Game of the World Tree

Evé inwardly expressed surprise as she suddenly felt something changed deep inside Meryer’s body.

“Meryer’s consciousness had somehow awakened…”

Evé muttered as she sensed some mental fluctuations coming from deeper within the black dragon’s mindscape.

Generally speaking, when a god performs a divine descent by using the body of a believer as a medium, the active consciousness of the host would typically fall into a deep slumber, thereby relinquishing control of their body.

This is usually done as a preventive measure since the psyche of the host is far more relatively weaker compared to a True God.

Hence, in the off chance that the consciousness of the host doesn’t fall into sleep as it usually does, there’s a huge chance the medium’s psyche might be assimilated and merged with the far stronger psyche of the deity, which will eventually becomes a complete incarnation of the deity they relinquished their body to.

Even a dragon, despite its relatively stronger psyche, is still susceptible to be assimilated, since no matter how powerful a dragon’s mind is, it’s psyche remains a mere drop in the bucket compared to the sea of consciousness of a divine being.

So, if the host doesn’t fall into self-induced slumber, their bucket-worth of psyche would inevitably merge into the divine being’s sea of consciousness and will disappear entirely.

Therefore, when Evé borrowed the Little Black Dragon’s body and used it as a medium to perform a divine descent, she had already relegated Meryer’s consciousness to the deepest recesses of his mindscape, far away from her, so that he wouldn’t be affected by her intrusion.

However, when Nidhogg forcefully invaded Meryer’s body and entered the Black Dragon’s mindscape, Meryer’s slumbering psyche unexpectedly awakened all of a sudden.

Nonetheless, Nidhogg’s mental invasion fell somewhere within Eve’s expectations.

With her being able to sealed off most of the Ancient Dragon’s power with the withering heart and Nidhogg having no physical body for himself, it was easy to deduce that the only option he would be left with was some kind of mental attack to forcefully seize control of Meryer’s body.

Having deduced this, Eve came fully prepared into this battle with plenty of methods to counter any kind of mental attacks.

Moreover, she had also long hidden Meryer’s psyche in the deepest corners of his mindscape, protecting it tightly.

But the moment Nidhogg entered Meryer’s body, the latter’s consciousness, which was slumbering in the deepest part of his mindscape, suddenly awakened as if it had been stirred by some unseen force.

This sudden turn of events startled Evé.

Her divine psyche was, after all, still within the confines of Meryer’s mindscape, exerting her influence upon it.

Should the Black Dragon’s consciousness awaken at this particular moment, there was a high possibility of it being inadvertently assimilated into her own, thus losing his sense of self completely.

Furthermore, even if his psyche somehow evaded assimilation, it is still very likely that Nidhogg, who had now invaded the Black Dragon’s mind, would discover the fluctuations happening inside Meryer’s mindscape, hone in on the source of this fluctuations and find the corner where she hid Meryer’s psyche before devouring it.

With these implications, Evé felt a slight sinking feeling within her heart.

At the same time, she also felt a trace of puzzlement on how this sudden turn of events had transpired in the first place…

How did Nidhogg do it?

He actually managed to awaken the slumbering psyche of the Little Black Dragon, which I had been protecting so carefully all this time!

Thinking of this, Evé felt really confused since she herself, after all, was a Deity who governs over the Divinity of Life.

And having the Divinity of Life actually entails her with unparalleled understanding regarding the fundamental laws and aspects of life itself.

Under her influence, even if the other party were the Black Dragon’s ancient progenitor or might even be Meryer’s very own father or grandfather, they would still not be able to easily awaken Meryer’s consciousness just like that when she’s clearly still in control.

Moreover, with him forcefully awakening Meryer’s psyche, wasn’t Nidhogg worried that he would be assimilated by her?

Once the black dragon’s psyche was assimilated by Eve, Meryer’s body would truly become an incarnation of her, thus rendering Nidhogg’s schemes futile in the end.

In this situation, his best course of action would be to break through the layers of obstacles Evé had initially placed within Meryer’s mindscape in order to devour the black dragon’s psyche.

Of course, from Eve’s perspective, achieving this feat would be equally just as difficult for Nidhogg.

After all, Evé in her current state was someone not to be trifled with and unlike in the beginning wherein she’s almost in a constant state of pseudo-death, her strength now is quite formidable.

