It had already been hours since they started walking. They went past old, empty ruins of villas, villages, or whole towns, stuck in time and between the trees and their thick foliage. The deeper they walked, the bigger the trees got, not to mention how robust their trunks looked. After another hour, they ended up blocking out all sunlight above them, turning everything into perpetual darkness. They felt that every tree was somehow watching them, and at times, they even noticed some kind of bird sticking its head out, sitting on the branches, keeping an eye on them while hiding between the giant leaves. If not for Ren's calmness, Shaman would have already lashed out and accused every tree around them of leading them into a trap.

"Feel anything?" Ren asked her disciple with a voice transmission.

"Muffled cries." Ariana replied with a serious voice. "Now that I know what I'm looking for, I can't miss it. The ground is soaked in it. There are millions buried under us, Master. All of them are crying out for salvation… and not just people."

"Haah… damn." She clicked her tongue. "I don't know how to feel about this at all."

"We can't bring it up, Master." Ariana said after a little pause. "Not yet."

"Continue." She said as she encouraged her disciple with an unnoticeable smile.

"We need to set up the alliance first, let everyone recover. Also, there is the fact that there is a new player. The dwarfs. If they ever resurface, quite literally, I'd let them fight it out first."

"And swoop in when the two exhausted each other." Ren chuckled a little.

"Yes." She nodded with a heavy expression. "Whatever we face now, we can't fight them yet. Not how half of the forest stands after decades of battles! Maybe our only luck is that they seem to be rooted in place."

"Glad to see your humor is taking after mine! You are truly my disciple~" Ren grinned, looking back at her above her shoulders.

"Ugh… it was… an accident!" She said while looking away with a light pout.

"She is right." Leinor said, but only Ren could hear him. "So try not to provoke them with that spicy tongue of yours, okay?"

"I'll try, I sweaaaar~" Ren answered, rolling her eyes. "But I can't promise anything! It is how I am! I don't take kindly to bullshitting! It just… comes out without me thinking about it."

"I know, I know…" Leinor said, sighing. "I grew up with you, remember? Who was the one who tried to assault me when we were young?"

"But you were so cute when you were being flustered! Ahaha~" Ren giggled, remembering his reaction when she tried to bathe with him for the first time.

"Master?" Ariana asked, seeing her laugh so suddenly.

"S-sorry!" She replied, trying to suppress it. "I just remembered something I did with LeiLei."

"Master…" Ariana whispered as her gaze immediately softened, but an idea hit her so suddenly that she almost tripped, sending her voice over. "Master! What about Orsi?"

"Hm?" Ren asked, but soon her own ideas flooded her mind while Ariana continued.

"If there are so many dead under this forest, she could communicate with their souls, no? Maybe help them pass on without the ents realizing? Or something?" Ariana explained her sudden idea.

"Yes… she may be the key…" Ren replied, already deep in thought but not about the millions of trapped, wretched souls under their feet. She was thinking that if anybody else could interact with Leinor's fragment of a soul, she would be the perfect candidate for it. Maybe working together, they could come up with a new solution. Of course, Leinor also immediately felt what Ren was thinking about.

"That is a good idea." He then added, with a little bit of a smile, "Especially because you are stuck getting Harimau's core out of his body. Your formation is useless as nobody could dissect the tiger yet."

"Come on, LeiLei." A smirk slowly crept up on her face. "Read into my mind a bit deeper."

"Hm?" He said as he focused more on her words. Ren could feel Leinor opening his mouth a little, realizing Ren's intention with the body of the Tiger King. "This is why you brought his corpse here…? You still did not give up on the formation?!"

"He or she, under that flooded church, is still a defeated God, LeiLei. I'll need to talk with him or her. If whatever it says seems dangerous, I'll eradicate the soul from the God Crystal without hesitation. It poses too much of a risk. For that, I NEED that core."

"That… that is true." Leinor sighed in the end, agreeing with her. "You are right. Do you think they can extract it?"

"No idea!" She answered nonchalantly. "We'll see. I hope so! I can only store that body in my pouch for a day before the whole thing breaks down! This is not a spatial ring; it can't handle the stress of a demigod-like body inside of it for too long."

"What if they don't give you his core and keep it for themselves?"

"Well, it is a risk I am ready to take! Either that, or I need to wait for a miracle for either Sect Head or Rumira to advance into the Demigod Realm! We have nobody to open up his corpse! I totally forgot about this…" She sighed, rubbing her forehead. "I was too fixated on how to bring you back and not thinking about the minute details."

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Ren…" Leinor whispered as his wife trembled a little, feeling his touch in her mind as she hugged her from behind.

"Relax, now that you are talking to me frequently, it cleared up my head greatly." She answered gently.

…

….

…..

A few hours later, they finally saw something different as the forest opened up into a perfect circle. The sunlight shone down in separate rays, illuminating the lush grassland through the giant crown of the one and only tree before them.

"Unbelievable…" Ariana whispered, watching the tree that was in the distance. It looked like a divine being, surrounded by a creamy hue at all times.

"I don't know if we can burn down… that thing…" Shaman gulped.

The tree that they were looking at was ginormous, more than 400 meters tall, with a hundreds of meters wide circumference. Its crown was lush green, with a tinge of golden halo around it, permeating everywhere in the air. In all the sense of any old human legends, it would be perfect to call it a divine tree. At the base of it lay a huge city made out of bluish stones, still preserved in perfect condition. The tall walls overshadowed the ones around the Capital of the Empire, easily doubling its size. There were no signs of humans or demons anywhere; everything looked quiet and the most tranquil place they had ever come across.

