Chapter 423 – Thanks to the King of Blood Trees for the Generous Gift

Above the Bloodtree Forest, crimson mist perpetually swirled, growing denser toward the core.

Unlike the Crimson Mist, this blood-colored fog wasn’t a manifestation of rules but an external expression of elemental energy.

Consequently, an invisible pressure enveloped the skies over the entire Bloodtree Forest. Even experts of the Legendary Realm dared not fly directly over it while traveling, often opting for detours instead.

Yet at this moment, in a certain eastern region of the crimson forest, the blood mist was rapidly dissipating.

Through the thinning haze, vibrant green could be seen spreading relentlessly across the land.

This expansion of “I Am the Forest” not only Devoured and converted vast stretches of woodland into nourishment but also tore a breach in the Crimson Great Forest, severing the connection between its interior and exterior.

Tree Spirit Grandma originated from the arboreal lineage of plant-type beings, making her nearly identical in nature to the Blood Tree King.

How could she not understand the intricacies of the Crimson Great Forest?

The forest functioned as a unified entity, with interconnected roots and tendrils spreading throughout. By remaining at the forest’s core, the Blood Tree King could effortlessly influence and control its peripheral regions.

Every blood tree, every root network, every wisp of blood mist served as threads in the Blood Tree King’s grasp.

But now, in a western section of the forest, most of these threads had been severed.

Behind this front, tree lords like Tree Guard Two and Tree Guard Three, who commanded the forest’s Charge, immediately noticed their conversion efficiency of surrounding blood trees had dramatically increased.

With diminished resistance, the Treant Forest expanded at twice or thrice its previous rate. One central grove surged forward like a warship, breaking through the crimson woodland with unstoppable momentum.

This Treant Forest didn’t seek complete assimilation—wherever it passed, it left clusters of green amidst the blood-red landscape.

Initially, these green patches were sparse, like droplets of green water splattered on red paper. But the surrounding blood trees, now severed from their lifelines, couldn’t withstand the spreading verdant power. Soon, they were completely eradicated.

At this point, Tree Spirit Grandma turned her gaze deeper into the Bloodtree Forest.

She had just traversed a hundred kilometers in one go, severing the forest’s meridians.

However, a hundred kilometers was insufficient. At this pace, she would need to repeat this dozens of times to reach the core of the Bloodtree Forest.

Condensing the Seed of Life dozens of times would impose tremendous strain, even with the Treant Forest as her support.

It would also consume considerable time.

Tree Spirit Grandma pondered.

Her orders were clear: resolve this quickly, as delays risked complications.

Repeating the same tactic too often would inevitably allow the Blood Tree King to devise countermeasures.

Therefore…

Tree Spirit Grandma decided to leap hundreds of kilometers in one go, severing the Bloodtree Forest’s meridians to directly cripple the enemy.

However, the Bloodtree Forest was the Blood Tree King’s territory, entirely unfamiliar to her.

Projecting the Seed of Life hundreds of kilometers away was extremely difficult—she needed precise coordinates. If these coordinates aligned with nodal points in the Bloodtree Forest’s meridian network, it would be even more ideal.

Tree Spirit Grandma couldn’t accomplish this alone.

Naturally, the other War Treants and tree lords were even less capable.However, it was not alone; the treants were merely one of the military forces of Tianyuan City.

In a place undetectable to the naked eye and even imperceptible to sensory abilities, a faint glimmer continuously flickered within the Bloodtree Forest.

It was so inconspicuous that even the Blood Tree King could not detect it.

As if it were an integral part of the Bloodtree Forest, it traversed the vast woodland, using the crimson trees as conduits to leap and shift incessantly.

Only someone deeply familiar with it and deliberately observing could possibly discern its true identity.

But even then, they could only identify it.

It flickered rapidly, moving as if teleporting through space.

This was a Peak Fourth Order Nature Spirit.

A Grass and Wood-type, support-class Epic unit.

Tianyuan City had many Nature Spirits, Grass and Wood Spirits, and Flower Fairies, most of whom were non-combat units—managers of botanical gardens and caretakers of Tianyuan City.

Yet, they were still military units. Among the vast numbers of Flower Fairies, there were individuals who were both willing and capable of fighting.

Grass Branch, the Nature Spirit, was one of them.

