Do humans actually have souls?

If so, what would the afterlife be like? Will one’s consciousness still be retained after death?

Back when she was still alive, Evé often pondered such philosophical questions.

Nevertheless with each time she thought about such matters, the same answer she came to conclusion has always stayed the same—that is, she probably just ate way too much hence her brain kept thinking of such profound things as some form of mental exertion.

However, when the actual chance to verify and experience such an unbelievable occurrence had finally happened to her, Evé instead refused to process anything so she just stood there in utter bewilderment.

Silence.

She seems to be within a void.

With nothing but an endless expanse of darkness before her, Evé’s only option to appease her boredom was hiding into the deep recesses of her mind and being lost in contemplation.

Firstly, she was absolutely certain that she had indeed died moments before she reappeared in this bizarre world.

Evé didn’t know how she could still retain her old consciousness after dying, but regardless of such an out of this world scenario, one thing for sure is that she’s now stuck here in this world of nothingness.

Loneliness, Darkness, Isolation.

Aside from these immaterial concepts, the only things she could perceive that may have some sort of substance are those two orbs of light, one blue and one green flickering aimlessly at a distance.

Evé once tried to reach these shining orbs with her hand, but soon found that she had no actual body and was only a bundle of consciousness.

Fortunately, she seemed to still be able to float akin to a cloud.

Could it be…she’s now merely just a soul?

Evé suddenly I had this thought.

After pondering for a moment, she tentatively floated towards the two orbs of light.

The green one was large and emitted a flickering light, giving Evé a sense of grandeur and mystery.

The blue one on the other hand was small and emitted a soft glow, making Evé feel at peace and comfortable.

After thinking for several seconds, Evé decided to first make contact with the latter.

However, just as she was about to touch it, a faint cascade of solemn prayers suddenly echoed within this devoid of space…

The voices were ethereal, soft, and solemn, seemingly laden with deep yearning and melancholia.

Evé was perplexed and shifted her attention to the source of the sound, realizing that it seemed to be coming from the green orb of light.

The prayers were intermittent, and it was spoken in a language that Evé had never heard before, but it gave her a profound sense of solemnity.

Evé couldn’t understand the content, but she seemed to be able to sense the countless sorrows and despair contained within the prayers.

Curiosity killed the cat so to speak.

As if guided by a strange force, Evé shifted her attention and tentatively touched the green light instead.

At the moment she touched the bright viridescent orb, the dark world stirred as if provoked then changes started happening.

Her consciousness soon fell into a trance within an instant, and a huge amount of information burst forth like a deluge within her mind.

Evé then felt her vision go black as countless scenes appeared within her subconscious mind one after another…

A vast and ancient continent…

A mysterious seed falling from the sky…

A strange and enormous tree sprouting from the ground…

Beautiful figures born from the tree…

“Elves…?”

This term instinctively resurfaced through Evé’s mind the moment she took a glimpse of those long-eared figures often seen in the fantasy RPG games of her past life.

...But before she could think of anything further, the green light sphere generated a strong inescapable vacuum force and sucked her in an instant.......

...“Suitable soul captured.”...

“Condition triggered, activating the World Tree Awakening Ritual.”

In a daze, Evé heard a stranger’s voice.

It was spoken in an unknown language, but Evé was surprised to find that she could still understand it.

Evé’s vision then brightens just as the voice slowly fades into a whisper.

Looking around her new unfamiliar surroundings, Evé came to the conclusion that she had been transported into a world filled with wonder as countless flickering tiny orbs of light danced through the air as if heralding her arrival.

Such dreamy and otherworldly sceneries are indescribable by words alone.

What’s going on?

Evé was perplexed.

“Initiating soul fusion, activating World Tree inheritance ceremony…”

The mysterious synthetic voice rang out again, and then the countless flying particles around Evé began to converge towards her body.

She felt a strong and mysterious power pouring into her body, accompanied by a flood of countless information as well.

As the fusion continued, Evé felt her innate senses becoming more clearer and better, and the prayers echoed again within her mind, becoming more pronounced and coherent.

With the lights that entered her body slowly becoming intertwined with her, Evé’s consciousness had also begun to radiate a faint divine light, as the solemn green energy continued to converge until it engulfed the entire space for which she stood still…

In the last second, Evé heard that synthetic voice again:

“The Union is successful.”

