Chapter 721

Game of the World Tree

【 THE FINAL FUSION 】

—

Evé conversed with Aurora within her divine kingdom for an entire day and it was not until night fell upon the world of Seigües that Aurora, the Star of Dawn, took her leave and returned to the coastal city of Mirovia.

As the guardian of the Azurefrost Clan, she needed to lead her fellow clansmen to settle down as quickly as possible and familiarize themselves with this familiar yet strange new world.

After Aurora departed, Evé, whilst still seated high upon her divine throne, began to contemplate the various pieces of information she had obtained from her.

The reasons behind the Gods of Humanity attacking her predecessor somewhat surprised Evé. Yet alongside that surprise came a sense of realization, as if things had finally fallen into place.

In a way, she could understand their motives.

Supposing if, within this entire universe, only a single being of Greater Divine Power could truly exist, then for those ambitious gods, it was indeed possible that they would resort to any means necessary to hinder the advancement of such individual.

Even if it means betraying the “mentor” they revered as their mother.

In any case, let alone a mentor, even one’s own parents could turn against each other.

However, although Evé had learned the true reason behind the Thousand-Year Holy War from Aurora, she felt that something about it was still missing.

Evé did not doubt the authenticity of Aurora’s information.

As a fanatical believer of hers, Aurora was already akin to a saint. Thus, her entire mind lay completely open to Evé, leaving neither the need nor even the ability to conceal anything.

Nonetheless, Aurora in the end was ultimately only just a demigod, and the perspective and secrets accessible to a demigod were fundamentally different from those of a true god.

Even though Aurora had once been close to the former World Tree and had learned many things from her predecessor, in Eve’s view, her knowledge remained limited.

This was not to say that what Aurora had said was incorrect.

Rather, it suggested that it likely still carried certain limitations.

Evé was certain that the world of Seigües concealed a huge secret, and that this secret was not far from her.

Perhaps once she learned that secret, Evé would gain a deeper understanding of the current state of the entire universe and of the choices made by the gods.

Of course, that would have to wait until she formally ascended to the rank of Greater Divine Power.

In her judgment, the secret of the world of Seigües was most likely located in the Cradle of Origins.

And true gods who had reached the rank of upper divine power, including the Primordial Dragon Ancestor Urinos, the Titan King Anos, and even Etriōu the Eternal Lord who had betrayed the World Tree, were probably all aware of it.

The former one likely was as well.

Yet within the inheritance she got from the World Tree, all memories related to it had been completely erased.

At the same time, Aurora’s words also confirmed something else for Evé from another angle.

That was that Neo, the King of All Gods who had founded the Pantheon, also known as the Origin of Civilization, had most likely truly perished or had already departed from this universe…

A “smaller” universe and a greater “world”?

Evé had once communicated with the native lifeforms living in Seigües, including some deities, and had asked them about their understanding of the universe.

Including Hela, the Goddess of Death, Dorft, the God of Dwarves and Forging, and Reinhardt, the Platinum Dragon, all believed that beyond the universe here in Seigües lay an endless void-like outer space, filled with all manner of turbulent energies.

They referred to this as the Aether, or the Outer Void.

The dragon race that had suddenly appeared within the universe out of nowhere, and even the World Tree that had emerged just as abruptly, were believed to be beings that had wandered in from the Aether beyond the universe.

There in the Outer Void, extraterritorial beings were believed to be inherently born as mythical existences.

Moreover, within the Outer Void, there were very likely other universes similar to the universe here in Seigües and in each of those universes was a realm created by the Divine Creator.

This was also a widely accepted view amongst the true gods.

However oddly enough, within the inheritance Evé had received from the World Tree, there was no mention where the World Tree had originated at all.

And according to her understanding, Urinos the Ancestral Dragon also possessed only vague memories of the time before her appearance in this universe.

As for the gods’ knowledge of what lay beyond the universe, it had never been confirmed by anyone and was, quite literally, just a baseless myth spoken of within mythical beings.

This was because no one was able to leave beyond the scope of this universe.

All gods who attempted to break through the boundary of this universe from one direction would ultimately reappear from the opposite direction.

This made Evé think of her previous life on Earth, where sailors who set out westward from ports on the Iberian Peninsula would eventually return from the east.

However, unlike the natives of this universe, the inhabitants of Earth had long known that their world was spherical.

The Seigües universe, by contrast, appeared from the observations of the true gods to be a three-dimensional space with an ellipsoidal form.

Even the cosmic star map Evé had obtained from the Pantheon reflected this.

Most of the space within this ellipsoid was filled with countless realms scattered like stars, while at its lower end lay the Abyss, which constantly drew realms into itself, causing them to plunge inward and collapse.

Of course, no true god knew how vast or how deep the Abyss truly was.

