The reborn world tree seed normally grows according to its host plant. Most become trees, some vines, and in rare cases even something like a potato.
This one was special. It had legs and could move.
Accepting this reality, the elders decided it was not impossible. As long as she stayed within the Barrier, they could treat her as another member of the clan.
But Vivian had a headache over the child. Luna did not want to stay in the forest she had already grown tired of, and wanted to go out and see the world.
Elven Homeland allowed travel outside with elder approval, and the conditions were not harsh. Only Luna was forbidden.
The world tree was too important, and no one could feel at ease. Vivian did everything she could to give Luna the best life possible, but the girl did not like it.
Vivian herself was kind. She held birthday parties, tried hard to make her happy, taught her to read, and sincerely tried to act like a mother.
The elders were kind as well. Even when Luna accidentally tugged their beards, they only laughed and said it was fine, though later they secretly cried out in pain with tears in their eyes, which Luna saw through her plant friends.
Other Elves were also good to her. Many watched her slowly become more like a Elves and felt happy instead of repulsed, because gaining a new and adorable child was a good thing.
On her second birthday, gifts came not only from Vivian and the elders, but also from many other Elves, including some she did not even know. Everything was wonderful, far better than her days of wandering outside, hungry and exposed to the elements.
Even in the tattered fairy tale book she once picked up from a trash heap, nothing was described as beautiful as this. Yet Luna still felt that this place was too small.
Although Elven Homeland was larger than an entire province and home to rare creatures like unicorns and Elves deer, with countless dreamlike landscapes, it still felt wrong. It was like wearing clothes that did not fit, tight and uncomfortable, making her feel short of breath.
"This place is too small. I want to go outside." "Please, Vivian… Mom."
Luna lay across Vivian's desk while she worked, looking at her with shining eyes and trying to win her over by acting cute.
Vivian was hit. Vivian's life dropped to zero. Vivian used a defensive move.
She turned her head, secretly wiped her eyes with a tissue, took a deep breath, and hesitated before answering. "Really… maybe if you wait a little longer, it will be possible. How about going to the library to read some stories?"
"Wuu…" Luna lowered her head and ran out.
Outside was a beautiful terrace carved like green jade, stacked with Silver and traced with Gold. The little girl jumped straight down from a height of over ten meters, and a huge vine rose from the ground like a slide to catch her.
Feeling bored again, Luna tried to think of something else to do. Ancient texts written in complex and elegant Elves script were completely unreadable to her, and famous novels signed by deceased authors that the Elves brought back from outside did not interest her.
As for fairy tales and picture books, they were very rare. Elves children mostly grew up playing with nature.
Inside Elven Homeland, there were almost no fierce beasts. With the natural blessings of the Elves, constant patrols, and their shared perception, the place was extremely safe.
In just a few years, Luna had experienced everything that made up other Elves childhoods. Even so, or perhaps because of it, she felt stifled and bored.
The only recent novelty was a storybook Vivian had brought back. It was a new style of novel from the continent, something called a light novel.
It still featured the classic evil dragon, the Chosen Hero, and a princess of the the Lord. The story told of an evil dragon and the Chosen Hero who were childhood friends and separated when young.
Later, the evil dragon was defeated by a clever but supposedly pure and cute princess of the the Lord, dragged back, and made to work hard in a cave while playing with strange spatial things. When the Chosen Hero learned the evil dragon had been taken, he stormed the princess's lair to reclaim her.
The result was a tense standoff with the evil dragon caught between the princess and the Chosen Hero. The ending was said to be a happy three-person outcome, which sounded nice.
The strange thing was that this book had been taken from Vivian's drawer. Why had she refused to put it in the library?
"There's nothing I want to read anymore. Should I go play by Moonwatch Lake? I don't really want to…" Luna felt irritated, and also disliked herself for it.
There were so many places to play, so many interesting things, and so many people who cared about her. Yet because of something as small as boredom, she kept insisting on leaving.
That probably made her an annoying, bad child.
"…" "Sigh… Luna."
Through their shared perception, Vivian vaguely sensed the girl's mood and sighed again, for who knew how many times. After the world tree branch seed sprouted, and based on Luna's discomfort over the years, she and the elders reached a simple conclusion.
Elven Homeland was truly too small.
In countless stories and songs, the world tree was described as towering and boundless. This place, at best, could only be called a decorative bonsai.
Elven Homeland had a stable, independent space attached to the world's barrier, but its rules were incomplete. It could sustain life, but not the world tree, whose existence exceeded the concept of life itself.
That was why a world tree, said to endure as long as the sun and moon, had to reincarnate every few thousand years. For Luna, the world tree itself, to grow normally, she had to return to the real outside world.
But how could that be allowed?
In earlier times, they might have taken the risk and let her leave with hundreds of guards. Yet now, within thirty years, the Book of Prophecy passed down by Dawn marked the beginning of the end.
"Sigh… gods, doomsday. Could these really be true?"
Vivian continued reading ancient documents passed down for thousands of years, including the Book of Dawn Prophecy found in a hidden chamber. In those fragile pages, older than even her great-grandfather, words about doomsday appeared again and again.
The Book of Dawn Prophecy, said to be written by a goddess of the human Holy Light church, was vague and myth-like in most places. Yet it recorded a terrifyingly precise starting year for the apocalypse: the year 3500 of the Holy Calendar.
The problem was that, according to the elders' research, the material of the book itself was over ten thousand years old. How could something from ten thousand years ago know the calendar used ten thousand years later?
If there had still been room for doubt, what Vivian saw next erased it. Her slender fingers brushed over an illustration, a rough sketch of a sword surrounded by four things: dragon and human, crystal, sun, and a new sprout.
Opposite them was a black crown and four blurred shapes. The sword was the blade of the Chosen Hero.
The sprout symbol was identical to the mark on Luna's forehead.
There was more. On the night the sprout mark appeared, after she had reread the book countless times, Vivian personally witnessed threads of Holy Light weaving new pages into it.
What was written there was absurd. "Our Elven Homeland is not a resting land passed down by ancestors." "It is merely a biological sample chamber and shelter, built long ago to barely survive."
Reading this, Vivian felt like laughing, and also felt fear. The text stated that more than ten years later, all of Elven Homeland would turn into a life-mad Divine Kingdom, and the Elves would be wiped out.
At the cost of the entire Elves race, only the world tree would survive. Only Luna might live.
All of this would be caused by fallen gods from beyond the sky. That was why, even now, they dared not let Luna go outside.
"At least… wait until after the year 3500, until this child comes of age."
"…Huh?"
As Vivian flipped the pages again, she suddenly saw the predicted time of Elven Homeland's destruction turn into light and scatter away, then rewrite itself before her eyes.
"Destruction is upon us now." "They have arrived." "…Finally, please do not despair. Just hold on a little longer."
Vivian froze in shock. Before she could understand what was happening, the ground shook violently, and after glancing at the sky outside the window, her expression hardened.
Countless enormous shadows had already blotted out the sun.
"Vivian… Your Majesty the Empress, this is bad. Our Barrier is under attack by an unknown force," an elder appeared instantly, equally grim.
"Huh…?"
Luna sat on the grass and tilted her head, panic briefly crossing her small face. Was it about to rain?
She then covered her pointed ears, as deafening roars and terrifying howls rang out. In that instant, Luna understood.
It was a being of the same kind, making a declaration to her.
"I will eat you." It drooled as it spoke.
"What is going on?"
"An earthquake? That cannot be right, this is Elven Homeland…"