“Welcome back your divine grace, the new seed that have finally been reborn to replace the old one in the realm of Saigües—”

“Evé Yggdrasill.”

When her consciousness had finally returned, Evé fell into contemplation right away.

She was no longer in that strange void, but on the contrary she seemed to have arrived in a lush vibrant world instead.

An ever expansive range of high mountains encompasses her view in the far distance whilst being surrounded by lush dense forests in close proximity.

…That is, only if one could ignore the distinct difference between the plants here in comparison from those on Earth, Evé would have doubled as to whether she had really come to a primeval forest.

However, all the forest and mountains around her are far too small for some reason.

It was such a strange feeling, like being in an Ultraman film set or being spirited away into the lands of the tiny Lilliputians. Evé felt as if she was overseeing everything in the world through the POV from high above.

Even the flock of birds gliding through the skies look like mere flies in her eyes.

Moreover, her vision was very peculiar, it's like having an eyesight capable of 360°degree angle view, something entirely unimaginable in her past human life…

Drawing her attention to something else down below, Evé saw a palm-sized lake not far away from where she stood.

The lake was still as a mirror and shimmering, and it clearly showed her reflection, a being of colossal proportions with twisting roots, a robust and majestic trunk, and ever expansive branches that almost blocked out the skies.

Combining through all the vast information that was forcefully poured into her frayed mind, Evé eventually got the gist of it:

“I’m the World Tree?”

Yggdrasill—the World Tree.

She was hailed as the primordial root of nature, the mother goddess of the Elvenkind, and the Miraculous life giver…

She was an unfathomable existence comparable to the likes of dragons for which were hailed as the most powerful race in the entire history of Saigües. The one she had reincarnated into was a real mythical being rivaling the might of gods.

“Is this really true that I’m now the World Tree…and all of this is not just an insane delusion of mine…?”

Looking at the falling withered leaves at it ripples her reflection within the mirror-like lake, Evé didn’t know if she was sighing or lamenting in her heart.

Perhaps both.

Anyhow.

After sorting through the information she had been forcefully inherited, Evé had more or less figured out her current situation.

Her soul had crossed over to a fantasy world called Saigües.

And as a newly minted recruit for the army of transmigrators, she seemed to have been handpicked by the old dying World Tree to replace it. Her soul had been fused with the mother tree’s essence, as well as the remaining memories and Divinity, while retaining her prior consciousness, henceforth becoming the new World Tree – Evé Yggdrasill.

A Quasi-dead one, that is.

The inheritance of the World Tree seems to possess a peculiar power that calms one’s bearings. Evé didn’t feel panicked or lost in her heart after seeing the state of her new body. On the contrary, she was surprised to find that she was incredibly composed at this moment, and even had a hint of joy in her heart…

“Joy…?”

Indeed, what she’s really feeling now was joy, the mirth of surviving posthumously.

After merging with the inheritance of the World Tree, Evé knew that she had been very lucky. As a soul wandering in the endless void, unless one experiences something miraculous like this, the destruction of one’s soul would be the actual norm.

However, with her crossing worlds and merging to a new life had inadvertently helped her escape her imminent destruction back in that Dark World.

Henceforth, begins her new life…as a tree.

“Anyway, It’s good that I am alive again…I guess?”

Looking at her reflection at the lake’s surface whilst trying to move her newfound wooden body, Evé was filled with curiosity.

It’s great that she’s alive once again but the sense of decay that seems to pervade this new body of hers is quite alarming considering that she just transmigrated onto it.

Without a doubt, the current state of this body is not so well. Just by looking at her reflection in the lake, it is clear that the branches are withered and the leaves are decaying, a perilous state of quasi-death right off the bat.

Great.

What a spendid way to start her reincarnated life, indeed!

Sarcasm aside, Evé can still feel a powerful and ancient power lying deep within her body, brimming with vitality, stirring and seemingly just reawakened from its deep slumber.

At the same time, a profound feeling also arises within her.

It is a feeling of being in complete control of the heavens and earth, Evé felt as if she is the reigning sovereign of this entire world, and as long as she wills it, she can dominate everything within several kilometers around her.

This feeling is quite addicting once you get a taste of it, she mused. Evé then looks around in search of things she could apply her powers into and found a withered Oak tree not far away from her and she tried to focus in her magic onto it.

Harnessing her power mentally, eventually strange things suddenly happened to the Oak Tree.

