438 What did I do wrong to end up like this?
The golden light of merit that was so bright that it was impossible to look directly at illuminated an area of a hundred miles in radius. Within the golden light, the towering trees growing out of the City Lord’s Mansion revealed their true bodies that were corroded and devastated.
At the same time, Qi Lanqing's body, which had transformed into a tree man, was swept by the golden light of merit. His disguise fell off, and he began to rot and decay, revealing the flesh and bones inside.
Ren Shiyao's heart trembled. She didn't smell any blood. She looked carefully and found that the corroded flesh and bones all had the texture of trees.
The Dragon Locking Formation was fixed under Qi Lanqing's feet and was still running.
The chains that emerged from the formation wrapped around Qi Lanqing layer by layer, locking up all her spiritual power. However, at this moment, new green sprouts grew on the chains one after another.
Just like her body, the new buds withered and died soon after they grew out. Even if there were surviving buds that continued to grow, they showed signs of corrosion.
"Qi Lanqing" opened his tightly closed eyes, revealing eyes with wood-colored texture.
"The early stage of fusion?" A slightly surprised male voice came from "Qi Lanqing"'s mouth. It was the voice of the tree spirit.
He obviously didn't expect that he could control Qi Lanqing, whose cultivation had temporarily been raised to the Tribulation Crossing Stage, but would be forced to reveal his true form by someone in the early stage of Fusion.
"Who are you? Why can you control my uncle's body?" Ren Shiyao asked angrily.
She is the direct disciple of the Great Elder, and like the other disciples, she calls Qi Lanqing "Uncle-Master".
The tree spirit ignored her and just frowned at her, as if it had finally figured out something. It gritted its teeth and said, "You can actually draw the power of all living beings from your merits and use it."
"It's good that you know it, hurry up and get out of my uncle's body, or I will blind your dog eyes!"
The golden light of merit became even brighter, forcing the tree spirit to not dare to look directly at it and to subconsciously squint its eyes.
But he did not retreat because of this. Instead, he sneered: "All living things are almost extinct. What's the use of using the power of all living things? If this thing is really useful, Mingchen would not have been forced to fight Gong Zhe to a draw and both sides would have been injured. Until now, he has not been able to kill him!"
The corruption of the tree spirit's true body was made more and more obvious by Ren Shiyao's golden light of merit, and the whole person looked like a pattern with only the texture of tree veins connecting it.
Dense twigs like bushes grew out from his body and headed straight towards Ren Shiyao.
Ren Shiyao flew backwards, but due to the difference in their cultivation levels, she was not as fast as the tree spirit and in the blink of an eye she was surrounded by dense branches.
Just as these branches were about to break through her protective spiritual power and absorb her vitality like spider silk, a childish voice suddenly sounded in the tree spirit's mind.
"Who is Gong Zhe?"
The tree spirit trembled all over, all movements stopped, and it froze in place.
He looked inside himself and saw a small figure looking at him in confusion.
That's Ginger Heart.
"Is Gong Zhe the name of the Devourer?" Jiang Xin asked again, his voice ethereal and seemed to be very far away from him.
The tree spirit was extremely surprised: "You didn't die in battle?"
"My mother called me back." Jiang Xin turned around, and some of Qi Lanqing's spiritual power leaked out from behind him.
These spiritual powers wrapped around her like armor, and under Jiang Xin's gaze, condensed into Qi Lanqing's translucent soul.
The tree spirit used conversation to delay time in Wanshanyuan, intending to devour Qi Lanqing's spiritual consciousness that had sneaked into Wanshanyuan, and then devour the earth veins of the Tiancheng spiritual world, and finally follow the connection between Qi Lanqing's spiritual consciousness and her original body, take over her body and descend to Yunming City.
However, he didn't expect Qi Lanqing to take advantage of the situation. While the tree spirit was delaying time, he stripped away the power attached to the earth veins by the tree spirit and hid the earth veins.
Out of desperation, the tree spirit had to give up devouring the earth veins and jump directly to the second step, using the connection between Qi Lanqing's spiritual consciousness to invade Yunming City from the inside.
The gap in their cultivation was too great. Qi Lanqing knew that he was no match for the tree spirit, so he simply abandoned his pawn to save his king.
