The past clinking of glasses, the adoration of the crowd, Zhang Song's steady and efficient reports, the respectful demeanor of the Wood Elves… all transformed into burning phantoms at this moment.
Zhang Bo's ashen eyes, silently questioning him, were now so clear and piercing, as if mocking his treachery.
The blood-stained dagger that had pierced Zhang Song's thigh now felt incredibly hot to the touch, but even hotter was the phrase, “Returning your kindness”—he had repaid the greatest kindness with betrayal.
Shen Mu's indifference, high atop his horse.
The burning village and the collapsing foundation.
“Hahahahaha… Wuwuwu…”
Laughter and tears intertwined, forming a chilling, maniacal sound.
Yang Di clutched his head, his fingers deeply embedded in his disheveled hair, his body curled up even tighter, as if trying to shrink into a non-existent corner.
The world was collapsing, beliefs were shattering, and the ambition, pride, and last shred of reliance that had supported him for decades—his connection to the Wood Elf Plane—were completely severed.
He had become an existence utterly abandoned by the entire world.
Outside, the sounds of explosions, collapses, and the dull thud of heavy crossbows hitting tree trunks continued, each sound like a death knell tolling upon his despairing soul.
The treehouse shook violently, huge beams began to emit ominous cracking sounds, and flames spread wildly upward along the internal wooden structure, the scorching heat almost suffocating him.
A world on the brink of death, and a soul plunged into absolute madness.
Yang Di suddenly stopped his hysterical wailing and abruptly lifted his head.
In his bloodshot eyes, all despair, guilt, and calculation vanished, leaving only a pure, twisted-to-the-extreme flame of madness, flickering wildly amidst the thick smoke and firelight.
He clutched the cold runestone tightly, his knuckles white from the force.
“No… it won’t end…”
A guttural sound escaped his throat, and a sinister grin spread across his face, as if he had instantly grasped some absurd truth: “Power… can’t get it? Then… destroy it! Destroy… everything! Shen Mu… Deherim… and… this damned world!!”
He struggled to stand, wanting to use his last ounce of strength to do something, anything, as long as it brought complete destruction.
He, Yang Di.
Still had one last resort!
“Consume all spiritual power, including the Natural Consciousness fragment, and summon the War Tree!”
Yang Di looked down at the runestone in his hand, the token given to him by the Wood Elf Plane.
In his hysteria, a trace of rationality, born from his decision to embrace death, appeared in Yang Di's eyes.
He still had a lot of spiritual power; as long as he poured all this spiritual power, gathered by Blue Star Humans, into this great ancient tree…
He could transform it into a War Tree!
“Yes, that’s right, back then the great elder of the Wood Elf Plane also told me that this was a do-or-die trump card! Once used, I wouldn’t be able to continue developing the Wood Elf Village, so it had to be used cautiously!”
The madness in Yang Di's eyes intensified at this moment.
He clenched his fist, a ruthless expression on his face: “But now I’m at a dead end. Let the great ancient tree become a War Tree; what does it matter to me whether the Wood Elf Village still exists in the future!?”
With that, he closed his eyes and tightly gripped the token given to him by the Wood Elf Plane.
Finally, one hand also rested on the treehouse of this great ancient tree.
And in the midst of it all.
In the center of this great ancient tree's treehouse, a lord's core, shimmering with green light, appeared there.
And as it rotated, countless tiny cracks also appeared on it.
As if this crystal…
Was about to shatter!
In fact, it was.
As countless cracks appeared on the crystal, subtle green light quickly permeated from within, rapidly spreading throughout the treehouse.
Or rather, within this giant ancient tree!
‘Buzz!’
A sudden change occurred!
The crystal shattered rapidly, the sounds of cracking becoming increasingly dense, so faint yet deafening within the burning treehouse.
Fine cracks, like a spiderweb, instantly covered the crystal core, and the next second—
Crack!
It wasn't an earth-shattering explosion, but a heart-stopping shattering sound, as if some boundary maintaining balance had been completely broken.
The deep green energy within, originally representing gentle growth and life connection, now, like a lifeline drained of its essence, suddenly became murky, viscous, and presented a nearly putrid dark brown hue.