That dead tree suddenly bursts with new life, sprouting leaves and branches in a matter of seconds. Not only that, but Evé also felt as if she had formed some kind of special connection with the Oak tree, as if she can control everything about it.

However, she also realizes that the magical power within her is rapidly depleting, and a third of it disappears in the blink of an eye. Realizing this, she quickly stops reviving the dead tree.

Evé, who had already merged with the essence of the World Tree, knows that this power is the energy of life, which is also the source of the World Tree’s strength, or…its Divinity.

Once it runs out, the World Tree will inevitably fall into a deep slumber.

That also means Evé’s death.

Feeling the pain of losing a third of her magical power, Evé regrets her carelessness.

She did not expect such a large consumption just by trying to “resurrect” this particular withered oak tree.

What’s so special about it anyway? Initially she thought that it was just your average Oak tree.

Focusing on the tree that had just been infused with her natural divine power, Evé soon felt a little strange.

The withered tree at this moment had already completely changed. Not only did it become lush again, but it also grew almost three times taller than it was before.

Comparing it to the surrounding trees, Evé guessed that this oak tree, for which had regained its vitality, was probably at least thirty meters tall.

And then, what happened next further astounded her.

Suddenly, the lucky oak tree trembled and struggled to break free its roots from the ground whilst sprouting new roots that twisted and curled into two strange legs. Its branches grew into two muscular arms, while the crown became a tangled mass of wooden hair, and a pair of shining eyes appeared on the top of the trunk.

In the blink of an eye, it transformed into a majestic threat!

As Evé watched in astonishment as the thirty-meter-tall oak treant shook off the dirt on its legs, turned toward the World Tree, and knelt down on one knee. his powerful voice was filled with excitement and sincerity:

“Oh, Mother Nature, I thank you for your favor. Please grant this Oak Guardian a name, your divine grace!”

Mother Nature? Oak Guardian? Granting a name?

Evé couldn’t help but smirk wryly at the sight of the tiny toy-sized threat posturing beneath her. Meanwhile, she felt a strange connection with it, as if she could directly convey commands to it.

His posture somehow made her remember a particular scene she had watched back at her past life and a mischievous thought crossed Evé’s mind, and she hesitated for a moment before giving the threat a name.

Suddenly, a sacred, majestic, and ethereal voice echoed in the Oak Guardian’s mind:

“Very well, then you shall be known as Berserker!”

As soon as she proclaimed his name, the massive body of the oak guardian trembled in reverence, as his half-kneeling posture turned into a full on gesture of kowtowing.

He deeply bowed and spoke with a voice that seemed to be excited and trembling akin to a child who had just been praised by their mother:

“Praise be the Mother Goddess, I will serve thee until my last dying breath!”

After hearing his bold proclamation of loyalty, Evé then felt a pure and warm energy coming out from the oak guardian as if it had crossed the void and directly blessed her, ultimately converging with her own natural divine power whom sits at the deepest part of her body and coalescing with the rest of her Divinity.

Evé was then surprised to find that her originally depleted divine power reserves had actually recovered just a little bit.

After considering the information in her consciousness for a moment, Evé quickly came to an conclusion.

“The power of faith?”

The power that just came from the Oak Guardian is undoubtedly the power of faith!

Being personally blessed by Eve’s natural divine power, this Oak Treant has now fully become a loyal advocate of the Mother Goddess, and will naturally provide consistent power of faith through daily practice of his religion.

Looking at the respectful and obedient Berserker in front of her, Evé became even more satisfied, feeling that she had touched upon some ideas on how to restore her powers.

Thinking of this, Evé once again checked the information passed down to her and unsurprisingly found relevant information to such matters.

The Saigües realm is a magically enriched world that is home to mortals and a few Demigods for which the latter are mostly in control the world.

The power of the deities comes from faith, and the power of the faith of all living things is what empowers the deities with them transforming the raw faith into pure divine power through their Divinity.

The World Tree is a mythical creature that exists on the same level as the Gods. Henceforth the power of the World Tree and the deities are somewhat similar. The World Tree also is an esteemed being widely recognized by all living things within Saigües.

True gods had once walked the surface of the mortal realm long ago but currently there’s some problem that’s preventing them from descending into this realm thus most of the True Gods resides in another plane called the Heavenly Realm.

Also according to the World Tree’s Inheritance, there are different types of Deities but they are mostly classified by the method for which they can garner power.

