"I don't understand what you mean. Having said that, there was a faint uneasiness in the young druid's voice and confusion in his eyes. He was very gifted and wise, and he had actually roughly guessed what the Great Elder meant.

"Jub, you are very clever and should know that in this forest, the real protagonists are not us elves and druids, but the World Tree and all the Trees of Life. ”

"Of course. The young druid nodded.

The Elven Grand Elder said slowly: "We elves can hardly leave the Tree of Life, once we lose the Tree of Life, it will be difficult for our people to reproduce, the warriors will not become strong, and the druids will even slowly degenerate. It can be said that the tree of life is the pillar of the elves' survival. And what can we bring to the tree of life? We can only protect them, drive away predators for them. That is, elves cannot leave the tree of life, and the tree of life does not necessarily need us elves. You understand now, right?"

"You mean that the Tree of Life to which we are attached has chosen to abandon us?" said Jubu with a shocked expression, the news was too shocking for him.

"We are not in a two-way relationship with the tree of life. And now, the tree of life has clearly found a more suitable and powerful guardian. ”

The young druid cried out, "Intruder?"

The Elven Grand Elder nodded heavily and did not speak.

"Why does the Tree of Life do this? It breaks the original structure of the forest, does it ......? It wants to be the World Tree?" Jubu couldn't help but gasp as he said the last sentence.

"Even we are trying to find ways to become stronger, what is so strange that the Tree of Life wants to become the World Tree?" the Great Elder seemed to be very understanding.

Jubu slowly lowered his head and said, "I'm just...... Incomprehensible intruders are able to become guardians of the Tree of Life. ”

The Great Elder sighed again and said, "This is the reality, and our role with the Tree of Life has become dispensable. I think what we need to do now is to prove our worth to the tree of life and Richard in the same way that the tree of life proved itself to Richard. ”

"Don't!" said Jubu, who jumped up with excitement, "and in this way, will we not lose even the last of our dignity and faith?"

The Great Elder smiled bitterly and said, "Dignity? And what about faith? The tree of life, in which we have always believed, has now abandoned us in favor of a new guardian. And in fact, it was the surrender of the invaders. Even our sources of faith have done this, what can we do but follow?

Jub Spiritwind was stunned, he was a druid, and he knew very well what would happen to the tribe leaving the Tree of Life and going deep into the forest alone. The whole tribe will slowly wither and die.

"Which is more important, dignity or faith, or the continuation of the life of the whole race?"

Faced with this heavy topic, the young druid, of course, could not give an answer.

"Therefore, I do not prevent the people from listening to the sermon of the goddess. The Elven Grand Elder looked out the window and said slowly, "Since we have lost our faith, it may not be a bad thing for the clansmen to choose a completely new faith if they are willing. Even if it's a belief from an extraterrestrial plane. ”

The young druid was silent. He could feel the decrease in the breath of life released by the Tree of Life, and he also knew that the Tree of Life had concentrated almost all the breath of life that could be mobilized on Richard. It's all too clear that the elves have been abandoned.

Between dignity and survival, Jubu himself can make an easy choice, and his innate pride makes him not afraid to face death, but that only refers to him, if you add Kampot, Yidi, the Great Elder and even the whole clan, Jubu feels an unprecedented weakness. This is not a decision he can make, he does not have the courage to let the whole clan accompany him on the ruined miè of no return.

Richard had returned to the base city with the loot and prisoners at this time. Since the meditation had been delayed for a few days, Neiris and Agamemnon had already made preparations in the base city at this moment, waiting for Richard to return.

Before returning to Norland, Richard's preparations were surprisingly lengthy, and it wasn't completely completed until a day later.

The team stepped into the portal one after another, and then appeared in the teleportation array of the Eternal Dragon Hall one by one. Richard brought with him a lot of special things this time, a few Green Forest Elf captives, and a few live woodpeckers. However, after walking out of the teleportation array, Richard immediately discovered that the woodpecker was actually the same as a human, and it had to consume the same amount of magic crystals!

At this moment, Richard couldn't help but curse secretly, to bring these things to Faro, obviously another huge expense. Richard sighed, ordered the Green Forest elf captives and woodpeckers to be taken care of, and walked towards the family's floating island.

