novelraw Chapter 409: World Tree Teardrop (5k)
Chapter 409: World Tree Teardrop (5k)
"...Alright, please go ahead down first. I'll be right down. Anyway, Angel Michael probably only wants to see me since I know the method. Gou Wen and the others can stay here, right?"
Hearing this, Helaire nodded, but her tone held a bit of complaint. Her pair of feet were completely bare. Looking closely, her tender, pinkish little feet weren't actually stepping on the ground; instead, they were floating slightly. Only right now, she had to playfully pretend to tip-toe as she smilingly said,
"A little secret, huh... Never mind, never mind. Compared to knowing it directly, I still prefer the feeling of unearthing it bit by bit with my own hands. I'll wait for you downstairs, but it's best you don't take too long. Angel Michael doesn't like waiting for people for too long."
"No problem."
Helaire smiled, waved her hand, and turned to head downstairs. Only after Fisher walked to the window and personally watched her go downstairs did he beckon for Gou Wen to come over, instead of returning to Mikhail and Asuka Karasawa's side.
As he walked over, Gou Wen helplessly complained to Fisher,
"Angel Helaire truly comes and goes without a trace, appearing and disappearing mysteriously every time. I completely didn't notice she came over..."
"Gou Wen, there's a very important matter I need to understand from you."
"No problem, I will say everything I know."
Fisher glanced at Mikhail, who was still fiddling with tools in the distance, before asking,"Gou Wen, can you tell me everything about the World Tree Teardrop?"
"World Tree Teardrop? I can, I can. To tell the truth, I actually know it quite well, because I previously wandered around the Tree Continent for quite a long time. Hmm, where should I begin... You know that apart from the Chain of Heaven in the Sanctuary, there are actually two other unimaginably powerful existences in this world. One is the World Tree, and the other is the Dragon God Fafnir of the Dragon Continent."
Leaning outside the window, Gou Wen looked down through the massive, magnificent Sun Ring in the sky at the planet below. From here, the silhouette of that giant golden tree could still be faintly seen.
"Rumour has it that the World Tree, the Chain of Heaven, and the Dragon God are actually triplet siblings. They hold the most unique favor from the 【Chief God】 Ramastia. He even went so far as to request other gods to share their most precious divine authorities with them. But apart from the soul granted by the god Dagon which could be perfectly divided into three, the divine authorities given by the other gods couldn't be perfectly split into three parts. However, Ramastia still ensured fairness as much as possible."
"The World Tree received slightly more of the Destiny Authority; she is also the eldest sister born first. The Chain of Heaven received slightly more of the Creation Authority; he is the second-born son. Fafnir received slightly more of the Life Authority; he is the youngest son born last. Do not underestimate this tiny bit of extra division—even a slight extra bit of a god's authority can provoke unimaginably profound changes..."
"Therefore, this is why the World Tree and the Elves are so sensitive to destiny, possessing spatial and temporal perception surpassing all living beings; why the Chain of Heaven and the angels possess such superb forging skills and wisdom... Uh, it seems Fafnir completely didn't utilize the Life Authority to create his own subjects, yet he remains the most powerful one among the siblings."
"But ever since the World Tree was born, she has been rooted to the ground, entirely unable to move her body. Thus, she possesses an additional god-bestowed item—the 【Loom of Fate】 given by the God of Fate, Anabatos. No one knows exactly what the specific function of this divine gift is, but it's said that it's precisely this item that cemented the World Tree's status as the eldest sister, allowing the three divine children to remain harmonious up to this day... Of course, even if it's only on the surface."
"And the so-called World Tree Teardrop... Rumor says it is a byproduct of the Loom of Fate. Only once, over a thousand years ago when the World Tree established the world calendar, did she bestow it upon her children, the elves. The elves enshrine that item as a supreme treasure in the Jianmu Palace as the foundation for the operation of 'Li'. There is only this single droplet in the entire world, thoroughly similar to that Holy Grail the Chain of Heaven bestowed upon Lord Sariel, and perhaps exponentially more important than that thing."
"Why are you suddenly asking about this kind of thing? Couldn't be that... whatever forging method is related to this thing?"
