Lord of the Truth

Robin raised his eyebrows slightly, "I understand that ruthless old things like yourselves would want to exterminate the Treant race to lessen the competition for eternal life, as you didn't want any more of them Returning to Earth and finding the spirit of the planet, but why would you want to exterminate humans, other intelligent creatures, and even the beasts?"

"Don't give me that look. We didn't agree on anything at the time. Rather, every Ancient Treant did what he thought was good for him, Some of them were afraid of the idea that humans and other intelligent beings would find a way to communicate with the spirit of the world as well, and you know how the humans behave when the find something like that, the way of reaching the spirit of the planet would soon spread and instead of having 50 competitors in refinement then the number would be in the thousands. Those Ancient Treants who thought this way began to kill everything they could see in order to prevent any future competition. This does not mean that we all thought the same way."

Robin shrugged his shoulders, "But all of you are thinking that way now. There is not a single Ancient Treant currently whose hands have not been soaked in the blood of billions of living beings, including you."

"...Not entirely true, I mean we do try to kill everything we can reach, but not for the same reason as back then. Currently, the war on the planet's creatures for us is not due to fear of the emergence of a new competition, If humans could access the spirit of the planet, they would have done so by now. Our war on them now is simply happening because of the war is between the seven of us."

"...You are killing them because of the war that is happening between the seven of you? Didn't you make a pact to stop your war until you kill all the humans and beasts first? Please elaborate."

"It's actually very easy to explain, we require an enormous amount of energy to enlarge and move our armies, and when a few members of the Ancient Treants began killing large numbers of human energy cultivators and strong beasts back then, we found that the energy in the atmosphere had become more abundant and that was especially true around the Tree Fathers who started those massacres, so the rest of us decided to follow the same approach and create a circle around our bodies -Now known as the domination circle- where all the energy within that circle belongs to us only, and that is why we had to kill any creature that drains energy for itself or has the potential to do so in the future, that's all." The Tree Father avatar spoke emotionlessly. 

After hundreds of thousands of years of killing and billions of deaths, he no longer had any kind of compassion for life. He seemed like a farmer talking about harvesting fruits or how he had exterminated harmful insects in his field.

"Oh? You said earlier that the amount of energy in the atmosphere increased whenever humans began to break through the higher levels. Does this mean that the energy level in the atmosphere increases with the increase in available cultivation levels, but decreases with the increase in the number of cultivators? Interesting...But is this sufficient reason to commit these massacres against people who have nothing to do with your war? Did you go crazy after you heard the term eternal life? You really are--" Robin almost hurled insults at Tree Father Descartes about them being heartless and things like that about killing, but he remembered that he was no better off than them and closed his mouth, "...what happened? Then?"

"The spirit of the planet was very angry at our actions. The spirit cried and said that it wanted a companion who would help it develop further, not a group of criminals who would throw the planet back hundreds of thousands of years. It immediately halved our lifespans as punishment, and it also sent many disasters upon our real bodies, such as the thundercloud that has been striking Hoffenheim for two hundred thousand years to prevent him from growing any larger. Perhaps you have seen it? Tree Father Descartes looked down, "The pleas and attacks of the planet spirit were enough to stop some of them, but others did not see that the punishments had any weight when compared to eternal life, so they continued the war anyway, and since some of us resumed the war, it was natural for the rest to return to the fight as well, of course, we will not stay still and wait to be killed."

"It was clear that the planet's spirit was very angry... It kept halving our lifespans, but our continuous refinement of the planet's spirit made up for what we lost and some more. The planet's spirit also kept sending us natural disasters, but because of the process of refinement, our understanding of the heavenly laws increased tremendously, and those disasters became a source of great inspiration for us,

Then the Tree Father added seriously, "If we continued with the previous example: The thunder cloud that kept striking Hoffenheim when he was still alive also taught Hoffenheim the Major Heavenly Law of Lightning, and the refinement of the spirit of the planet made him more integrated with the Major Heavenly Law of Lightning to the point that he modified the law and put in it a feature that lightning strikes every flying thing within his domination circle when he activates the feature... The lightning attack that took down most of your men the day you arrived in our world was an attack from the Major Heavenly Law of Lightning itself fueled by the energy of the planet. The rest of the Ancient Treant also gained similar abilities to the disasters that were striking them, one of them modifying the Major Heavenly Law of Wind, another on The Major Heavenly Law of Earth, and so on. And at some point, we were able to agree to amend the Heavenly Laws in order to prevent any more plants from becoming Treant creatures."

"Altering the heavenly laws within the planet? Something like this is possible?!" For the second time, Robin's features turned surprised and he took two steps toward Descartes

"Have you not experienced this yourself? The lightning bolts that descended on your followers ignored all defenses and directly hit them because they are devoid of techniques, refined energy, etc. Rather, they are pure heavenly law supported by pure natural energy. There is no defense against this." Descartes' avatar shook his head slightly, "Any modification made to the laws greatly consumes our refinement of the planet's soul, so the modification is often so simple that it is not mentioned. Also, every time the property implanted in the laws is activated, we consume the planet's refinement percentage as well, but it is still a deterrent weapon with which we can protect our own domination circles from external armies, all we have to do is to a find a way to keep expanding it. Of course, over the years we have gained more capabilities by delving deeper into refining the spirit of the planet and discovering things such as the creation of warlords and many other secrets, as if we have become able to monitor everything that happens inside Our domination circle all the time or ways to strengthen our souls, etc... The planet's spirit simply replied *Eternal life* to the question at that time because it simply could not count the benefits it would give to its owner, so it said the first thing that came to its mind!"

After those words, Descartes' embodiment fell silent again to give Robin a chance to digest the information. Robin himself remained with his eyebrows furrowed for a few minutes before he returned to sitting quietly, "...No wonder you didn't want to speak... The secrets of the war that lasted two hundred thousand years have all been revealed once you opened your mouth, eternal life... eternal life..."

"Heh~" The Tree Father avatar sighed and shook his head. It was enough for him to compete with the Six Tree Fathers and the human tribes that refused to die, but now that the Invader Emperor knew the secret, his chance of controlling the spirit of the planet became officially zero.

He could console himself that he was now on the winning side and that at least he would be able to move, but this was still a fish-in-water promise, as for the spirit of the planet it was something tangible and real he had experienced himself, abandoning it like this for him is really...

The Tree Father avatar raised his head slightly and looked at Robin with a complicated look as he thought, 'Let's hope your real army is bigger than the one you've shown so far, otherwise, we'll both be doomed.'