Chapter 586 - 584: Beneath the Elf Forest
The Recovery Temple.
Hilia crouched in a corner, holding a small twig, counting the fallen flower petal seeds on the ground.
This time, Rose didn’t call her to participate, only instructed her to stay put. She didn’t know what to do, so she found amusement in boredom.
There was nothing much to focus on with Lana either.
After Ze Lishalin’s treatment, Lana, like the other injured elves, was placed in their original room for observation.
The observation period was about two hours, after which the Elf Elder and the accompanying elves took them back.
The secret observation ended as the elves left, prompting Hilia to count ants.
On Rose’s side, after the Elf Elder took Lana and the others away, Hilia finally received a shared perspective—after Ze Lishalin sent the elves away, she eventually began to enter the secret area hidden in subspace.
The vision followed Ze Lishalin, as she brought the magic puppet to a peculiar place in this subspace.
This place was neither inside the Recovery Temple nor outside it.
When Ze Lishalin arrived in the Recovery Temple, moving down a certain hallway, she followed a rhythmical pace, and then the entire corridor slowly elongated until it seemed infinitely long.
She proceeded with this rhythm, and Hilia only felt a moment of dizziness, as the scene shared by Rose suddenly underwent a dramatic change.
In the shared view, a dark spatial area abruptly appeared.
In the entirely dark space, only the area where Ze Lishalin stood, a hemispherical space with a diameter of no more than 10 meters, was not dark, enveloped in a faint glow.
The faint glow originated from the center of the sphere, a floating point of light.
At a glance, Hilia recognized it as a Heart of the Magic Puppet.
And it was even of the same origin as the current Heart of the Magic Puppet she was using—the life element Magic Puppet Heart.
"So, Sir Rose’s target is this Heart of the Magic Puppet?"
Hilia thought to herself.
Suddenly, she noticed the anomaly here.
With the faint light emitted by the Heart of the Magic Puppet, Hilia noticed that the outer dark space was not a void of darkness, but—
darkness caused by a large amount of pollution mist.
Hilia exclaimed in shock, "Could this be the subspace the Recovery Temple uses to hide pollution?"
"No." Rose shook his head, "This is not subspace."
"What?"
Hilia was stunned.
"Just now, by walking like that, she used a special method to leave subspace and return to reality. This means that both the Heart of the Magic Puppet here and the surrounding pollution are in reality."
"Huh?"
Hilia was dumbfounded.
If that place was reality...
Hilia suddenly thought of the pollution fissure that erupted outside.
"Could it be..."
Rose nodded, "It seems so, this place, like the Golden Apple Stone Forest, is filled with massive pollution. The difference is that the pollution in the Golden Apple Stone Forest is on the surface, while here, it’s hidden underground."
Hilia looked at the floating Divine Format fragment in the center, split from the God of Life and Death, representing the life attribute, and said slowly, "And this life attribute Heart of the Magic Puppet serves as the foundation for controlling all pollution, binding all pollution underground."
"Moreover, the dense vitality of the Elf Forest also provides additional control efficiency for the Heart of the Magic Puppet, allowing it to continuously control the pollution under this area, which is denser than that of the Golden Apple Stone Forest, for such a long time."
"Pollution denser than the Golden Apple Stone Forest... does that mean the entire underground of the Elf Forest is polluted?"
Rose slightly shook his head, "Lacking key information, it’s currently unknown how far the controlling array extends."
He watched as Ze Lishalin infused life elements from the Holy Tree into the Divine Format fragment, showing an intrigued expression.
"The Recovery Temple seems to be a mysterious organization that exists to maintain this control array."
"Ah, so the Recovery Temple is not another name for the Dusk Sect, right?" Hilia sighed in relief.
She really didn’t want to face another cult.
"Maybe, maybe not," Rose offered no definite answer.
Whether it was a cult or not made no difference to him.
He was more interested in the nature of this mysterious organization’s existence.
Did it truly exist to maintain the array under the Elf Forest?
Were these pollutions hidden under the Elf Forest present before or after the Elf God’s departure?
Did the Elf Royal Court know about it?
Answering one question often led to many others forming.
But to Rose, these were only small concerns.
What he cared more about was whether this pollution in the Elf Forest was also orchestrated by the Divine King.
What role did the God of Life and Death play in it?
From what was seen so far, it seemed the God of Life and Death was killed by the Divine King, with his Divine Format shattered and fragmented into life and death attribute fragments. The death attribute fragments formed the youthful "Netherworld," and the life elements were used as the foundation of the array to control the polluted area.
Just like the pollution and chaotic magic power in the Golden Apple Stone Forest fused together, the pollution here also fused with the life elements, forming a composite pollution that couldn’t be dispersed by conventional means.
Here it was more severe than in the Golden Apple Stone Forest.
Rose thought to himself, "If the God of Life and Death was simply killed by the Divine King, the Divine Format fragment here should be a complete life attribute fragment, or at least a half life attribute Divine Format fragment, but here, it’s only one-tenth of a fragment, equivalent to one-twentieth of a complete Divine Format.
"Does this mean, like Ethel, the God of Life and Death also took a large portion of the Divine Format fragments and fled, leaving the remaining ones to be used by the Divine King as the foundation of the array?"
The difference being that Ethel’s Divine Format wasn’t used as an array foundation.
Perhaps because Ethel was a water attribute, and the Divine King didn’t care for it.
Rose approached the life attribute Divine Format fragment, reaching out to touch it, then withdrew his hand.
Watching his actions, Hilia couldn’t help but ask, "To retrieve this Heart of the Magic Puppet, do we need to solve the pollution here, just like in the Golden Apple Stone Forest?"
Rose shook his head, "Retrieving it can be done at any time. The Golden Apple Stone Forest required controlling the array to move the Golden Apple within the array to obtain it, but this one can be taken directly. However, once the Heart of the Magic Puppet is removed, the pollution here will swiftly disperse."
"At any time?" Hilia’s eyes widened, "What if a rogue intent on ruining the world tried to take it, wouldn’t it be a disaster?"
Rose replied indifferently, "When I say ’at any time,’ it’s because I’m a god. Even a Holy-tier Mage would find it quite difficult to obtain this Heart of the Magic Puppet."
There was one more thing he didn’t say.
Taking this Divine Format fragment would undoubtedly alert the Divine King.