Hel had no intention of placing these unknown entities into her own soul.
After linking her consciousness with the Elven Mother Tree earlier, she finally understood what those beings truly were.
To put it bluntly — they were simply trees that could give birth to elves.They had no independent thought, no self-awareness, and acted purely on instinct.
In the past, when the undead destroyed one of these Mother Trees, that instinct left a deep imprint within the species — a natural aversion to anything related to the undead.That rejection had been carved into every elf's bloodline ever since.
As for why the half-blood goblins had turned traitor?A large part of the reason, Hel suspected, was because their former queen had once done something similar to what she herself had just done — probing into the soul of a Mother Tree with her own spiritual power.
If Hel hadn't first branded the Mother Tree with the Slave God Mark, if she weren't the Witch of Death — a master of souls — she too might have been assimilated by the overwhelming torrent of memories within the Mother Tree's soul.
"This thing's a real hassle…" Hel murmured, tapping her chin in thought as she considered what to do with the Mother Trees.
Originally, her plan had been simple: to imitate what the goblins once did — and create a Death Elf Mother Tree of her own.
But after witnessing firsthand the sheer scale of the souls within these trees, Hel realized the problem was far more complicated.
That kind of soul power wasn't something she could simply extract using a few high-level spells.And if she left it alone, the elves born from the modified trees might inherit fragments of the Mother Tree's chaotic memories — emerging into the world already burdened with mental "baggage."
"Perhaps… there's another way."
With a flicker of intent, Hel issued a command through the Slave God Contract.
"Extract and compress all the memories within your soul."
At her words, the massive tree before her shuddered faintly.
Then, waves of dense soul energy began circulating rapidly through its trunk and branches.Moments later, a single small fruit began forming among the withered limbs — no larger than a peach, pure white in color, glowing like a smooth piece of jade.
When the flow of soul energy finally subsided, the fruit detached from the branch and floated gently into Hel's waiting hand, guided by her telekinesis.
[Name]: Fragment of the Elven Mother Tree's Soul (Gray Elf)[Rank]: Red · Saint Tier[Trait]: Memories of the Elven Mother Tree (Pink)[Description]: Contains the accumulated memories of an Elven Mother Tree across four entire epochs.
Hel examined the soul fragment closely.
The amount of spiritual power contained within it was equivalent to two full Saint-tier souls — about 2% of the Mother Tree's total essence.
"A pleasant surprise," Hel smiled. "Didn't expect it to come with a trait entry."
Without hesitation, she stripped away the pink-tier trait and stored the rest of the soul energy into her Philosopher's Stone.
As for returning it to the Mother Tree?Not a chance.
Simply sparing the tree from further soul extraction was mercy enough.
"Now that the hidden danger is gone, it's time to test the goblins' racial modification method."
Hel once again placed her palm on the bark of the enormous tree.
The principle behind the goblins' modification technique was actually quite simple —they used a higher-tier bloodline to overwrite a lower-tier bloodline.
According to goblin research, the process began by slowly siphoning off the Mother Tree's bloodline, turning it into nourishment for a chosen goblin with strong lineage.That goblin's bloodline would then gradually grow stronger until it surpassed the Mother Tree's — at which point, through a special ritual, the goblin could transfer their own bloodline into the tree.
That didn't necessarily mean sacrificing the donor, however.
In truth, the goblins' alchemy allowed them to seal the entire Mother Tree within the chosen host, binding its life force to that of the individual.
From then on, the two would share one life — as long as the Mother Tree lived, the host would never die.
The one who had once performed this ritual was none other than the Emperor of the Goblin Empire himself.
But this method wasn't something just anyone could perform.
First, the host needed to possess at least a trace of elven blood,so that the Mother Tree's essence could nurture and refine their own.
Second, the process was extremely slow and complex — and only the emperor himself had known the full ritual.
After the goblins were annihilated by divine punishment, the knowledge had been lost to history.
…Or so people thought.
Hel turned her gaze toward the Half-Blood Goblin Mother Tree in the distance.
Maybe — just maybe — the detailed procedure still existed somewhere within its memories.
So she walked toward the deepest chamber, where the hybrid Mother Tree resided.
Using the same control method as before, she subdued the tree.But this time, she didn't order it to compress all of its memories — only the ones specifically related to the Bloodline Conversion Ritual.
After scanning through the extracted memory data, Hel couldn't help but sigh in admiration.
"The goblins really were monsters of innovation… this is practically magical bio-engineering."
The entire process involved three key stages:
Extracting the target's bloodline essence.
Absorbing and assimilating that bloodline.
Using one's own bloodline to suppress and overwrite the original.
It was an absurdly resource-intensive procedure — but for Hel, it was far simpler.
With the Slave God Mark, she could just command the Mother Trees to extract their own bloodline essence.The later stages — absorption and assimilation — were just a matter of time and focus.
There was, however, one limiting factor: the recipient needed to possess elven blood to begin with.
"Elven blood, huh…" Hel mused. "If I recall, only Niv and Anna have that among my subordinates."
"Anna can probably create a Blood Elf Mother Tree of her own.As for Niv…"
Hel's gaze drifted down to the catgirl lounging lazily in her arms.
She honestly had no idea what kind of elves that one would create.
"Niv," Hel said with a faint smile, "how would you like to become a mother?"
"Ehh? Does that mean Master finally can't hold back anymore, nya?!"Niv's eyes sparkled like stars, her tail twitching eagerly."If that's the case, hurry up! Niv's already prepared, meow~"
Before she could pounce, Hel caught her by the scruff of her neck — holding her up firmly until their eyes met.
"I meant," Hel said slowly and clearly, "that you're going to bond with a Mother Tree… and create your very own elven race."