novelraw Chapter 1261: The World Tree’s Roots
Chapter 1261: The World Tree’s Roots
When Evan left the royal castle, the Sovereign, who had been with Princess Sharon outside, waiting for his arrival, had some of the kingdom’s intelligence operatives follow him to monitor his activity within the capital city of Eblor.
They wanted to know where Evan was and what he was doing, and although Evan detected the operatives, he made no effort to either hide from them or shake them off.
He headed straight for a casino, moving through the city streets as if he were already very familiar with them.
Evan found his target casino within minutes, after which he went inside and spent the rest of the night there, gambling, playing different games, winning money, losing money, and eventually leaving the casino at dawn with a net profit.
After leaving the casino, Evan went straight to a real estate agency, one of the few that were already expecting him, since he had contacted them before even arriving on the Beta continent to express interest in purchasing certain properties.
Princess Sharon had also ordered investigations on these properties to see if there was anything suspicious about them, but all investigations ultimately came up empty.
Evan knew they’d find nothing, after all, there was no one on Aidos who could possibly know what he was planning by purchasing these specific properties.
He purchased a mansion in the north, another in the east, an entire estate south of the capital that had belonged to a Noble stripped of their title after a treason charge decades ago, and a smaller estate in the west built by a real estate company catering to wealthy clients.
After acquiring the properties, paying the full price without hesitation, Evan proceeded to head down their basement floors to install his mobile teleportation waypoints, connecting them with the Oak Avenue Manor in the GWE.
He then hired servants with the money he’d won gambling the night before, the hiring process handled through the real estate agencies he bought the properties from, which were obliged to provide such services for their wealthy and influential clientele.
When King Taher received the report of Evan’s activities at the end of the day, he again checked whether there was anything unusual about the properties Evan had purchased, but found nothing.
Intelligence operatives had searched through the entire estate south of the capital, which had previously belonged to the disgraced noble, and they found nothing that could cause problems if it ended up in Evan’s hands. Only the artworks, furniture, and other standard decorations had been left behind in the estate.
Princess Sharon and Grand Duke Leoglor also didn’t understand why Evan wanted these specific properties, to the point that he’d already started arranging their purchase months ago and had reached out to the agencies about them even before arriving on the Beta continent.
Alas, it was simply impossible for them to know. Not even Eliza, his wife-to-be, or even Artemisia knew exactly what Evan was planning in the Aelum Kingdom.
The full details of his plans were known only to him, and the only other existences, or rather, entities, who knew of his plans knew only the parts Evan felt they needed to know, enough to perform their roles.
The reason Evan wanted these mansions and estates was something rather common in Eblor and across the Aelum Kingdom. The one shared feature among all the properties he purchased was that they each had an Oak Tree in the centre of their gardens.
That was it. That was the only thing they had in common.
It was natural that no one on the planet understood how these oak trees were connected to Evan.
To understand this, one had to take a little trip down memory lane, going back in time, both figuratively and literally.
In December of Year 1054, Evan had been sent 10,000 years into the past, to Prime World Aramis, Year 1054 of the 50th Valmone General Calendar.
During the more than eight months he spent in that time, Evan went to other planets, one of which was an Apex World in the Infernal Dimension called Taemia.
While on Taemia, Evan, along with the teenage Arthur, Beatrix, and Artemisia, assisted the spirits of the Iohodis continent in defending against Infernal Devils invading them.
One of these devils, titled Infernal Verdant, the Archdevil Vonun, possessed a skill he used to try to manipulate the sentient World Tree of the Apex World, which was located on that continent.
That World Tree was named Triffid.
In a gruelling battle that had them brushing with death more times than they would have liked, ultimately ending with Evan attaining Sovereign Level power, the Infernal Devil Army was defeated, the Infernal Archdevil Commanders were killed, and Triffid’s army of Swarm Vanguards, plant-like creatures that replicated near endlessly through the tree’s control of the universal law of creation, was destroyed along with it.
When Arthur attacked Triffid and separated the Infernal Verdant, Vonun, from the tree, cutting off his attempt to fuse with it and gain its creation powers to terraform the continent, Evan fought through the remaining swarm and used his prismatic flames to burn Triffid to ashes.
He’d been temporarily designated a ’Hero’ of Taemia due to his unique ’Rogue Hero’ status at the time, and he’d used the skill granted to him as a Hero, Archivist’s Geass, to amplify the power of the technique he used against Triffid, at the cost of locking several other techniques for a year.
Those techniques were still inaccessible to him, as he hadn’t experienced a full year of time since Triffid’s defeat.
During the moments when his flames consumed Triffid, Evan was pulled into a mental space that belonged to the World Tree.
