The air stirred, as the rustling of leaves filled the dimly lit cavern.

Arloum’s consciousness slowly returned, and his vision opened with a snap.

‘Hn?’ Looking around, he noticed candles surrounding him, as well as dead animals.

‘Did people get in?’ his heart sank.

Hurriedly, he closed his vision, peering into his inner-body. There, he saw that his energy core had changed. Previously, it was dark, dense, and moving it felt like dragging a piece of metal along.

But now… it was a pinch away from pitch-black, though it was a lot easier to move around.

‘Did it evolve?’ he focused on his soul, calling out his status mirror.

[DarkEnergy T1: 10/10]

‘Dark energy… it’s only tier 1?!’ Arloum withdrew his senses from his soul, before checking again.

‘If it’s just tier 1, then it’s useless!’

Frustrated, he exited his inner-body and looked around the cavern again.

‘Oh, my leaves,’ he examined himself.

The cavern had no light source apart from the candles surrounding him, and himself. His leaves went from the previous red to a slightly paler shade–but the crimson glow the leaf veins emitted were far more intense. It was enough to illuminate the cavern ceiling.

‘I grew too much,’ he thought, tapping the rocky ceiling with his leaves.

‘I need to prune my branches. Having a big body is disadvantageous,’ he shook his branches, lowering them closer to the ground.

Finally, his gaze turned to the animals on the floor.

On the ground were boars surrounded by chickens. Some were decaying, while others were fresh, blood oozing out like tree sap. At the same time, thousands of maggots wriggled inside the fiesta of corpses. From afar, it’d seem like the corpses were still alive.

‘Uck, it’d surely stink here,’ he grumbled, thankful for his lack of sense of smell.

Taking his gaze off of the corpses, he glanced at his roots.

‘Luckily, none of them burrowed underground,’ he moved them around, feeling like he was lifting a bunch of giant fishing nets.

His roots had covered the entire cavern floor, making it look like a spider’s den.

‘That’s one more thing to cut,’ he sighed.

With nothing to do, he closed his eyes, focusing on his inner-body.

‘Dark energy shouldn’t be limited to tier 1,’ he mused, glaring a hole into his core.

‘Tree of Darkness is only tier two… that should be why my dark energy is only at tier 1,’ he paused, opening his eyes.

Looking at the corpses, his branches gently lowered.

‘I should be able to upgrade it,’ he thought, his leaves wrapping around the corpses.

The maggots inside paid him no mind, though some crawled onto his leaves. Before they could move toward his branches, they fell to the ground, looking nothing more than dandruff.

‘Disgusting bugs,’ he sneered.

Without further delay, he moved his dark energy, turning it into twenty six, thin strands. Each strand travelled into a leaf, before penetrating the dead corpse’s flesh.

‘Eugh,’ startled by the sudden sensation of a million worms crawling all over his body, he took a while to steady his mind.

‘This never gets comfortable,’ he braced himself.

‘But thankfully, I can absorb life energy much faster now,’ he comforted himself.

In less than a minute, he absorbed all the life energy of the twenty six animals. As his dark energy guided the two forms of life energy near his core, he closed his eyes.

‘Upgrading any skill needs extreme caution, but I don’t have any experience in upgrading energies,’ he looked at the ball of life energy sitting near his dark energy.

Unlike before, where it would slowly dissipate, his dark energy had a firm grip over the life energy. Although he couldn't accurately estimate its value anymore, he knew he was barely losing any.

‘Just in case,’ he grabbed the decaying life energy and expelled it from his body.

Satisfied, he grabbed the ball of life energy, which had more than halved, and merged it with his dark energy.

‘Ahh,’ his body trembled.

‘What…’ his mind turned hazy, and a warm, fuzzy feeling assaulted his soul.

However, before he could think about anything, the sensation vanished. On the other hand, he felt his dark energy slowly going out of control.

‘No good, what happened?’ getting rid of any distracting thoughts, he used his willpower to stabilize his dark energy.

Contrary to his worries, the process lasted less than a second. Confused, he focused on his soul and checked his status mirror.

[DarkEnergy T1(1%): 11/10… → 10/10]

‘Oh… It's just one extra point of energy,’ he almost laughed.

‘This means, I can’t upgrade my dark energy in large quantities, or I risk letting it riot all over my body…. Why can't I store more dark energy?’ he moved his branches, wrapping his leaves around his body.

After thinking for a while, he looked at his core. He never saw it exceed a certain size. Though, he didn't want to waste time thinking about it. Not now.

