An Illegitimate Daughter?

The warrior’s body arched violently, his limbs snapping taut as the vines creaked under his strain.

His mouth fell open, and the sound squeezed from his throat was like that of a strangled beast.

Fine green patterns emerged on the surface of his eyeballs, spreading from the whites toward the pupils and fracturing the amber iris into countless small fragments.

The light filaments began to tighten.

The filaments coiled around his blood vessels contracted, constricting the vascular walls.

The filaments that had stripped his nerves tightened, crushing the nerve bundles.

The filaments attached to his cerebral cortex writhed slowly, applying pressure to specific regions with every movement.

The warrior’s screams became intermittent, rising and falling in pitch like an instrument out of control.

The light filaments suddenly flared.

At that exact moment, a massive amount of Life Energy was injected through every filament. The warrior’s stripped blood vessels reconnected, his extracted nerves returned to their places, and the suppressed regions of his brain were reactivated.

His body underwent a complete “repair” amidst the extreme agony; all the destroyed tissues were forcibly healed under the infusion of Life Energy.

Then, the light filaments tightened again.

Stripping.

Compression.

Repair.

Stripping again.

Compression again.

Repair again.

The third time.

The warrior’s roars turned into dry heaves. Pale green blood poured from the corners of his mouth, mixed with fragments of shattered teeth, dripping onto his chest.

He opened his mouth, and the sound forced from his throat was a raspy whisper, barely audible. “Kill... kill me...”

“Oh? Weren’t you supposed to be resilient? Why the sudden change of heart? What a pity.”

A wooden spike erupted from the ground, skewering the warrior through the back of his head.

【Life Energy +33. Current Life Energy: 2,424,323.】

A vine coiled around the ankle of the fourth warrior, dragging them into the clearing.

Unlike the first three, this warrior was very young.

There were only a few war tattoos on their face, and the colors were faint. The calluses on their hands were thin, and the way they held their hunting bow still carried the stiff traces of the training grounds.

Furthermore, it was a female soldier.

Likely a new recruit who had just been conscripted for the war.

Before Ethan could even make a move, she collapsed.

The moment the vine touched her ankle, she began to scream.

She scrambled backward desperately, her heels kicking at the rubble. Her fingers clawed into the dirt, her nails embedding themselves into the cracks between stones as she scraped shallow grooves into the earth.

“Don’t—don’t kill me!”

Ethan spread the fingers of his right hand, and an emerald light glowed in his palm.

Before he could condense anything, the young warrior clutched her head with both hands and curled into a ball. Her forehead pressed against the rubble, and her long, pointed ears were pinned tightly against the sides of her head.

“I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything! Please, just don’t kill me!”

She was shaking like a leaf.

Her voice was thick with a sob, her eyes filled with tears, and her face was a mess of snot and salt.

She shielded her face with her arms, her curled posture looking as if she were trying to hide from the world.

Ethan said nothing, only slowly withdrawing the emerald light from his palm.

Seeing the light dissipate through the gaps between her fingers, the young warrior’s sobbing faltered.

She buried her head even deeper, her forehead pressed firmly against the gravel. Her voice came out muffled from beneath her arms, the words tumbling out at a frantic pace as if she feared she would die if she spoke too slowly.

“The World Tree is in the Sacred City! The Sacred City is at the center of the world! This is the Alcross Forest. If you go due north from here, cross the Red Sand Plain, go over the Heavenly Spine Mountains, then pass through the Emerald Forest, the Endless Desert, the Thousand Illusion Marsh, the Wolf Pack Plain, the Three Spirit Mountains, and the Azure-Dyed Forest, you’ll reach the Sacred City! The World Tree is right in the center of the city, tens of thousands of cubits high, and its canopy covers the entire city!”

Ethan stared at the young warrior kneeling on the ground, his brow furrowing slightly.

The World Tree was in the Sacred City.

There was nothing wrong with that information itself. The Amons worshipped the World Tree, the Sacred City was built around it—even an Amons youngling just finished with weaning would know that.

But this girl had reported the route in far too much detail.

Every stretch of the path was named clearly, and she hadn’t even stumbled over the order.

A new recruit just drafted into the war, with calluses so thin they were pathetic and a bow-handling posture that screamed training camp.

Could such a person know a route that spanned half the world?

Ethan spread his fingers again, the emerald light reigniting in his palm. “What is your name?”

“Roly Cofield.”

“Very well, Roly. I believe you have more to tell me, don’t you? Think carefully. Once I discover you’ve lied, you should know the consequences.”

“I know!” Roly snapped her head up, her eyes wide with terror. Her face was still smeared with tears and snot, and her pointed ears remained pinned back. “Everything I said is true! It’s the truth!”

“How would a new recruit like you know all this so clearly?” The light in Ethan’s palm grew brighter. “Would the elders of your tribe teach a route across half the world to a fresh recruit like you?”

Roly’s lips trembled violently.

Ethan slowly raised his right hand.

“I’ll talk! I’ll talk!” Roly clutched her head, curling into an even tighter ball. “My mother is a Guardian Priest in the Sacred City! She told me! I grew up in the Sacred City!”

Ethan’s hand paused. “A Guardian Priest? If your mother is a Guardian Priest, why are you here?”

A Guardian Priest was a Second-Tier lifeform.

The child of a Second-Tier lifeform, raised in the Sacred City, how could she have fallen to the level of a new recruit, left to die in a ramshackle camp like this?

Roly’s crying hitched.

She buried her head lower, her forehead grinding against the gravel. Her fingers dug into the dirt, her nails catching in the stone cracks.

“I... I’m an illegitimate daughter.” Her voice was so quiet it was almost a whisper. “My mother is a Guardian Priest, but my father... I don’t know who he is. Mother said she broke the precepts and couldn’t let anyone know I existed. I was born in the Sacred City and grew up there, but I never once left the Priest Tower. It wasn’t until this World War broke out and Mother was drafted to the front lines that she entrusted me to a warrior from a tribe, telling me to go with them.”

Her shoulders shook violently.

“Later, I heard... that Mother died. She died at the hands of the outsiders during the Great War.”

“Your mother was a Guardian Priest?”

Roly nodded frantically, her forehead thudding against the gravel. A large patch of her pale green skin was scraped raw, oozing fine beads of blood.

“It’s true! It’s true! I have proof!”

Trembling, she reached into her shirt, pulling an emerald crystal pendant from the lining of her tattered leather armor. She held it up in her palms above her head, her body still pressed to the ground, not daring to look up.

With a casual wave of Ethan’s hand, a vine curled around the pendant and brought it to him.

The crystal was cool to the touch and teardrop-shaped. Intricate runic patterns flowed within it, its light soft and steady.

It was indeed an item belonging to an Amons Priest, and of no low quality.

Ethan tossed the pendant back into her lap. “An illegitimate daughter of a Guardian Priest. Truly interesting.”

Roly scrambled to catch the pendant, clutching it tightly in her fist.

Ethan looked down at the rubble at his feet. He reached out, snapped off a dead branch, and tossed it into the air.

Left, kill.

Right, spare.