362: Favoritism leads to complacency.

Ling Qi watched from the side, shaking her head continuously. She silently complained in her heart, "What acting skills. It would be a waste not to go into the entertainment industry to act."

Shang Wan Ning stared at her for a long while, then suddenly smiled, "Fine. I'll give you three million incense offerings, and I'll give you half a month off too. But the Poria and Atractylodes soup must be exchanged using your own incense offerings."

Chen Yu beamed with joy, let go of the Empress's leg, jumped up, and gave a rather sloppy salute, "Thank you, Your Majesty. Long live, long live, long live Your Majesty."

She turned and ran outside, but just as she reached the palace entrance, she stopped and turned back, winking at Shang Wan Ning, "Oh right, Your Majesty, can Yu Yu take Minister You to Emerald Island too?"

"He's been a bit short on funds lately, so this Subordinate will treat him to steak."

Shang Wan Ning: "...Get lost."

Chen Yu vanished in a "whoosh." Inside Jiaotai Palace, only the smoke of agarwood and Ling Qi's irrepressible soft laughter remained.

Shang Wan Ning picked up the jade slip from the floor and shook her head helplessly, though a faint smile lingered in the corners of her eyes.

[Well, this little loli is back; the Netherworld will probably be restless again.]

Ling Qi picked up the ink stick again, her movements lighter as she ground the ink. "Your Majesty is certainly indulgent towards A-Yu."

Shang Wan Ning flipped through the jade slip without raising her head. "What else could I do? I couldn't just let her cry until she fainted in front of me, could I?"

"If I don't feel bad for her, surely AQi doesn't either?"

Ling Qi lowered her eyes, her lashes trembling slightly, and the corners of her mouth lifted involuntarily. "Naturally, I feel bad for her. It's just that A-Yu is so lively and uninhibited, others probably wouldn't guess that she once endured such suffering..."

Shang Wan Ning closed the jade slip, her gaze softening. "It is best that she can be this way. The Netherworld is too bitter; it is good to have some amusement."

...

Ativi Continent, Divine Kingdom, Elf Forest.

The thick branches of the elf mother tree swayed within the halo of the Divine Kingdom, whipping up a visible vortex of airflow that slammed into the Elf Goddess Avila, who was floating in mid-air.

"Your Excellency, wake up." Mi'er's voice exploded directly in the depths of Avila's divine soul, carrying a rare urgency.

"In the lower realm, something has happened to the Elf Race."

Avila's long, slender eyelashes trembled, and the soft holy light covering her eyelids dissipated.

A pair of emerald eyes, condensed with vitality, opened. A hint of faint anger at having her peaceful dream disturbed flashed through her clear gaze.

She did not speak directly, her divine sense already sweeping toward the lower realm.

Mi'er's mental roar followed immediately: "A new race, Your Excellency. They call themselves—Blood Elves."

"Blood Elves?"

Avila frowned slightly, her fingertips, condensed from holy light, tapping gently in the void.

The prayers of a million elves in the lower realm, the breathing of the forest, the whispers of life leaping... were instantly and violently swallowed by a filthy aura that forcibly tore everything apart!!!

The stench of piled-up rotting flesh, mixed with the painful shrieks of souls being forcibly twisted, penetrated the plane barrier and flooded into the Elf Goddess's nostrils.

The last traces of laziness on Avila's face froze instantly.

That holy face, praised by countless elves as the "Eternal Spring," was covered with a layer of frost cold enough to freeze ten thousand miles.

Even if this scent were burned to ashes or ground into dust, She would still recognize it.

[Sabrina!!!]

The mother of flesh and blood, who takes pleasure in desecrating the origin of life, a complete and utter lunatic.

A twisted abomination.

"Hum~"

Violent divine power burst uncontrollably from Avila's body, and the surrounding emerald halo rapidly flared bright.

It transformed into blades of light, carving black cracks into space.

The misty holy spring below was churned up by the divine power, water droplets suspended in mid-air, each one reflecting the fury about to erupt from the Goddess's eyes.

It has been ten thousand years.

The weakness of being wantonly toyed with and the humiliation that seeped into her bones had never truly subsided.

It was merely covered by the dust of time, buried deep at the lowest level of her divine spark.

At this moment, Sabrina's unique filthy aura was the hand that tore open the sealed memories.

Countless unbearable images burst forth in Avila's mind, slicing through Her sanity like fragments.

Scarlet, blood-like hair, carrying a nauseatingly sweet and fishy scent, swept slimily across the most sensitive skin of her neck like a viper's tongue...

This touch was cold and sticky.

"Little Avila, you smell so good!" The tone was light, like a lover's whisper, but it was tempered with the most vicious chill.

Her fingertips, accompanied by inhuman sharpness, arrogantly pinched the Elf Goddess's holy chin, forcing the deity to look up.

Avila stiffened, a sense of humiliation crawling up her spine.

In the memory, Sabrina's eerie face magnified infinitely, her scarlet pupils burning with greedy flames, devoid of any reverence, leaving only naked desecration.

"Borrow some divine power to play with?" Sabrina curled her lips, so malicious it made the deity shudder.

She leaned closer, her breath spraying onto Avila's face. "Your origin... is so pure that it makes even gods jealous!"

The next second, a sharp pain tore through the memory.

Fangs pierced her neck, the symbol of the Elf Race's origin of life.

The intense pain echoed, and the weakness of having her divine power frantically drained was as clear as if it had just happened.

Her divine blood was sucked like nectar, the other party even enjoying it with mockery.

"Sa! bri! na!" The name was squeezed out from between her teeth, reverberating back and forth in the Elf Forest.

The holy spring water droplets suspended below shattered in response.

In Avila's emerald pupils, the radiance of life was completely extinguished, leaving only golden rays of fury that could burn the eight wastelands.

Mi'er's canopy shook up and down, emerald leaves rustling, the space of the Divine Kingdom groaning in the fury. "Your Excellency, the foundation of the Elf Divine Kingdom..."

"Foundation?" Avila turned her head sharply, scanning the fragments of information about the Blood Elves transmitted by Mi'er.

The fragments flashed with the Blood Elves' corpse-pale skin and brutal methods; flashed with them tearing at their own kind, flesh and blood flying; flashed with their rejection of the elf mother tree's power, and that pitifully short lifespan...

Every scene was Sabrina's mockery of Her, of the entire Elf Race.

It was ironclad proof of the mother of flesh and blood twisting the laws of life.

"She is... playing flesh and blood tricks on my dormant kin." Avila's tone rose sharply.

"Sabrina has turned my people into monsters that only know how to devour flesh and blood."

Deep within her divine spark, that memory suppressed for ten thousand years erupted into flames that could burn the heavens.

Humiliation, anger, heartache... all emotions melted into one furnace, turning into pure impulse.

Mi'er felt the Goddess's near-uncontrollable fury, her tree heart trembling: "Your Excellency, calm down. If you descend to the lower realm directly, the God War will begin, affecting the entire..."

"Affecting?"

Avila interrupted Mi'er.

She slowly raised her hand, facing the stable space of the Divine Kingdom before her, spread her five fingers, and then tore them to the sides.

"Rip~"

Under the Elf Goddess's furious strike, the spatial barrier was as fragile as a piece of poor-quality parchment, splitting open with a sound.

"I will make her pay!!!"

Her divine power instantly locked onto Wormrock City in the lower realm.

Since Sabrina broke the oath and made a move first, do not blame Her for not hesitating to violate the divine contract.

Just as Avila was about to break through space and descend upon Wormrock City, her divine sense suddenly stalled.

Near this city, there was not a single trace of living breath left.