Chapter 1190: The Clue from Beltira

Bard rarely saw hesitation flicker across Beltira’s face. Whether during the dark cult days or now, in the Empire’s era, the image he had of this former dark high priestess was always one of unyielding resolve and swift decisiveness. So when he noticed something off in her demeanor, his curiosity immediately flared.

He held onto that curiosity silently, not asking a word, but rose and followed Beltira. Together, they passed through the laboratory’s lounge and central areas, weaving through corridors lined with incubation pods, biomass containers, and vascular tissue conduits. Eventually, they came to a door Bard had never seen before—a “leaf gate”—and passed through it to reach the lab’s lower level.

This was uncharted territory for Bard. He hadn’t even known the lab had a “lower level.” Wrapped in thick branches, leaves, and layers of fibrous partitions, Beltira had carved out a secret, more private space within her “personal quarters.” This area was clearly disconnected from the sprawling transit tubes of the towering Solin tree and had no openings to the outside world. The only way in was through the upper lab—an unmistakable “no entry without invitation” zone.

Behind them, the fibrous partitions slowly closed, and glowing plant vines along the walls gradually lit up, brightening the space before Bard’s eyes. He found himself in an oval-shaped hall, windowless and doorless, with dim red, vein-like tissues embedded in the floor and wall crevices, pulsing softly like a slow breath. Several wooden, pillar-like structures grew from the floor, connecting to the domed ceiling above. Around these “pillars,” Bard spotted numerous incubation pods, their shapes not unlike the cultivation containers in the factory zone.

“So this is your… secret lab within a secret lab?” Bard asked, curiosity evident as he glanced at Beltira. Then, almost instinctively, he added, “Is this place registered with the authorities?”

“The Emperor knows about this place,” Beltira glanced at him, “and only he does. You understand, I have a degree of autonomy—some matters require reporting only to His Majesty.”

“Right, I know that. After all, you’re a ‘special citizen,’” Bard waved his hand dismissively, then his gaze fell on the dormant pods. “What are these? Pets you’re secretly raising? Or some kind of agricultural product?”

Beltira said nothing, instead moving forward slowly. The vines beneath her feet writhed and curled, almost cradling her as she approached one of the pods. She gently brushed the gelatinous outer shell of the pod, which trembled slightly before silently peeling away downward. A transparent incubation container was revealed, and Bard’s eyes widened in surprise.

Inside was no grotesque bioengineered monstrosity, nor a raw biomass sample awaiting processing. Floating quietly in the pale yellow nutrient solution was a slightly petite elf—a silver elf with long, pale golden hair, looking barely past adolescence.

She drifted in the solution, eyes closed as if asleep, her slender body wrapped tightly in a leathery gelatinous membrane. Within the protective layer, Bard could faintly make out external nutrient tubes and neural monitoring nodes. Several dark red vascular conduits extended from near her spine, connecting to pump-like organs at the container’s top. Tiny bubbles escaped from her mouth and nose, rising to the surface with the circulation of gases and liquids. All signs indicated this “cultivation subject” had completed physical growth and had autonomous heart and lung function—yet she remained asleep, as if the final step was still pending.

“This is…” Bard blinked, initially baffled. He couldn’t fathom why Beltira would have such a secret lab, let alone be cultivating an elf body here. But then a thought struck him, and his expression grew pensive, then complex. “I think I recognize her…”

“You remember? Ah, that makes sense… You met her once, when she was still alive,” Beltira said softly, her gaze fixed on the sleeping silver elf. “Belna Lightwind—a girl too innocent to realize how dangerous the world outside her home truly was…”

Bard’s expression darkened with memory. “I recall she was badly injured near the Shadow Marshes and, confused, stumbled upon the End of All Things’ base seeking help… The priests there saw her as a ready-made experiment, but she thought she’d found a healer…”

Beltira didn’t look away from Belna’s face. “That ‘experiment’ was sent to me. I asked her what she wished for—she said she didn’t want to wander anymore, just wanted to go home. I promised her that, gave her an anesthetic.”

“I was there then—you promised her, then… you ate her, using her to replenish your biomass reserves and genetic sample library,” Bard said slowly, then raised his eyes, finally understanding as he scanned the hall and the pods clustered around the pillars. His face betrayed shock and heaviness. “I think I know what you’re doing… You’re attempting something nearly impossible… You’re trying to bring back everyone you’ve consumed…”

“Not resurrection, at least not entirely, Mr. Bard,” Beltira interrupted. “Raising the dead is the realm of miracles. I lack the power to pull souls back from the realm of death. I’m only ‘restoring’—reversing what I once did. In a sense, these people never truly died. Their genetic samples are perfectly preserved in my bio-core, and their souls are ‘contained’ deep within my own. Theoretically, this process can be reversed. I couldn’t do it before, but now… my abilities are just enough.”

Bard was silent for a moment, then met Beltira’s eyes. “What is this, then? Some kind of ‘atonement’?”

Beltira smiled faintly. “The Emperor said sin is sin, and true sin cannot be redeemed. If I want to put down roots in this land, I must earn merit—scientific research is merit, infrastructure is merit, solving the food crisis on the Holy Spirit Plains is merit. These aren’t atonement, but ‘making amends through deeds.’ Everything else I do is just to give myself peace of mind… What you see here is my reckoning with myself.

