CHAPTER 405 - The Most Beautiful City.

Barbara, Guardian of the Black Tortoise Empire, the black tortoise herself, sat coiled around the divine nexus of the world tree's root system, deep in meditation. 

Her true form—an ancient tortoise with glistening obsidian scales and moss-draped horns—was so large it fused seamlessly with the surrounding landscape.

She seemed like a heap of land below the world tree, as she was huge, at least 100 meters in height.

She was the center of the empire, the one who took care of it.

Barbara's body was the core of the barrier around Melanochelys, unmoving.

If she moved, the barrier would shatter, exposing the empire she protected from the outside world.

Her consciousness, however, danced far from her rooted body, cast into the threads of the empire-wide barrier that pulsed like a living organism.

She used to watch her empire like this, finding entertainment in watching the creatures in the empire.