atop a tree, rubbing his hands in dismay. His puffy white robes concealing a body of sheer muscle. Despite the serious damage he'd just inflicted, the World-Eater was already regenerating before his eyes.

He was a follower of the Goddess of Fortune. Her spells were easier to invoke than those of other deities—but far more expensive. Piety was optional; coin was not. Even the unfaithful could unleash high-tier miracles with suitably valuable offerings.

The thunderbolt, meanwhile, had come from Avia.

She now stood with Wang Yu near the base of the Tree of Life. Her fingers mimicked crosshairs as she aimed at the regenerating World-Eater, already charging up for her next strike.

Beside her floated massive metallic constructs—great alchemical devices shaped like titanic drill heads. They spun slowly, surrounding Wang Yu, humming as the power of the Chariot flowed through him.

These were alchemical weapons forged by the elves to fight the World-Eater. And though the elves could not wield them now, outsiders like Wang Yu could.

All throughout Liaheim, more figures emerged—not elves, not kin, but foreign allies rising in aid.