Everyone only knew was that the gateway to the Abyss was the Seven Layers of Hell, and that realms which had fallen into it would be pulled along, descending around one another before ultimately vanishing into the depths of the Abyss’s darkness.

In Eve’s view, the Abyss was much like a black hole from her previous life.

The ellipsoidal cosmic form of the Seigües universe had been directly observed by the gods through the power of their divine souls, appearing as a vast yet seemingly complete whole suspended within the cosmic void.

From this form alone, the Seigües universe should have possessed a clear and definite boundary, yet in reality, no true god could ever locate that outer edge, no matter how far they traveled or how much divine power they expended.

More precisely, they had only “seen” it, but could never truly reach it.

Whenever one came close to that supposed boundary, they would instead abruptly emerge on the opposite side of the universe, without the slightest spatial fluctuation or any sign of external interference, as if the transition had occurred in the most natural and inevitable manner possible.

This was a phenomenon that Evé found difficult to comprehend, yet the gods regarded it as entirely natural order of things.

Well, she could hardly fault them for that, since for beings who had never known the existence of other universes, such a bizarre condition can be easily accepted as a fundamental framework of reality.

If not for the dragon race and the World Tree having come from the Outer Void, the natives of this universe would long have believed that their universe was the only one in existence, and that it was everything there was.

Thus, the claim that the universe of Seigües was “small” was a notion Evé found to be rather odd, since concepts such as “small” and “large” could only arise through comparison and required a clear point of reference.

Yet for a realm whose area alone exceeded the total landmass of Earth, the Seigües universe was, in truth, not small at all.

And from Aurora’s words, Evé could clearly sense the boldness and grandeur implicit in the former World Tree’s manner of speech.

In her predecessor’s view, this universe was not as vast as the other gods believed it to be.

Which then raised the question…

Who, or what, had her predecessor used as a reference point to make such a statement?

At this moment, Evé could not help but think of the universe from her previous life on Earth, and of the blue sphere that endlessly rotated within her divine soul.

She had once believed that sphere to be a mere conduit, which enabled her to connect to Earth’s internet network.

However, the recent experience of the player named Cypher made Evé realize that what it connected to was likely far more than just Earth’s internet, since even when the game system connection was severed, that player’s consciousness was still able to link to this universe.

No matter how she considered it, one thing remained certain.

That blue sphere was unquestionably connected to the universe of Earth.

Through it, even though she could not physically reach her previous world, she could still catch glimpses of it, via the vast, intangible network of the internet.

Without a doubt, Earth’s universe was vastly larger than the universe of Seigües.

Could the former World Tree’s reference point, then, have been the Earth’s universe itself?

In other words, had this blue sphere truly come with her transmigration?

Or, if one dared to consider it further, had this sphere always belonged to her predecessor?

Then there was the matter of the history and culture of this world, which bore such striking resemblance to those of Earth that it was impossible to ignore.

As for which civilization came first, and which followed in influence, Evé had no way of knowing.

Was Neo, the King of Gods, himself a transmigrator?

Or was it possible that Neo had once departed this universe, traveled to Earth, and left those influences behind that now intertwined the two worlds?

But regardless of who had arrived first, the connection between these two universes clearly did not begin with Evé’s transmigration…

And if it truly had been Neo who went to Earth, Evé could not help but draw even more associations.

Had this blue sphere once belonged to Neo as well?

Did it pass first from Neo, then to her predecessor, and finally into her own hands?

At the same time, the former World Tree had once told Aurora that her predecessor had obtained the key to “Greatness.”

To be bolder, could that statement be referring to this very sphere?

Evé could not help but associate it with the blue sphere within her divine soul, because she was certain that within the entire world of Seigües, this orb was absolutely unique.

Aside from her, no existing mythical being in Seigües knew anything about Earth’s universe.

Even after she summoned the players here, the “other world” as she understood it was entirely different from the other world understood by the native inhabitants of Seigües.

Here, “world” and “realm” were treated as equivalent concepts.

Even now, Alice still believed that the players came from other realms within the Seigües universe.

The same was true of Hela, the Goddess of Death, who had always thought that Evé was secretly concealing a secret realm which served as the players’ true homeworld.

But if the blue sphere truly was some kind of “key” to “Greatness” then how could it be properly utilized?

And how, exactly, was “greatness” to be achieved in the first place?

Evé did not yet know the answers to these questions.

Beyond this, she also discovered that, after careful reflection, left her with a chilling sense of unease.

That was that the prayers of the Frost Elves at the Cliff of Sorrows were not something she was hearing for the first time.

The first time she had heard them was before her revival.

At that time, it was precisely because she had heard those faint, almost imperceptible prayers, and because of the sorrow and despair contained within them, that Evé had changed her mind.

She chose not to touch the blue sphere, but instead selected the green one instead.