They were no longer flowing, but spewing!
Dense, slimy energy beams, carrying the gray-black fragments of the disintegrated Wood Elf Lord's Core, erupted from the cracked crystal core like wildly growing vines, or a gushing oil well!
This was no longer a gift of nature, but a thoroughly polluted, forcibly extracted poison!
Woo—!!!
The thick ancient tree trunk emitted a dull, painful wail at this moment.
The sound was not transmitted through the air, but used the massive wooden structure as a resonance chamber, carrying terrifying secondary frequencies that instantly swept through the entire burning space, making the remaining wooden beams and walls tremble violently!
“It’s done… Heh heh… Hahahahaha!”
Yang Di, curled on the ground, suddenly lifted his head, his face, smeared with smoke, fire, tears, and snot, erupted in extreme ecstasy!
The murky, dark brown energy torrent spewed forth before him, reflecting his crazed eyes like a demon crawled from hell.
He could clearly “feel”—not a gentle connection, but an invasion, an assimilation!
This giant tree, which had accompanied the Green Leaf Group through the apocalypse, was being forcibly twisted and transformed by his self-sacrificing, violent power and the polluted natural fragment!
It could not resist!
The complete silence of the plane's will just opened the last gate for this forbidden fusion!
Sizzle… Squish…
Nauseating sounds came from all directions.
The inner walls of the treehouse, those vibrant wooden walls carved with exquisite patterns, began to violently squirm and swell!
As if countless giant earthworms were rapidly burrowing under the bark.
Wooden fibers were forcibly torn, reorganized, and overgrown by terrifying power!
Sturdy, thick branches and supporting beams, requiring several people to embrace, emitted a teeth-grinding, twisting groan, their surfaces rapidly softening and deforming like asphalt under high temperatures.
The bark was forcibly burst open by new, dark brown, fleshy structures covered in slippery mucus, revealing rapidly expanding and squirming, gelatinous-covered tumor tissue underneath.
The tumors pulsed like a heart, each beat expanding a bit and secreting more viscous, foul-smelling dark brown liquid, which flowed onto the floor, corroding the charred wood and emitting hissing white smoke.
The ground undulated violently, and the gnarled, massive tree roots, like sleeping earth dragons forcibly awakened, with immense pain and fury, frantically dug through the overlying soil and burning building debris!
These roots were no longer roots—
They were like giant, wood-knotted, slippery-fleshed tentacles, violently tearing and lifting from the ground, flinging dirt and sparks wildly, whipping the air with wailing explosions!
Broken walls struck by them instantly pulverized, and burning sawdust flew like rain.
The ends of several of the thickest, most twisted mutated roots violently squirmed and deformed, their woody skin and muscle fibers tearing and reorganizing, actually forming the outline of giant claws amidst grating bone-and-flesh friction!
Though crude and deformed, they exuded a chilling aura of destruction!
Outside the treehouse, under the horrified gaze of Bandak and his soldiers, the giant, apartment-building-like treehouse, which had been tottering under the assault of flames and heavy crossbows, was undergoing a terrifying metamorphosis!
It was no longer just burning, but growing in the fire!
Mutating in the flames!
The towering main trunk, like a living pillar of flesh and blood, twisted and swelled wildly in the firelight! Countless thick “tentacles” of mixed wood and flesh burst from various parts of the trunk, wildly lashing the air and tearing apart the building structure!
The entire behemoth swayed violently in the agony of flames and fleshly reconstruction, like a colossal abyss beast awakened and breaking free from the earth’s shackles!
Boom!
The massive, previously closed main entrance of the treehouse was forcibly burst open from within by the wildly proliferating tumorous tissue!
Fragments mixed with charred sawdust and slippery mucus spewed outward!
A huge, indescribable, terrifying silhouette loomed in the firelight and thick smoke—
It seemed to be the outline of a giant skull, forming, composed of countless twisted wood and convulsing muscles!
At this moment, the entire, once seemingly peaceful great ancient tree, directly became ferocious.
With countless plumes of black smoke and the rapidly twisting trunk.
The entire great ancient tree seemed to detach from its underground roots and stood upright.
Even the thickest branches began to twist and intertwine, forming two enormous arms and claws.