“This isn’t for the Emperor, nor for those who survived the Crystal Cluster War. I never intended to show you. It’s for me. Of course, I’ve consulted ‘them’—only those willing to return to this world will have their ‘restoration’ process initiated.”

Bard’s expression softened slightly, then he asked with curiosity, “Where are you now in the process? If what you say is true, with both biological data and souls intact, this should be theoretically possible…”

“The Belna Lightwind before you is the first individual to have her restoration process activated. The earlier stages went smoothly—she’s actually ready to wake,” Beltira finally smiled. She tapped the container’s shell lightly, and several neural fibers inside lit up. Moments later, the young elf floating in the liquid slowly opened her eyes.

Bard was startled—he hadn’t expected Beltira’s secret project to have advanced to the point of awakening a subject. He locked eyes with Belna, who stared back with a vacant, confused look. After nearly half a minute of dazed gazing, the fragile elf slowly raised a hand, as if trying to greet those outside. The movement was stiff and sluggish.

Bard raised his hand in return, then looked to Beltira. “She seems… not fully conscious. Can she hear us?”

“Yes, but her cognitive function isn’t fully restored, so she can’t keep up with normal conversation,” Beltira nodded. “She’s more like half-asleep—her soul struggles to adapt to the new body, and her personality regeneration has hit a bottleneck. Also…”

Bard frowned. “Also?”

“She can’t leave the container yet. If she does, her spirit will rapidly wither, and her nervous system will quickly spiral into chaos and self-destruction. In short, the outside environment is lethal to her.”

“You said ‘the earlier stages went smoothly’—so now you’ve hit a snag?” Bard nodded in understanding, then suddenly recalled why Beltira had brought him here in the first place. “Wait, is Belna the only one like this?”

“You’re perceptive, Mr. Bard,” Beltira said with a slight nod. “Yes, only Belna is like this. The reason lies in the elves’ unique neural structure and soul ‘format.’ Their nervous systems are highly complex and sensitive, with many specialized structures for perceiving magic and mental energy. Their souls are less ‘stable’ than humans or other races, more prone to connecting with realms beyond the material world. This means that once their souls leave their bodies or try to inhabit a foreign body, severe rejection reactions occur immediately…”

She paused, then continued, “Both issues are serious and internally complex. Neither ancient druidic magic nor the flesh-and-blood biochemical techniques I use—enhanced by the End of All Things—can perfectly solve them.”

Bard finally understood what Beltira meant by “clues.” He recalled the internal documents publicly shared by the Theocracy Council, especially the parts concerning the sisters Filna and Relna. His eyes widened. “So… back then, Filna or Relna couldn’t have used druidic magic to reconstruct their sister’s body, nor could one soul control two bodies—unless they used technology unknown to mortals!”

Beltira nodded gently, speaking slowly. “Filna and Relna were rebellious figures from ancient times. According to the Theocracy Council’s intelligence, a thousand years ago, the sisters suffered a terrible accident—they were drawn into the divine realm. No one knows what they endured there, nor how one survived. All that’s known is that one sister returned alive to the mortal world. Soon after, driven by some ‘obsession,’ she used the druidic magic of the time to replicate her sister’s body and controlled both bodies with a single soul, maintaining the illusion that both sisters still lived among the world…”

“You have to admit, this is a tragic yet deeply moving story. The sacrifices made by the Renegades deserve our heartfelt respect. Yet, we never truly noticed the anomaly behind it all… It’s understandable, though. Even back in the days of Gondor, cloning humans was an extremely advanced and taboo practice. And while the Renegades often crossed forbidden lines, their core members and research were always confined to the human race—elves never cloned themselves, nor did they pursue such studies. They weren’t a rebellious species, and they certainly didn’t like others tampering with them in unorthodox ways. This led to—”

Beltira trailed off, and Bard quickly picked up the thread: “Led to the fact that no one ever realized this: elves cannot be cloned or have their souls parasitized through biochemical means—Filna’s ‘sisters’ deceived everyone.”

“Exactly.”

“So the crucial question now is—why did they do it? And how?” Bard’s mind raced, his brow furrowing deeper. “Back then, the Renegades believed that the one who returned alive had cloned her sister’s body and controlled both bodies with a single soul to pretend her sister was still alive. But technically, that’s impossible—unless they used some unknown technology… And the Renegade organization represented the pinnacle of mortal technology at the time. The biochemical tech you’re using now is just as advanced, and even you can’t pull off something like that…”

He shook his head, curling his fingers to tap his temple, forcing his restless thoughts to settle. “Relna or Filna must have created a body using some secret technique. Was their only goal really to fake their sister’s survival? I’m starting to doubt that… If they used knowledge beyond mortals, if they were somehow corrupted when drawn into the Divine Realm, then this becomes truly terrifying.”

“What’s even more terrifying,” Beltira suddenly added from the side, “is that this happened a thousand years ago. For the entire millennium since, they’ve been the Renegades, the great druids inheriting ancient knowledge, the heads of the Church of the End of All Things, the masterminds behind countless plans. Their behavior was certainly strange, but no matter how strange, for a long time we still regarded them as at least ‘mortals’ like ourselves… And that’s the scariest part.”

Bard’s expression darkened instantly, growing grim and unsettled.

(End of chapter)