Unrivaled in another world
Chapter 49: Cleansing of Filth

Chapter 49: Cleansing of Filth

[: 3rd POV :]

The aftermath of Caelira’s return was not simply a shock through the Elven Continent

It was chaotic, the likes of which had not been felt since the First Root Wars.

The removal—and in some cases, the execution—of the Twelve Elder Councils was a proclamation louder than any horn.

It told the world one thing:

The Empress had returned and she had returned with no patience for rot.

Across the continent, the news spread like a wildfire carried on sacred wind.

In the capital city of Ilythariel, songs bloomed in the air as minstrels and street performers danced in celebration.

Petals of golden light fell from the enchanted trees, and even the sky above shimmered faintly with a warmth that hadn’t been felt in decades.

"She’s alive! The Mother of the Forest is truly alive!"

"Queen Caelira has returned to us—may the roots of the world rejoice!"

Elderly elves wept openly in public squares, clutching necklaces carved from the bark of the World Tree.

Children ran through the forest paths laughing, chasing after glowing butterflies that hadn’t appeared in years drawn back by the pure surge of Caelira’s aura.

The High Druids, once quiet and reclusive, emerged from their sacred groves to bow before the throne once more.

Even the most ancient of tree spirits whispered her name again, stirring from their slumber as though recognizing their sovereign after a long winter.

Yet not all were joyful.

In the halls of the noble houses, reactions were mixed and tense.

Within the House of Lorthalyn, an influential bloodline known for their silence during the Queen’s ’death’, Lord Velraen sat motionless in his chair, his fingers digging into the armrest.

"This... complicates everything," he muttered, the words barely escaping his throat.

A younger noble—his nephew—spoke up nervously, "What should we do? She’s already taken the heads of the Council."

"There is no we," Velraen said bitterly. "She’s uprooting everything."

And he was right.

Caelira did not rest.

Her reappearance was not a ceremonial gesture.

It was an onslaught of justice and even revenge.

She began a cleansing.

One by one, she summoned the noble families to the palace.

Her judgment was swift, and her gaze was merciless.

For those who had betrayed the Empire by dealing in forbidden trades, bribing their way into false titles, and conspiring with the Zero Organization, there was no redemption.

House Nythoral, once a family of famed spirit-tamers, was stripped of their titles.

Their lands were reclaimed by the crown.

The head of the house was executed in the public square, watched by thousands.

Lord Alvenen, who had grown rich off the sacred sap of the World Tree, was shackled in golden roots and cast into the Hollow Cradle, a prison only spoken of in fearful whispers.

Others were not slain, but broken. Their titles revoked, their ancestral trees disconnected from the world tree, rendering their powers.

"I gave you power to guide," Caelira said during one judgment, "and you used it to bleed the forest dry. Now, you will return to it as dust."

The noble class, once bloated with corruption and entitlement, shrank overnight.

In their place, new leaders began to rise.

Scholars who had been silenced, druids who had been ignored, spiritbinders and rootseers who had long honored the balance all were called forward.

Caelira did not rebuild in the image of the old.

She cultivated a new circle, a Circle of Thorns, composed of younger minds, ancient wisdom, and unshakable loyalty.

Aeriwen stood beside her mother not just as a daughter but as a rightful heir, her authority growing by the day.

Even still, the reformation caused waves of uncertainty.

Some corners of the continent isolated villages, fiercely independent provinces, and neutral highborn enclaves regarded her with caution.

"She is not the same Queen who left," whispered one elder priestess.

"She is colder now. Sharper. Like the edge of a blade that’s been reforged in betrayal."

But none dared challenge her.

For the World Tree responded to her again.

Her aura flowed through the ancient roots like lifeblood restored.

Even the Celestial Owls, creatures who had not descended in centuries, were seen circling the palace skies.

One moonless night, as Caelira stood atop the sacred balcony, overlooking her kingdom reborn, Aeriwen stepped beside her, silent.

"Did we do the right thing?" Aeriwen asked, her voice quiet beneath the stars.

Caelira didn’t answer right away.

She looked down upon the land—the flickers of festivals in the distance, the silent ruins of old corruption behind them, the new life being sown in the gaps.

"They never asked themselves that," Caelira finally replied.

"They knew they were wrong. And they thought no one strong enough would ever return to correct them."

She turned to her daughter, eyes glowing faintly like a sunrise through leaves.

"We are the roots now, Aeriwen. And the roots do not ask permission to grow."

And so they grew.

With the Queen’s return, the Elven Continent did not merely survive.

It began to thrive again.

Even as celebrations rippled across the Elven Continent, not all bent the knee willingly to the returned Queen.

In hidden corners of the noble estates, in abandoned temples where forbidden rituals had long taken root, and even deep within the heart of the realm, there were resistance.

They called her return a myth, a lie, a desperate illusion.

And for some, it was simply a threat to their carefully laid schemes.

These were the ones who had burrowed deep into the land’s core influenced, bribed, or outright spawned by the Zero Organization.

They did not plan to go quietly.

The first act of resistance came three nights after the cleansing of the Elder Council.

A coordinated assassination attempt—seven cloaked figures moving under the shroud of silence, wielding weapons laced with poison, aimed not at Caelira, but at Aeriwen.

But the Queen had been expecting it.

As they infiltrated the palace gardens, they triggered the sacred barrier Caelira had personally inscribed with her blood the very same that once protected the World Tree.

The moment their feet touched the inner sanctum, they were bound.

Roots burst from the marble, glowing with the wrath of the continent itself, wrapping around their limbs like serpents made of nature’s will.

They screamed as vines pierced their skin and dragged their corrupted essence into the ground, where the soil rejected them violently.

