abcnovels
Chapter 284 - 284 Her Birth
Chapter 284 - 284 Her Birth
284 Her Birth
“So… what does this have to do with the Lady of Starvation?” William asked.
“The first and only Authority holder of the Matriarch was Camilla, who was forced to participate in the resonance of ceremonial magic because she met most of the conditions. And can you guess what this ritual involved?” Floral questioned.
William hesitated for a moment. He wasn’t thinking about the answer to the question. Instead, he was preparing himself for the answer.
He felt uneasy about the answer he had in mind.
“Eating her own child.”
Finally, he gave the answer.
According to the mythical image of the Matriarch, this could be said to be the only possibility.
“To be precise, she ate all her children. She was the proud mother of two sons and a daughter, a record-breaking number among the elf settlers with their limited fertility. Ironically, the reason she fled Ava State? She couldn’t bear the thought of her own flesh and blood being ripped away from her because of their last name,” Floral added.
Alright, at the very least, this wish was fulfilled…
William thought and said, “Weren’t the elves afraid of Camilla’s retaliation after she gained the authority?”
“Mr. William, these were High Elves who had crossed the sea from Ava State, not humans still stuck in superstition. To them, carrying out the ceremonial magic wasn’t about creating a king, it was about creating a tool they could control. They had plenty of ways to restrict Camilla’s power and treat her like a tool.”
“But they eventually lost control over the tool,” William pointed out, referring to the birth of the Lady of Starvation.
“So how did they lose control?”
“The Forest Elf ancestors knew they had to take control of Camilla’s immense power when she became the Matriarch. So, they put in place strict restrictions in the initial contract. Camilla was treeified, limiting her mobility, and only a chosen priest could channel her power. But the Elves, who were outsiders, the Children of Fire and Mist, not the Children of Earth and Wind, almost wiped out the native humans with Matriarch’s power. The Matriarch’s desire for her children to return to her and her rule was not directed at the Elves, but at the humans, setting the stage for a terrifying disaster. Yet, as the Elves carried out their plan of ethnic cleansing, they overlooked a crucial detail—a key matter that would come back to haunt them.”
“What was it?” William asked.
“Only when a handful of humans were left after the Ravenwood massacre did they have a realization that shook their very existence to the core. They understood that if the human lineage was wiped out, the human gods would become inanimate. These elven colonists didn’t believe in the Matriarch or the Beast Lord, and if the faith in the ancient gods were lost, They would cease to exist.”
“So they reared those humans as a fulcrum for the existence of their gods?”
“Leaving behind human bloodlines for them to continue reproducing? Absolutely not. They couldn’t guarantee that this wouldn’t spiral out of control in the future. They needed a solution that would ensure the power of their gods would be passed down forever. So, they came up with a plan to treeify those humans and trap their souls in bodies where time passed slowly. And with that, those humans were left behind and became the first batch of plants in the Holy Forest. Camilla personally completed the conversion, which allowed her to complete her own final transformation.”
Floral stopped and looked at William.
“What’s the Lady of Starvation’s apotheosis ritual?” William asked when the other party didn’t continue.
“It involves slowly destroying a complete country or race and collecting their deaths as fuel for the ritual. But you can’t completely eradicate them. Instead, you have to make sure the basic framework of their existence remains intact,” Floral replied slowly.
If the Forest Elf ancestors had wiped out all the humans in Ravenwood, the concept of ‘wear and tear’ would have led to complete extinction, causing the ritual to fail.
On the other hand, if they had allowed the humans to continue living and reproducing, giving rise to a new generation with a chance of prosperity, but not pushing them to the brink of destruction, the ritual would also have failed.
Under these harsh conditions, Camilla had unintentionally gathered all the requirements to complete the ritual.
However, there are still some things I need to figure out…
“Hold on… I understand the ritual itself, but what about the materials needed, the Origin of the Moon, and who crowned Her as the Void Sovereign? You haven’t mentioned any of this.”
Floral asked curiously, “What’s the Origin of the Moon? Why does someone have to crown Her?”
William rubbed his temples.
It looks like there are a lot of problems to be solved…
Floral picked up on William’s silence and assumed that he didn’t believe her story. She quickened her pace and said, “Let’s just go to the Holy Tree Matriarch Temple first. I’ll show you evidence that will prove what I told you.”
She led the way up a staircase made of branches and vines, heading towards a tree hole in the center of the tree. The guards immediately bowed when they saw Floral and one of them holding a bone spear with a venomous snake tattoo on both his arms said, “Your Grace, Lord Garet is waiting for you at the Holy Tree Matriarch Temple.”
“Has he dealt with his son?”
Floral asked and turned her head slightly, glancing at Elise, the successor of the Blind Sisters.
Garet Wolfspeak was one of Floral’s closest and most trusted subordinates. He was the former leader of the Wolfspeak tribe and was the only one who publicly declared his support for her before she rose to power.
After taking over, Floral placed Garet in an important position, making him the second-in-command in the entire Emerald Province. With Floral focusing on magic training and research, Garet was in charge most of the time.
However, Garet’s son, Quayle Wolfspeak, was rebellious and had joined the underground resistance of Ravenwood, making connections with anti-imperial organizations across the continent, including the Blind Sisters.
“Lord Garet has arrested his son for anti-imperial crimes,” the guard said awkwardly. “He wants you to preside over the death penalty ritual as a warning to others,” the guard replied awkwardly to Floral’s question.
“That fellow…” Floral sighed slightly and said, “Understood, we’ll be right there.”