Chapter 341: Elven Chainsaw Massacre
Yes, the male elves were actually being fed into the machine while screaming and shouting and begging, only to be turned into piles of minced meat and organs that were then spat out into the hole.
The pit was already half-filled with a revolting cesspool of elf remains—a gruesome slurry of flesh, blood, and shattered bones.
And at the helm of this operation was Luca.
His expression was entirely neutral, as if he were simply disposing of refuse rather than ending lives.
A long stick in his hands served to push each bound elf deeper into the machine’s intake, ensuring nothing remained.
Some entered headfirst, their skulls obliterated in an instant—a mercy, if such a thing could be called mercy.
Others went in feet first, their deaths drawn out as the machine slowly devoured them from the legs upward, inch by agonizing inch.
A few managed to work their gags loose in their final moments, their desperate pleas carrying across the valley.
"Please! Please, I beg you! Let us go! We’ll flee this world, we’ll never show our faces again—"
Luca’s only response was to push the stick deeper, sending them tumbling into oblivion.
—
Seeing this rather grim sight, the two elders didn’t know what to say at first.
When they had asked Luca about it earlier, he had explained quite matter-of-factly that he was fixing another problem.
Ever since mana had vanished from the world, the Holy Tree had also been diminishing.
The beautiful silver leaves were losing their luster and falling prematurely.
But apparently, the solution was quite simple—they just needed some highly nutritious fertilizer to restore the tree’s vitality.
Since mana was no longer available, Luca had decided that the remains of the male elves were the perfect solution.
Instead of simply killing them and discarding their bodies as waste, he said it would be far more useful for them to serve as manure and fertilizer for the sacred tree.
It was a twisted logic, perhaps, but there was a certain...poetry to it.
These male elves had spent their lives oppressing their female counterparts, treating them as lesser beings, stealing their rights and their dignity.
Now their bodies would nourish the very symbol of their village’s faith.
In death, they would do what they could never bring themselves to do in life—they would give.
Neither elder spoke against what was happening.
After all, both of them especially Lillian had lived through the worst of the male elves rule.
She remembered what it was like to be a young woman in a world where her voice was secondary and her very existence was seen as an inconvenience.
She had been beaten, humiliated, and silenced more times than she could count.
The male elves, all of them, from the oldest elders to the youngest had been complicit in a system of oppression that had lasted for generations.
And they had never changed.
No matter how many years passed, no matter how many times the female elves tried to reason with them, the male elves remained steadfast in their beliefs.
The arrogance of their sex was deep in their bones, woven into the very fabric of their being.
They would never see women as equals. They would never admit to their wrongs.
And so, they had to go.
It was a harsh truth, but it was the truth nonetheless.
’At least there are no children.’ She thought, a small mercy that she clung to like a lifeline.
For reasons no one could explain, no male children had been born in the village for the past thirty years.
The male elves had blamed the female elves, as they always did. But the women themselves had been just as baffled.
It had seemed like a curse at the time, a cruel trick of fate that left the village with fewer and fewer males.
Now Lillian saw it for what it truly was.
A blessing in disguise.
She shuddered to think what it would be like to watch children being fed into that machine.
"Perhaps in their next life..."
Shia murmured, her voice barely audible over the machine’s roar.
"...they will be better."
"Perhaps they will be reborn as something gentle—a flower in the meadow, or a tree in the forest."
"Something that knows only to grow and give and be beautiful."
Lillian nodded slowly. "May their next existence be kinder than this one. And may they carry none of the sins of this life into the next."
It was a fragile, desperate hope that they could cling to as they watched their kin being reduced to raw material.
—
Lillian was about to turn away, when something caught her eye.
A movement in the pit, among the grisly remains.
"Shia." She said, her voice suddenly sharp. "What is that? What’s moving down there?"
She pointed a trembling finger at the pit.
At first, Shia saw nothing—just a pile of flesh and bone.
But then she spotted it too: a figure in the center of the carnage, completely drenched in blood and remains.
Long hair clung to a face that was barely visible beneath the gore, but what was unmistakable was the manic grin splitting her features.
And in her hands—a chainsaw!