The popular term for distinction amongst them are the ‘New Gods’ and the ‘Old Ancient Ones.’

The new gods, also known as the faith-based deities, are often deities that are born much later. They mainly rely on the power of faith provided by their worshipers to accumulate divine power, strengthen their Divinities, and improve their own Celestial Domain by building divine kingdoms in the mortal world.

The Old Ancient Ones on the other hand, are known as the mythical-based deities, for which most of them already exist even way back to the primordial era aeons ago.

Their power comes from the natural laws bestowed upon the heavens and earth. Thus in turn gives them the ability to obtain divine power from the cosmic void or through some other obscure means.

The Great Ancient Ones do not require faith, nevertheless they can also strengthen themselves through being worshipped.

The World Tree belongs to the latter.

Back when the World Tree was still at its peak, it could directly draw energy from the cosmic void and gain divine power from it easily, or directly convert the vitality of other creatures into its own natural divine power.

However, at this moment, the World Tree is in a dying state and has lost the ability to gain natural divine power from the cosmic void.

In this quasi-death state, the World Tree cannot function on its own and can only indirectly influence the outside world through divine power. This makes it impossible for Evé to actively absorb the life force of the plants in the forest to restore her strength, because she cannot do it herself…

The only method Evé can think of to increase her divine power is through faith. However, the path of religion is not an easy one. According to the information derived from the inheritance, the competition amongst the faith-based gods for believers on Saigües is quite fierce, and the previous World Tree apparently fell because of it.

Thinking of this, Evé looked at her newly created Treant follower and he felt more and more precious within her eyes.

A fanatic! And one that could potentially become a saint!

“Sigh if only I could know more about Berserker’s abilities…it would be nice if his status was displayed just like the games back in my old world…”

She couldn’t help but exhale ruefully.

How stupid, this is reality and not a game world. How could there be a convenient thing like a Status scr—

Suddenly, Evé felt a slight decrease in her natural divine power, and within her consciousness appeared a Status Interface of the oak tree guardian, just like the one she had wished just now!

【Name: Berserker 】

【Race: Oak Tree Guardian】

【Class: Druid】

【Level: 51 (Silver Mid-Rank)】

【Patron God: Evé Yggdrasill】

【Level of Faith: Fanatic】

【Titles: Mother Nature’s Follower, World Tree Guardian】

【Abilities: War Sacrifice, Oak Grasp, Nature Whispering…】

…

Evé opened her nonexistent mouth agape.

This…How did it actually happen?

No, this is the power of an Old Ancient God!

Although still somewhat incredulous, Evé, who had now been fused with the essence of the World Tree, understood that in a sense, she was now a bona-fide God.

A God can manipulate the natural laws of the world, but even more so for an Ancient One like her. It is said that Great Old Ones can even create things out of nothing with just their thoughts alone and nothing else.

Although Evé has not yet completely mastered her power, she can already use her natural divine power to achieve some miracles.

Manifesting the information of the other party in her mind is relatively easy compared to what she could actually do.

But regardless, Evé still feels somewhat pained after feeling the dissipation of her divine powers once more.

She felt like a CEO of a delisted company on the verge of bankruptcy.

After checking Berserker’s information, Evé was quite frankly a tad bit disappointed.

“Only Silver mid-rank huh…that’s a little low.”

Having fused with the World Tree inheritance, Evé had gained a clear understanding of the current world’s strength level division. The power ranking within Saigües could be divided into four major levels: occupational level, legendary level, demigod level, and mythical level, each separated by a vast difference.

The lowest level, occupational level, is also known as the Secular Rank and can be further subdivided into three tiers: black, iron, silver, and gold, with each tier having upper, middle, and lower ranks.

Being a silver medium rank, in the occupational level, The Oak Guardian is only considered to have average strength, and was far behind the legendary levels and above.

“I didn’t expect that just bestowing a mere silver medium rank follower would cost this much. I feel like I’ve been ripped off a bit…”

Evé muttered to herself ruefully.

After thinking for a moment, she commanded again in her mind.

“Manifest my own status!”

With a single thought, a similar information box appeared in her consciousness again.

