Chapter 1075, Treachery Most Grave

Translator: Silavin

 

The palace of the Elf Race was the supreme symbol of their authority, a place where only the Royal Family members and Elders held the right to reside.

 

And even among the Elders, those who had earned the privilege of dwelling within the palace were bound by no small number of conditions and restrictions.

 

Within the palace, there were many zones forbidden to all but those who carried Royal Bloodlines. The corridor from which Felletin had emerged was one such place, a passage reserved exclusively for the use of Royal Family members.

 

Felletin’s conduct at this moment was, without question, a direct act of defiance against the Elf Royal Family.

 

“And who are you to raise your voice at me?” Yet what left every mighty Elf within the hall struck with astonishment was his reaction. Confronted by the fury of a member of the Elf Royal Family, that Elder, whose very being radiated the aura of a life nearly spent, did not offer so much as a word of remorse. Instead, he responded with a disdainful and cold snort.

 

“You dare…”

 

Within the Elf Race, the blood of the Elf Royal Family commanded absolute reverence. Even the greatest Elders of the High Rank Elves were expected to treat them with considerable deference.

 

And yet here, before all eyes, a distinguished member of the Elf Royal Family had been rebuked by an Elder of the lowest ranked Dark Elves.

 

“You were born into a somewhat loftier position, that is all. Do you truly take yourself for being someone better?” Beneath a sea of astonished stares, Felletin maintained not even the semblance of remorse, and continued his mockery with words that carried a distinct undercurrent of long-festering resentment.

 

“Your Majesty…” The Royal Family member could not help but direct his gaze towards the Elf Queen upon her crystal throne.

 

At this moment, with the Blood Devouring Poison roiling within him, every measure of his cultivation was consumed in suppressing that terrible poison. And even at the peak of his full strength, facing Felletin would have posed no small difficulty.

 

After all, for a Dark Elf of the lowest rank to have climbed, step by painstaking step, to a position among the Elf Race’s Elders, Felletin’s power was beyond question.

 

Yet faced with his appeal, the Elf Queen appeared not to have heard it at all. From the moment Felletin had appeared, her gaze had remained fixed unmoving upon that Elder enveloped in his twilight.

 

“Your Majesty…” Felletin inclined slightly at the waist in a shallow bow before the Elf Queen.

 

Yet those with sharp eyes felt their brows snap together at once, for under ordinary circumstances, Felletin would have been obliged to kneel before the Elf Queen.

 

“Felletin, you were the one who poisoned us, right?” The Elf Queen’s flawlessly beautiful face showed no great change at Felletin’s disrespect. Her voice, however, seemed to have dropped several degrees colder.

 

To the Elf Queen’s question, Felletin offered only a faint smile, making no effort to deny it.

 

At that sight, every Elf present felt their body give an involuntary shudder, a bone-deep chill spreading outward from the depths of their hearts.

 

Then, it was Felletin who had poisoned everyone with the Blood Devouring Poison?

 

The origins of that abhorrent poison lay with the Blood Beastmen Race. Did this not mean that Felletin had betrayed the Elf Race and made some deal with the Blood Beastmen Race?

 

Felletin was the only one among all the Elders who had come from the Dark Elf Clan.

 

Through his own ability and effort accumulated across several thousand years of relentless striving, his standing had risen to a position second only to the Elf Royal Family itself.

 

How could an Elder of such immense power and high station bring himself to commit an act so thoroughly beneath contempt?

 

And yet, Felletin’s silent admission in this moment told every mighty Elf present that this was the truth.

 

“Felletin!”

 

The Elders and Royal Family members within the great hall who were holding the poison at bay through sheer force of Will bore their fury openly now, glaring at that brown-haired Elder with eyes that could have burned through stone. Had the Elf Queen not signalled them to stand down for now, they would likely have thrown themselves at him and dragged him down, even at the cost of letting the poison run rampant through their veins.

 

“What is it that you want?” The Elf Queen’s expression still showed little change, though within the depths of her glass-clear eyes, a flash of something that resembled heartbreak seemed to pass through.

 

“What I want is quite simple, Your Majesty.” Surveying those faces contorted with fury, something warped and deeply satisfying rose from within Felletin’s heart.

 

Born into the Dark Elf Clan, Felletin had been considered inferior from the very moment of his birth. Even as he had poured into himself an effort that not even the most ambitious High Rank Elves could have imagined, enduring hardship upon hardship, nearly losing his life on numerous occasions beyond the forest’s edge in service to the Elf Race, earning achievement after achievement, he had managed, against all odds, to claw his way into the ranks of the Elf Elders.

 

And yet even so, those members of the Royal Family and the High Rank Elves had rarely looked upon him with any measure of genuine regard.

 

Now, the expressions on the faces of those very individuals filled him with an elation that was almost physical in its intensity. Even his body, so withered by age that sensation had begun to fade from his extremities, felt as though it had somehow reclaimed a measure of vitality.

 

Watching this figure shrouded in the dimming light of his final days, the Elf Queen did not rebuke him. She simply regarded him with quiet eyes, her thoughts unreadable to any who looked upon her.

 

“I want the Life Scepter.”

 

Beneath the Elf Queen’s steady gaze, Felletin drew a slow, deep breath and spoke those words at last. Even as he strained to contain the tempest of emotion within him, his parched voice still betrayed a tremor that no amount of restraint could fully conceal.

 

The moment those words, ‘Life Scepter’, fell upon their ears, virtually every Elf in the hall who had not yet succumbed leapt to their feet, faces burning with a fury they could no longer contain.

 

The Life Scepter had been held by each successive Elf Queen across the generations, and over time it had become nothing less than the very symbol of the Elf Queen’s authority.

 

And as members of the Elf Race’s inner circle, they were also privy to another more veiled secret bound to the Life Scepter.

 

It was said that the Life Scepter was made from a branch of the Tree of Life itself.

 

To hold the Life Scepter was to gain entry into the Tree of Life, and even to draw near to that which legend described as the means by which a person might achieve eternal life and Immortality.

 

Such an outrageous and treasonous demand was nothing short of a blatant bid for power.

 

“Felletin, you dare to dream!”

 

At that, several Royal Family members could no longer hold themselves back and furiously roared.

 

An Elder had colluded in secret with the Elf Race’s mortal enemies, had poisoned them through treachery and cowardice, how could such a creature ever be deemed worthy of the Life Scepter?

 

It required little imagination to see that should he lay hands upon it, the peace of the Elf Race would be shattered by his very hand.

 

Upon the crystal throne, the Elf Queen’s expression had grown visibly colder now. Felletin’s ambitions had clearly exceeded even what she had anticipated.

 

“Your Majesty, my time grows short. And so does theirs…”

 

Felletin gestured towards the many Elf Deacons and Elders lying collapsed across the floor, his voice ragged and hoarse.

 

When he had finished speaking, one of the brown-haired Elves moved a chair behind him, and he sank into it with the boneless ease of a man whose very last reserves had been depleted by those few sentences.

 

His demand plunged the entire hall into a silence as absolute as stone.

 

On the floor, several Elf Deacons whose cultivation was somewhat lower had begun to show early signs of dehydration, their bodies visibly dry and thin. The Blood Devouring Poison had already begun, steadily and methodically, to consume their Blood Essence.

 

If this continued, it would not be long before those Deacons and Elders who had been poisoned would find themselves beyond saving.

 

Even those Elders who were still holding on through sheer effort of Will were beginning to sense their strength failing. Though their cultivation was profound, with each circulation through their meridians, the poison grew ever more difficult to suppress.