‘Time to get a move on, someone found this cave,’ he thought, taking one last look at the candles.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

However, as he moved his roots to find the entrance he came into, he realized that it was blocked with mud. On the other hand, the secret entrance he found was replaced with a wooden door.

‘Hm,’ he calmed himself, examining the candles and the “sacrificial” animals.

‘I shouldn’t be sacrificial material to TheFirstDevil, right?’ He chuckled at the thought, trying to brush it off.

He knew that Legend was long dead.

‘This isn’t good, I… oh, someone opened the door,’ he stared at the opened door.

There, three figures slowly revealed themselves. Each of them had pale white skin, and their eyes were pitch black, their hair being the same. The three figures walked side by side, with the one in the middle being slightly ahead.

‘Dark elves,’ Arloum thought, looking at the dark elf at the very front.

‘Accursed one?’ he moved his branches closer, staring at the red dot on the dark elf’s forehead.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen dark elves, much less an accursed one,’ he couldn’t help but reminisce.

During his rule a long time ago, he encountered all the races in the world. He also encountered both pure elves and dark elves.

‘Though, I didn’t know half elves existed until now,’ he recalled Horlum.

Pure and dark elves weren’t too different, even having the same ancestor, the Elfrid Tree.

‘Dark elves were violent, while pure elves were slightly less so. Ah, but pure elves go blind after adulthood,’ Arloum stared at the dark elf with a red dot on his forehead.

‘Accursed ones, on the other hand, have terrible luck. It’s like the Elfrid Tree forsake them. Each and every accursed one dies a horrible death, and were thus shunned. However, from the looks of it,’ he paused, watching the two dark elves respectfully making way for the accursed one.

“Lord Enis,” the dark elves then bowed.

The accursed one, Enis, raised a hand, indicating that it was needless. Walking toward Arloum, he stared at the tree with a straight back.

“Are you Elfrid?” he asked, his voice devoid of a drop of respect.

“Why should we worship you?” he continued asking.

Arloum nearly whipped the man.

‘Elfrid? Are you bullshitting me? I’m not a tree of life!’ he scowled, throwing elegance into the air.

‘And besides, who told you to worship me?! Leave me be and let us part ways.’

Oblivious to his thoughts, Enis watched Arloum's branches stretching outward, nearly covering the entire ceiling. The song of leaves rustling played in the cavern, a cold breeze swirling around the three dark elves.

“Are you mad?” Enis asked, snickering.

‘You…’ Arloum looked at his dark energy, and then at his roots.

‘Can you guess if I’m a merciful being?’ he asked, coldly laughing.

However, after channeling dark energy to his roots, Enis fell to his knees, both his palms flat on the ground.

“I apologize, great Elfrid,” he said, “It is in my nature to be a crude man. I beg of you to understand.”

Arloum’s roots twitched, all of them snapping toward Enis, encircling him.

‘You shameless creature. Begone from me sight!’ he growled, his roots rising and falling around Enis, wanting to encase him in a cocoon.

However, with Enis kneeling, Arloum suppressed his rage and gathered his dark energy. After all, he had no idea how many dark elves there were.

‘If there’s too many dark elves, they could bombard me with spells,’ Arloum knew when to be cunning, and when to be careless.

“Great Elfrid,” Enis said loudly, “We are here to offer you sacrifices. We only have one wish.”

Glancing behind him, he saw the two dark elves kowtowing. They were trembling, which made him want to laugh. But remembering what happened earlier, he held himself back.

‘Sacrifices?’ Arloum listened closely, his branches leaning close to Enis.

Though, Enis had no clue. Instead, hearing the silence, he kept talking.

“We will offer you pure elves to feast upon. In return, we wish for you, O’ Great Elfrid, to give us strength and fix our health!”

‘Fix your… health?’ Arloum wanted to scratch his head.

But a moment later, a memory resurfaced from the deepest part of his memories. It was a simple gossip he heard after toying with an elf back in the days.

‘Oh, you mean your lifespan?’ he waved his branches wildly, as if to laugh.

‘I remember now, what separated dark elves from pure elves. Their lifespan!’ he stared at Enis, whose head remained down on the ground.

Elves were gifted with many things. Beauty, talent in magical arts, craftsmanship, archery, swordsmanship, and they had near perfect eyes—except the pure elves. The only thing they truly lacked was a good body.

Not only were their bodies fragile and lacked strength to rival a human adult, their lifespan was abysmal.

‘In the past, elves had a lifespan of thirty years. But, during Ymer’s reign, she extended the lifespan of pure elves to two hundred,’ he cackled inwardly.

Ymer was a pure elf through and through. Even her mindset was “pure,” and she remained chaste as well.

‘But, nothing is perfect. Despite her saint-like personality, she detested dark elves. Dark elves had thirty years like the pure elves of before, but Ymer ruthlessly cut it. It would be merciful if she eradicated the race instead.’

Yet, she didn’t. Because of her actions, dark elves, standing at the top of the hierarchy of races, were thrown into chaos. He wasn’t sure how much their lifespan was reduced. All he knew was that dark elves disappeared after the scandal.

‘So, tell me, accursed one, how low have your race fallen?’ he asked inwardly, though conveying his thoughts was another matter.

Looking at his branches, he had an idea.

[DarkEnergy T1(1%): 10/10 → 9/10]

Etching his thoughts onto a bit of dark energy, he transferred it to one of his leaves. Slowly lowering his branches and aiming at Enis’ head, he shed the leaf and let it fall. Coincidentally, the leaf landed atop the red dot on Enis’ forehead.

As soon as the leaf touched Enis…

----------------------------------------

Enis sneered, listening to a dark elf reporting that the “message” was delivered to Chimera.

“Let’s go, the guards told me that the ‘Elfird Tree’ had awoken,” he said, waving for two dark elves to follow him.

Those two elves were his left and right hand, though both were already seventeen years old. In other words, they’d die in three more years.

‘Tch.’

He himself was already nineteen, but paid it no mind. Even though he could feel his body rapidly failing—he could hardly breathe already.

‘Damn ancestors,’ he scowled.

All dark elves knew the late Legends of the pure elves. How could they not? Those petty Legends were the reason for their suffering.

‘This “Elfrid Tree” better be worth the trouble,’ he nearly cursed.

When Chimera introduced them to the “Elfrid Tree,” he was doubtful. All of them were. But, tired of living the life of a feather floating above never-ending flames, they gave it a try.

What could they lose? They didn’t have anything to begin with.

‘If only we can still practice the primal arts,’ he sighed. ‘A shame, it needs a dark elf to live past twenty. What a coincidence. Right, Ymer?’

Shaking his head clear of thoughts, he and his subordinates entered the cavern. There, they saw a tall tree with red leaves, with leaf veins that glowed and a trunk that was nearly black.

‘Every time I look at it, it reminds me of the demonic tree,’ Venilo chuckled hollowly.

Then, he heard his subordinates calling his name as they bowed. Nodding, he left the two by the entrance and strolled toward the tree.

“Are you Elfrid?” he asked, not bothering to lower his tone.

“Why should we worship you?” paying no heed to the startled gasps behind him, he kept going.

They waited for a few seconds, and the tree’s leaves started rustling. A small gust formed, blowing on their hair and clothes.

Enis narrowed his eyes, a sneer forming on his face.

“Are you mad?” he asked, when all of a sudden, a chill gripped his heart.

He controlled his face, but his body was like a kite amidst a storm. Hurriedly, he knelt, asking for forgiveness.

‘What was that?’ secretly, he looked around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

‘It felt like… my soul was leaving my body,’ inhaling, cold air filled his lungs.

For the first time in a long time, he breathed easily, but he couldn’t appreciate it at all. Not with his heart thumping like he ran a mile up a mountain.

After the scare, he talked to the tree for a while, slowly getting to his point.

“...we wish for you, O’ Great Elfrid, to give us strength and fix our health!” he said, his voice loud and clear.

During their talk, he belatedly noticed the roots surrounding him. Then, he heard the creaking of branches as they lowered. Anxious, he couldn't help taking a peek at the tree.

‘What’s that?’

Staring blankly at the glowing red leaf floating down to his forehead, his fingers drummed at the cold, rocky floor.

‘Is it safe? Should I run? … No,’ with a wide grin, he almost laughed at himself.

Run? He could barely move his body, how could he run?!

‘Accursed one… heh, such a fitting title,’ his shoulders slumped, waiting for the leaf to decide his fate.

Closing his eyes, he recalled his short life. His parents died a few months after his birth. After all, even though their lifespan was only twenty years, it didn’t mean they matured quickly. At least, their bodies didn’t. It still took seventeen to eighteen years for a female dark elf to be able to reproduce properly.

If they tried rushing it, the next generation would be full of abnormalities.

‘Damn it. I should’ve followed the tradition. If only I had a child…’

Then, he felt a cold leaf fall onto his face.

A moment later, his wails echoed throughout the entire cave system.