Chapter 239: The Sound of Life

A few days later.

In a vast, untouched jungle more than two hundred kilometers from the City of Saint Sanos.

“Wah! Help, help, save me! It seems I’ve stepped into the swamp again! I’m sinking, I’m sinking!!!”

“Haah…”

With a sigh, Miss White Fox waved her sleeve lightly, and an unseen force lifted the flustered blue-haired girl, who had just stepped into the mud up to her calf, transporting her back to solid ground.

“Sister Tilysha, are you okay?”

Eudora, the one closest to her, hurried over to comfort her, while Miss Tilysha, who had collapsed on the ground in a sitting position like a duck, after taking a few gasps, patted her somewhat rounded chest and waved her hand.

“No, no, I’m fine… just a little startled…”

On the other side, Little Dragon Daughter, who had also paused due to the commotion, frowned and said, “I mean, seriously, you need to limit your stupidity, don’t you? This is the ninth time you’ve stepped into something like this.”

Lady Xiao Guang squinted her sharp golden vertical eyes at Miss White Fox, then looked up and down once more at the disheveled blue-haired girl.

“…Could it be that you’re doing this on purpose?”

“Ah?”

Miss Tilysha paused for a second, finally realizing what the blonde girl meant. Her face turned slightly red, and she quickly shook her head in denial.

“Don’t, don’t say that! How could I intentionally cause trouble for Miss Xī? It’s just… just…”

Seeing Tilysha struggling to explain, seemingly unsure of how to start, Miss Vilyric, who had just rescued her, turned around out of curiosity.

Speaking of which… it is indeed strange. Although the eastern hills and rainforests of the Sanos Province are filled with swamps and poisonous insects, Tilysha, coming from a humble background, would not usually be so careless. How could she keep stepping into the mud around here?

Aside from the possibility of doing it on purpose, the only other explanation would be that she wasn’t paying close attention to her surroundings or was simply “spacing out.”

With that thought, Miss Vilyric pondered.

“Tilysha, has the omen of danger appeared again?”

Tilysha, who possessed an exceptional talent for environmental resonance, being of treant bloodline, could somewhat hear the “waves” in the air, sensing the echoes of terrifying events that had occurred beneath her feet, allowing her to respond to crises in advance.

Thanks to such abilities, Xi Fu Lin chose her to become a messenger and agent for planting the Divine Tree across the world.

But based on Vilyric’s previous experiences with her, these situations generally only posed relative danger to Tilysha herself, meaning they were unlikely to threaten the more powerful Priestess, so…

“No, it’s not that kind of feeling…”

The blue-haired girl denied without hesitation, making Miss White Fox raise an eyebrow slightly beneath her mask.

But then, as if having some reservations, she stepped forward and whispered in a voice only the two could hear.

“Miss Xī, do you remember what I mentioned a while back about Her Highness Xi Fu Lin?”

“Xi Fu Lin?”

At the shift in thought, Vilyric finally understood what Tilysha meant.

It must be about the Life Goddess’ power suddenly increasing for some reason, which led to Tilysha, maintaining a close connection with her, also being infused with a lot of divine power, creating instability in her own situation.

However, recently, Tilysha hadn’t used that peculiar object she got from Iriush to alleviate her overflowing divine power, so it seemed Xi Fu Lin had adapted over there.

Why bring this up suddenly?

The blue-haired girl furtively glanced at the four members of the “Grim Reaper’s Scythe” standing a short distance away. Having accompanied the Priestess for so long, she understood well what could and couldn’t be said, so she lowered her voice again as if sharing a secret.

“In fact, the excess divine power that Her Highness Xi Fu Lin sent to me hasn’t been withdrawn; she just adjusted and controlled it a bit, compressing it in my body like a ball, saying it should help enhance my strength and improve my constitution.”

“Although up till now, I’ve only absorbed a very tiny bit, I can still feel something’s different. My resonance ability has become stronger, and I began to hear some ‘sounds of life.’”

“Sounds of… life?”

Miss White Fox tilted her head in surprise.

“What is that?”

“Well…”

At this point, Tilysha stopped concealing her voice and walked directly to the edge of the swamp she had accidentally stepped into, tapping on the trunk of an old tree that was thick enough for two adults to hug.

“In fact, it just spoke a moment ago.”

This action naturally drew the attention of the others, who were already curious about what the two were whispering about.

“Miss Tilysha, may I ask what you mean? Does this tree have something unusual about it?”

Faced with the gray-clothed swordsman, who was curiously examining the ancient tree as he approached, the blue-haired girl shook her head with a smile.

“No, it’s just an ordinary silver birch tree, quite common in this area, just that it’s a bit older. It must be over a hundred years old.”

The blue-haired girl gently stroked the dry, rough bark of the old tree, and the tenderness on her face, as if treating a child, made Miss Vilyric momentarily think of a certain Life Goddess thousands of miles away.

“Everything with spirit can communicate; anything that has life can express itself in its way. Although trees do not possess the organs to interact with the outside world, they still convey emotions in their own manner.”

“Due to limitations in their forms, most trees only have the most basic and infantile instincts, but as they grow older, those dim instincts gradually become clearer.”

“Like this one, through the life resonance, I can vaguely hear the blurred intentions this child… this tree wants to express.”

Hmm, that line was definitely not something Tilysha came up with on her own.

Miss Vilyric immediately saw through the truth.

Connecting it to some awkward transitions earlier, it was likely something that Life Goddess taught her directly, reused verbatim to explain the current situation.

Though she saw through it at a glance, Miss White Fox chose not to expose it, but rather continued to expand on Tilysha’s topic.

“So, what exactly did you hear that made you so lost in thought?”

“Eh heh heh…”

Seems like she finally remembered her earlier embarrassment, the blue-haired girl’s serious face turned pink with a hint of awkwardness but quickly reverted to seriousness.

“Actually, it’s not just this tree; as we’ve traveled through this primeval forest, many places have similar sounds.”

“They say, ‘Strange outsiders have brought terrible things; something is changing beneath the ground.’”

Tilysha steadied herself.

Suddenly, an unusual wind swept through the forest, carrying a faint metallic rust smell and ruffling the strands of the girl’s blue hair.

“It… is asking us to save this place.”

   

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