chsdbacks Chapter 417 Explosion
Chapter 417 Explosion
The explosions originated deep beneath the palace. The sound was muffled and heavy, like a colossal beast writhing within the earth's crust, the shockwave reverberating from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. Then came the second, the third, and the fourth—the sixteen explosive charges Elijah had buried detonated sequentially along the main root system of the sacred tree. Huge shockwaves surged up from the ground, ripping the palace floor tiles off like pieces of paper, snapping heavy stone pillars at their roots, and causing a third of the entire palace's structure to collapse inwards in an instant!
The roof beams snapped and crashed down, tiles rained down like a storm, and shattered stained glass shattered into colorful fragments. A mushroom cloud of dust and rubble billowed from the depths of the palace, engulfing the stone steps at the entrance and flooding the square, causing everyone to cough violently. Cracks in the ground extended from the palace, spreading like a spiderweb across the entire base of the palace, and sections of the palace walls collapsed with a deafening roar, raising a cloud of dust that blotted out the sky.
The towering divine tree—it first shook violently, and the countless starlight in its crown extinguished in an instant. Then, a vertical crack split open from the middle of its trunk, the crack extending upwards with a crackling sound, tearing through the bark, splitting the wood, and spreading all the way to the fork in the crown. Golden sap gushed from the crack, like a living thing whose lifeblood had been severed; the thick golden liquid flowed onto the shattered stone slabs with a sizzling sound, corroding the stone slabs with grooves of varying depths wherever it went.
The sacred tree is slowly tilting.
Its crown first leaned to the left, and its roots emitted a non-human, low groan from the ground, sounding like the simultaneous screams of a thousand souls. Then the entire trunk emitted a terrifying creaking sound, the sound of individual wood fibers snapping mixed together like dense bone cracking, and finally—with a deafening crack—the divine tree broke in half at the base, the upper half of the trunk, along with its overwhelming branches and leaves, crashing heavily onto the remaining ground of the great hall!
The impact shook the entire palace. Everyone was thrown to the ground by the shockwave. Zhang Chulan fell face-first into the mud, his mouth full of stone dust and gunpowder. He scrambled to his feet, covered in dust and dirt, shaking off the pebbles from his head, and squinted towards the direction of the main hall—
Then he froze.
"...Holy shit."
He thought he was dreaming.
The ancient tree, thicker than a dozen people could encircle, lay broken in half across the ruins, its crown ablaze. Golden sap flowed from the broken wood, seeping drop by drop into the cracks of the rubble, like the blood of some divine being draining away. The bark curled, peeled, and turned into black fragments in the flames, swirling into the air like countless charred butterflies fluttering in the twilight.
The sacred tree is collapsing.
"No--!!!"
The scream erupted from the depths of the palace ruins, its voice, once clear as a silver bell, now sounding like sandpaper scraping against rust. The golden radiance emanating from Queen Nathan receded like a tide the instant the divine tree shattered, revealing her body, almost transparent from the scorching heat—most of her robe burned away, exposing the skin scorched by the golden light beneath, skin like weathered, cracked shards of pottery, each fissure revealing dark red flesh. Her eyes widened, the burning, collapsing ancient tree reflected in her pupils; her lips parted but no sound came out, and she slumped backward like a cage whose supports had been removed, her knees striking the rubble with a dull thud.
What she protected her entire life. What she sacrificed countless people and bore a heavy burden of sin to preserve. What she burned herself to the point of semi-transparency just to gain a moment of respite.
At this moment, it turned into charcoal piece by piece in the firelight.
"Elijah..." She lay prone on the scorching pile of rubble, her chin scraping against a sharp edge, drawing blood, but she felt no pain. Her gaze was fixed on the flickering flames in the treetops, her voice forced through clenched teeth, filled with a hatred seeping from the depths of her bones, "You...you will die a horrible death..."
The last word was almost inaudible. Her pupils began to dilate, the gold on her fingertips faded to an unhealthy bluish-gray, and her breathing became extremely shallow and short, each breath feeling like swallowing shards of glass.
Elijah had already turned around the moment the explosion occurred.
He didn't look back at the leaning sacred tree. He didn't turn back to hear King Nathan's lament. His black overcoat billowed in the aftershocks of the shockwave as he strode quickly along the shadows of the corridor's side wall, his boots crunching softly on the scattered tiles, but he didn't stop for a moment. Left, right, he climbed over a half-collapsed low wall, and squeezed along the base of the outer wall into the entrance of the drainage culvert he had scouted beforehand. When he climbed up to the culvert's exit and stepped back into the twilight, the palace's spire was already shrouded in thick smoke and flames, looking from afar like a burning torch stuck in the island.
He stood on the hillside and looked for three seconds.
Then he turned around and walked towards the sea without looking back.
The collapse of the sacred tree was like a giant sword severing everything that sustained the island.
First came the Nathan Guards. Those warriors, just brimming with power from the ultimate blessing, felt as if an invisible giant hand had gripped their meridians and twisted them violently the instant the divine tree snapped. Golden light was forcibly extracted from their bodies and surged back towards the tree's remains, like sand being dragged away by the receding tide. They collapsed to their knees, stumbled, and some even slammed their foreheads to the ground, unconscious. Their faces turned from rosy to pale within breaths, and the gold threads seeping from their fingernails quickly faded to a withered, grayish color. Those Nathan Guards who had just been fighting ten against one now gripped their weapons but could barely lift their arms. Some tried to stand, leaning on their sword hilts, but their knees buckled like noodles as soon as they exerted any strength, collapsing back to their knees.
Then, the sixteen explosive charges that Elijah had hidden in the core area triggered a chain reaction of sinkholes. In the center of the collapsed temple ruins, a massive pit several meters deep appeared, revealing the broken, blackened wooden roots of the sacred tree at the bottom. These roots were still oozing a dark golden sap, but the flow was becoming increasingly thin, and the color was gradually turning a fishy, pale brown. The soil around the pit walls crumbled away, and rubble and debris fell into the pit with hollow echoes.
The ancient murals on the dome of the main hall were completely shattered. The vermilion and malachite green that depicted the succession of the Nathan kings over the millennia were now scattered among the dust. A fragment fell at Elena's feet, and the inscription on it depicted the previous Nathan king handing over his scepter to the young current Nathan king—the eyes of the person in the painting were facing her, and the smile under the golden light had faded into a thin layer of gray.
"Your Majesty—!" Elena struggled to her feet from the impact, her elbows and knees scraped and bleeding, a bloody mess of grime. She stumbled through the ruins and rushed to King Nathan's side, kneeling down to embrace his unusually light body. King Nathan's body temperature was frighteningly low; even through his tattered robes, she could feel the bone-chilling cold, as if she were holding a porcelain statue just pulled from the bottom of a well.
"You must hold on..." Elena's tears washed away the ashes from her face, leaving two distinct streaks. She tried to wipe the blood from King Nathan's mouth with her clean sleeve, but the blood only flowed more, mixing with fine golden threads that clung to her sleeve and wouldn't wash away. "I'll take you away right now! We'll find a doctor! There are many skilled healers in the world of supernatural beings! There must be a way!"
King Nathan moved his head slightly in her arms, stray golden hairs clinging to his pale forehead. She opened her eyes, the last glimmer of gold in her pupils dimming inch by inch, like a candle flame licking its last drop of wax in the wind. She looked at Elena's tear-streaked face, her lips trembling as she tried to force a comforting smile, but the curve collapsed as soon as it appeared.
"It's...it's no use..." Her voice was as thin as a spider's silk floating up from the bottom of a deep well, each word carrying the faint sound of water being squeezed from her lungs, "The divine tree and I were intertwined...it broke...and I...it's all over..."
"No! It can't be!" Elena hugged her tighter, her voice hoarse and choked with sobs, "We still—we still have a chance! As long as you're alive—"
"Elena." King Nathan suddenly called her name. His voice was soft, but it suppressed her cries.
Elena stopped speaking, her lips still trembling.
King Nathan slowly raised a hand. The hand was so pale it was almost transparent, with long, slender fingers. The cracks left on the wrist by the golden light resembled a piece of broken and pieced-back porcelain, but her fingers were still warm and gently placed on Elena's cheek, her thumb rubbing against the tear stain on her cheekbone.
"Don't cry." Her voice suddenly became clearer, like a candle flame gathering strength in its final moments. "I've protected...my whole life. Now...finally..."
Her gaze passed over Elena's shoulder, over the crumbling palace walls, and landed on the distant horizon where the sea met the sky in the twilight. The sun had already sunk below the horizon, leaving only a fiery red arc still burning. The sea was dyed in large swaths of golden-red by the sunset, the shimmering waves breaking and gathering again in the wind.
"Finally... I'm free..."
Her eyelids closed gently. The faint smile on her lips hadn't completely faded. The hand that had been caressing Elena's cheek slowly slid down, the wrist striking the gravel with a barely audible thud.
Elena felt the body in her arms suddenly grow heavier, all strength and warmth drained from her in an instant, leaving only an utterly exhausted shell. She buried her face in the creases of King Nathan's burned robes, her shoulders heaving violently, a broken sob escaping her throat, unable to utter a complete word. A damp patch spread across the gravel, quickly cooling in the night breeze.
The chaotic battle in the palace square seemed to slow down. Behemoth's offensive was momentarily disrupted after the collapse of the divine tree—one of their core objectives was to study living samples of the tree, and now that the tree was reduced to charcoal and wood chips, that mission was completely wiped out. The frontline soldiers looked at each other, guns at the ready, their rhythm visibly off, some even instinctively lowering their rifles and taking a half-step back.
Ron remained silent on the lookout tower for a long time. His chest, ramrod straight in his military uniform, heaved twice, then he turned to Gade, his voice low but each word dripping with gunpowder: "That madman Elijah... blew up the Tree of God."
Having just escaped his entanglement with Ruan Feng, Gaide's goggles were fogged with a hazy mist of alcohol. He wiped the lenses, stared at the still-smoking remains of the sacred tree, and his Adam's apple bobbed: "He really did it. So, what about this time..."
"Objective canceled." Ron whirled around, his boot heels slamming against the iron railing. "Order: Regroup the troops and prepare for retreat."
"Retreat?" The adjutant beside him opened his mouth, pointed towards the square and the side hall, "General, we have already gained control of the main battlefield—"
"What's the use of suppressing it?" Ron's voice suddenly rose, his eyes behind his sunglasses piercing like knives. "Our core mission was to research the mass production technology of the Divine Tree, and now the tree is gone. Do you want me to drag this charred stump back and slice it up? King Nathan is gone too, Nathan Guard is crippled, what's left on this island? A DC anti-government force and ruins! Our ammunition isn't for suppressing bandits!"
The adjutant was speechless, snapped to attention, saluted, and ran. The orders were relayed down the ranks, and Behemoth's bugler sounded a slow, drawn-out retreat, the blast lingering in the twilight. The soldiers began to shrink, regroup, and take turns covering each other as they withdrew from the square. The cyborgs brought up the rear, their metal arms flashing red lights in a watchful manner. Their boots crunched over the rubble and scorch marks, each step carrying a hurried, disheveled air.