Warlya observed the landscape she had nurtured and defended for her very long life. The many centuries of care on her part had transformed the range within her roots into a perfectly balanced ecosystem with many valuable natural wonders. Plants didn't just remain unchanged. Under her influence, they gained new properties, pushing the herbivores eating them to adapt. Then, that influence would affect the predators eating them. In the end, plant life was the most vital source of life, and with its change, everything else would follow right behind.
'Should I really give up on all of this?' Her roots extended, felt the land, and touched the creatures that lived in harmony with her. 'My little world… Perhaps I am a failure of a World Tree. However, for this patch of land, I am a being akin to their World.'
The powerful and tenacious World Tree steeled her faltering resolve quickly. "I won't join you," Warlya spoke rather bluntly, and Liu Shu noticed the change of tone. Unlike Lakeborn all those years ago, which carried a trace of interest, Warlya was cold and cutting, leaving no gap to refute her imposing statement.
Even then, our World Tree was not easily intimidated. "You might be misunderstanding something about becoming part of my Domain. Could you tell me why you are so decisively against it?"
Warlya stood her ground. "I could, but why does that matter? Tianlian Liu Shu, you are a young World Tree, so you probably are not too attached to the land you govern. You've gained terrain at speeds other World Trees would find hard to even conceive in their minds. So, I don't expect you to understand what attachment to land is—what having your very own essence imprinted in the soil and dirt each and every creature walks on feels like. Giving up this is betraying the very same creatures I've protected."
Liu Shu listened to her powerful words. There was a truth in her words, and as a World Tree, she understood more than Warlya imagined. It was true that Liu Shu was young. However, people misunderstood how many events she had gone through for such a young being. Other World Trees perhaps participated in one or two wars each century. Others were skirmishes without a real threat to their security.
If one took Liu Shu's practical experience into account, she would not lose out when compared to several hundred-year-old World Trees. In fact, the rapid cycle of war, adaptation, growth, and digesting the gains made Liu Shu mature not as fast as World Trees, but as fast as humans.
Like a young child whose circumstances forced her to adapt to the adult world, Liu Shu had already started growing calluses in her heart. Therefore, after Warlya's words, Liu Shu answered with a composed yet imposing tone. "You dismissing my very existence due to having lived for a much longer time is baseless. You know not what I've gone through. I will admit, in terms of experience, I am probably rather lacking compared with you. You've experienced a war with a fully matured Ant Queen, and you've also experienced the aftermath that such a battle caused to the land. Regardless, that doesn't invalidate what I've gone through."
Feeling somewhat annoyed, the young World Tree lost even the usual playfulness in her tone and spoke in a succinct manner. "Warlya, you are being invaded, isolated, and eventually going to be corrupted by the Abyssal Void Nexus. This time, your opponent is not a monster whose existence itself is an enemy for all intelligent life—it's an army of intelligent creatures. They will scheme, they will infiltrate, and eventually, they will make you rot inside out like maggots infesting a healthy fruit. Outwardly, you will feel normal, yet the second you look inside, things will be different."
Warlya was stunned when Liu Shu lashed out. Yet, she was not finished. "In the first place, I've reached out to you because I've already interacted with World Trees as old or even older than you. They have not pushed their cycles beyond the third, not because of a lack of talent, but because they lacked ruthlessness."
Snow and the other World Trees in the
If any outside interference appeared, all beings in the
Stagnation.
As years, decades, and even centuries passed, the World Trees were unable to grow. They had changed their nature to that of a Life Tree while living inside the body of a World Tree. The end result was being stuck and unable to expand and reach their true potential. Like a potted plant, their roots would never be able to expand to their true extent.
What would've happened if Snow or the other seven World Trees down south had decided to fight it out? The answer was more than clear: the
Therefore, Liu Shu was respectful but not fearful of Warlya. She would be elated if Warlya decided to join her domain, but she would be hesitant if Warlya were stubborn. Liu Shu's only path forward was gaining strength, and becoming stagnant because of another World Tree didn't fit her nature.
Gentleness without a firm and ruthless heart to act when needed is nothing but a weak and indecisive being wanting to appeal to others and expecting the world to open up to them.