And after Eve’s revival, the green sphere within her mind had completely vanished, leaving only the blue one behind.

Now, of course, Evé understood that the green sphere had most likely represented the World Tree itself.

Yet at this moment, having learned the source of the prayers she once heard, and having learned the method by which Aurora led her people to revive the former World Tree, Evé could not help but let a thought surface.

Could it be that she herself was nothing more than a contingency left behind for her predecessor’s revival?

And what of that system-like voice she had heard before her revival, saying things like, “Soul captured, welcome back” and such?

From whom had it originated?

Had it been left behind by the former World Tree?

Could it be that her predecessor, much like herself, harbored a certain mischievous fondness for “systematization”?

All of this made Evé feel that her revival was becoming less and less a coincidence, and that she was not, in fact, the fortunate transmigrator she had once believed herself to be.

The act of calling out, in particular, gave rise to yet another troubling question.

That was the fact that the Frost Elves had already left the Cliff of Sorrows more than two thousand years ago.

That particular dark world within the Abyss was marked by distorted spacetime and an excessively rapid flow of time.

Even so, when converted to Earth’s time, it still amounted to two hundred years.

In other words, what Evé had heard was a call from two hundred years ago on the Earth time scale.

Yet from her death in her previous life to her revival in this one, measured by Earth’s time, only a few days had passed.

Had she arrived in the Seigües universe two hundred years before her own death?

A reversal of time and space?

Or rather… was it the opposite?

Evé dared not continue thinking about these things fearing that if she did, she would begin to doubt her own existence.

She feared that if she did, she would come to fear the true intentions of the former World Tree.

Taking a deep breath, Eve’s gaze gradually steadied.

No matter what, regardless of whether she was a contingency left behind by the former World Tree, or regardless of where she came from, she was herself.

She was not her predecessor, she was Evé.

And she would never become the former World Tree.

Her foundational memories were of her life on Earth, brief though it was, yet beautiful.

She had once had a warm family and lived without worries.

She was herself.

Once Yi Tao, now Evé Yggdrasill.

The incarnation of the World Tree, the sovereign of nature and life, the Sovereign of the elvenkind.

And no matter what secrets lay buried within the Seigües universe, she would continue forward without hesitation.

Greater divine power?

She would certainly attain it.

What the former World Tree failed to accomplish, she would complete it herself.

As for what lay beyond this universe, and whether it was linked to the vast universe of Earth, she also wished to see it.

She had no intention of being trapped within this tiny cage.

Of course, if one day she truly possessed the power to change everything, Then fulfilling the former World Tree’s final wish would also be her promise.

Gradually, Eve’s thoughts became clear, and the goals in her heart grew ever more distinct.

Survival was no longer her only purpose.

Her purpose also included stepping beyond the boundaries of this universe.

Not only that, but also stepping beyond while remaining true to herself.

Before, this had merely been an idea of hers.

Now, it had become her new objective.

And at that very moment, Evé suddenly felt her divine soul tremble slightly.

A sensation beyond description surged within her, and her divine soul gradually bloomed with a faint radiance.

In that instant, countless points of light erupted throughout the Garden of Eden and surged toward Eve’s incarnation.

Vaguely, she discovered that her divine soul, which had long since fused with the World Tree inheritance, had become more solid.

Her aura suddenly also began to change again, and again,

Until it became indistinguishable from the aura belonging to the former World Tree within the inheritance.

Sensing the change in her own aura, Evé froze slightly.

Then, she fell silent.

Aura was the sole criterion by which the identity of a true god could be discerned.

Now, even if Hela, the Goddess of Death, were to arrive, she would likely be unable to distinguish between Evé and the former World Tree.

After a moment, Evé finally let out a soft sigh.

“So that is how it is. This is the turning point.”

“The highest law of life is the soul. Souls can be torn apart, and likewise, they can merge.”

“However, only you yourself know that after accepting the power of an external soul and transforming the foundation of your divine soul, you are still you, yet also no longer entirely you.”

“Was this your choice… Yggdrasill?”

“The rebirth of other mythical beings is a return of one’s self. Your revival is the continuation of life itself.”

“Kind-hearted as you are, even in revival, you would never choose to devour an external consciousness.”

“What you sought to pass on was, in truth, that will to keep moving forward no matter what.”

“You wished to change everything. You longed to change everything. Yet you knew that your own nature made it difficult to truly change everything in the end, and so…”

“You chose a successor who would completely replace your own consciousness.”

Eve’s expression grew somewhat complex.

At this moment, she gained a deeper understanding of the former World Tree.

At this moment, she also felt ashamed of her earlier suspicions toward her predecessor.

She was still Evé.

But now, she was also the former World Tree.

However, in the very next second, Eve’s expression abruptly changed.

“This is bad…”

“My throne in the Pantheon!”

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