The appearance of the entire trunk began to transform into a humanoid creature, seemingly dozens of meters tall!
Including the face that appeared on the trunk, not yet fully clear, but already visible.
In the hollow eye sockets, two dark brown, viscous, almost solid evil lights pierced through the smoke, coldly scanning the human army besieging it outside!
“Roar… Ong—!!!”
A piercing, non-human, non-beast roar, mixed with the tearing of wood, the crushing of flesh, and extreme pain, suddenly erupted from the top of the mutated giant tree!
This sound wave contained terrifying power and a twisted will, instantly overpowering all the fighting and the sound of burning flames on the battlefield!
The sound waves were like a physical force, causing the eardrums of the closer Deherim soldiers to ache and their warhorses to rear up with startled whinnies!
“Shoot… Shoot arrows! Aim for it!” a Kujit Veteran Horse Archer's voice trembled uncontrollably.
However, the Kujit flaming arrows fired in response to the command struck the waving mutated roots, but the arrows were either deflected by the tough, elephant-hide-like, slippery, greasy, dark brown gelatinous tissue, or only penetrated an inch before being pushed out by proliferating granulation tissue!
Even when Rodok Sharpshooters used them, the steel crossbow bolts they fired struck the expanding, squirming tumors on the main trunk, only causing a spray of mucus and debris to erupt, which was instantly covered by more proliferating flesh!
The dark brown light locked onto the arrayed infantry square!
Boom!
A mutated root, as thick as a colossal pillar and topped with a giant bone-like claw, carrying immense force, crushed all obstructing debris and slammed down directly onto Bandak’s formation!
“Shields up—!!” Bandak’s voice was hoarse and cracking.
A massive shadow descended like the wings of death!
Thud!!!
Crack-crack-crack—!
The earth was pounded like a cowhide drum!
Dust mixed with sparks shot into the sky!
The wooden bone claw slammed into the front, where the Swadian Light Infantry had already formed ranks, their dense shield wall raised!
The explosive sound of those well-made, fan-shaped shields instantly deforming and shattering, the dull thud of human bones breaking, and the dying screams instantly intertwined into a mournful dirge of destruction!
The front-row soldiers were flattened like crushed ants, their bodies a bloody mess beneath the giant claw!
The shockwave sent several rows of soldiers behind them flying, slamming them into the burning ruins!
The hard wooden ground was slammed into a huge shallow pit, covered in viscous brown liquid, by this strike!
Cracks spread out like a spiderweb!
“…Impossible…”
Bandak was thrown back several steps by the powerful impact, his helmet askew, his bloodshot eyes staring at this scene beyond imagination, his face losing its brutal confidence for the first time, leaving only shock.
From the distant command high ground, the Holy Tree Steed also stomped its hooves and snorted, startled by the unnatural roar.
Flames reflected on Shen Mu's face, light and shadow dancing.
His eyes, always as calm as an abyss, finally contracted ever so slightly the moment they caught the giant claw smashing through the defense line.
Fatis, who had been standing silently by his side like a rock, slowly tightened his grip on his knight's lance, the hard steel shaft groaning softly, a teeth-grinding metallic friction sound under his immense strength.
His gaze, hidden behind the full-face helmet visor, was like an ice pick piercing through flames, firmly locked onto the distorted giant shadow roaring and rising in the flames, and cold battle intent, like a surging tide, churned in his eyes for the first time.
“Finally, something interesting.”
Shen Mu's voice was like a polar wind sweeping over ice, low and without a ripple, yet containing a hint of extreme, cold fury ignited by surprise and… the cruel interest of a predator sizing up its prey.
He slowly raised his hand.
The Deherim army was no longer facing a desperate enemy, but a monster born in flames and twisted agony, hating everything.
The horn of war, at this moment, seemed to have truly sounded for the first time.
And for Shen Mu.
This.
Was no problem at all.
“A tree-type monster trapped in place, do you really think I’d be foolish enough to continue fighting you in close combat?”
A mocking smile appeared on Shen Mu's face.
He slowly raised his left hand.
He said indifferently: “All troops retreat, leave the Wood Elf Village.” (End of Chapter)
