City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Mother

The current elven Emperor believed that the real reason for their decline was the loss of their world trees. They’d originally had five golden world trees in Norland, but now the one they did wasn’t even perfect. For this sake, he had given away far too much in an armistice agreement that tore apart the last of his race’s pride. Only the silvermoon elves of Lithgalen weren’t particularly distressed by this; to them, this wasn’t the first time they had fled.

However, Richard stroked the two silver pages emotionally. He knew clearly that the decline of the high elves had nothing to do with their world trees; they had just refused to allow themselves to grow. Taking advantage of their once-invincible navy, they had locked themselves away from the world and whiled their time away in conceit. They only ever talked about their tens of millennia of history, never understanding that the past was gone. Now, even the duergar were better at shipbuilding than them, and Richard hadn’t even needed to use the ultimate weapon of his seven warships to decimate an entire fleet. He had been looking forward to the Song of the Rainbow, but he hadn’t gotten the chance.

Thousands of years ago, all the lesser races of Norland had joined forces and taken advantage of a moment of weakness to eliminate the elven empire, driving them out of Norland. Now, any of the three human empires were fully capable of conquering Lithgalen on their own. Before he set foot on the continent, Richard had never expected to see such a weak epic being in his life; the Emperor did have the level, but he didn’t even have the combat experience of a legend.

As for the two silver pages that the elves couldn’t figure out, he had understood them at first glance. He still felt a little emotionally charged about it, but enough time had passed for him to work up the determination to put these pages to use. Pulling out the Book of Destruction, he placed the two pages atop it and watched as they were absorbed within. The tome was covered in light as it changed once more, becoming less ornate with an extra tetrahedron painted on the cover.

With the addition of these two pages, the Book of Destruction was close to perfection. There were now effectively infinite pages; every time he took control of a new law, he could form more pages. The upper limit of the creatures it could summon had also increased to level 20, making them just shy of legendary.

A simple thought of the laws he controlled opened it automatically, and as he focused on the laws of life the pages flipped to a shrine to the third moon, overshadowed by a tree of life. Richard watched speechlessly as he realised what this was— a summoning of the third moon that focused on healing. This was effectively equivalent to a level 20 healing shaman, but working on dozens upon dozens of people at a time and boosted in power by the tree of life. This combination could basically ensure immortality for a thousand people on the battlefield. The laws of nature continued to form a jade shaman as well, but this one was only level 19. He still hadn’t gone far enough in this more general law.

Richard poured the various laws he had comprehended into the book, flipping through page after page until there were dozens of various beings he could summon at will. The only law he couldn’t condense into this was that which governed the reaper, while there were no changes to the tetrahedron condensed by the power of Dismazon. However, this time Richard realised that the three lower vertices of the figure represented order, chaos, and neutrality. This left him curious about the top vertex, but he had no clue.

It was almost impossible to express just how satisfied he was with the Book of Destruction. With it on him, he was like a powerhouse who could call hundreds of saints to his side at any time. In the future, he could abuse numerical advantages just like Sharon.

Done with the pages, Richard then picked up the sword that had been placed next to them. This was Moonlight, but much more powerful than before. He had wanted to take a few branches of the imperial world tree for himself and the broodmother to analyse, but in exchange for him abstaining from that the tree had taken the initiative to strengthen the blade further. From one of the premier divine weapons of the elven empire to an indestructible yet otherwise unremarkable sword, it had finally climbed back into the ranks of one of the best divine weapons in existence. The blade had now become a darker green, distorting space around it. It had gained a new property as well, the ability to chase after opponents even through the void. It could phase shift even when its user remained in the base plane.

This was an extremely powerful ability. Had Richard possessed it during his battle with Apeiron, she wouldn’t have lasted for any length of time. He would have surprised her during her first void jump, perhaps even grievously wounding her in one go. Moonlight was now truly equal to his other two swords once more, not used purely for nostalgia.

Setting the sword into its sheath, Richard walked out of the cabin and on deck. On the horizon was a large island, and as it approached several high elves joined him in staring at it. One elegant woman walked over to him and bowed deeply, “Our destination has arrived, Your Excellency.”

Richard smiled, turning away from the huge island that was more than 100,000 square kilometres in area. Those who had accompanied here were silvermoon elves, consisting of almost every survivor of Gaton’s attack on Evernight Forest. These elves were the friends and kin of his mother and aunt, which made them his family as well. The large island had once been under Lithgalen’s control, but it had fallen into his hands once the Empire surrendered.

He had a night elf drone bring a box over, handing it to the woman, “Aunt Niya, this is the seed of a golden world tree. I hope you can use this island as the base of the new Silvermoon, returning to prosperity in a hundred years.”

Niya’s hands trembled as she took the box, knowing fully well that this was the future of her entire race. Things hadn’t been good for them ever since they fled to Lithgalen. The starpath, windwalker, and nightwind elves held sole control of the empire, excluding them from any political decisions. Those who had fled to Lithgalen long ago actually looked down on the ones who had stayed, leaving the silvermoon elves without a place.

This was why Tzu had ended up exploring other planes, both to find a new home for her kin and also to keep the seed of the golden world tree in her hands. If she hadn’t taken it away, the Emperor would have managed to take control of it. Without a world tree, the tribe would be without hope.

Fate had its cruel twists and turns. Once it played its hand, Richard had ended up planting the Golden World Tree in the Forest Plane, and had received another seed after defeating Lithgalen. Having learnt of his other family’s plight during his short stay, he had decided to help them.

All the silvermoon elves in Lithgalen had combined to form a few tens of thousands, which was just enough for them to live. With the growth of the golden world tree in the future, they could even increase the size of the island if necessary. As the current chieftain of the tribe, Niya saw no downsides to Richard’s offer and accepted it immediately.

As the fleet slowly entered port, the elven empire’s warriors had already lined up to board another ship that had tagged along to evacuate them. This transport ship looked like a twig compared to the Seven Moons, and even as they boarded the high elves watched Richard’s drones in awe and fear. Richard had just destroyed the Empire all the way from the sea to the royal palace, completely shattering their pride.

As the night elves established a defensive line at the port, the silvermoon elves descended from the giant ship and set up camp. On the bridge of the Blue Moon, Richard and Niya watched them heading to their new home side by side. They could sense the nervousness and excitement in the air.

Niya sighed, “Elena truly had a great son. It seems like my prejudice against humans was misplaced.”

Richard smiled, “There are a lot of elves, and even more humans. With our numbers, there is no longer a point in generalising. A person’s greatness is rarely dependent purely on their race; even the elven empire regressed into such a pitiful state after closing itself off so long.”

She nodded, “If you have the time, come and see us in the future. You are of our blood.”

“I will,” Richard nodded