Chapter 268
"I don't have time to discuss the nature of your betrayal," I said as I flooded his body with my mana, creating a drunken effect even as I destroyed certain parts of his mind, forcing him to speak truthfully.
It was near-irreversible, but considering I had no intention of keeping him alive, it was not exactly an unfortunate trade-off for me. Instead, I turned my attention toward my target. "First question. Tell me how the war started..."
That launched an interrogation that lasted for almost an hour, and gave me a lot of answers I had been searching for.
Apparently, what I had learned from Seldanna about the start of the war had been misleading. Her guess had been a few weeks at best, but the traitor claimed that it had been almost a year since they had first come across first undead presence, only to be destroyed immediately...
This launched a long campaign of hide-and-seek, where the undead fought to establish a stronghold where they could spread their power, and the elves from the central city doing their best to squash it — without even bothering to inform the border tribes, apparently, treating them more as a nuisance than potential assistance.
He had summarized dozens of battles to me, each incredible success against the undead... Yet, even as he went through the battles, something was tickling my mind... The battles he described were incredible, worthy of stories, requiring heroics, bravery, and sacrifices... If I hadn't already used magic to strip him of his ego, I might have assumed he was trying to exaggerate the battles he was in, but that was certainly not the case.
More importantly, only two names were coming across as heroic repeatedly, and he was not included... Prince Arun, and High Priest Ivasaar.
"Suspicious," I found myself murmuring.
I had fought against the undead many times, and the way those battles unfolded didn't sound reasonable in the slightest.
"And when you discovered you can trade Divine Spark in that fort?"
"What?" he asked.
I realized we might not be sharing a name. "What you had in that acorn," I said.
"Essence of Life," he corrected, which sounded interesting. Maybe it was another valid name, but it was almost like they were deliberately cutting the link between the Gods and the energy they were trading.
"Good, tell me when you heard about that?" I ordered.
"I heard two subordinates of High Priest conspiring to steal some of the acorns and bring them directly for a trade," he said. "They were talking about a mysterious group trading Undead Essence for a miraculous version of Essence of Life, and for a price, they even extract already absorbed Essence to allow improvement..."
"A good service," I muttered. The profitable nature of that little offering was certainly fascinating. From what I had seen, it was impossible for the others to absorb two different sources of Divine Spark without conflict, so they wanted to get rid of their weaker source first before replacing it.
And, here they were, Eternals, offering to absorb the weaker source, something they already wanted, for a steep price, and from there, they were offering some kind of exchange service between different Divine Spark — and I doubted they were just doing some equal exchange.
A profitable trade, enough to make me question whether they were here just to profit from the battle ... or their presence actually predated the battle and they were the ones that fueled the battle in the first place.
After all, my memories of Zokras were there to remind me that the Eternals were not above-using undead as convenient patsies for their purpose.
"I wonder if the undead is their only ploy," I found myself murmuring. After all, the victories of the elves, particularly the High Priest and the Prince, didn't make much sense either. It almost gave a sense of a choreographed fight.
Pity that was not something the traitor would know. Or would he? "Tell me where you get that acorn from?" I ordered.
"It's the great invention of the High Priest, allowing us to prevent the undead from resurrecting," he answered.
Which gave me the answer I was searching for. High Priest had some kind of connection to the Eternals. Probably a willing accomplice, but I couldn't just assume that with certainty. There were other possibilities, trickery, magical control, blackmail, or they might even succeed in convincing him that it was a way to strike back against undead, and they needed to hide the origin of the invention...
Regardless of the extent of his willingness, however, it was clear that the Eternals had infiltrated the Elven Capital to a dangerous degree, highlighting the need to act carefully.
"And, I'm guessing that you're under strict orders to bring back those Acorns back to the High Priest, and never use them on anything else, am I right?"
"Yes, and any contamination has the risk of creating an explosion."
I thought of another question. "And, how did you discover you could use those Acorns on the trees and not just undead," I asked. I had a feeling that he wasn't as smart to come up with that trick.
"I have caught one of the soldiers of Prince Arun sneaking around the Tree of Life, sapping its energy," he admitted.
"Why didn't you try the same?" I asked, even as I wondered if some naughty elves walking around, stealing the divine spark of important guardian trees explained the fall of that border tree. After all, even its remains were impressive. But I abandoned that track for the moment.
"Tell me more about the capital, how it works, and its social structure of it," I said. I said nothing as he gave me the breakdown of their societal structure. An immobile social structure with a strong caste system, with almost no mobility — not helped by their incredibly long lives — between the groups. Royals, nature priests, soldiers ... and servants were collected from the tribes.
Or, as the way the traitor was framed, given the chance to serve their betters and make something out of them.
No wonder the tribes were antagonistic against them.
The capital was clearly smaller than I would otherwise expect, but the power difference — provided by the tree of life, if his words to be believed — allowed the city elves to easily bully the tribes, and squash any attempt of building alliances — not that it was particularly difficult if the way they reacted to extinction events was any indicator — and maintain their monopoly of power.
That monopoly didn't help them as the undead slowly yet inevitably invaded their home.
"Goodbye, little traitor," I said as I delivered my final blow after I had learned everything I could in short order. I did so, because I felt the wards I had left with Seldanna signaling movement once more. I wanted to go and protect her.
Not to mention, I liked the mentions of the Tree of Life, and the capabilities it boasted. I wanted to see how it worked. I had a feeling that I would learn a lot from how it worked. And, the combined objective of protecting Seldanna and sneaking around left me with one option.
It was time to wear a disguise once more.
But, before that, I needed some assistance.
If I was going to go around concealed, once more disguised, I needed my relevant skills as optimized as possible.
Even if it burned all of my purified spark storage, even tapping into the Guardian Forest.
{+6 Charisma}
{+6 Manipulation}
{-3800 Purified Divine Spark}
{-342 Guardian God Forest}
"Not bad," I murmured as I stopped for a second, once again enjoying the feeling of getting stronger. My mana suddenly flow stronger and softer at the same time, but also it gave me confidence that I could easily conceal myself as a servant once more.
Even in a society as structured and xenophobic as the Elven capital.
"But, one more thing to be done," I murmured as I closed my eyes once more, reaching to Aether Dimension to pull Aether, breaking it down to pure mana, converting it to HP and mana, just in case I met with an emergency.
God Forest had hundreds of thousand of points of mana hidden, of course, but the distance meant that it took a while to reach it. Worse, if anything blocked my access to Aether Dimension, it would also block my access to that stored mana.
I wanted to bring some more.
{Pseudo-HP: 8000}
{Mana: 15000}
With that done, I teleported, ready to shadow Seldanna once more.
It was time to step onto the elven capital.
{Strength: 16 Charisma: 22
Precision: 16 Perception: 16
Agility: 16 Manipulation: 22
Speed: 16 Intelligence: 16
Endurance: 16 Wisdom: 16}
{Purified Divine Spark: 338}
{Pseudo-HP: 8000 Mana: 15000}
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Light - Chosen 7.4
Nature - Chosen 10}
{MINIONS
Guardian God Forest - 1452}
Elven Priestess - 70}
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]