Reactions from All Sides: Primordial World Arc

The World Tree game had only been open for internal testing for a day, yet clever people had already discovered what made it special. This game would likely become a second virtual world beyond reality itself. But who would have known that everything it told was real? Perhaps only when the heavens changed and the answer was finally revealed would everyone learn the truth.

Grotto-Heaven World, at the Traveler Camp beside the World Tree Lake in the center.

Dun Qu Qi Yi—Jue—awoke the next day and noticed that nearly half the Travelers in the camp were gone. At first, she did not understand, until her elder sister Cheng Jue explained, "The Travelers returned to their own world. They have lives of their own."

"Will they come back?" Dun Qu Qi Yi had asked then.

"They will," Cheng Jue answered with certainty.

Jue watched Cheng Jue weaving a handheld lantern from branches nearby and asked curiously, "Elder Sister, is the Soul-Attracting Lantern full again?"

"Yes. Another Elf has died in battle. The rules of this world are incomplete, so lifeforms have no natural end to their lives—only casualties from fighting others." Cheng Jue looked at the lantern she had just woven from World Tree branches. Inside it was a gray space where time had stopped.

Whenever a lifeform died, the lantern would automatically draw its soul inside.

Jue watched her sister Cheng Jue vanish before her eyes. She had probably gone to refine the Soul-Attracting Lantern again.

Jue stared blankly at the Traveler Camp outside. Her elder sister had said that the birth of every soul was a miracle of life. She wondered when those Elf brothers and sisters would awaken again. It seemed they had to wait until the reincarnation her sister spoke of was born.

Jue had also asked