Facing someone like her whilst their powers had also been sealed, Evé couldn’t fathom how the other party would be able to break through her blockade.

Yet, the subsequent turn of events greatly exceeded her expectations.

At the very moment wherein Meryer’s consciousness had been awakened, Evé immediately noticed right away that there seemed to be somekind of inexplicable connection between the two.

In fact, both of them actually started rapidly converging with each other, as if there were a strong tendency hidden somewhere within them to merge into one existence…

This revelation weighed heavily upon Eve.

Was Nidhogg planning to devour Meryer’s psyche in this manner all along?

No… This wasn’t just a simple devouring but rather, this method is closer to actually merging Meryer’s consciousness with his own.

By the end of this, Evé was uncertain whether the dominant psyche would either be Meryer or Nidhogg!

What made her even more puzzled and uncertain was that she discovered that Meryer showed no resistance to this, as if it was the natural order of things and were preordained all along…

Of course, although Meryer’s consciousness has been awakened, it is still in a very instinctive state and he is probably still confused.

And this instinctive nature of Meryer to merge with Nidhogg was what surprised Evé the most.

The instinctual convergence they both have gives the feeling akin to rivers flowing into the sea, or like fallen leaves returning to their roots…

Suddenly, Evé realized that she seemed to have misjudged something.

Regardless… I shouldn’t let this convergence ever succeed!

With this thought, Evé no longer hesitated and directly sank deeper into Meryer’s mindscape, entering the place where she hid his psyche.

Immediately upon entering this space, the scenery around her silently changed.

Evé found herself deeper inside Meryer’s subconscious mind.

Typically, on most cases, one’s mindscape reflects and is shaped by the host’s emotions and experiences in their life.

Sometimes, they manifest into what the host desires the most, or perhaps, on the opposite spectrum, they can also manifest what the host is most afraid of, and it varies vastly from person to person…

Evé remembered that after performing divine descent and entering his mindscape, the scenery that greeted her was a magnificent castle, filled with treasures and roast meats, while the personification of Meryer’s psyche lay sound asleep on a giant bed made of gold coins…

Obviously, this scenery was the manifestation of Meryer’s desires and the aspects that mattered most in his life.

However, unlike the outer region of Meryer’s mindscape, his more deeper subconscious mind showed a vastly different scenery.

Unlike before, it was no longer the magnificent castle, but a rather desolate forest instead.

In the distance, Evé showed surprise as her gaze fell upon a towering world tree, seemingly the centerpiece of this entire subconscious space.

After observing it for a while, Evé found that this particular world tree was much thicker and taller than Eve’s original body and looked exactly like the former world tree recorded within her inheritance during its peak.

Also, one noteworthy difference is that there was a large pit dug at the roots of this world tree, and its thick and robust roots were also pulled out haphazardly, as if it had just experienced a fearsome battle.

Furthermore, a huge cocoon was hanging down from the crown of the world tree, for which a figure was curled up inside.

—It was Meryer.

What’s going on?

Why is there a world tree here?

And how did Meryer grow out from the world tree?

As Eve laid eyes upon the subconscious landscape around her, a sense of bewilderment enveloped her.

Meanwhile, inside the cocoon, Meryer began to grow rapidly.

Bit by bit, his body expanded as the scales on his body darkened and thickened until he transformed from a young dragon into a fully-grown one.

Seeing the appearance of that particular adult black dragon, Eve’s pupils slightly contracted.

She instantly recognized him.

That appearance…

It was exactly the same as Nidhogg!

It’s just that his body shimmered with natural light, whilst his breath was pure and calm, which was far from the malevolent dragon within Eve’s memory.

And right at this moment, while accompanied by a crazy roar, another giant black dragon rushed out from the other side.

It was Nidhogg…the real one!

His aura was evil and chaotic, and his emotions carried a hint of obvious excitement and madness, allowing the power constantly dissipating from Eve’s to corrode him, yet he still directly rushed towards the giant cocoon hanging on the world tree.

“Hahaha! Yggdrasill! You can’t stop me! From the looks of things, it seems victory now belongs to me!”

“I thank you for returning my body!”

— 323 —

【 I THANK YOU FOR RETURNING MY BODY 】

— —