Every DNA fragment had been taken apart and examined. She simulated cells that would represent Lilith's normal development. The two of them had already secretly made many clones of the same type as Lilith, so their experience was more than sufficient.
"…" "Really?"
Lilith felt dazed for a moment as she looked at the human and the dragon. The thought that the disease she had lived with for years might really be lifted left her stunned. She felt a bit touched, but that feeling was quickly kicked away by the usual image of these two, and her first reaction became suspicion.
"I guarantee it is real. Just try it. You definitely will not die. As long as your soul is still there, we can put it back!" That was absolutely true. Worst case, they would activate Lilith clone number two and let Belial stuff her soul back in.
"Alright… I will trust you this once."
Lying inside a pod as tall as a person, Lilith closed her eyes. Bella observed and assisted from the side. Belial expanded his Energy Field to isolate any matter that might try to escape, then activated the magnetic field with practiced precision.
"Magnetic field rotation… cellular reassembly!" "Live again for me!"
Lilith departed very peacefully. In the instant her eyes closed and opened, the crystallized cells in her body were dismantled into basic particles and tightly constrained within the Energy Field. They were then reassembled.
She felt no pain at all. Her soul sensed an incomparably vast will gazing at her. There was no pressure, only a sincere sense of greatness and enormity.
It was like an ant would not tremble just because mountains were magnificent. That being seemed to be looking somewhere else entirely, not paying attention to this tiny point of light at all. She unconsciously uttered an unfamiliar syllable.
"Godz…" "It worked!" "…Huh?!"
Lilith suddenly opened her eyes and felt that her body was a little different. A pair of eyes. That was the first thing she noticed.
One of her eyes had long since crystallized, and her usual vision only showed elements and Magic. Now, everything felt clear again. "Hah… it does not hurt."
Taking deep breaths no longer brought that faint pain. One side of her head felt much lighter, and her limbs were no longer so stiff. "Am I really… cured?"
"I knew it! How is it… ah!" Bella ran over happily and gently patted Lilith on the shoulder. With that single pat, Lilith suddenly spat out a large mouthful of blood.
"What is going on?!" "Ugh…!"
Lilith's whole body convulsed as pain spread outward from her chest. More than the pain, her expression turned ugly. Bella's adjustments were genuinely effective, fixing every minor issue in her body. It was no exaggeration to call it rebirth.
But now, her cursed Laws was acting up. The converging aspect of her domain was frantically drawing Magic toward her, this time crystallizing directly inside her heart. It caused massive trauma in an instant.
This was not another problem. It was an issue with Lilith's own Laws, something that could not be avoided even if Bella corrected part of her genes. Most patients with Crystal Sickness died young.
Only Lilith had endured the torment and cultivated at extreme speed to reach Gold, then comprehended Laws to extend her life. The former lifeline had now become the straw crushing the camel's back. Problems tied to Laws were far harder than simple cellular or genetic ones.
Realizing this, Lilith returned to her gloomy expression. The recent damage had been promptly repaired by Belial, but that was only a temporary measure. "…Sorry. Let me be alone for a bit."
"…"
Bella squatted down beside her, burying her face between her legs and lowering her head in silence. She had wanted to go up and say something comforting, but no matter how she thought about it, she did not dare.
Staying in darkness for a lifetime was not scary if you had never seen light. After seeing it, the despair that followed was deeper than simple despair. Lilith knew she should not be like this, but she could not help it. She just wanted to be alone.
"This is getting troublesome…" Belial felt at a loss. One round of cellular reassembly had worked, but the cells immediately began crystallizing again. He realized this was due to factors within her.
If it were purely physical, cellular restructuring and gene editing could solve it. If it were a person causing trouble, he could just punch them to death. Once it involved things he did not quite understand, it became a different matter.
Watching Lilith walk away, Belial saw the crystals rapidly regrow in his vision, returning to the original state fixed by Laws. Above her head was still a mass of dark clouds, with only a thin thread of light holding on.
As long as he suppressed it, it could be treated. He could not stay by her side forever as a giant battery. Belial was unwilling to lose one of his few friends like this.
"Wait…" "Stay with her all the time?"
Bella was still burying her head in her legs, almost crying, when someone poked her from behind. "I just thought of a pretty good idea."
Elven Homeland exists apart from the outside world. It looks like a land from a fairy tale, with only three seasons each year and no winter, and the temperature stays mild at all times. This place is a cradle, where every Elves is born and carries the Blessing of Nature.
Although Elves reproduce very slowly, their long lifespans have allowed their numbers to build up to nearly a million. They do not have a complex noble system like human kingdoms, but they still have an empress. The current Elven Empress has ruled for only a few decades, is quite young, and her name is Vivian.
Most of the time, Vivian does not have much work to do. The Elves live freely and rarely need strict management, and with their natural blessings and shared perception, crime is almost nonexistent. However, in recent years, several matters have left Vivian deeply troubled.
The cause of it all can be traced back a few years. "When can I go outside?"
At a sixth birthday party two years ago, a human girl with black hair and black eyes asked the Elven Empress this question for the first time. The girl was Luna, a wandering child who had accidentally entered the Elven Barrier and, starving, had eaten a green fruit without thinking.
"That is uncertain. Once we remove the seed, perhaps you will be able to," the Elven Empress said after some thought. She then ordered a birthday cake made from ingredients gathered with great effort in the forest, prepared to match human tastes.
"When can I go outside?" "This… we still cannot be sure. Maybe we need to examine you for a while longer. How about blowing out the candles first?"
On her second birthday, Vivian looked at Luna, whose hair tips were slowly turning gold. With no clear results from the examinations, she could only answer like this.
"So what about this year? When can I go outside?" "Why do you insist on leaving? This place is peaceful too. Isn't staying here also fine?"
On her third birthday, Vivian looked at Luna, who now had bright green eyes, golden hair, and pointed ears. She hesitated and tried, with mixed feelings and helplessness, to persuade the Half-Elf girl.
To give her something to do, Vivian suddenly said, "Then… how about I teach you archery?" After thinking for a moment, Luna nodded and agreed, since the forest was so boring.
"You said I could go out this year, didn't you?" Another birthday passed.
Faced with Luna coming to question her, Vivian could only put aside her work deciphering the Council of Elders prophecies and the Prophecy of Dawn. After a long silence, she finally spoke.
"You have two ways to leave. The first is if the seed inside you sprouts, then you can go out. The second is if one day we are gone and the Barrier no longer exists, then you will naturally be able to leave."
As she said this, Vivian looked seriously at Luna's small face and the triangular sprout mark on her forehead. In the end, she could only sigh. "Perhaps this is fate."
At first, Vivian thought it was already absurd enough that an ancient Barrier, said to be unbreakable even to holy-level beings, had been breached by a human child. She tried to accept it as old defenses falling into disrepair over time.
But it happened to coincide with the moment of the world tree's rebirth, when it regressed into a seed and randomly reincarnated onto a plant within the forest inside the Barrier. Then, the starving human girl picked a fruit and swallowed it whole, seed and all, and even looked at Vivian and the assembled elders who arrived by following the prophecy.
It was an incredible coincidence, but fate was often unreasonable. They planned to remove the seed and wait it out. Nearly a year passed, and the elders, watching the human girl grow more and more like a Elves, finally invited a grand elder of Ascendant Hall rank to examine her.
Only then did they discover that the seed had stabilized inside Luna. After some more time, they even found that it was faintly beginning to sprout.