They were a martial faction among the Nature Spirits. Even the abilities “Nature’s Light” and “Nature’s Dew,” awakened at the Epic tier, became combat skills in their hands.

At this moment, they were using the innate abilities they had inevitably awakened during their stages as a Grass and Wood Spirit and a Grass and Wood Guardian.

—Unity with Flora and Communication with Flora.

Relying on the former, Grass and Wood Spirits could freely traverse among plants, covering a thousand meters in an instant.

This was the survival ability of Grass and Wood Spirits.

Though their combat strength was weak, in lush, vegetated environments, they were masters of evasion.

The latter was an innate talent, allowing Grass and Wood Spirits to gather information from all directions through the surrounding plants and communicate with the flora.

Within the Bloodtree Forest, most trees were merely tall, eerie, ordinary trees.

Devoid of intelligence, they were easily influenced by the Nature Spirit.

Using these abilities, Grass Branch moved through the Bloodtree Forest with ease, quickly pinpointing one of the network nodes.

“This is the place, Grandma!”

“This old one has received it.”

The next moment, as the Nature Spirit Grass Branch left the thousand-meter-tall blood tree and shifted to another nearby tree, an intangible Seed of Life descended, effortlessly assimilating the blood tree into one of its Incarnations.

The blood tree turned green and grew rapidly.

The power of “I Am the Forest,” which assimilated the surrounding trees into its territory, swiftly spread.

However, this was deep within the Bloodtree Forest, and the Incarnation power of Tree Spirit Grandma was severely constrained. The verdant spread of the forest had only extended a few hundred meters before it was blocked, unable to advance further, and even began to recede bit by bit.

Tree Spirit Grandma could not hold on for long.

From the depths of the crimson forest, a terrifying roar erupted, shaking the entire woodland.

But at the very moment the Seed of Life descended, the network node in the eastern part of the Bloodtree Forest was abruptly severed, reducing the Blood Tree King’s control over the eastern blood trees by seventy to eighty percent.

Stripped of the Blood Tree King’s control, no matter how tall or eerie these blood trees were, most remained ordinary trees—not even monsters or living beings. How could they resist the spread of the Treant Forest?

In the blink of an eye, the greening of the Bloodtree Forest accelerated once again.Some of the greened trees rapidly withered, transforming into the energy of Treant Forest. This energy flowed through the root networks to the forest’s core, with the majority being supplied to Tree Spirit Grandma.

Tree Spirit Grandma’s incarnation hundreds of kilometers away suddenly grew several times larger, devouring and assimilating surrounding vegetation and soil nutrients like a whale swallowing its prey.

Through feeding on conquest, Treant Forest grew like a snowball.

The Blood Tree King was powerless to stop it.

Its greatest reliance – this vast forest – became not an obstacle but rather nourishment for the advancing Treant Lords.

Without these trees, Treant Forest couldn’t have expanded this far.

Suddenly.

Rustle~ Rustle~!

Countless monsters surged out from the forest. These weren’t true monsters, but rather tree puppets transformed by the Blood Tree King from bones buried over many years in Bloodtree Forest.

Some tree demons also emerged from the forest depths, pushing aside obstructing thick trees as they advanced.

Tree Spirit Grandma…

She used the Epic Skill ‘Forest Guardians’.

「Tree Spirit Grandma can enlighten any tree into becoming guardians that protect the forest. The Rank of Treant Guardians is one major order lower than Treant Lords, with duration depending on…」

The “any trees” here didn’t include living beings like tree demons, but non-living blood trees fell within Tree Spirit Grandma’s enlightenment range.

With a wave of her branches, invisible power transmitted kilometers away.

A blood tree trembled. Though not greened, it rapidly activated, transforming into a crimson Forest Guardian with bloody leaves that appeared more demonic and terrifying.

Then came the second, third, fourth…

Though Tree Spirit Grandma was a Legendary Realm powerhouse, the consumption of enlightening so many Peak Fourth Order Forest Guardians was enormous.

Normally, she couldn’t enlighten many at once.

But this wasn’t normal – the entire Bloodtree Forest was her nourishment, her hunting ground.

Her blood trees were endless.

Her energy was inexhaustible.

Twenty crimson Guardians appeared;

One hundred crimson Guardians appeared;

Four hundred crimson Guardians appeared!

