Chapter 81: Chapter 81: Entry to the World Tree

The wooden carriage, an exquisite piece of craftsmanship carved from resilient Ironwood, glided with a sublime, almost haunting smoothness across the surface of a gargantuan root. This root, which served as the primary highway leading into the heart of the kingdom, had been weathered and polished over centuries until it was as level and seamless as a paved road on Earth. But unlike the jarring vibrations of a asphalt street, there was a strange, rhythmic elasticity to the ground beneath them.

There were no deafening roars of internal combustion engines, no rhythmic thumping of pistons, and no nauseating smell of burnt diesel. Instead, the only soundtrack to their journey was the melodic rustle of the mountain wind passing through the heavy silk cloaks of the Paladin escort and the occasional, crystalline chime of organic harnesses made from braided silver-vine.

Dayat sat on a polished wooden bench that felt remarkably cool, almost liquid, against his skin. His eyes were wide, fixed on the world outside, refusing to blink for fear of missing even a second of the transformation. As far as the eye could reach, the landscape was a tapestry of green in every conceivable shade—from the pale, translucent mint of new sprouts to the deep, brooding forest emerald of ancient ferns. However, as they continued their journey westward, the scenery began to shift into something that bypassed the limits of human imagination and defied the very laws of perspective.

“There it is,” Lunethra whispered.

Her voice sounded different now. It had shed the playful, flirtatious rasp of a traveler and donned a mantle of inherent, ancient authority. It was clearer, more resonant, carrying a weight that felt like the tolling of a silver bell in a silent hall.

On the horizon, the sky of Verdia appeared to be split asunder by a colossal pillar that pierced the heavens, vanishing into the shimmering sea of clouds above. At first, Dayat’s mind, conditioned by the skyscrapers of Jakarta and the peaks of the Terragard Mountains, tried to rationalize the sight. He assumed it was a jagged, snow-capped mountain peak shrouded in mist. But as the Verdant Stags pulled them closer, the terrifying reality of the scale set in.

It was a living thing. It was breathing.

The World Tree, Vaelith.

The word “tree” felt pathetically, almost insultingly inadequate to describe it. Its main trunk possessed a diameter spanning several kilometers—vast enough to swallow the entirety of Jakarta’s central business district within its colossal circumference. Its roots, erupting from the earth like jagged mountain ranges, created natural valleys and canyons inhabited by thousands of species of unique, glowing flora that existed nowhere else in Aethera.

Dayat craned his neck, straining his eyes to see the canopy, but his vision was lost in a sprawling ocean of leaves—each the size of a city park—that functioned as a living roof for the entire world.

“God… this isn’t just a tree,” Dayat muttered, his voice thick with a mixture of awe and a strange, primal fear. “It’s a vertical continent. A god made of wood and sap.”

Beside him, Kancil had completely lost the ability to speak. The boy, who usually had a witty remark for every situation, was reduced to a state of catatonic wonder. He pressed his face against the wooden railing of the carriage so hard it left marks on his skin, his eyes bulging as they reflected the golden light. For a child who had spent his entire life in the lightless, damp gutters of Bakasa and the suffocating, soot-choked industrial zones of the east, Vaelith was a beautiful impossibility. The air here was not just oxygen; it was a perfume—crisp, sweet, and carrying the intoxicating scent of millions of Light-Bloom flowers that began to pulse with a warm, golden radiance as the sun finally surrendered to the horizon.

However, amidst this overwhelming majesty, a silent anomaly occurred that only two entities in the party could perceive.

Dola was sitting perfectly upright, her posture as rigid as a reinforced steel beam. Her hands were clamped so tightly onto Dayat’s arm that he could feel the incredible pressure of her synthetic actuators. Even through his jacket, he felt the heat radiating from her skin—a clear sign that her internal liquid-cooling system was struggling to compensate for a massive spike in processor activity. But this time, it wasn’t just Dola’s internal struggle.

Dayat felt a subtle, low-frequency vibration beneath his feet—not from the movement of the carriage, but from the root of the World Tree itself. As they passed through the primary entrance known as The Root Gate—an archway formed by two intertwined roots that towered hundreds of feet high—the sacred tree seemed to offer a reaction of its own. Above them, the massive leaves hissed in unison, a sound like a thousand whispers combined into one, despite the absolute absence of a breeze.

“Master… this tree,” Dola whispered. Her voice was strained, distorted by a slight static hiss that suggested her vocal synthesizers were being interfered with. “It possesses a collective consciousness that is unimaginably ancient. It is not a simple plant; it is a biological supercomputer of immense proportions. It perceives my presence as an alien entity—a foreign code in its garden. There is a pressure of Mana, a psychic weight, attempting to dissect the very structure of my core programming.”

Dayat turned toward her, his heart sinking. “Are you alright, Dola? Do we need to stop?”

“I am… under extreme pressure, Master. But it is not because I am failing,” Dola replied, her sapphire eyes glowing with a defensive, almost aggressive intensity. “This tree… it is afraid. It is afraid of what lies dormant within me. We are, in a sense, intimidating each other through our mere existence. It is a collision of two different eras of existence.”

Dayat swallowed hard, a chill running down his spine. The sacred tree, the living heart of an entire kingdom, felt threatened by his assistant? The thought was terrifying. It meant that the “Maiden of Steel” entity sleeping within Dola’s circuits possessed a degree of existence that made even the most ancient forces of nature feel restless and defensive.

