Chapter 962 – Burning the Heart with Fire (I) (2/2)
He asked, ”Is there any chance of an accident?”
Madam Mu replied, ”Black Robe has always taken every possibility into account. Nothing should happen.”
She paused, then said with an indifferent expression, ”And if something happens to him here, that will also be fine by me.”
The Xiang clan leader understood her meaning. He silently thought for a while, then said, ”The Mountain-Cleaving Army reached the northern approach of Cong Province last night.”
The Mountain-Cleaving Army was the Demi-human race's strongest army. For tens of thousands of years, it had been stationed in the frigid north, keeping watch on the demons.
Madam Mu said, ”Chief Elder's plans will naturally go smoothly.”
The Xiang clan leader finally could not help but shoot a glance at the young man in the bamboo hat.
If this young man died in the baptism of the Wildfire within the Celestial Tree, then… the most powerful army of the Demi-human race, the Mountain-Cleaving Army, would immediately notify the Great Zhou's Cong Province Army, and then in the north… the war would begin.
……
……
The Great Western Continent's Second Prince withdrew from the Heavenly Selection.
The final five left the high platform, following different paths to different mountains.
On the peaks of these five tall mountains grew five massive trees. These trees grew to unfathomable heights, thrusting into the sea of clouds so that their highest branches could not be seen. It was similarly impossible to imagine just how many li beneath the ground these colossal trees had spread their roots.
The closer one got to these massive trees, the hotter it became. Waves of heat, invisible yet undoubtedly real, emerged from the ground, sweeping across the earth like the stuffy winds of midsummer.
These waves of heat were the Qi of the Celestial Trees. As the rites of the Heavenly Selection ceremony proceeded, the Wildfire within the Celestial Trees had become increasingly vibrant, emanating a surging energy to the world. This was an infinite energy, carrying both a savage nature and an aura of most exuberant vitality.
The young man in the bamboo hat walked up to his Celestial Tree.
At the base of the Celestial Tree was a hollow, its entrance several dozen zhang tall and a hundred-some zhang wide. It was so enormous that it seemed more like a natural cave in a large mountain, able to hold the entire stone hall of White Emperor City's Imperial Palace.
What made one speechless was that there really was a stone hall within this giant tree hollow.
The young man's gaze traveled from the part of the Celestial Tree that touched the clouds to the stone hall within the hollow. He silently thought for a while, then pushed the front brim of the bamboo hat a little lower. He walked into the tree hollow, his figure quickly vanishing within the stone hall.
Xiaode and the other two demi-human experts entered their respective Celestial Trees.
The last to enter a Celestial Tree was Xuanyuan Po.
His footsteps were somewhat heavy, his movements slow, as his mood was somewhat depressed and uneasy.
As a member of the Demi-human race, he had heard countless legends about the Wildfire of the Celestial Trees and had worshipped the ancestral spirits countless times.
He was worried that the ancestral spirits would see his true intentions.
He was not participating in the Heavenly Selection ceremony to gain the final victory, marry Princess Luoluo, and become the next White Emperor.
He had come to make trouble.
Would the ancestral spirits forgive him for his disrespect?
……
……
As he entered the gloomy stone hall and traversed an incredibly long stone path, Xuanyuan Po felt more and more anxious.
Through his senses, he became very sure that he was walking underground, and that he had already gone very deep.
The stone path was extremely dry, with no sign of moisture, no water or moss. There was only an endless hot wind.
The deeper he went, the more scorching the wind became. As a demi-human, he could also sense that the Qi of the Wildfire was getting stronger and stronger.
The blazing waves of Qi did not slow his steps, as he did not find them painful.
He felt like the Qi within his body was getting wilder and wilder, his true essence growing increasingly lively.
But he was unaware that beneath his clothes, many lines were appearing on his body.
These complicated lines gradually formed a design that spread out from beneath his clothes, ultimately encroaching on his face.
In the faint red flow of the heat waves, the designs on his face seemed alive, beautiful in their strangeness, but also bursting with power.
Soon after, while he was completely unprepared, a bloody hue occupied his pupil while countless iron-like hairs exploded out of his skin. With a clacking sound, his body began to grow larger, seemingly imbued with an endless strength, exuding an aura of madness.
He was undergoing berserk metamorphosis.