I loaded the dream game

They are all brave warriors who have experienced many battles, so why are they so careless in their daily lives?

Xia Zhi thought helplessly.

After Nogi Sonoko whispered a thank you, she seemed to be worried that he would accidentally fall again, so she simply held his arm.

Xia Zhi didn't care and continued to ask: "Are they really not considering installing some street lights here?"

"It seems that there is one installed on the road a little further away from here," Nogi Sonoko replied.

"Perhaps it's because we are too close to the sacred tree, and we are worried that human technology will pollute this holy land?"

Xia Zhi thinks that technology itself is a way of utilizing the laws of nature. It is not some alien energy from another world, nor is it pollution, right?

"Or maybe, it's because the sacred tree itself can glow?" After thinking about it, Nogi Sonoko gave her own opinion.

This reason is much more reasonable.

Xia Zhi thought.

However, similar light has not been seen yet.

Is it because the power has weakened to the point where it can't even maintain its light?

"Because the sacred tree doesn't glow normally." Tokisaki Kurumi answered his inner doubts.

"..."

Xia Zhi turned around and looked at the garden beside him.

The girl stuck out her tongue and said sheepishly, "I've never been here at night."

Rather, she had actually only seen the sacred tree once... probably two years ago.

Even Nogi Sonoko, who is a hero and whose family has high authority in the amnesty, doesn't know much about the sacred tree.

Tokisaki Kurumi, why does she act so familiar?

"We're here."

Miss Time Elf stopped, turned around, looked at them with a smile and said.

In fact, Xia Zhi knew that they had reached their destination without her reminder.

Although the sacred tree was enlarged when it turned into a sea of ​​trees, it is not that big at normal times, but compared with other trees around it, its height is particularly eye-catching.

There is a solemn presence simply by being there.

The root system extends across the entire land, and even in a world surrounded by walls, people can farm normally and fish can swim freely in the sea.

However, this sacred tree, which once blessed the entire four countries and was the basis for the survival of mankind in the Century of Gods, is now extremely weak.

...No, it's not just weakness.

Xia Zhi could feel that this weakness also revealed a faint, almost imperceptible deathly silence.

Such dead silence should not have appeared on the sacred tree that blessed the entire world and represented new life and continuation.

A sense of possibility arose in Xia Zhi's mind.

"As you can see, the sacred tree is actually dead to some extent." Tokisaki Kurumi gave a slightly different answer from Nogi Sonoko.

"Ah!" Yuanzi let out a small cry of surprise. Obviously, although she knew a little about the situation of the sacred tree, she had not expected it to be so serious.

Without paying attention to their surprise, Tokisaki Kurumi continued, "It's not wrong to say it's alive. After all, its power still exists, but the consciousness inside has completely dissipated."

She turned around and looked at the withered sacred tree, and continued to explain: "Its power is too weak. It can no longer bear the huge existence and consumption originally from the collective consciousness. In order to maintain this last bit of power for a little longer, it chose to completely consume its own consciousness."

"What remains are just the programs that follow instinct and keep the world running normally."

Thinking and existing require energy. In order to save energy, you might as well not think... Is that what you mean?

Xia Zhi thought to himself.

He probably knew why Daxie had been avoiding his previous requests. Was it because he didn't want an "outsider" like him to see the current state of the sacred tree?

It finally became clear why the sacred tree did not take the initiative to lift the sea of ​​fire barrier outside... After all, it no longer had the "active" consciousness.

"Om..."

Just as Xia Zhi was thinking this, the sacred tree in front of him seemed to sense their arrival. A soft white light suddenly appeared on it. A gentle breeze blew around it, causing the leaves to sway gently and make a rustling sound, as if it was expecting him to come forward.

Xia Zhi thought about it, walked forward, and gently placed his hand on the tree trunk.

The next moment after coming into contact with him, the holy and soft white light became brighter, and Xia Zhi could feel as if some power was rushing into his body...

That is the divine power from the sacred tree.

Seize the body?

...No, just as Tokisaki Kurumi said, this power does not contain any personal will.

Rather than making a final dying struggle, it feels more like entrustment, right?

...Do you want to entrust your last strength, along with this world, to this "colleague" of yours?

Xia Zhi guessed in his heart.

Is this what it wants?

Even at the end of his life, the instinctive programs left behind are still trying to find a way out for humanity... He is truly a gentle god.

But, sorry, I'm not a god of the earth.

Moreover, he was not yet used to allowing anyone other than Ailu to enter his body.

Xia Zhi thought to himself and pulled his hand back mercilessly, thus interrupting the energy circuit.

The branches swayed gently in the breeze, as if revealing a hint of loss and regret.

