Chapter 362: Ghost Tree (1/2)

Lu Yun approached the Fire Parasol Tree with a stern expression.

“Bunch of brainless bastards who only know how to make things worse!” he suddenly erupted. “Charging into an ancient tomb knowing jack shit and just throwing their lives away like the useless fucks they are! What fucking North Sea emperor, trash of House Donglin, or Witherdew Celestial Emperor—you were all going to die here and fertilize the ghost tree!

“What a bunch of amazingly braindead morons all of you are! There’s practically a lit-up billboard here saying this is a trap, and you jumped right into it! If you want to die so much, go slit your throats outside!”

Those lingering on the fringes of the clearing pulled faces of hateful resentment at Lu Yun. They were all powerhouses who’d long earned their reputation in the world of immortals, and flames of fury billowed to hear a youth humiliate them in public.

“Babbling fools!” Lu Yun snarled again. “Don’t you see all the dead immortals on the ground have been sucked dry?

“Yet you keep killing and killing and killing! That Witherdew celestial emperor is even more of a pea-brained village idiot! Slaughtering people en masse with the Blithe Entrapment Formation? You just want to accelerate your death, don’t you?!”

Tuoba Jie exchanged a glance with Donglin E, both men shuddering at the thought. Just like the celestial emperor, Donglin E had stealthily crept back alone, in hopes of being the oriole behind the mantis and cicada.

The two arcane dao immortals looked down for the first time since arriving in the clearing and realized the immortals who’d died during fighting for the tree had become withered husks, their fragmented souls, flesh, and blood all devoured by something unknown.

Greed had filled their minds and blinded their eyes earlier, preventing them from noticing the aberrations in the vicinity or the danger creeping in from the sides.

“If only I’d arrived even fifteen minutes earlier,” Lu Yun muttered in a voice that only he could hear. Those he killed would’ve become his Infernum rather than be absorbed by the Fire Parasol Tree.

If the group of immortals had refused to leave earlier, Lu Yun would’ve killed them without hesitation.

At the edge of the clearing, Qing Han worried his lip between his teeth, concern shining in his eyes. The Lu Yun he knew wouldn’t talk like this for no good reason. He was snapping and venting his spleen on the immortals outside because he was extremely nervous and needed to somehow loosen the lump of anxious energy in his throat.

This was no Fire Parasol Tree, but a ghost tree!

The real tree had already been devoured and turned into an outer skin for the ghost tree. This kind of tree was born of a superior-grade spirit root resurrected from a miasma of endless resentment and malice. Thus reborn as a new kind of spirit root, its might was all the more terrifying, despite not being a connate spirit root.

It was, in fact, the bane of all spirit roots. Even the Fire Parasol, a connate-grade supreme treasure that itself was half spirit root, had ended up as its fertilizer.

The ghost tree was an existence of great yin and evil, born to devour everything in the world. If it was allowed to grow and enter the world of immortals, a great calamity would descend upon the lands and countless living souls would become its nutrients.

Within Lu Yun’s dantian, the Sal Tree of Life and Death was protected by a circle of blazing hellfire. Once fully grown, it might not fear the ghost tree, but right now, it was far from being the ghost tree’s match.

“What an… interesting place the world of immortals is. First I saw a zombie tree, now I meet a ghost tree...” Lu Yun was thinking of the zombie tree in the eastern tomb realm of the Skandha Extinction Tomb.

The ghost tree wasn’t as large as that one, but it was much more powerful. The zombie tree feared fire, so the three immortal fires had been able to disintegrate it easily. The ghost tree, however, was bathed in a strange flame that could rival the three immortal fires.

Lu Yun inhaled deeply as he approached the tree, his eyes fixed on it. It had yet to fully mature, and needed more flesh and souls to nurture it. At the moment, at least, it couldn’t move.

Swoosh!

Little leaves of scarlet fire blazed as a grimacing ghost face appeared out of nowhere, its fiery eyes staring at Lu Yun.