As they walked closer to the huge open gates, demons finally appeared before them and up on the walls. All of them were different kinds of birds, ranging from only a meter-tall pigeon to 6-meter-tall hawks or the in-between-sized, colorful parrots. They all looked down at them silently, watching their every move while the group entered the ancient city of Azur. The streets were immaculate and preserved as if time just stopped moving, yet it also gave the place a creepy, unnatural feeling. Seeing the empty houses with intact furniture and decorations, it was as if the residents had just stepped outside for a moment.

"It should've been a beautiful city…" Ariana whispered, watching the masterfully crafted buildings filled with decorations, carvings, emblems, and heraldry, signaling which home belonged to whom.

"What I read," Ren said as their steps echoed alongside the cobbled streets, nearing the humongous tree that seemed like it swallowed the old royal palace. "The only people allowed to live here were either related to the house of Ein, gained such a huge merit they were allowed to move in here, or they were part of the hundreds of thousand families of servants under the nobles' rule. Still, it meant even those servants who stepped outside of the city walls were treated as royalty by others."

"Their wealth was immense…" Ariana commented with awe, walking past a preserved church and seeing the pictures of Gods depicted on the colorful glasses alongside their own rulers, saints, or heroes.

"I only saw the ruins we used as homes so far." Shaman added. "But these buildings are completely intact… and as I see, they are made from the same material as the bridges. No wonder they could stand the test of time."

"Nothing can do that." Ren said softly. "One day, they are going to be gone, just like the humans who lived here. Replaced by something else."

"You speak true words." A mixed voice echoed out as if it came from the sky, being one part male, one part female.

They quickly stopped and watched as some kind of gate formed on the humongous tree, and a long stretch of 'ramp' appeared, coming down to a stop right before them.

"We should be careful." Shaman added, but Ren had already stepped onto it, followed by Ariana, so he had no choice but to also hop onto it.

As soon as he did, the ramp started to bring them right inside the tree, finally disappearing from the views of others. What awaited them in the giant trunk of it was a whole, different world. It was filled with golden-colored specks of light, and the old royal palace, encased in pure amber, like a mosquito, trapped in it for eternity.

"What… what is that?!" Shaman gawked, looking upwards with terrified eyes.

When they followed his look, they saw a human female slowly descending from above. She was jaw-droppingly pretty, perfect even. Her porcelain-like skin was without blemish, her shiny, long, jet-black hair reached down to her ankles, and she wore it as a cape. Her almond-shaped eyes shone in a pure, golden light, illuminating the land everywhere she looked. The woman's figure was curvy, giving out a motherly feeling, with soft, freely shown thighs and gently jiggling breasts as they tried to get free from under a silk, blue-colored dress she was wearing. The reason Shaman felt terrified was that her arms and the end of her legs were held by roots. They were swallowing them whole, fused into her body, running deep into her veins like a puppet's strings. They were clearly connected to the tree itself, spiraling upwards, disappearing into a golden light high above them. As she was lowered down, she hovered above them, not far away, like another being's toy.

"Queen Catherine, I assume." Ren said, watching her with unperturbed eyes.

"In part, yes." The same mixed voice came from between her pink lips.

"You are sick…" Ariana groaned. "Her soul is still trapped inside that body, but she is not in control!" She gasped as she grabbed onto her own arms, hugging herself as terrifying, mad feelings bombarded her mind. "She wants to die, yet you won't let her…"

"Her sins were unforgivable. Exploiting the land, siphoning nature down to its last breath, not stopping, even when there was still a chance of turning things back to as they were. Humans' minds were filled with greed. They had to be punished." The voice belonging to the 'dead' queen explained. "She cared about her appearance, so I granted her wish. She will forever be a beauty."

"I agree with my disciple." Ren nodded. "You are sick."

"No. We were the cure for this land; the sickness was only you, humans." The quick and calm reply arrived at once. "Since our cleansing, the forest thrived, nature reclaimed its rightful place, demons could rise up and live their lives without fear of being raised by humans as cattle and be their own destinies' masters."

"Yeah? I bet then it was humans who consumed my whole tribe and used them as fertilizers!" Shaman said with a loud, cold shout. "It was human roots that dragged them away, deep underground, to be your food! It is oh, so clear now!"

"If that happened, then there must have been a reason for it. When you exploit nature, it is going to fight back." 'Her' answer was calm, which further escalated Shaman's rage.

"Relax…" Araian said as she stepped up to him, holding onto his hand and trying to calm him down. "She is riling you up… don't let her!" She whispered to him.

"So you are nature itself, huh?" Ren chuckled. "Interesting delusion you are living in."

"Ren…" Leinor's voice echoed inside her head, but his wife was already twitching her eyebrows.

"Okay, Miss Nature." Ren continued. "Let's get down to business then! We are here to talk, and I am still in a civilized mood right now, so get on with it before I get irritated!"

"Yes." Catherine's voice replied, as before them, from the 'ground,' an oval, wooden table with chairs rose up. She floated down, sitting at the other end. They could sit down opposite her while, from nowhere, other branches appeared, bringing in an exquisite tea set, filling it with a golden liquid, and emanating an otherworldly, sweet aroma. "Let us talk. It did not work 2,000 years ago; maybe now, it will." She said while she was looking into Ren's eyes. The golden light gently shone down at the table from above them, transmitting no anger or ill will towards them, yet also somewhat detached from such feelings.