Lisette spoke slowly, “There is a reason why the wicked god was called the Elven God. The god's power and divine protection can be channeled to the elves through the World Tree, and the elves, who are closely bound to the World Tree, can quickly receive them.”
Celia pondered for a moment before asking, “Then, since the World Tree has been weakened, does it mean the god can no longer influence the elves?”
“Most likely,” Lisette agreed, nodding at Celia's speculation.
The World Tree was more than just a colossal tree.
It acted as a relay. Through this World Tree—which could be considered his very first true servant—the god could exert minimal interference force to achieve far more than other deities.
Now that the World Tree, which served this crucial function, was being weakened by the swarms of cicadas, the Elven God's influence had also drastically diminished.
“Then, what comes next is...”
Celia focused her mind, gazing through the hive mind at the rapidly collapsing Elven Empire.
The Great Forest where the elves resided, along with all the territories they occupied and ruled, was rapidly falling apart.
Having lost their core and command center, the foreign race units broke free from control. Across the occupied lands, rebellions against elven oppression erupted one after another.
At the same time, the Great Devourer continued to spread rapidly, hunting down and slaughtering those who possessed the god's divine protection.
The elves had to pay the price.
Even if they managed to survive the Great Devourer, they would either be killed by the enraged inhabitants of the occupied territories or forced to flee.
Unlike the Great Devourer, which mechanically decided whether to kill or spare based on cold efficiency, those inhabitants cared nothing for the nuances of individual elves.
Whether they had received divine protection or were innocently dragged into the conflict, in the eyes of the angry populace, they were all just long, pointy-eared elves.
“Lisette, what do you plan to do with the elves? If we don't handle this quickly, the casualties will only escalate.”
Celia sighed softly after witnessing just a few scattered scenes, looking at Lisette with a sympathetic gaze.
“We can only head to a place that is as safe as possible... and regrow the Great Forest. The sins committed by the new elves will not be easily washed away.”
Lisette smiled bitterly, still holding the seed of the World Tree in her hand.
Fortunately, thanks to Elise's curiosity, Lisette—unlike the rest of her kin—had been granted information about unexplored, uncharted lands.
Lisette planned to lead her people there, plant the new World Tree, and allow them to rebuild their lives.
As for what would happen after that, even Lisette did not know; the rest lay in the hands of fate for the surviving elves.
By now, Lisette was no longer truly an elf.
She had completely severed ties with her kind, leaving her with only her duty to serve as a Legion Commander of the Great Devourer.
This was a destiny she had long accepted and embraced.
“It won't be bad. The harder we work, the more that lord will recognize us.”
Celia smiled as she looked at Lisette.
For someone as lonely as her, she had finally found a companion in a similar situation.
Ultimately, the war with the Elven Empire, which had controlled most of the southern continent, drew to a close. The Great Devourer had claimed over half of the entire continent as its territory.
“Now, for the final battle.”
Sitting in her nest, Elise rested her head against the back of a chair crafted from the bodies of worker ants, turning her gaze.
She looked toward the northwestern part of the continent, occupied by the Beastkin Kingdom and the Dwarven Alliance, who had been chased by the migratory colonies after their expeditionary force's defeat and were now sharpening their blades once more.
Celia reported, “However, we cannot mobilize all the forces under the main nest colony to the western front just yet. We do not know how many enemies remain scattered across the vast southern continent.”
Although the World Tree was currently having its sap drained and was gradually losing its power, this did not mean the god's servants had been completely wiped out.
Bound by the god's commands, they would hide away, seeking any means to recover their strength and attempt to reclaim the World Tree.
The Great Devourer had already dispatched a massive force to hunt down and eliminate them. Until this task was complete, those units could not be redeployed elsewhere.
Listening to Celia's report, Elise replied impatiently, “It won't take long.”
She felt that Celia—who had previously convinced Lisette to join the colony and used that opportunity to tear open a rift in the battlefield—was showing off once again.
Nevertheless, Elise also knew that the cleanup process would not drag on.
According to calculations made by her massive cerebrum, if she deployed hundreds of thousands of units to thoroughly sweep the former Elven Empire's territory and hunt down the hiding enemies, it would take but a mere blink of an eye.
Sound, scent, vibrations, and faint traces of leaking magic power.
The Great Devourer had long since mastered the mobilization of various senses to track down its prey.
During this phase, large-scale military clashes were virtually nonexistent, but minor skirmishes occurred continuously.
Even the servants who had not actively cooperated with the god were targeted for elimination as long as they were determined to have received divine protection.
Lisette was a unique exception.
The Great Devourer, including Elise herself, had no reason to personally sever the connection between other elves and their god only to spare their lives.
During this purge, Elise noticed a man and a woman who had been stubbornly resisting the Great Devourer hunting squads pursuing them.
A human mercenary holding a longsword and an elven woman; both were completely exhausted, with no strength left to fight. As the Great Devourer closed in, they gazed deeply into each other's eyes.
“Mina, it looks like this is the end.”
“Regan...”
“I have no regrets.”
“Neither do I.”
The man discarded his sword, and the elf laid down her bow.
They had fought side by side, breaking taboos to fall in love at the cost of their lives.
In their final moments before death, they shared a passionate kiss, only to be devoured by the swarming units of the Great Devourer.
Watching this scene, Elise felt a question rise in her mind.
Why did those two behave in such a manner at the very end?
While there were those who resisted to the bitter end and many who gave up and chose suicide, this was the first time Elise found herself intrigued by a man and a woman kissing in their final moments.
“Those two seemed to be lovers,” Celia explained, a look of pity on her face as she watched the scene unfold.
She told Elise that kissing was an expression of love and affection, transcending species.
Of course, kissing was just one of many forms of expression and behavior.
Celia figured that since the Queen was someone who despised unnecessary and inefficient actions, she wouldn't pay much attention to such behavior.
【Elise has received a massive shock】
Contrary to Celia's expectations, however, Elise was deeply shaken upon learning the truth.
Kissing was something done by those who loved each other.
And Elise had long known what love was.
Wasn't that exactly what she yearned for from Lin Miao?
“Wait, there are many kinds of love. The love between romantic partners is entirely different from the love felt when serving the Great One...”
Realizing that Elise had misunderstood something, Celia tried to stop her, but it was already too late.
“No.”
Elise gently touched her own lips, starting to refuse to ingest nutrients directly through her mouth as she used to.
What her beloved did, she must also do.
‘Oh, no...’ Celia sighed softly.
A transport worker ant, as usual, attempted to deliver the magic power extracted from the World Tree to Elise through its mouth for her analysis.
But Elise hesitated for a moment, then willed the cells in her palm to divide, forming a structure resembling a butterfly's proboscis.
The coiled, tentacle-like appendage slid into the worker ant's mouth, absorbing the nutrients and transferring them into her body.
Having understood the meaning of a kiss, Elise made this choice purely to preserve the purity of her own lips.
‘Is the Queen trying to become his woman, and his alone?’
To Celia, Elise's behavior was no different from a teenage girl eager to try everything.
However, given that she could not accurately determine Lin Miao's true identity, she had no way of predicting how much a creation's love for her creator would be reciprocated.
To actually want to become a god's woman.
How bold and reckless of a thought.
Yet, terrifyingly, Celia herself felt that perhaps Elise could truly pull it off.
The queens of the Great Devourer colony were the very incarnations of obsession and desire.
Harnessing that sheer madness, they had achieved species-transcending evolution, reshaped their own bodies, and been reborn as entirely new entities. Thus, even the impossible could be made possible.
Rate on N.U.