On the floating island of Akmund, melodious bells began to ring, a total of seven rings, representing the return of Richard, the acting patriarch. The number of bells signifies the power position of the characters who come to the floating island. Seven bells were a welcome bell for the patriarch, and it was clear that at least the Akmunds on the floating islands now regarded Richard as the patriarch.

When the bell rang, at the door of a room in the castle, Fasqi exclaimed, instantly retracted behind the door, slammed the door shut, locked it in a hurry, and then leaned his back against the door, his heart pounding. She was skeptical that Richard would keep his promise, even if he hadn't seen him.

Fasqi couldn't really meet Richard now, because she came back empty-handed. Alyselle didn't let her bring the build back, and she didn't intend to fulfill her contract to be Richard's partner. The Count's rare hesitation put Fasqi in a very awkward position.

However, considering the lack of strong towns on the floating island, and at the same time, Fasqi felt guilty about Richard, so after receiving the magic message from Richard, he still came to the floating island.

However, Richard did not seem to care whether she came back or not, but after a brief conversation with the old butler, he locked himself in the family library and began to rummage through the books.

Shortly after Richard returned to Norland, several mysterious guests arrived on the floating island of the Joseph family, dressed in ordinary aristocratic attire and their faces were not covered by burqas and hoods, but that was because their exposed faces were fake. Several mystery guests are ushered into a dedicated war room.

There are already two large magic sand tables here, one of which is an ordinary nobleman, and the other is an unknown plane.

At this moment, on the map layer of Norland, several huge arrows can be seen coming from several directions, merging into the territory of a nobleman.

In front of the sand table, there was a tall young man, thinking about something in front of the sand table, and would make adjustments from time to time, so that one of the huge arrows would move accordingly. After adjusting it a few times, his tightly knit brow widened, and he looked very satisfied. Then he pulled out another thick stack of checklists and began to examine them one by one. The list is full of formations of soldiers and weapons of war. Each item is followed by a dense annotation.

He watched intently, coughing occasionally. The bright magical light shone on his face, but it left a few small shadows in the angular handsome countenance.

Raymond, at some point, he rushed back from the family plane.

At this moment, there was a sound of footsteps in the long corridor, and the old Duke Joseph walked down the corridor with a few guests.

At this moment, two samurai appeared out of nowhere and stopped in front of the group, their weapons unsheathed, pointing diagonally at the ground, and their burly figures almost completely blocked the passage.

Old Duke Joseph took out a token, inserted it into the mechanism on the wall, and pressed his hand on a crystal jade wall, and after a while, the light of the jade wall turned a soft pale yellow, and the two warriors disappeared like a puff of green smoke.

Old Joseph continued to move forward with the guests behind him.

The guests were not surprised by the mechanism set up by this alchemy puppet technique, although Joseph was the patriarch of the family, his appearance could not be used as the only way to identify it. The illusion of a mage, the phantom of a warlock, and the disguise of an assassin killer can all make for a flawless look. Therefore, in the wealthy families that can really afford it, the family is mainly based on magic tests, or scanning and testing of the body's blood, and appearance is completely neglected. The highest test is a direct examination of the soul, which is almost infallible, but it is by no means something that money can do.

Most of the magic tools that can be used for soul inspection are above the legend level, and they can almost reach the artifact level. For example, the family cemetery of Akmund, if you don't have a strong enough Akmund bloodline, you can't enter it at all. And if you don't have the corresponding strength, if you climb up in the volcano, you will feel unbearable burning pain at the least, and you will die immediately through the body**.

Old Joseph led the guests through a wide gate.

Inside the door is a hall of thousands of square meters, in which nearly 100 young or young people are constantly busy. The surrounding walls are constantly sketched with magical images of magic maps of different planes, each with a detailed distribution of troops and their routes.

At the four corners of the hall, there was a raised platform, on which sat several elderly generals with a solemn and murderous aura, and on their desks were set up more than one magical video device, which could be constantly adjusted and switched according to their needs.

The hall is divided into four large aisles, each neatly lined with semi-separate workshops, where young men in military uniforms bury their heads in front of their workbenches, desperately trying to figure out something about the map. Many of the workbenches are also equipped with magical video installations that can project a miniature magical map. Such a workbench is half as large as a normal one, and the person sitting in it is significantly more senior and experienced.

At this moment, one of the guests suddenly stopped and said, "Is this the famous Plane War Staff Headquarters of the Joseph family? Can you give us a little visit?"