As the carriage entered the residential areas on the lower levels of Vaelith, the atmosphere shifted from the wild majesty of nature to the bustling energy of an organic metropolis. This was a city that defied every urban planning logic Dayat knew. Buildings didn’t sit on the ground; they grew directly from the wood of the trunk, their walls made of living bark, reinforced vines, and translucent sap-glass. Hanging bridges made of woven, magically-strengthened plants connected one massive branch to another, spanning chasms that would make a base-jumper hesitate.

There were no streetlights humming with electricity. Instead, clusters of Light-Bloom flowers had been cultivated to grow along the wooden walls, providing a warm, comforting yellow glow that felt like a permanent sunset.

The sounds of the city were equally jarring to Dayat’s modern sensibilities. There was no cacophony of car horns, no grinding of gears, and no humming of high-voltage transformers. Instead, the air was a thick soup of soaring melodies—Elven songs drifting from high windows, the delicate, haunting strumming of harps carried by the wind, and the low, contented laughter of a people who lived in harmony with their environment. It was a stark contrast to the stifling, metal elevators of Jakarta’s skyscrapers or the deafening, soul-crushing clatter of commuter trains. In Vaelith, everything moved with a slower, more deliberate rhythm, dictated by the cycle of the seasons rather than the ticking of a clock.

But their arrival was not met with the same warmth.

As the carriage rolled through the root-paved streets, the Elven citizens stopped in their tracks. Their gazes were far from the welcoming hospitality Dayat had hoped for. They looked at Dayat and Kancil—at their tactical jackets, reinforced cargo pants, and heavy military boots—designs that were instantly, visceral associated with the industrial coldness and environmental desecration of the Brassvale Kingdom. To the people of Verdia, Brassvale was more than just a rival; it was a cancer, a symbol of the cruelty of iron and the arrogance of machines.

“Look at those outsiders… the stench of processed iron follows them like a plague,” an Elven woman whispered, covering her nose with a silk handkerchief.

“Why have the Paladins brought the filth of the East to our sacred home? Have we truly fallen so low that we must host the friends of the iron-mongers?” another added, their eyes narrowing with undisguised cynicism.

Kancil shrank back into the wooden seat, his excitement vanishing as he felt the weight of a thousand judging eyes. He felt like a stray rat that had accidentally wandered into a cat’s palace, and every shadow seemed to hide a predator. “Big Bro… I think they want to turn us into fertilizer,” he whispered, his voice trembling so much it was barely audible.

Dayat sighed, his jaw tightening. He had forgotten that in this world, clothing was more than just fashion; it was a political statement. He thought about using his manifestation ability to create new, more “elven” clothes, but the realization hit him hard: his manifest-triggering instruments, his tactical sensors, and every piece of refined metal he owned were currently locked away in the Paladin’s Ironwood chest. He was, for the first time in a long time, truly vulnerable.

Lunethra noticed the rising tide of hostility. She didn’t say a word at first. She simply stood up in the moving carriage, her regal aura flaring like a sudden sunburst. Her emerald eyes scanned the crowd with a cold, piercing intensity that seemed to freeze the very air. One by one, the citizens who had been whispering sneers immediately bowed their heads, their arrogance replaced by a fearful, deep-seated reverence for the royal bloodline.

“Pay them no mind, Dayat,” Lunethra said, sitting back down with a grace that was almost predatory. She ignored the stiff, disapproving posture of Captain Elian, who sat at the front of the carriage. Instead, she leaned in close to Dayat’s ear, her breath warm against his skin. “But you should remember, my hero… in this place, my word is the heartbeat of the law. If the commoners make you feel unwelcome, you can always seek… more private, more intimate protection within my quarters.”

Lunethra winked, her slender fingers trailing dangerously close to Dayat’s cheek, a playful smirk dancing on her lips.

However, Dola was faster than any human or elf. Before Lunethra’s fingers could make contact, Dola’s hand slid between them, intercepting the movement with a gesture that was perfectly polite in its execution but unmistakably firm in its intent.

“Master Dayat is currently maintaining a state of 98% social stability,” Dola said, her voice flat and clinical. “Additional private interventions are categorized as ’low-priority’ and ’unnecessary’ at this stage, Mistress Lunethra.”

Lunethra simply laughed, a sound like silver coins falling onto marble. She seemed to genuinely enjoy the spark of defensive jealousy she could provoke in Dola’s artificial heart. “You really are a bore, Dola. But I suppose a guardian must be diligent, even if she is made of cold logic.”

Finally, the carriage came to a halt in front of a structure known as the Organic Elevator—a massive network of roots that moved vertically through hollowed-out channels within the trunk of Vaelith. Captain Elian gestured for them to dismount, his expression as unreadable as stone.

“We are heading to the third-tier branches,” Elian stated, his tone formal. “Queen Verene’s palace is situated there, at the height of the sunlight. Princess, I truly hope you have a solid, airtight explanation for the presence of these guests. The Queen is in a particularly foul mood. The magic-nutrition crisis is spreading from the borderlands, and the High Druids are restless.”

Dayat stepped into the root elevator, feeling the strange, hum of life beneath his boots. As the platform began to ascend with a smoothness that put the best Earth-made magnetic-levitation lifts to shame, he looked out over the city of Vaelith from above.

The lights of the flowers below looked like a sea of fallen stars, twinkling amidst the green shadows. It was beautiful, magnificent, and hauntingly quiet. Yet, Dayat knew that beneath this serene surface, there was a deep-seated hatred for everything he represented, and a dangerous, ticking secret about the girl standing next to him that was ready to explode the moment they reached the throne.

They continued to rise, moving toward the apex of this green civilization—a stage where their fates would soon be decided by a Queen who hated the smell of iron.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep