Chapter 267: The Truth of the World (Combined)

"Am I really an elf?"

As Yumya looked at the man's question, a strange feeling suddenly came over her. This being, full of divinity, even identifiable as an "elf," would not lie, just as elves' kindness prevents them from deceiving.

"I am an elf, Yumya of the Night Elves!" Yumya declared firmly, watching him warily.

"Are you really an elf?"

The man smiled, lit a bonfire in the room, and invited the heavily wounded Yumya to sit, letting her secretly use the time to heal. "If you are truly an elf, why are you so resolute? So cruel? Leading kind, divine elves to slaughter other races on such a large scale?"

Yumya, however, became indifferent and said coolly, "Because this is a war of races. I have no choice. If we don't eradicate humanity, their tyranny will surely lead to the extinction of our elven race and enslavement of elves in the future."

She believed that any intelligent human would not refute the correctness of this decision, as they would surely do the same if the roles were reversed.

"Yes, that line of reasoning is not wrong." A Chou smiled, stirring the bonfire with his long blade. The firewood crackled, like travelers chatting idly in a dilapidated hut on a rainy night. He leisurely continued, "But this correct war decision should come from humans, not from kind elves. Elves, with their inherent kindness, even if they know it's the right thing to do... would not have the heart to carry out such a brutal slaughter."

Yumya was about to speak.

"Don't rush to deny it," A Chou continued. "I've observed the history of the elven race. They are kind, gentle, incapable of lying, embodying the perfection of all life, all the beauty of the world—they are called... divinity. They can fight, strive, and sacrifice their lives to protect their Ancient Tree mothers. But when it comes to themselves... would elves, with their kindness, take the lives of other races just to survive? No, certainly not. They are too kind. To survive by taking the lives of others... that is a human decision, not an elven one. So, Yumya, are you truly an elf?"

Yumya's mind went blank. Only at this moment did she realize the true point of contradiction. Her decision was undoubtedly correct! But her way of thinking was fundamentally not what an elf's should be!

To ensure the continuation of a race — this is human thought!

As the Elf Emperor, she was no longer an elf. Perhaps... she was already a human?

Her mind reeled, unable to compose herself.

A Chou continued speaking calmly, "I have reviewed the entire history of the elves and found them to be kind, harmonious, gentle, and without greed. This also led to their lack of ambition... For a very long time, elven civilization made no progress, living in forests. They remained in the age of wooden and stone tools and tribes. Yet, greed is what drives the progress of living beings. As the gods said, desire is the original sin, the root of losing divinity, the source of all disasters and misfortunes in life. But it also makes beings advance. To acquire better weapons, they learn to forge iron. To travel more efficiently, they learn to tame mounts. To satisfy their hunger better, they develop agriculture. To become stronger, they develop cultivation systems. The elves before had none of these; they were purely kind and gentle, like a clear spring, until the appearance of a certain Elf Emperor. Only he propelled the advancement of elven civilization, enabling elves to cultivate, because he had desires... Yet, what makes also breaks. He stole the forbidden fruit." A Chou smiled, stirring his long blade, tiny sparks glinting.

Yumya was silent.

She already had a terrifying premonition. Due to the unique circumstances of her birth, just like the previous Elf Emperor Yumya, she harbored something within her pure elven divinity that should not exist.

As the Elf Emperor, owing to the unique nature of this elven hero body of Yumya, she had already fallen at birth, no longer possessing the perfect elven divinity... Perhaps, she was already human.

As a human, she developed selfishness, which led her to want to protect those beloved elves and initiate the slaughter...

Her face contorted in bitterness. For a moment, she didn't know how to describe it.

"When you think you are yourself, you are not. When you know you are not yourself, then you are... Do you understand who you are now?" A Chou looked at her with deep eyes. "This was always a ridiculous fallacy! Elves don't kill people; only humans... kill people!"

"Only humans kill?" She widened her eyes, an inexplicable dread flashing within them.

The Elf Emperor was, in fact, a human!

If this truth were revealed, the entire world would be plunged into an uproar! The sensation and disbelief it would cause would be unimaginable!

Perhaps this was not wrong.

A Chou chuckled again, looking down and stirring the firewood, watching the bright flames sway and make crisp sounds, as if containing a world's truth and infinite mysteries. "I've observed for countless years, and I've found that elves are flawed; they are profoundly incomplete. Don't rush to refute that..."

He glanced at Elf Emperor Yumya. "As you've seen, although they symbolize all the kindness and beauty in the world and possess every perfect quality, it is precisely because they lack greed and desire that they lack ambition... and won't resist. Perhaps this is what the 'gods' who created them wanted! Only this way can they be controlled... because humans have greed and will defy the heavens, but elves will not."

Yumya's eyes flickered, her mind continuously assailed.

This man was full of charisma, like the wisest sage in the world, seeing through everything.

"What is human nature?" Yumya suddenly asked, a strange bitterness in her soft voice.

"Elf Emperor Yumya," A Chou asked, "tell me... did divinity come first, or humanity?"

Yumya didn't answer, but her heart was already churning with tumultuous waves!

Was it divinity first? Or humanity first?

Each word struck like thunder, exploding in her heart.

"I have listened to human words for countless years—their joy, anger, greed, darkness, filth... Through listening, I have already deduced the truth of this world, the main text of history." A Chou looked at the bonfire, then towards some women holding children in the ruined town outside. "Perhaps, a very long, long time ago, when the heavens and earth were first separated, the Elven Life Ancient Trees and War Ancient Trees, during the Tree Realm War, could nurture complete humans within their fruits. However, they soon discovered the terrifying nature and infinite potential of humans, these intelligent beings, who would one day rebel against them. So, they made a decision: they extracted all the beauty and kindness from human nature and transformed it into elves... But they found that by stripping elves of desire, they also stripped them of the drive to advance. They became kind, gentle, and benevolent, like stagnant water."