[Name: Evé Yggdrasill ]

[Race: World Tree (Ancient God)]

[Level: 150 (Mythical Rank)]

[Condition: Weak Divine Power Debuff (On the verge of deep sleep)]

[Divinity: Nature, Life, Elf]

[Titles: Nature’s Mother Tree, Goddess of Life, Patron God of the Elves]

[Divine Power Value: 10/500]

[Number of Followers: 3 (Saints 0, Fanatics 1, Devout Believers 1, Shallow Believers 1)]

[Abilities: Communication, Bestowal, Enlightenment, Healing, Summoning, Divine Descent…]

A Mother of what now?!

Ah right…The world tree is originally the mother tree of life, so naturally a moniker would be made in relation to that.

Anyway, she played a lot of virtual reality games in her past life so naturally she could easily understand all these gaming terminologies like levels, debuffs and similar stuff.

Oh wait… she still has a few followers?

Seeing the number of followers, Evé was somewhat perplexed, but thinking back to the faint prayers she had heard before fusing with the World Tree, she also felt somewhat relieved.

If she guessed it correctly, those voices may probably come from her few remaining religious worshippers.

Only 10 points of divine power, how pitiful.

Just now, when she revived Berserker, she used up a whopping 05 points of divine power you know!

And gaining the ability to observe the target’s state also consumed 01 points of her divine power…you know.

“Goddanggit I must make myself stronger…my divine power is just not enough as it is.”

Evé urgently wants to increase her divine power even if it’s just for the ability to move freely.

As a World Tree in a quasi-death state, she’s nothing more than an immovable lunk of wood, except for being conscious, she’s no different from a vegetable, truly the most miserable god in existence.

When she first arrived here, she was really excited, but if she was forced to stand like a background prop like these from now on then Evé felt that she would go insane sooner or later…

No, this won’t do!

She must accumulate enough divine power to at very least recover from the dying state she’s stuck in now and when things get a bit better then she’ll finally create a divine avatar for herself!

Once she has an incarnation, then Evé can finally move freely within a certain range and do whatever she wants!

However, if she wants to use the divine avatar creation in her abilities, Evé checked and find out that it requires a grand total of 100 points of divine power in order to manifest it!

At present, this is just too high of a price for her…

Sigh…

I’m just too poor…

Fortunately, the faith power provided by the few believers she still has can be converted into divine power. However, looking at the very slow pace of faith accumulation in her Status Screen, Evé felt even more and more helpless.

T-Three believers, one of which was just created moments ago. Aren’t there any Gods in the world who are more pitiful than her?

Although the World Tree, being an ancient god for which belongs to the category of Great Old Ones and does not rely on religion like faith-based gods do, at present, it seems that the only way for Evé to replenish divine power is through worship…

By the way, where are these other believers?

Suddenly, a hint of interest rose in Evé’s heart.

Since she was able to contact the Oak Guardian, could she also contact the others?

She thought about it and sank back into her own sea of consciousness.

In the depths of her mind, Evé entered that mysterious green space yet again.

But now, she already knew what this space was.

It was the divine essence of the World Tree and also the compressed core of her Celestial Domain.

At this moment, the Domain is still shrouded in a hazy light and is very much chaotic.

In the depths of her consciousness, Evé had a sense of being the Sovereign here. She could manipulate and change everything in this space, but she didn’t try to do so because her current divine power was still too weak to withstand the turmoil.

In addition, Evé also discovered three clusters of green floating orbs in this space, like flickering stars. This apparently was the connection link between her and those three believers.

Besides these, to her surprise, Evé also found the familiar blue sphere of light that she had seen before her reincarnation.

Not only that, but the sense of familiarity from the blue light has become more pronounced and stronger at this moment!

After hesitating for a moment, Evé temporarily abandoned the idea of directly contacting the other three believers, and cautiously probed her consciousness into the sphere of blue light.

As Evé touched it, a massive amount of information consisting of one’s and zeroes and symbols suddenly flooded over her mind akin to a tidal wave!

“Will the VR tech really create a new wave of technological revolution?”

“Awesome! My country is expected to achieve full coverage of virtual networks by the end of this year!”

“Report indicates that a Professional gamer died suddenly after staying up for a week in game capsules…”

“…”

After enduring for a few seconds, Evé quickly cut off the information link.

She stared blankly at the tiny blue light in front of her, and her heart surged with overwhelming waves of euphoria-

—She just can’t believe it!

This blue sphere was actually connected to the internet from her previous world planet Earth!

Evé still couldn’t understand how she had managed to connect to the internet of her past life.

But thinking of her past life’s cause of death, she began to have some guesses within her heart.