As Fisher listened, his expression grew increasingly rigid. Hearing Gou Wen's words, he speechlessly looked up at him. After a second or two passed, Gou Wen gasped and said with a massive headache,
"Oh no, Angel Helaire truly made a casual remark become a prophecy. But the problem is... she was merely joking and making an analogy back then! If you really tell Angel Michael it is so, he will absolutely suspect you are putting him on... My wife, my life is forfeit!"
Seeing Gou Wen before his eyes seemingly on the verge of 'tears soaking his clothes', Fisher sighed and patted his shoulder, turning around and heading downstairs.
"...I understand. Leave it to me."
Watching Fisher's departing back as he left alone, Gou Wen's expression faded bit by bit, frowning in deep thought. From the inner room, Asuka Karasawa also could not sit still and walked out, only to see Gou Wen in deep thought.
She came to the window, looking down at Fisher walking towards Michael's distant forging room. With some worry, she pinched her girls' school uniform that was somewhat stained with dust, and subconsciously muttered a phrase.
"Namo Amitabha..."
Fisher's mind constantly pondered countermeasures. Halfway there, he saw Helaire with her head lowered, sizing up the forged Holy Artifacts lining both sides of the nearby road. She seemed to have sensed Fisher's footsteps from afar. Without turning her head, she merely asked,
"Finished asking?"
"You... you heard my conversation with Gou Wen?"
Helaire smilingly turned around, pointing at Fisher and saying,
"According to your human classification, I'm roughly around the Sixteenth Tier... Hey, I'm a genuine Mythical Creature. Could I really not perceive what you humans failed to perceive? But relax, I covered for you a bit. Lord Michael couldn't hear it, and he's still researching forging anyway, so he naturally wouldn't pay attention to you."
Fisher froze momentarily, carefully looking at Helaire before him again, seemingly not expecting her to help him like this.
"...Many thanks."
"No worries, just treat it as my apology for you reaching out to pull me earlier and getting dragged into the shockwave by me instead... Alright, let's set off to see Lord Michael."
With her hands behind her back and her feet bare, she floated neither fast nor slow toward Michael's forging room ahead. Fisher only needed to walk slightly faster to match her pace. Fisher thought for a moment, and suddenly asked her,
"Then, should I tell Michael about the forging method requiring a World Tree Teardrop?"
"Only now treating me like an angel helping you, a bit late... So, needing a World Tree Teardrop is the truth, right?"
"Mm."
"Then what's there that can't be told to him? After all, I'm also very much looking forward to what Angel Michael, who is so deeply focused on forging, would do when faced with an almost impossible problem to solve! Just looking forward to it a little bit..."
"...Is this also part of the amusement?"
"Oh? Seems you've finally understood one ten-thousandth of me, not bad, not bad. Having such ability to read the room and speak, your relationship with other women should be pretty good, perhaps even carrying good relationships with more than one woman, right?"
Fisher didn't answer her words, but rather continued his train of thought.
"I'm just worried that even if I say I can help him forge it, he will treat it as a stalling tactic and directly flip the table on me—if he isn't stupid."
Helaire also didn't answer his words, merely beamingly continuing her hypothesis.
"Say, if one day all the women related to you were put together, and then they were told about the 'good deeds' you've done outside, wouldn't that be very interesting? Do you think they would fight each other first, or would they hack you to death with many knives first? Oh my, just thinking about it makes me feel so excited! If only I wasn't an angel and could frequently descend to the mortal realm, perhaps I could witness even more interesting things."
"..."
As expected, it was completely impossible to communicate with this weird angel—not one bit.
Fisher speechlessly stopped talking with Helaire, and she also smilingly ceased speaking, because they had already arrived at the door of the room where Michael forged Gospel Relics. The scorching heat here had diminished considerably right now, and that unique coldness of the cosmos crept back up anew, causing Fisher to involuntarily shiver his icy fingers.
Michael sat coolly on a white stone chair at the far end of the room. His long white robes trailed out far behind him. With his long red hair, his facial features were handsome to the extreme without mixing in the slightest gender characteristics, making him look rather divine.
He held an item still radiating terrifyingly high temperatures in one hand; it appeared to be precisely that semi-finished item he had struck with a hammer earlier. That golden short hammer lay at his feet, wrapped in an undulating golden light...
