The air still tingled with tension, alarm, and peril.

The Martial Sages couldn’t let their guards down.

And yet, at the same time, the Nestforger was aware that they couldn’t initiate hostilities.

The Emperor of Harmony hammered into his head repeatedly that harmony should be pursued if possible.

And thus far, the dark elves hadn’t taken a single action of hostility against the Martial Sages.

In fact, they didn’t seem to even care about the Martial Sages at all, much to their shock.

Their attention was focused on the nature of, well, nature around them.

They gasped with amazement and awe, muttering alien words in alien languages.

“rricu, m’afr sas xiyieli spadac!”

“wynsas iejuaet rsasdel!”

“spome, xiyie muam turaeriers aur dsailayfayienrs!”

The Martial Sages frowned with confusion as the dark elves immersed themselves in the plants and trees around them that were shockingly compliant to their will despite supposedly being stationary lifeforms!

They were led by an elder woman who was hunched over atop a simple wooden staff.

She was perhaps the only person among them to actually acknowledge the Martial Sages before anything else.

She smiled at them with a tranquil and wise smile, slowly walking towards them with simple, non-threatening steps.

And yet, the Martial Sages gritted their teeth.

Chills crawled across their skin.

Shivers crawled down their back.

They could feel it.

They could feel the unfathomable power she wielded.

And yet, they couldn’t even begin to understand it.

She didn’t have a strong body by any means, if anything he was quite frail, weaker than even the weakest of Martial Apprentices, physically.

And yet, each step she took seemed to bend heaven and earth to her will.

As though the very fabric of nature around them bowed to her will.

One moment, they were comfortable in their surroundings.

After all, these same Martial Sages of human civilization had spent eleven years in the Central Highlands of the Beast Domain.

They were hardly unfamiliar with nature.

And yet, when they gazed into her aged eyes, they couldn’t help but feel as though the entire forest had defected from the Panama Continent to these strange long-eared humans from another continent.

She smiled at their alarm with a hint of amusement.

“eaara mus wsary gadar polie, gpsa gala amaamc cudie f’afl.”

Several dark elves responded to her alien words, coming up to the alarmed and confused Martial Sages.

They reached into their little bag-packs, woven from organic fibers and leaves, pulling out a several small, raisin-like fruits and offering it to the Martial Sages.

“ayf eaara rianos ays, ays rayff wiemv oc tulooraytsaad!”

The Martial Sages gazed at them with a mystified expression.

The Nestforger frowned with a hint of confusion, still refusing to lower their guards.

The young long-eared girl before him tilted her head with confusion, before gesturing to the fruit and pointing into her mouth.

“If you think we’re putting anything you guys give us into our mouth, you’ve lost your mind, you old hag!”

The dark elf elder raised an unamused eyebrow at him, almost as if she could sense that he was insulting her based on her age.

The dark elf before the Nestforger took a fruit and ate it freely, proving that it wasn’t poisoned.

And yet, that didn’t mean anything.

They were of a different species of humans from that of the main continent, just like the Sol people or the blood humans were.

That didn’t stop him at all, of course.

He lowered his guard, relaxing his stance as he slowly picked a fruit from her hand, sniffing it with curiosity.

“It contains no esoteric matter…” he frowned, before ultimately following suit and putting it in his mouth, much to the alarm of the other Martial Sages.

His eyes widened as the fruit melted out of its material form almost entirely as several complex subatomic and quantum phenomena were triggered, causing it spread matter and energy across his body.

As a Martial Sage, he had more than enough control over his body to obstruct it, and yet he let the fruit do what it was meant to do, spreading over his nerves and entering his bloodstream.

He felt a strange sense of warmth entering his head.

As well as a flood of information.

“Can you understand me now?”

His eyes widened with shock as the dark elf elder spoke to him in clear and perfect Panamic.

“No…” Realization dawned on him. “…I’m able to understand your language.”

She nodded with a knowing expression and wise eyes. “That is a fruit of knowledge. We anticipated that we would have trouble communicating with the indigenous people of the Lost Continent upon our arrival and wanted to facilitate communication to prevent an unnecessary war.”

The Nestforger’s eyes lit up with delight. “You… you people have truly come in peace.”

“Elves despise warre, we are pacifists by nature,” the dark elf elder replied with a calm and tranquil tone. “The greatest toll of warre is borne by Nature, and we refuse to desecrate nature and Gaia. However…”

Her expression grew serious. “Please do not mistake our reluctance to fight as an inability to fight. The world has learned this lesson the hard way. We hope that we can maintain peace and harmony with you, the indigenous people who belong to this land. We admire your commitment to maintaining nature. Very few civilizations maintain their bond with nature as they develop their power and technology, and we were delighted to learn from outer space flora systems that this continent is deeply covered in exotic fauna of exotic matter, despite there being signs of high technology.”

She smiled at them with admiration. “We would love to befriend a civilization that has befriended nature to such an extent.”

The Martial Sages, who had also eaten the knowledge fruits by then, winced as they glanced at each other with an almost guilty expression.

How were they supposed to inform this long-eared grandma that they had spent the past seventeen years waging war against nature itself?

“Hahaha… yes, indeed. We love nature!” the Nestforger lied through his teeth.

“Verily, we live in harmony with the beasts and monsters!”

“Yes, yes, it is not as though we have waged a long battle with nature or anything like that!”