343 Forgetting, Stagnation, Revenge
However, no matter what, this was something to consider in the future. If he couldn’t resolve the current crisis, there wouldn’t be much of a ‘later’ to speak of.
To be disposed to contemplating misery was always a luxury of the victor. The only thing he should consider now was how to win.
“So, are you ready?” William turned his head and asked Floral.
“Ready for what?” Floral, who still looked a little down and out, asked in confusion.
“Ready to tell the people the truth,” William replied.
All the Forest Elves in this timeline were undead. They were driven by the remnants of their memories when they were alive and constantly repeated their past actions. In fact, Zamara’s huge dream was only to make those repetitive actions correspond to history in the normal timeline as much as possible.
This matter was much simpler than imagined. After all, for a race like the Forest Elves that lacked information and had a traditional style of doing things, most people’s daily lives were just repetitive.
It couldn’t be said that there hadn’t been anyone who was willing to walk east of Golden Green Avenue and see World’s End and realize that they were living in an illusion in the past 5,000 years. However, it was obvious that those numbers had never been large enough to shake up such a huge country.
“Show the citizens the evidence and tell them all that they’re long dead. Then, tell them that Ravenwood, where they live, is only a boxed country, and all of them are just tin soldiers placed in a sandbox by a Void Sovereign.”
William looked Floral in the eye and said, “It’s possible to send a message to all the Forest Elves through the spell arrays in your White Bone Castle, right?”
Floral subconsciously nodded before asking in confusion, “Yes, but why…”
She didn’t quite understand the meaning of this. Regardless of whether the citizens knew the truth or not, they couldn’t affect the outcome of the subsequent decisive battle.
If this timeline was destined to be pruned into a fantasy that never existed, it was useless to tell the citizens the truth. It was better to let them calmly step towards destruction while still in an illusion.
“Telling the public the truth can effectively destroy the similarity between the two timelines. Although it won’t be very effective with the inertia amassed from more than 5,000 years of history, this can still increase the difficulty of the Lady of Starvation replacing history to a certain extent,” William replied.
In fact, it would be better to burn the entire Ravenwood, but he suddenly didn’t want to do so.
“Of course, more importantly, they should know the truth. They should know that they’re destined to perish, that they’re just a dream of the dead, and they should know that after they perish, no one will remember them other than us. There won’t be any traces of their existence because from the perspective of Currere, they never even existed.”
As long as this timeline was still floating in the nothingness of World’s End and hadn’t truly integrated into Currere’s history, this was only an illusion that carried the memories of the Lady of Starvation before She was born.
“So why?”
Floral asked after hearing William’s words.
She couldn’t imagine what chaos it would cause if she told the Ravenwood citizens the truth. How many people would convert to believing in the awakening Earth Mother or even the Moon Realm deity in order to perpetuate their existence?
Even if the Presiding Judge had the strength to quell everyone here, there was no need for him to take the initiative to increase the difficulty, right?
Even though he had gone overboard, William continued as if it wasn’t enough, “After telling them the truth, we have to continue telling them that this destruction isn’t just a natural disaster. It’s the Forest Elves’ fault. It was their ancestors’ massacre of the Ravenwood natives that awakened the forgotten Dark Mother, causing the birth of the Lady of Starvation.
“Therefore, they have no right to lament or be angry. This is because those who have the right to lament and be angry have long lost their voices. The destruction of this timeline and their destruction can only be considered atonement for the former Ravenwood natives.”
Ebony couldn’t take it anymore. He walked in front of William and knelt on one knee like an empire citizen. He said in a deep voice, “Please pardon my rudeness, Presiding Judge, but other than creating chaos and causing more trouble for you, this doesn’t seem meaningful in any way? Moreover, the sin of massacring the natives was committed by the Forest Elf ancestors. What did the Forest Elf descendants do wrong…”
An invisible force lifted Ebony up. William stared into the Forest Elf’s emerald eyes and said, “Do you really not know what the Forest Elves did wrong?”
William’s gaze was calm, but Ebony broke out in a cold sweat.
He lowered his head like a child being reprimanded by a parent. After thinking for a moment, he replied softly, “W… We were at fault for forgetting?”
William nodded before shaking his head.
“Forgetting, but even worse… Stagnation.”
Perhaps there was a law of the jungle among different civilizations, or perhaps there were countless races and countries, just like the Ravenwood natives who had completely disappeared into the long river of history because of the invasion of foreign races.
However, the civilizations that wrote their history as victors couldn’t casually forget the blood debt that stained their hands as if nothing had happened. Be it out of repentance, sympathy, regret, helplessness, or even a boastful attitude, they shouldn’t forget the fact that they had once destroyed another civilization.
Forgetting was the greatest sacrilege.
The greater sin above this was that after destroying another civilization and plundering the living space of a race, they lost all motivation to advance. They stopped advancing and parasitized the corpses of the losers, living day after day and year after year by devouring the remains of the losers.
Until the entire race was on the verge of decay.
The Forest Elves’ 5,000-year stagnation was not only their greatest contempt for themselves, but also for the Ravenwood natives they had exterminated.
The living should carry the value of the dead on their shoulders, be it the people who sacrificed themselves or the people they killed.
It was the same for civilization.
It was no wonder that the Lady of Starvation, Camilla, would use Ravenwood as her source of growth.
It wasn’t just because this was Her origin. More importantly, the most lively place on the Vic Continent was also the most rotten and disgusting country in the entire Vic Continent in a civilized sense.
Even the Blackwater Swamp, a country filled with ancestral worship and the emergence of necromancers, seemed better.
“Tell them everything. Then, tell them that although extinction is inevitable and they brought it on themselves, they still have one last chance to atone for their sins. They can still attempt at making changes, giving their extinction the last bit of value, allowing the Forest Elves to be reborn from the ashes.”
William paused for a moment before continuing with bright eyes, “Moreover, I swear in my name that I will avenge all of them. I will completely kill the direct perpetrator who caused their destruction—even if She’s an undying Moon Realm god.”
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