"Lord Michael, I have brought him."
Hearing Helaire's words, Michael didn't even look at the Fisher before him, merely speaking out of the blue,
"In this world, I only know of one method capable of bestowing consciousness, which is extracting a strand of it from the sea of consciousness in the Spirit World, and imbuing it into another life either by relying on the life authority or through instinctual reproduction... But reproduction is the weakened authority the Chief God bestowed upon His subjects, hence why I said there was only this single path to take. Many angels and I have attempted to utilize techniques in an effort to transcend the soul, but without fail, we all ultimately failed in the end, forced to give up. Yet today, you appeared in the Sanctuary carrying an item possessing consciousness but no soul..."
Michael's eyes slowly shifted from the item in his hand to Fisher. Even though he reined it in somewhat, that sensation of an extremely high Tier slightly twisting the surrounding rules still made Fisher rather unnatural.
"You all should have already met the other Transferred Person, and thus you should also know the promise I made to him... Therefore, similarly, as long as you can tell me the method to forge that kind of item, not only can I let you go, but I can also fulfill one demand of yours to the best of my ability."
Fisher glanced at the many glittering Gospel Relics by the side. Staying silent for a moment, he suddenly asked,
"Does Lord Angel mean that you have attempted to forge conscious Holy Artifacts in the past?"
Michael leaned back into his stone chair, tossing the unfinished item onto a nearby table. Still closing his eyes, he spoke,
"I don't like questions. You merely need to tell me the forging method."
"Forging it requires a World Tree Teardrop. One teardrop per item."
Michael suddenly opened his eyes. The Sun Ring above began turning bit by bit, emitting extremely crisp "clack clack" sounds amidst the gradually berserk sea of Aether. He tapped his cheek, turned his head to look at Helaire standing beside him, and flatly said,
"Was it you who told him to come lie to me? Or was it Sariel and Remiel—he has already told Sariel the real method?"
Helaire hastily waved her hand and jokingly said,
"How could that be? I also just learned of this. But Lord Michael, forging consciousness is inherently an act of stealing from the gods; it is only normal to utilize such precious items."
Michael's exceedingly handsome face was devoid of expression, yet his finger continuously tapped his cheek, striking a sound like porcelain colliding. Slowly standing up, he then picked up the giant hammer lying at his feet.
"No need to tell me the forging method for this object just yet, lest knowing the method yet unable to forge it causes me agony I do not wish to endure. Lock them up first. Once I activate the Sun Ring, I will head over to the 【Vortex of Wisdom】 managed by Gabriel in the Sixth Heaven to search for information regarding the World Tree Teardrop."
"Heh, since Gabriel is currently mad, I don't know exactly how long I will have to search to find what I desire. I will make my decision after that. You better pray this time isn't too long."
It seemed this angel's obsession toward forging went far deeper than Fisher imagined. This simultaneously rendered Fisher speechless but also added to his understanding of this Archangel Michael.
However, it turned out that that weird Archangel who appeared on the elevated platform had actually gone mad. No wonder all the Archangels ignored her vote earlier; if it wasn't an absolute last resort at the very end, they likely wouldn't even have inquired about the opinion of an already mad Archangel.
Helaire nodded and asked,
"Is it just locking up this human, or..."
"All three of them."
Holding the golden short hammer with one hand and pinching that semi-finished item in the other, Michael quickly flew from the room's ceiling into mid-air, toward the direction of the massively magnificent Sun Ring.
"Clack! Clack! Clack!"
The rotation of that Sun Ring became increasingly pronounced. Discarding the items in their hands for the moment, many surrounding forging angels instantly turned to leave, flying toward the other Heavens.
Fisher sighed, and Helaire turned her head, gesturing for Fisher to hurry and leave.
"Let us go. Once the Sun Ring activates, this place will become as scorching hot as the sun. Lord Archangel Michael needs to recharge the forging tables for all the angels—this process shouldn't take more than three days. Until then, you guys better head back into the cage and stay there..."
Gou Wen and Asuka Karasawa upstairs also heard the deafening sound of the Sun Ring outside and scrambled downstairs. Mikhail on the second floor also closed the doors and windows. Carrying the pallets and blankets previously laid out on the floor, he walked downstairs. Seeing his familiar demeanor, it clearly wasn't his first time experiencing something like this. Seeing the returning Fisher and Helaire, he asked,
"Which Heaven are you guys heading to? I usually go to the Fourth Heaven to 'take refuge', there aren't many angels there, and making a bed on the floor is quite comfortable."
"We're heading to the Seventh Heaven to serve jail time."
"...Farewell."
Originally wanting to stick together with Fisher's group, Mikhail immediately turned and left without a backward glance upon hearing this. Behind him, Asuka Karasawa opened her mouth but had no words to stop him.
While Helaire led Fisher and the others toward the cylindrical teleporter, Fisher briefly summarized the earlier conversation with Michael to Gou Wen and Asuka Karasawa.
Upon hearing that Michael was heading to the Sixth Heaven to search for information regarding the World Tree Teardrop, Asuka Karasawa racked her brains to recall the vacant angel lying sideways on the chair at that time, never expecting she had actually gone mad. Gou Wen stroked his chin and said with a deeply puzzled expression,
"Gabriel is the symbol of wisdom, one of the seven pinnacle existences, yet she went mad? This truly is unexpected. Though prior to this, I never knew the Sanctuary hid such a powerful and exalted Archangel."
Helaire led Fisher escorted them up along the cylindrical passageway to the Seventh Heaven. To Fisher's considerable surprise, that high platform they were judged on earlier and the plaza in front of it were actually a part of the Seventh Heaven. The entire Seventh Heaven was pitch-black, barren, possessing basically nothing.
It seemed Sariel, the Emissary of the Chain of Heaven, solely possessed the identity of an emissary, gaining basically no things or powers to govern over.
Hearing this, Helaire smiled. Turning to look at them, she said,
"Angel of Wisdom Gabriel, who solely governs the Sixth Heaven—she is indeed the wisest existence in the entire Sanctuary. She essentially lived in deep seclusion previously, only staying inside the Vortex of Wisdom in the Sixth Heaven. It's a massive, massive library, housing almost the wisdom and knowledge of the entire world. The Sixth Heaven has also always only had her as its sole angel."
While speaking, Helaire brought Fisher's group before a clearing. It was barren here, solely with an open Cage of Sealing Curses abruptly placed there. One look and it was obvious it was just brought up via the lever. Continuing with the topic of Gabriel, Helaire said to Fisher,
"Though Michael said you need to be locked up, Lord Michael certainly wouldn't care about your specific situation, and Lord Sariel obviously doesn't find it necessary to lock you up... So I won't lock the cage door either. You guys can temporarily reside here for these few days. Call me if you need anything, and I'll bring it up to you. Of course, don't ask for things that are too precious, like the World Tree Teardrop... Extend your hand."
Upon hearing this, Gou Wen immediately backed up a step and hid his hands behind his back, clearly unwilling to have any contact with the female before him. Asuka Karasawa also blankly hid behind Fisher, not daring to reach out her hand. After a brief silence, Fisher extended his palm.
Helaire beamed as she drew a simple crown shape upon it, then said,
"Later, if you press this crown pattern three times, I will appear. Simply mention any requests to me. Alright, I'm off. Arrange yourselves."
"..."
Fisher didn't respond, merely examining the symbol on his hand. Instead, Asuka Karasawa hiding behind him opened her mouth and asked,
"Angel Helaire, you haven't finished you were talking about as to why Angel Gabriel went mad."
"Oh, right... Sorry, seeing as these are all old matters, there's not much amusement in bringing them up again..."
Helaire smiled again, turning her head and saying to Asuka Karasawa,
"She is a highly respected existence, both gentle and rich in wisdom. When she was present, even Michael had to give her some face. She contributed significantly to the Sanctuary. You know that Lord Sariel manages a Holy Grail capable of granting wishes, right? Gabriel was the very first angel among us to accumulate enough contributions to earn a wish..."
Hearing this, Fisher froze slightly, immediately raising his head to look at Helaire.
"Mm, that's right... Lord Gabriel went mad precisely because of the wish she obtained from the Holy Grail."