Caelira appeared as the final one dissolved into ash.

Her presence silenced the night.

"A pathetic attempt," she whispered coldly, her emerald eyes burning.

"And you thought I wouldn’t smell the rot still clinging to your bones?"

From that night on, she hunted them.

Like a predator stalking prey.

Every councilman who had traded with the Zero Organization.

Every merchant who had laundered spirit-gold.

Every so-called priestess who had whispered heretics’ tongues behind veils of piety.

None were spared.

Caelira used her abilities to track hidden marks of Zero’s presence.

She could feel them beneath the trees, unnatural stains on the continent’s sacred ground.

Some of the infiltrators had blended in for decades.

They wore elven faces, bore elven names but they were anything but elven in loyalty.

At the dawn of the third week, she dragged a man from the temple of Ishalyn, whose voice had once led ceremonies for the Moon Cycle.

He pleaded, "I am one of your priests! I have served for thirty years!"

"Yes," she said, narrowing her eyes. "You have. And yet you reek of corruption. Zero’s gift, is it not?"

With a wave of her hand, the priest’s disguise crumbled.

His skin flaked into code-like fragments.

His essence destabilized.

He didn’t get the chance to scream.

The people watched.

Some in awe.

Some in horror.

Some in fear that they, too, might be dragged out next.

But Caelira never acted on emotion.

Every act was precise, every purge verified by essence signature and spirit imprint.

"Let it be known," she declared from the balcony of the Palace, "this continent is not a haven for traitors"

"Zero’s roots may have spread in secret, but I am the hand that will uproot them—all of them."

Whispers of her grew wilder with each passing day.

The Scourge of Corruption.

The Green Flame.

The Queen Who Sees All.

Some even said she had formed a secret council of rootwalkers and essence-seers who were helping her track down the last embedded spies of Zero across the continent and beyond.

Whether that was truth or myth mattered little.

What mattered was this.

The Elven Continent was no longer a soft bed of passive roots.

It had become a forest of thorns.

And at its center sat Caelira, calm, sovereign—and utterly ruthless to those who betrayed the land.

Days had turned into months and months had turned into years.

The streets of the Elven Continent echoed with the cries of the condemned—nobles stripped of their names, priests revealed as traitors, merchants executed without ceremony.

They were purged with neither sympathy nor hesitation, their pleas crushed beneath Caelira’s cold gaze.

Yet even the merciless justice delivered to the corrupted was nothing compared to the storm she unleashed when the truth of the slave merchants surfaced.

They had existed underneath the very roots of her continent.

Hiding in the shadows, cloaked by bribes and silenced officials, they bought and sold souls like coin elfkin, beastkin, humans, and even orphaned children who had no parents.

The moment the first hidden auction hall was uncovered, Caelira stood among its shattered walls, her hands trembling not from fear, but from the seething wrath within her.

Her eyes fell upon the blood-stained cages, the lingering scent of pain and chains still soaked into the stones, and something deep within her broke.

She remembered.

Chains.

The sting of manacles against raw wrists.

Daniel.

The way he had stood in front of her, bloodied and barely breathing, shielding her with his body from the slaver’s whip.

She had never forgotten that moment.

Not when Daniel helped her escaped.

Not when she lost everything.

And certainly not now, after reclaiming it all.

She had made a vow that day.

When the first group of slavers was captured, they were dragged into the plaza beneath the great Tree.

Their faces were pale, their hands bound by roots that pulsed with living essence.

They begged.

Screamed.

Promised wealth.

Swore ignorance.

But Caelira stood before them like an executioner carved from divine will.

"You trafficked lives beneath my forest," she said, voice cold enough to freeze fire. "You sold children beneath the name of coin. You buried suffering beneath silk and silence."

One man, shaking, cried out, "Mercy, Your Majesty—please! I was only doing what others—"

Caelira’s eyes glowed green with fury as she cut him off.

"Did Daniel beg you too, when you put him in chains?" she snapped.

The crowd fell into a hush.

At this point, Caelira was losing her mind and none had known who was Daniel, yet they remained silent.

Her voice trembled at the edges, but her will remained unbroken.

"You remind me," she continued, her tone softer but soaked in venom, "of the moments I watched him bleed. Of the hunger. The humiliation. The hopelessness."

And then her final sentence came with quiet devastation.

"Your deaths will be slow."

They were not simply executed.

No.

They were tied to the roots of the World Tree, their essence drained daily—neither dead nor truly alive.

Caelira had designed it herself, ensuring their minds remained intact as their bodies withered.

A punishment worse than death, fitting for those who had stolen the freedom of others.

Yet, even amidst her righteous vengeance, Caelira would often retreat into the moonlit gardens.

There, away from the eyes of her court, her fingers would trace the necklace Daniel had once gifted her simple, old, worn from time, but still warm with memory.

It wasn’t made from luxury stones, but rather stones and pebbles that you could find anywhere.

Yet, it remained important to her far more than any jewelry she possesses.

She sat alone beneath a silver-bloom tree, eyes gazing toward the star-streaked sky.

"Where are you now...?" she whispered. "Are you alive? Are you still... fighting?"

A breeze answered her, brushing against her cheek like a ghost of him.

She closed her eyes.

"I’m strong now," she murmured. "Stronger than ever. But if you’re suffering again... if they’ve touched even a hair on you..."

Her voice trembled.

"I’ll burn the world for you."

It had been years since Caelira returned.

But for the first time in centuries, the Elf Continent was free from corruption, slavery, and silence.

And though the people called it peace—Caelira knew her heart would never be at peace...

...not until she found him.