"You can't deny this, can you? Greed and desire, slaughter and war, are the driving forces behind a civilization's progress!"

"Therefore, after the 'Tree Realm War,' the 'Elf Wars' we know emerged. The Ancient Elf Trees began warring amongst themselves, hoping to promote the development of civilization. But regrettably, they were ultimately too slow, lacking true intrinsic aggression. Perhaps if things had continued as they were, for tens of thousands of years, the elven world would still be a harmonious, stagnant pool..."

Yumya's mind was already in immense turmoil.

She knew she had heard the truth of the entire world, the complete history of the Ancient Elf Trees... why elves were born... and why each elven tribe waged war against another.

It turned out that what seemed perfect was the most imperfect; elves were not perfect!

From the very beginning, they were incomplete, with parts extracted.

She had always believed that elves came first, and only after stealing the forbidden fruit did vile humans emerge. She never imagined it was the other way around!

This instantly overturned her deeply held beliefs, shattering her entire pride as an elf!

Meanwhile, the Ancient Elf Trees, seemingly waging war against each other, were in fact quite harmonious, capable of conversing and strategizing beneath the leafy canopy.

Until the appearance of a particular Night Elf hero, who brought civilization to the elves! This brought a surprise, but ultimately, the surprise they brought exceeded what the Ancient Trees could tolerate...

Perhaps that greedy being who committed the sin of stealing the forbidden fruit was indeed guilty, but he ultimately became a key in history, prying open the beginning of the entire world!

Yumya whispered, "The truth of our world is that the gods want to obliterate humanity, not because humans stole the forbidden fruit, fell from divinity, became sinners full of violence and flaws, and lost their paradise of happiness..."

A dawning realization gradually emerged in Yumya's mind, and a terrifying thought erupted: "It's because they are terribly afraid of the birth of humanity! Humanity is complete life, an existence that transcends divinity! Inevitably, one day, humans will overthrow their rule!"

Perhaps the root cause of this ancient tree world's disaster isn't a war between elves and humans, but a war between divinity and humanity.

And all of this was a foreshadowing planted by the Life Ancient Trees from the very beginning, when they extracted divinity and created the elves.

Yumya was utterly moved. She stood up and bowed deeply to A Chou. "Thank you for your guidance, Master."

"May I ask, what is human nature?" Yumya asked again.

"I suspect that the eleven Elven Life Ancient Trees of that era split human nature into three parts: divinity, demon nature, and beast nature." A Chou leisurely said, "They only took the divinity, leaving the demon nature and beast nature still stored within the fruits. Ilfan, when he stole the forbidden fruit back then, not only took the complete human nature from the life fruit, transforming into a man... but also inadvertently took the pure demon nature, which is the antithesis of elven divinity, from the fruit."

So, one of the children he fathered became a demon?

A demon, embodying pure demon nature, corresponding to elven divinity?

With the truth of history laid bare before her, Yumya couldn't help but ask, "Then, what about the beast nature that wasn't stolen?"

"Divinity represents good, demon nature represents evil, filled with brutal killing intent, extreme and wicked. Both divinity and demon nature are subjective intelligence inherent to sentient beings... Only beast nature is the most primitive, fundamental biological survival instinct, like a wild beast in the deep forest," A Chou chuckled.

"What evidence is there for your conjecture that the Life Ancient Trees divided it into these three aspects?"

"I am the evidence myself."

At this moment, at the doorway appeared the two figures from before: the man representing demon nature, and the man representing beast nature. Alongside them was a perfectly normal, ordinary-looking human man, who, however, appeared as cold and emotionless as a machine.

"I was originally ugly, named A Chou, my appearance reflecting my heart, which accumulated various impure thoughts and bloodlines." This ordinary-looking man replied, "As I wielded my blade day after day, listening to people's woes, these impure thoughts grew. Eventually, they converged into reflections, and I severed these three impure thoughts: the demon body, the divine body, and the beast body."

The three mirrored avatars began to slowly converge, walking into the emotionless main body of A Chou. His unfeeling eyes gradually flickered with humanity. "When these three reflections converge, I am human."

In reality, A Chou also possessed an Ancestral Shaman true body, but his true body didn't transform into a giant with three heads and six arms. Instead, it split into three mirrored avatars.

These were the beast body, the divine body, and the demon body.

This was the truth he had realized by referencing the world's natural laws, the Ancient Trees' operations, and the principles of life propagation.

Yumya looked at A Chou and couldn't help but ask, "What is the combat power of your true body?"

A Chou explained, "The combat power of the mirrored avatars is only about 35% of the true body's, and they sustain three times the damage... However, the death of a mirrored avatar is of no consequence to me; it merely expends some magical energy."

Yumya's mind reeled.

This man clearly possessed the power to suppress her by force, yet he chose this method to persuade her...

While she, a kind elf, had chosen violence and brute force...

She became bitter, utterly disheartened.

At this moment, she completely surrendered to this man full of humanity. Brute force would not have made her yield; she did not fear death. But this man, with his profound wisdom appearing as foolishness, was the wisest sage of his time. The charm of his words shattered her hardened heart, leaving her utterly convinced and submissive.

"Yumya is willing to surrender."

Yumya knelt on one knee before the man. "The elven race is willing to recognize you as king."

"What if I were to wage war against your Mother Trees?" A Chou asked.

"The elven race is willing to serve as the vanguard." Yumya, as a human, expressed her viewpoint.

*Records of the Ancient History of Tree Star:* In the 120th year of the High Elf Empire, the Human Sword Saint emerged, subduing Elf Emperor Yumya and saving humanity from peril!