Chapter 404: Spirit Seed vs. Mount Fengmo

With a loud "bang," a pack horse slammed into the ground, instantly reduced to a bloody mess. Fushan Yue took the opportunity to kick the guard beside him, who was sent flying right under the horse; the guard didn't even make a sound, and his splattered brains splashed all over the face of the Chiyan Kingdom envoy.

The Chiyan Kingdom envoy was just about to reach up and wipe his face when he felt his body grow light, and he was actually hoisted into the air by his collar.

Fushan Yue grabbed him and leaped off the cliff! Seeing this, two guards roared and charged over. The Mount Fengmo blew a breath, and two gusts of wind surged forth, blowing them away in an instant.

Precise and accurate.

"Huh, he actually grabbed the Chiyan Kingdom envoy?" This was far beyond He He Lingchuan's expectations. Fushan Yue's target had shifted from the Shanyu Kingdom envoy to the Chiyan Kingdom envoy.

Could there be some connection between the two? The Shanyu Kingdom was experiencing internal strife, but what was wrong with the Chiyan Kingdom? He had too little intelligence on hand to draw any credible conclusions.

Debris rained down from the sky, but the members of the guard unit were quite resilient, finding ways to strike back in the gaps between dodging and hiding. With the Chiyan envoy unexpectedly snatched away, if they couldn't protect the remaining members of the delegation, this mission would be a failure.

The spiritual power on the arrowheads shifted from deep blue to dark green, showing that their morale hadn't been crushed; instead, facing a desperate situation, they had developed a sense of shared hatred for the enemy.

This was the only thing the Mount Fengmo was wary of. Even if the guards' shots went wide, the swirling wind currents would eventually deliver the arrows right to it.

He He Lingchuan's gaze never left Fushan Yue's figure, allowing him to see that he and the Chiyan envoy hadn't been smashed to pieces, but rather, using a glider, had glided back to Mount Fengmo Mountain!

It was just that they landed on the outer, lower periphery of Mount Fengmo Mountain, where there were many holes, and the Mount Fengmo blocked the guard unit's line of sight, so the latter failed to discover where Fushan Yue and the envoy had gone.

He He Lingchuan was just about to sneak down to investigate when he saw the guard unit leader take out something that was flashing with golden light.

That spirit seed of the Treasure Tree King.

It was also the treasure designated for collection by the Divine Bone Necklace.

Because of this, He He Lingchuan immediately reined in his rock sheep.

The appearance of the spirit seed instead caused the Mount Fengmo's rage to spike to the max; its form even began to fluctuate, and it actually grew quite thick arms from both sides of its body! Most of the arrows the guards shot at it were blocked by these arms and then fiercely thrown back.

Then it closed in once more, swinging its arms to smash heavily against the giant wooden phantom; the force of the wind in every strike was unimaginable.

Once, twice... ten times.

Each heavy blow felt substantial, and everyone could hear a tremendous friction sound, as if the canvas were about to be torn to shreds in the next second.

The wooden staff on the ground also swayed violently.

After all, it was only a branch of the Treasure Tree King and could not possess all of its power; that it had held out until now was already remarkable.

At this moment, the guard unit leader knelt down, holding the spirit seed in both hands, chanting something under his breath.

Beside them, it seemed as if another low voice was echoing.

As a bystander, He He Lingchuan noticed that the Mount Fengmo was gradually turning red, while simultaneously pulling in all the wild winds from the outer layer. So much so that He He Lingchuan, on the dangerous peak opposite, felt the surroundings suddenly grow calm, and even the endless mountain wind stopped.

Concentrating all power in one place made it more potent. It was clear that such a violent offensive was an excessive burden for the Mount Fengmo as well.

Both sides had exhausted their full strength.

The wooden staff on the ground finally could no longer bear the weight, as all the pressure was crashing down upon it.

With a "pop," it was scraped out of the ground.

The entire guard unit lost its protection, and a gale that reached nearly force eighteen instantly swept everything up into the sky.

Whether it was people or corpses, or heavy carriages and giant rocks, none were spared.

The barrier was broken, and the Mount Fengmo had won.

It let out a triumphant howl.