Triffid expressed its rage at the world that had cast it aside when it was no longer needed, at the beings that had worshipped it when they desired its power and called it cursed when they no longer wanted it, and at Evan, Arthur, Beatrix, Artemisia, and the others who had arrived on Taemia after being shipwrecked by Jamie’s machinations and sided with the spirits to oppose it despite having no personal stake in the planet’s fate.
Evan had calmly stated that their fighting against Triffid was simply because of a clash of objectives, and defeating it was merely a necessary means to an end.
He then negotiated with Triffid, banking on the World Tree’s intelligence and deep resentment to ensure it had a backup plan to survive.
Triffid did have a backup plan, in the form of a seed containing the core of its power.
Evan agreed to take Triffid to a different planet, beyond the reach of those who persecuted it on Taemia, a world outside that dimension, time, and region of space, in return for its assistance in achieving a goal of his own.
He explained part of his plan to Triffid, and after hearing it, the sentient tree had three words for Evan.
[YOU’RE FUCKING SUICIDAL!]
But regardless of how insane Evan’s plan sounded, it was Triffid’s only chance at survival, so it agreed, transferring its consciousness into the seed it gave Evan while its body burned to ashes.
Several weeks later, Evan made a deal with the Eternal of Space and Reality, one that created a small gap in his return to the future.
Instead of returning straight to Year 1055, he first went back to Aidos 20 years earlier, travelled to the Aelum Kingdom, and planted Triffid’s seed in the middle of a national park in the capital, Eblor.
He then continued with other activities in the past, even preventing a Ducal family in Aelum from being wiped out, before finally returning to Year 1055.
Now, in Year 1056, nearly 21 years since the seed was planted, a magnificent oak tree had grown at the centre of that park, faster than even normal magical plants, with its expansive canopy providing shade for visitors on hot days.
That tree was naturally Triffid.
Over the past two decades, its consciousness had awakened, and most importantly, it had retained the ability to create its Swarm Vanguard.
The properties Evan purchased across the capital, one in each cardinal direction, all had oak trees in their gardens.
Now then, Evan’s actions didn’t seem so random anymore, did they?
◇ ◇ ◇
As the first batch of hired servants arrived and quickly began organising the estate south of the capital, bringing it to a condition where it could be lived in, Evan sat on the ground in the estate’s garden, leaning against the oak tree in the centre as he closed his eyes.
"Sup, Blasted Tree," he muttered.
When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in the garden but in a vast white space filled with the energy of the law of creation, standing opposite a tall, white oak tree with a broad canopy and a thick trunk.
"Long time no see, Triffid," Evan said, activating Appraisal to check the tree’s status.
|Name- Triffid
Race- World Tree
Gender- Inapplicable
Age- [7,603,050,032] 20
Level- ???
Existence Level- Inapplicable
Titles- Tree of Creation, World Tree of Corrupted Creation, Mutated World Tree, Swarm Ruler, Sub-World Tree of Aidos...|
Right as he scanned its status, the energy concentration in the space around him decreased slightly, and a voice responded, echoing from all around him, the same voice he remembered from 10,000 years in the past.
[YOU...YOU’VE FINALLY COME HERE.]
"Yeah, I had some things to handle on the other continent first. How are things for you? Have you managed to spread your roots across this continent?" Evan asked.
His question made Triffid snap at him immediately.
[ARE YOU INSANE? SPREAD MY ROOTS ACROSS THIS ENTIRE CONTINENT? HOW FAST DO YOU THINK TREES GROW?
I’VE ONLY MANAGED TO SPREAD MY ROOTS ACROSS THIS COUNTRY, AND YOU EXPECT ME TO COVER THE ENTIRE CONTINENT?]
"Actually, the best case would be for you to spread your roots across the entire surface of the planet, throughout the crust," Evan replied.
[GET THE HELL OUT OF MY MENTAL SPACE, NOW.]
The World Tree had no intention of tolerating Evan’s nonsense for even a second.
Spreading its roots not only across the continent but across the entire planet within a mere twenty-something years was downright impossible.
Aidos’ surface area was 4.9 billion km².
Even at its full Transcendent-level power, wielding a Pseudo-Authority of Creation, Triffid would require decades to cover the entire crust. Its roots had to stretch across continents, descend to the ocean floors, rise back onto islands, and extend across every landmass.
The current Triffid, far removed from its original strength, was barely able to cover the Aelum Kingdom to meet Evan’s minimum requirements, and even after 20 years, it still hadn’t completed that task.
"But you’ve at least covered over half, right?" Evan asked.
For a moment after he posed that question, Evan could have sworn he heard Triffid click its tongue, even though the tree had no tongue to click.