Before the tree demons and tree puppets from the forest depths could surge out, they were met head-on by the advancing enlightened Treant Guardians.

The entire forest shook.

Before the confrontation between red and green ended, the clash between red and red began surging violently.

The Blood Tree King raged: Who is truly the king of Bloodtree Forest – you or me?

Am I a fake king? A fake!

In its extreme fury, it manipulated celestial power, despite massive dissipation and waste, desperately bombarding the forest’s eastern outskirts thousands of kilometers away.

It bombarded repeatedly, soon destroying one to two hundred Treant Guardians, even once forcefully annihilating Tree Spirit Grandma’s incarnation that had broken deep into the forest.

See! It was the true king of the crimson forest!

Then,

Tree Spirit Grandma reformed her life seed, choosing another suitable location to manifest her incarnation.

Her blood trees were endless.

But how much power did the Blood Tree King truly possess?

In just two and a half hours, the advancing Treant Forest reached the core area of Bloodtree Forest.

From high above, one could see a green line piercing straight into the crimson region, with green light spreading continuously along both sides of the line – thick at the base and sharp at the tip, resembling a spiraling drill bit advancing forward.Beyond these areas, numerous green spots continued to spread like stains.

The bloody mist drifting above the forest gradually thinned.

The Treant Lords who had reached the core region could now distantly see the towering tree at the very center of the forest, reaching as high as a celestial mountain’s cloud pillar.

A massive brownish-red Blood Tree with sparse foliage stood there!

It stood over three thousand meters tall, far surpassing Tree Spirit Grandma’s true form in height.

Its trunk was as thick as a mountain peak, covered with countless blood-red eyes. These terrifying eyes opened one after another, their unsettling gazes sweeping over the Treant Lords who had arrived.

“Do you think you’ve already won?”

“The war has only just begun!”

The Blood Tree King roared.

Indeed, its connections had been severed, gradually losing control over the vast forest, but its main body remained unharmed.

The area where its main body was rooted was where it could unleash its full power!

The surrounding earth energy was completely sealed, and the Blood Tree King controlled most of the elemental forces in the area.

A five-thousand-meter-level Domain spread out, suppressing the surroundings.

“I am truly no match for it.”

Tree Spirit Grandma sighed softly. “I do not enjoy killing either. Let us end this quickly, everyone.”

Hundreds of treants surged forward.

In truth, only Tree Spirit Grandma could still fight at full strength here.

The other Treant Lords, even with the forest’s support, even after absorbing dozens or hundreds of times their usual energy, and even with ‘I Am the Forest’ acting as a conduit, were struggling to maintain their power.

Yet despite this, they were still Treant Lords and War Treants.

Twenty to thirty ‘I Am the Forest’ Domain fields were still maintained here.

The Military Soul, symbolizing the Forest Legion, materialized above the forest.

The Forest Legion was now a complete Military Soul Legion! Composed of hundreds of treants, twenty to thirty plant spirits and nature spirits, and two to three hundred Greenvine Snake series troops.

It possessed the trait “Flora Co-prosperity” and the skill “All Things Grow.”

As soon as the Legion’s Military Soul appeared, the War Treants who had struggled to maintain their power over long distances instantly stabilized.

This was the effect of the trait ‘Flora Co-prosperity.’

If Tree Spirit Grandma could maintain her power and extend it thousands of kilometers away, so could they.

At least, for a short time.

The treants began their righteous gang-up.

For the first six hundred seconds, the Blood Tree King remained imposing and seemingly invincible. A single tremor of its roots could split the earth for over ten kilometers, and a glance from its blood-red eyes could unleash crimson beams stretching kilometers.

But the resonance of the Military Soul shared the damage inflicted by the Blood Tree King, and the presence of the Treant Forest further diluted it.

The Blood Tree King, rooted in the earth, possessed vast energy.

But the treants, with their endless supply of blood tree nourishment, were no less formidable.

During the next six hundred seconds.

The Treant Forest began pressing into the Blood Tree King’s Domain.

Though it was merely a forest, it could contend with a Domain. With each step the forest advanced, the crimson Domain was forced to retreat.

This was the marvel of an epic ability!

Within the forest’s range, it became their territory, where no Domain could exist!