"...Have you ever considered giving it more fertilizer?" Xia Zhi turned around and asked Tokisaki Kurumi.

"Brother Xia Zhi..."

Without waiting for the girl to answer, Nogi Sonoko gently pulled at his clothes and said, "Strictly speaking, all the fertilizers used for farming in Shikoku now come from the God Tree."

Xia Zhi thought about it and it seemed that this was indeed the case?

He shook his head and brought his thoughts back to the topic.

There is another problem here.

As far as Xia Zhi knew, even at the end of the original story, until it completely dissipated, the sacred tree was not weak to this extent.

In other words, because of the appearance of Kurumi and other elves that he guessed, the changes that have taken place in this world are more than he imagined.

What happened to them before they came into this world?

On the other hand, Tokisaki Kurumi did not seem surprised that the boy refused the last gift of the sacred tree.

After all, even if we put aside other things, for a god who can defeat the gods, this little power from the dying sacred tree seems too insignificant, right?

"Mr. Xia Zhi, you should know that the history of this world is the result of changes, right?"

Tokisaki Kurumi changed the subject.

Xia Zhi didn't quite understand why she suddenly brought the topic here.

He tilted his head, waiting for the girl's next words.

Kuang San narrowed her eyes slightly, looked at him meaningfully and said:

"…But no one ever said that history was only changed once, right?"

It wasn't just changed once...

Could it be that

Listening to her words, Xia Zhi had a feeling of possibility.

"Don't you want to know where the other elves are?"

The elf girl smiled and continued

“They are all left in the past.”

.......

Chapter 957: The Stripped Space-Time Singularity

Xia Zhi noticed that she said "they" instead of "she".

Meaning, there is more than one elf besides her?

Are there so many elves coming to this world?

He pondered in his mind.

And...staying in the past means

Are they all dead?

Or...

"It's just in the literal sense. It's left in the 'past'." In response to the boy's question, Tokisaki Kurumi answered.

Xia Zhi felt that he had heard similar words somewhere before.

Then he recalled... the girl had also confirmed his guess that there was "literally no future" in this world not long ago.

"What you said before, that Mio's power must be used to save the world, is it also related to this matter?" He asked after thinking about it.

Hearing her name, Mio turned her head and looked at her with a hint of doubt in her eyes.

What does this have to do with her?

Without paying attention to Mio's gaze, Tokisaki Kurumi continued slowly:

"Regarding this matter, I have to start from when I first came to this world..."

“Can you summarize it in twenty words or less?”

"Ah, it seems that Mr. Xia Zhi doesn't want to find out the truth of the matter." The girl said with a smile.

Xia Zhi counted carefully, and including the words with mood, there were exactly twenty words.

"…I'm sorry, please continue." He closed his mouth.

Tokisaki Kurumi hummed softly, and it was unknown whether she accepted the boy's suggestion on summarizing it, and she changed her way of narration and continued:

"As you can see, the reason why the sacred tree is so weak in the 'present' is because it has exhausted its strength in saving the 'past'."

At first glance, this seems to be a matter of course. Time flows in a positive direction, and the reduction in strength now naturally comes from the consumption in the past.

However, Xia Zhi always felt that the elf girl's words just now seemed to deliberately emphasize the concept of "the past".

Saving the Past...

He repeated these words silently in his mind.

"It seems that Mr. Xia Zhi has realized something."

Seeing the boy's reaction, Tokisaki Kurumi was not surprised. After all, he had already shown a high level of thinking ability.

"You have seen how much the gods value the elves, right?"

Xia Zhi nodded slightly.

Although the aura was released deliberately at that time, just the part of the spiritual power that leaked out was enough for the gods to go all out, and they even did not hesitate to use their real bodies to invade the barrier of the sacred tree.

If I or Mio were not there, the power displayed by the gods at that time would be enough to flatten the world, right?

"I have been able to survive the pursuit of the gods until today, but not all elves can do the same as me."

"No... I should say that if there was no help from the sacred tree, I might not be alive today."

Tokisaki Kurumi turned around and looked at the sacred tree, with a hint of sigh in her eyes.

As she tells the story, the past of this world slowly unfolds before Xia Zhi's eyes.

Just as he had initially guessed, the time of all the elves was "parallel".

Just like the situation of Natsuori and Young Oori in the Natsuori copy, at the moment when he and Mio came to this world, other elves including Tokisaki Kurumi also came to this world "at the same time" and landed at different points in the same timeline.

If the timeline of this world is in the form of a parallel world, then it would be easy to deal with. The consequence would only be the splitting into several different parallel timelines.

But unfortunately, this world is a single timeline model.