She remembered that in her previous life, she had enjoyed playing VR games on a virtual capsule moments before dying, and the cause of death seemed to be due to several days of sleeplessness…

Yes, the last piece of information that had just emerged seemed to be about her.

Virtual reality tech was a new type of technology that had become increasingly popular in recent years back on Earth. Its principle was to directly connect a person’s consciousness to the network and create a virtual reality world.

Evé suspected that it was because she had died whilst still connected to the internet so her consciousness had somehow established a kind of link with the internet world for some reason.

Not only that, but by comparing the flow of time on both sides, Evé found out that the flow of time in Saigües was about four times faster than that of Earth.

So what does this all mean?

Can she still contact her family after crossing over this side!?

Thinking of this, Evé didn’t even know whether to cry or laugh at the absurdity of it.

Why only now when she had already decided to embrace a new life and forget everything from the past.

But for some reason, she felt a bit reluctant…

Hope is such a strange thing. Sometimes when it’s completely cut off, it’s simply gone. But once even a slim chance occurs, it can rekindle so bright that it might even burn you up entirely.

“I just left like that without even saying goodbye, I still don’t know how sad my parents and sister are…”

Evé sighed in her heart.

Alas, she now has become the World Tree from another world, and adds to the fact that her previous body had long already been cremated into ashes…so what use is there even if she can establish contact with her family through Earth’s internet?

She has already tried once, and her divine power seems to only affect the network world, and cannot manifest physically on the other side. In other words, even if she projects her consciousness over Earth, Evé would at most be just an invisible mass of data without any corporeal body.

And if she wants to entirely make a copy of her consciousness and upload it into some databank servers over there, she estimated that the consumption of divine power required to do such an endeavor is even more astronomical.

Evé estimated that it would require at least tens of thousands of divine power values!

Evé sighed in her heart before calming her nerves down.

Maybe after she had become more stronger and finally escaped her quasi-death dilemma then perhaps she could try again in the future.

Being able to spend tens of thousands of divine power points requires at least an intermediate level of Divinity. But as of right now, she is just a weakling with a meager divine power, not to mention she is on the brink of death too at the moment…

Mundane Divinity, Weak Divinity, Intermediate Divinity, Strong Divinity and finally Great Divinity…

She still has a long way to go!

Moreover, her current priority is something else instead…

Looking at her pitiful status screen, Evé sighed in her mind once again before closing it down.

““The first order of business is to stabilize my own condition! A God who’s about to die is as good as an easy mob full of golden loots. At least for now, my goal is to position myself well here in the mortal realm! I will stand firmly on my own feet first, then consider other things afterwards!”

At this moment, Evé finally decided on a long-term goal for the future.

That is to make herself strong and gain true freedom!

With that in mind, Evé resolutely left Earth’s internet and came back to the three green spheres of lights back in her Celestial Domain.

After excluding the one belonBerserkerBeserker, she then looked at the remaining two firefly-like orbs.

Suddenly, that ethereal, gentle, and solemn prayer had come again…

This time, Eve finally found the source of the voice, which was the brightest of the two lights!

After hesitating for a moment, she probed her consciousness into it to track its location…

Accompanied by a sudden weightlessness, Eve felt her vision constantly rising as her surroundings began to bend and distort.

Soon, she exited her Celestial Domain, and her consciousness was pulled in a certain direction, flying towards it as if being pulled through a link.

After a moment of dizziness, Eve soon found herself in a towering temple.

The temple was intertwined with vines and its structure is made of ancient wood which was carved with exquisite and complex patterns, giving people a natural and sacred feeling, but alas it appeared very dilapidated, with a sense of ancient and vicissitudes of life.

In the center of the temple was an ancient altar, and the strange magical runes had already been long destroyed by cracks. Above the altar was a broken elf statue missing its head.

Where is this?

Evé was slightly stunned.

When she expanded her consciousness outward, she suddenly felt some sort of connection to this structure.

This temple…

It was actually located on her own body!

To be precise, it was on the lower trunk of the World Tree, but Evé had been observing her surroundings all along and hadn’t noticed it.

Is this considered a blind spot?

Silently complaining to herself, Evé focused her attention on the area in front of the altar.

In front of the altar, stood two elves, a man and a woman.

The male elf was very old, with white hair and beard, leaning on a cane and wearing a gray ceremonial robe. He exuded a sense of dusk and decay, with deep sadness and despair etched deep in his eyes.