At the 1300-second mark, small sprouts began to emerge from the Blood Tree King’s trunk, transforming its blood-red eyes into nutrients.At the 1400-second mark, the Treant Forest continued to spread, gaining control over the surrounding land. The Blood Tree King’s roots steadily retracted.

By the 1500-second mark, thousands of crimson Treant Guardians swarmed forward.

At the 1600-second mark,

Thwip—

Tree Spirit Grandma’s branches pierced like sharp spikes into the gradually softening reddish-brown trunk. Where the bark broke, vegetation sprouted and further tore the trunk apart.

A crimson core was exposed.

Tree Spirit Grandma suddenly felt a craving—a desire to Devour.

Its roots burrowed into the blood core.

The leaves on Tree Spirit Grandma’s massive canopy slowly tinged with red.

Ding!

Lord Mu, who had been monitoring the western battle, heard the prompt in his ear.

Through the aerial view provided by a Wind King’s Wings, he confirmed the battle’s outcome immediately.

It seemed they had won.

And a powerhouse like Dolai hadn’t even made a move.

The entire Bloodtree Forest was easier to conquer than expected.

“The Blood Tree King isn’t weak, but aside from it, there isn’t a single other Legendary Realm expert in the entire Bloodtree Forest—not even many Fourth Order tree spirits.”

“As for the forest defense line the Blood Tree King built, well…”

It wasn’t that the Blood Tree King was incompetent, but the Treants countered it in two key ways.

Countered here, countered there.

The Epic Skill ‘I Am the Forest’ was practically an internal conflict trump card for Treant-type lifeforms.

He watched as the Treants swarmed forward.

Prompt: Your unit ‘Tree Spirit Grandma’ is Devouring the Blood Tree Core and may undergo some mutation.

Mu Yuan opened the panel.

Tree Spirit Grandma’s Domain level was visibly increasing.

In the blink of an eye, it broke through the 2,000-meter threshold and continued to grow stronger!

Prompt: Your unit ‘Tree Spirit Grandma’ has Awakened the Advanced Skills ‘Bloodmist Tree Realm,’ ‘Blood-Fueled Warfare,’ and ‘Blood-Soaked Earth.’

Prompt: Tree Spirit Grandma’s Epic Skill ‘Forest Guardians’ has undergone a mutation upgrade and has changed to ‘Crimson Tree Spirit.’ Crimson Tree Spirits possess the ability to grow stronger through Devouring.

Prompt: Tree Spirit Grandma has Awakened the Quasi-Epic talent ‘Flesh Devouring,’ allowing it to break growth limits by Devouring flesh through its roots.

The Blood Tree King had likely Devoured massive amounts of flesh to grow to the 3,000-meter level.

However, such Devouring might have side effects?

The Blood Tree King was clearly balding.

“Could Tree Spirit Grandma’s Devouring mutation also have side effects?”

Mu Yuan wondered.

He wasn’t worried. Whatever side effects there were, they could be completely eradicated once Tree Spirit Grandma evolved again.

For now, Tree Spirit Grandma had gained significant benefits.

Though the newly Awakened or mutated skills were a bit… eerie?

Well… had it always been this eerie?

Mu Yuan fell into thought.

By now, the Blood Tree King had long lost all signs of life, its massive branches gradually withering and decaying.

The Treants gathered around but kept their distance, unwilling to get too close. Only Tree Spirit Grandma remained, absorbing nutrients with an intoxicated expression.

Its Domain had expanded, breaking through limits inch by inch.

2,500 meters;

3,000 meters!

3,500 meters!

4,000 meters!

The expansion continued until it abruptly stopped at 4,444 meters.

The entire Domain felt unstable—Tree Spirit Grandma had overeaten.However, as long as it fully absorbs and digests this batch of nutrients, it will surpass Dolai and Deadbone in one fell swoop, becoming the highest Rank individual in Tianyuan City.

A rookie legend breaking through the norm overnight!

In fact, if Tree Spirit Grandma weren’t originally an Epic Three-Star lifeform, it would have undoubtedly evolved one stage during this absorption process. Advancing from Outstanding Three-Star to Epic One-Star wouldn’t have been difficult either.

This is a great Opportunity.

An Opportunity sufficient to change a powerhouse’s entire life.

“Thank you for the Blood Tree King’s selfless gift.”

(End of Chapter)