"Therefore, Warlya, I will not ask again. Right now, you'll probably be safe until I deal with the Abyssal Void Nexus. Yet, know this: the next time I reach out to you and you keep being stubborn, I won't greet you like today." The usually gentle and calm World Tree spoke with ruthlessness. "That day, I will uproot you regardless of the pleas from the Celestial Lotus Empire or any other being."
Warlya felt Liu Shu's roots retreating after that, while their connection was cut off. The ancient World Tree stayed still, her mind repeating Liu Shu's words as her feelings got tangled in them. Initially, Warlya felt some anger and resentment. What could such a young World Tree know about her? What could a young, healthy, and talented tree know about being a crippled World Tree unable to grow anymore?
Still, within that anger, Warlya also felt helplessness. 'Once she comes, what can I do? She who has control over fifteen other World Trees is not an opponent I can win against. Eventually, I'll become tired and my Ternary Essences will run dry. Do I really not have any other choice but to accept the shade of another World Tree once again?'
She still remembered the day she joined the Celestial Lotus Empire. During that time, she was heavily injured, but a few of the powerful people from other powers came to speak with her. Those people didn't really care about her well-being as much as they cared for her to join their group. Eventually, she decided to go under the Celestial Lotus Empire's forces not because of her preference, but because she would've been in trouble if she didn't choose one side.
Her leaves rustled, and her branches swayed. The World Tree felt the wind, the earth, the water, and the sun, and a helpless sigh escaped her. The sigh sounded like a melancholic breeze that swept the land and made creatures sit and reflect.
After speaking with Warlya, Liu Shu didn't contact anyone and used a bit of time to calm her feelings. When she became agitated with her main body, the entire domain under her could feel her feelings, and that could agitate beasts. "... Ah. A Beast Tide had started south of the Wall Forest because they were restless."
"Hm… Do I stop it?" The number of beasts quickly increased, making others run even if they didn't know why. Looking at the beasts that started running up the continent while gathering others, Liu Shu checked the people on their path and noticed nothing. At least, not for a while.
"Ho? What is this?"
Her sight zeroed in on a group of a few hundred people walking around one of the intentional paths she had opened in the Wall Forest. When she tried to listen closely, she realized that there was no sound. A frown appeared on her World Tree face.
"These interference thingies are becoming more and more annoying. I guess this is proof that higher-level people are not completely helpless against the spying of a World Tree?"
Regardless, Liu Shu didn't stop looking at them. The group of a few hundred was quite organized, and as they explored, some of them left a few small seeds on the ground. "What is that?"
Naturally, she wouldn't take the seeds right from below them. Instead, she traced back their path and found that, to her utter stupefaction, a massive trail of violet colored seeds had been strewn all over the Wall Forest. "What? When did they have time to do this kind of work?"
Taking into account the speed at which they were planting, they might've been moving for at least a month!
Surprised, Liu Shu checked the other paths she had opened, and she quickly noticed another three groups of a few hundred people! "I am blind!" Liu Shu cried to the sky. "How have I not been sensing these people!?"
Thoughtful, Liu Shu decided to send a pulse through the land, as if she were scanning the place. The second she did that, every single one of the four teams paused and planted black and grey metal sticks on the ground. Then, they disappeared from Liu Shu's sight, creating a few voids where it was hard to focus.
The feeling was super strange, as if Liu Shu's mind was actively trying to ignore those locations. Even when looking directly at them, there was this feeling of wanting to look away and forget about them. "Am I mentally compromised?"
The World Tree was utterly foreign to these methods—they didn't appear in any of the hundreds of books she had swallowed. So, after a little while, she stopped scanning her domain. Then, around two hours later, Liu Shu saw them appear once more as they slung the one-and-a-half-meter metal rods on their backs.
"Still, you can escape my sight, but…" Looking south, her lips arched in a devilish smile. "Can you escape the stampede of a few tens of thousands of monsters?"
While eagerly waiting for that, the World Tree didn't forget to take a few of those seeds with her roots and slowly transport them back to the city for analysis.