My view on Nische''s memories started to speed up and then it stopped again after several decades have passed by. At that time, the elves and the heralds realized that the current world tree realm is definitely withering with no chances of recovery. They watched the decay eating up the outermost parts of the realm gradually each day and that is when they decided to take as much as what is left of the realm and then find another place to live in where they can create a new sanctuary for their kin. As of now, the only part of the realm that they have not looted yet was the core of the realm so it became their next target. They decided to gather up all the mana that they could muster to attack and destroy the defense barrier that protected the core of the realm. It took some time but they eventually succeeded, destroying the physical body of the world tree in the process. Did they care one bit for the tree that has provided them with everything they needed throughout these years? Of course not. Not one bit. I felt the excruciating pain that was transmitted from Nische''s memories at the time when the barrier was destroyed.

    When the elves and heralds finally got in, they rummaged through everything and divided loot like some sneaky pirates who found a treasure trove. Their loot consisted of the tree of life which was given to the heralds and the mother tree that was kept by the elves. There were also 8 floating orbs inside the core of the realm which created the balance as well as produce the different attributal mana that is abundant in the world tree realm. The eight attributes were earth, wind, water, fire, light, dark, plant, and the samsara. In my previous talk with Nische, he has already talked about the need to get these orbs back. As they took the ten precious items from the core of the realm, the speed of decay of the realm accelerated and instead of them being able to stay in the realm for much longer, with the current speed of the spread, they have to leave within the next month. As they were taking the orbs by force and destroying the floating receptacles that were created for each of them, I saw Nische getting paler by the second and he seemed to be having labored breaths too. As each orb was taken, I felt a sharp pain after each instance through my soul link with him as if a part of my body was being ripped off. I could only imagine the level of pain he had experienced since he is directly the one losing those orbs which are technically part of his body and at the same time his physical body was also destroyed. He must have felt like he was being tortured to death.

    Once all the the orbs have been taken, they were then divided amongst the races. The elves being the greedy ones took most of them. They kept the light, wind, plant and earth attribute orbs. The dark orbs went to the dark elves. The water orbs went to the fairies and the fire orbs went to the dragons. As for the special orb called samsara, it went to the heralds. After they have looted everything that they could, each of the races started sending scouts to the human realm to find areas where they can build their sanctuaries. With their new found power through the orbs, they were all able to find the areas most suitable for them in less than a week. They claimed their chosen lands by force and then left the world tree realm one by one never bothering to look back as if its disappearance had nothing to do with them.

    After their move to their new sanctuaries in the human realm, it took very little time for them to secure their homes and also adapt to the new environment. They started living their day-to-day lives again without worrying about anything. It took them several years to notice that the feeling of peace and the contentment that they currently have was shortlived. Karma has always had its way to get back to those that deserve blessings and punishments. It may be late but it will always come when you least expect it.

    Throughout the decades that have passed after the races'' move to the human realm, there were less and less children born amongst the elves and the heralds. Their hopes of quickly replacing their dead kin was destroyed when even the members of their kin that participated in the previous war mysteriously got gravely sickly one by one with no way to cure them. Those sickly individuals eventually all died even if their mystique bodies were supposed to be almost immortal with very sturdy physiques. They thought it was the change of the environment or them staying in the human realm that did not have much mana that caused their healing and regenerative capabilities to slow down drastically so they just let it be while hoping things will get better eventually. The mystiques thought that they have very long lives anyway so they waited and waited for several decades. After more than two centuries, their numbers have become alarmingly low at less than two hundred for each race. When they realized this, they felt sudden desperation to survive and keep their bloodline from dying off. This desperation to live sadly brought about death to others because of the selfish ways they chose to get to their goals.

    All the other races have started to notice the peculiar phenomenon of infertility as well and this included even the human race too though the effects on their end were not as bad as how mystiques experience it. All the other races had a similar way of thinking than that of the elves and the heralds at the start, that maybe it was because of the change of environment, the absence of rich mana or maybe just incompatibility among partners that caused all these issues. Each race was too prideful to admit that there was something wrong or that they were weakening gradually so they kept the issue and its details a closely guarded secret within their respective families. They tried to think of ways to fix the issue within their own territories and never tried to ask for help from others or even discuss it so they could together think of a solution. The elves had thought of the most drastic solution though which was interbreeding with humans.

    At the start, they used their beauty and natural allure to entice clueless human in the elaborate trap that they have set. It was a huge experiment where the raw materials were humans. Since there are a lot of humans to start with, the disappearance of one or two men or women a few times within a year won''t be that noticeable. As to what happened to these unlucky men and women, their bodies were used as either vessels for pregnancy or all their seeds were harvested to give birth to new elves and heralds. Once they have been used to the fullest, all that was left was an empty shell. They were then left to die in cages. Once they''re dead, they were buried somewhere unknown where nobody will find them.

    This scheme went unnoticed for several years until the elves and heralds made a fatal mistake. They took the only son of a powerful and vengeful military family. Since the man was the only son, no matter how promiscuous he was, he was still the only hope of the family''s lineage for the next generation to be born. When he went missing, his family used all means necessary to find him. This realm-wide investigation caused the kidnapping and breeding scheme to be put to light. When the humans found out that their missing family members may have been a victim of the scheme and that this illegal activity has gone unnoticed for several years, the humans became furious. Thus, the hunt down of all mystiques regardless of race commenced. For the prideful mystiques, this is a challenge to their supremacy so they fought back. With these circumstances, the world has seen its second war which wasn''t even a century in between. This further decimated the population that was already dwindling towards the dangerous levels.

    The war did not even last a year as the races realized that decreasing the population further than it already is will eventually be the death of all races. The races then decided to do a cease fire and finally have a meeting with all the leaders of the races to have an agreement on how to proceed.

    In this meeting, they finally discuss the problem that is festering which is infertility and the dwindling amount of mana in the atmosphere. They have talked about how no child has been born for many years. Though some races are lucky, the children were born weak, sickly or no talent in mana. Only one in twenty are born normal and with talent in mana. The birth of girls became very rare as well.

    During the last war, since women are generally more powerful than men, they were the ones who fought in the war thus the number of men and women became extremely unbalanced. This then gave way to the current system where women can marry several men and even the drastic plan of summoning women from other worlds to try to increase the population. This has then been the norm for the next few centuries after that. It has addressed the infertility somewhat but not enough for them to claim that their races have recovered and no longer in danger of extinction. They thought that the decay only exists within the world tree realm. The decay also exists outside of it but just in a different form that they don''t know of.

    As for the mystique races, the absence of mana has made them lose the ability to keep their human forms. As for the children born afterwards, their mystique genes became recessive and they look more human than mystique. Their skin color, height, hair color, ears and other racial features started to become milder. They are now very similar to the race that they deemed to be the weakest among races and inferior to them.

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