She gave up her physical body, her soul left her body, and with the help of the connection created when the tree spirit took over her body, she rubbed his status and the blood power between her and Jiang Xin, and connected with Jiang Xin's consciousness which was integrated into the protective formation, awakening Jiang Xin whose consciousness was originally scattered due to supporting the operation of the eye of the two worlds.
She couldn't bear to leave her daughter, and she knew that only Jiang Xin could save all living beings in both worlds.
Jiang Xin also couldn't bear to leave her, and instinctively gathered her consciousness bit by bit.
Through the resonance of the two worlds' array centers, she turned her gaze to the Tiancheng spiritual world, and just in time heard the tree spirit mention the word "Gong Zhe".
"Is Gong Zhe the name of the person who swallowed you?" Jiang Xin asked again.
"So what?" The tree spirit did not want to dwell on the past. Instead, it was salivating over the power of all living beings in Jiang Xin's body.
His consciousness pounced on Jiang Xin, trying to devour her, but failed.
Jiang Xin and Qi Lanqing's spirits appeared behind him, and their childish voices rang out again: "After so many years, even he himself can't remember his own name, but you still remember it. You must have had a very good relationship in the past, right?"
In the mind of the tree spirit, there vaguely emerged a scene of someone in the infinite starry realm millions of years ago, sitting on the top of a tree with his eyes closed and playing the flute, bathing in the starry sky.
The melodious sound of the flute is accompanied by the rustling of leaves. The sound is so distant that it seems to be by my ear. Memories are like poison, catalyzing the severe pain of corrosion in my body.
The tree spirit suddenly went berserk: "I want you to keep talking!"
He pounced on Jiang Xin again, but still missed.
The tree spirit became more and more angry, and searched frantically for the figures of Jiang Xin and her daughter in the consciousness space. It pounced on them again and again, but failed again and again.
He became more and more violent, his remaining sanity in jeopardy, and he screamed like a madman: "Get out! Don't you want to save all living beings? I am one of the living beings, so save me! Let me devour you and then take back the torso!"
"So many cultivators who entered Wanshanyuan were murdered and devoured by you. You want to be saved after committing so many evil deeds?" Qi Lanqing scolded angrily, holding Jiang Xin's hand tightly.
The tree spirit seemed to have heard a very funny joke and laughed out loud: "Hahaha... I have committed so many evil deeds? If Gong Zhe had not betrayed me and attacked me when I was not prepared in order to further improve my cultivation, and devoured me, I would have been forced to survive as a spirit body, hiding in the dark place of Wanshanyuan all day long, enduring the pain of corrosion day after day, year after year. Do you think I would be willing to devour cultivators like you?"
Qi Lanqing sympathized with him, but could not agree with his idea: "This is not a reason for you to harm innocent people."
"Then what did I do wrong to end up like this?" The tree spirit asked back, even finding it ridiculous. "You want to live, and I want to live too. For millions of years I have been delivering spiritual power to all walks of life, and now I just want to take back what originally belonged to me. I have done nothing wrong to you, it is you who stole my spiritual power!"
Jiang Xin's little voice said, "But you were born because you absorbed the spiritual power from the various spiritual realms."
The tree spirit didn't care about this: "So what? The monks absorb the spiritual energy around them to practice, and after death, all the spiritual energy in their bodies will be returned to the world. This world is a cycle of life and death, death and rebirth, endlessly."
"If there were no Devourer, when I die one day, all my spiritual energy would be dispersed into the various spiritual realms."
"Cultivators devour the spirit plants of monsters to absorb their spiritual power for their own cultivation. I do the same. What qualifications do you have to blame me?"
Jiang Xin's eyes were clear, and she waited until the tree spirit had finished venting before she said softly, "I don't want to blame you, I just want to help you."
"Although I don't know why Mingchen left you as a backup, she can't defeat Gong Zhe herself, so what can you do? If you really want to help me, you might as well let me swallow you!" The tree spirit pounced on Jiang Xin again.
This time Jiang Xin did not dodge, but just pushed Qi Lanqing away.
Qi Lanqing was horrified when he realized what his daughter was going to do: "Xinxin! Don't be fooled by him!"
However, Jiang Xin stood there motionless, allowing the tree spirit's green spiritual power with corrosive black spots to devour her.
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