The figure swung the weapon with wild abandon, chopping at the remains in the pit with obvious glee.
She danced through the massacre like a demon at a feast, her laughter carrying faintly up the hill.
Lillian felt a chill run down her spine. "Who...Who is that?"
Shia, however, only sighed with the resigned air of someone who had long since stopped being surprised by anything.
"Who else do you think it is?" She said with a wry smile. "It’s Nyx."
"Nyx?"
Lilian peered closer, narrowing her eyes until she discerned the familiar mischievous glint in those blood-smeared eyes.
"By the forest spirits...why is she...has she gone completely mad!?"
"Mad?" Shia chuckled softly. "Nyx has always danced on the edge of sanity. As for why she’s wielding that machine like a toy..."
She paused, considering.
"Two days ago, after dance practice, Luca showed everyone what he calls a ’movie’—moving pictures so rapid they create the illusion of life."
"I also saw a movie!" Lillian interjected, her horror momentarily forgotten. "It was about some sort of King—the King of Rings or something."
"It was about a fantasy world, and there were elves in it, and—"
"Yes, yes, I’ve heard about that one." Shia interrupted impatiently. "But the movie he put on two days ago wasn’t that. It was much more grotesque."
"About a crazy killer who used a chainsaw, that same machine Nyx is using now to go on a massacre."
"Apparently Nyx got very inspired by it. She wanted to recreate a scene from the end, where the man is waving the chainsaw around in triumph."
Lillian stared at her friend. "I...see."
"Do you, though?" Shia asked dryly.
—
Below, Nyx was shouting something at Luca, gesturing wildly with her chainsaw.
From the distance, Lillian couldn’t make out the words, but the meaning was clear: Give me more!
And Luca, with his trademark grin, was obliging—pushing another elf toward the pit.
—
Despite the horror and the tragedy of it all, Lillian found herself letting out a small chuckle.
"I wonder what Elna would think." She mused. "If she could see her daughter now. Covered in blood, laughing like a demon, treating a massacre like a game."
Shia chuckled as well. "I don’t think she’d be terribly surprised, honestly. A mother knows her child best, and Nyx has always been...unique. This is simply an extension of who she has always been."
Lillian nodded slowly, but then her expression softened into something more wistful.
She turned away from the grisly scene, facing the other side of the hill.
"Speaking of mothers." She said gently. "I wonder what Elna would think of the sight before us.
Shia followed her gaze, and her smile mirrored Lillian’s.
—
Behind them, the valley opened into a completely different scene.
There was the village, still standing proud despite everything it had endured.
But it was no longer the place of silent oppression Lillian remembered.
Now it was alive with laughter and joy.
She could see Luca—many versions of him, scattered across the landscape mingling with the elves.
Some were on walks, their arms linked around their partners.
Others were having picnics on the grass, their laughter carrying on the wind.
Children played among the trees, their happy shrieks echoing through the forest.
Even the treehouses, once places of isolated contemplation, now rang with the sounds of conversation and music.
’It was...’ Lillian realized. ’...everything Elna had ever dreamed of.’
Her eyes began to water. Tears spilled down her cheeks, cutting tracks through the fine wrinkles beneath her eyes.
"Elna would be so happy." She whispered, her voice trembling. "She always dreamed that everyone could be themselves without any care in the world—that we wouldn’t be oppressed by the male elves anymore."
"She always said that her daughter would one day make it, and she trusted in Leona so much."
"But who would have thought it would come true? And with the help of the Hero, we’d actually see this someday?"
"But...she isn’t here to see it." Lilian sobbed, the weight of centuries pressing down. "After all her suffering, all her hope..."
Shia immediately pulled her into an embrace.
"She is here, Lillian." Shia said gently, gesturing to the forest. "She is here in every leaf that rustles."
"In every child’s laughter."
"In the silver of the Holy Tree’s leaves."
"Her spirit never left us."
Lillian cried even harder at those words.
For years, she had carried the weight of hopelessness. The belief that things would never change, that the suffering of their people would continue indefinitely.
She had aged not just in years, but in spirit, worn down by the endless struggle.
But now? Now she felt like a young girl again, filled with wonder at the world around her.