Evé’s attention quickly passed over him and focused instead on the female elf in front of her.

She was a beautiful elf girl, about sixteen or seventeen years old in appearance, kneeling on the ground with her hands clasped tightly around a leaf-shaped emblem. She had her head slightly bowed with her eyes closed, and was whispering a prayer.

She had all the stereotypical classic beauty that legends often attributed to elves. Her pointed ears, slender neck, and delicate features looked incredibly holy and pure. Her fair and delicate skin was as white as the first snow, and her golden, silken hair flowed like a waterfall to the ground, adding a touch of maturity to her youthful countenance.

She was dressed in a gorgeous ceremonial gown as well adorned with more intricate greenery etchings in comparison to the older male elf. Golden patterns and vine motifs decorated their gowns with solemnity and sanctity. In addition she made people feel inferior and unworthy to her innate natural grace and nobility.

Evé then tried to bring out the elven girl’s information through her mind.

[Name: Alice Swiftwind]

[Race: Elf]

[Occupation: Priestess of Nature ]

[Level: 23 (High Iron)]

[Patron God: Evé Yggdrasill ]

[Faith Classification : Devout Believer]

[Title: Nature’s Saintess]

…

Everyone likes beautiful things.

Seeing that her only devout believer left was such a pure and beautiful elven girl, Evé’s initial disappointment dissipated in an instant.As for the other person, he was only a shallow believer.

According to the information, the old male elf in front of the altar was named Samuel Swiftwind, a 30th-level nature priest and druid.

Both of them were mid to high level iron-rank professionals, with the old elf being the highest and only one level away from advancing to the upper level of Iron-rank.

Unless something unexpected happened, these two would be her core advocates.

Evé nodded inwardly in satisfaction.

Her next agenda was to communicate with them and find a way to rekindle their dying faith.

Evé though for a moment, planning to use a bit of divine power to respond to them with some reluctance, but the elf girl had finally stopped praying.

She opened her emerald eyes, wiped away a teardrop from the corner of her eye, sniffled slightly, and then struggled to stand up whilst propping herself up on the ground.

Turning around, she gave her waiting companion a forced smile, and Alice’s crisp voice was somewhat hoarse and depressed:

“Grandpa Samuel, the final prayer… is over.”

She has been kneeling here for three days and three nights, and all her remaining hopes have eventually turned into despair.

Watching the girl’s despondent expression, the elf elder named Samuel sighed.

He concealed the sorrow in his eyes and tried to comfort her, saying, “Well…this is something we can’t help. No matter how much we persevere or hope, eventually we must accept this harsh reality…”

As he spoke, he then raised his head and looked at the broken statue above the altar. In his cloudy eyes, there were faintly shimmering tears.

“Her divine majesty, our patron goddess…she really has fallen…”

Silence.

It took a moment of realization but finally, a weak broken sobbing sound echoes faintly within the temple’s Grand Hall.

After the Saintess had eventually regained her bearings, the elderly elf sighed deeply before saying:

“Let’s go…”

“After guarding this place for thousands of years, we no longer need to persist here anymore…”

As he finished speaking, the lights representing the two believers in the world tree’s divine space dimmed even more and were about to go out…

Evé: …

Oi, Oi! Listen, Is it really okay to give up your faith like that when your god has finally come before you?!

Didn’t you guys wait for me for a thousand years!?

What am I going to do now that the last two believers of mine have become like this…

Evé felt extremely depressed.

Originally, she had wanted to perform a miracle and raise the elf girl’s favor to fanaticism, then develop the other shallow believer into a devout one.

However, she didn’t expect to be met with such a nigh game-over scenario right off the bat.

She rationally judged that if she didn’t act now, then these only two indigenous believers left would soon be saying bye bye to her.

Stay calm, she reminded herself. She had just inherited the mantle of the Nature Goddess and that every beginning is always difficult. If worse comes to worst, there’s still a good ol’ Berserker…

After consoling herself, Evé then decided to use her divine power to prove her existence, but suddenly she noticed something and temporarily suppressed her original plan.

She scanned her consciousness in a certain direction in the distance, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Her divine power was still too precious to be used wantonly.

My, My! What a lucky coincidence.

Just as she was about to do something reckless, someone then offered her a far better choice, and now it seems there are even more efficient and cost-effective ways to persuade these two…