The guard unit leader couldn't stand either, but he was quick-witted and grabbed the wooden staff, then pressed the spirit seed onto the head of the staff! The shapes of these two items didn't match, and it was unclear how they were embedded. Before He He Lingchuan could look closely, the leader used the staff as a javelin and threw it fiercely at the Mount Fengmo!

Logically, at such a close distance, anything would be blown off course by the gale. Yet this staff was an exception; it was completely unaffected by the wind, moving firmly toward its intended target—

And then it pierced into the Mount Fengmo's head area.

The spirit seed suddenly burst into brilliant light, as if sunlight had reappeared in the gloomy world.

Although the light explosion lasted only a brief moment, it stimulated the wooden staff to grow with all its might, becoming longer, thicker, and branching out...

He He Lingchuan stared in a daze; wasn't this the aerial root of the Treasure Tree King?

If it didn't have this talent, it wouldn't be able to form a forest from a single tree and support such a heavy canopy.

After only a few breaths, the wooden staff had actually grown into a giant root ball, trapping the Mount Fengmo inside. The process was so short that it even snapped off two of its arms.

Only by looking closely could one see that each root system had thin, long aerial filaments, densely interwoven into an irregular net, even more dense than human capillaries.

The Mount Fengmo, of course, couldn't sit in jail obediently, transforming into several gusts of wind to try and drill out.

However, every root filament radiated golden light, working together to form a solid barrier that actually forced the Mount Fengmo to stay inside the ball.

The Mount Fengmo thrashed left and right inside, creating a huge commotion but failing to break out.

This was one of the Treasure Tree King's signature demonic arts:

Root Imprisonment.

Anyone with a discerning eye could see that the guard unit leader was using the power of the spirit seed to subdue the Mount Fengmo. The Treasure Tree King's spirit seed could grow into a border-guarding sentinel anywhere in the territory, and the demonic power it contained was astonishingly abundant.

Furthermore, the ability of trees to block wind, stabilize sand, and absorb water was beyond doubt.

In this day and age, with the world's spiritual energy thin, perhaps only the Treasure Tree King could accomplish this with its unique talent.

The guard unit leader being able to use the spirit seed was the result of communicating with the sliver of consciousness the Treasure Tree King had left in the seed.

Of course, sending it into battle was a last resort; if the power stored within were consumed too much, it might not be able to successfully grow into a tree guard in the future. This would be highly detrimental to the stability of the Treasure Tree Kingdom's northern border.

In this era of sparse spiritual energy, it took the Treasure Tree King thirty-six years to nurture such a single spirit seed.

The helplessness of the situation and the safety of the delegation ultimately prompted the guard unit leader to make up his mind.

With the Mount Fengmo imprisoned, the wild winds suddenly weakened, and things in the sky fell one after another, like dumplings into a pot.

The guards who landed first were busy saving people.

Fortunately, the two special envoys from the Xulu Kingdom and the White Elephant Kingdom were still alive, though injured to varying degrees; the Xulu Kingdom envoy was only saved because his belt caught on a small tree. But the first thing they did after being rescued was to gasp for air—

Being in the high-speed wind vortex, it was impossible to breathe.

Those who had been swept into the wind vortex by the Mount Fengmo earlier, if they weren't smashed to death by other flying objects immediately, would have died or fallen unconscious from suffocation.

More people and objects were unlucky enough to fall off the cliff, and that meant being smashed to pieces; they couldn't be saved.

The guard unit leader also jumped to the ground, and after catching his breath, he hurriedly chanted the incantation to completely subdue the Mount Fengmo. Even with his high combat power, he had nowhere to use his strength against such an intangible opponent and could only honestly chant the terms taught by the Treasure Tree King.

Learning on the fly always had a drawback: a lack of proficiency.

This incantation was agonizingly convoluted and agonizingly long; some syllables didn't sound like anything a human could produce. When the Treasure Tree King chanted it, it was just a matter of moving its lips, but if the guard leader mispronounced a single syllable, he had to start over. The more he erred, the more anxious he became, and the more anxious he was, the more he erred. With his forehead covered in sweat, he finally had to take a deep breath and start from the beginning.

During this time, the Mount Fengmo wasn't idle, spinning desperately inside the root ball to create another airflow vortex, pulling in the surrounding north wind to replenish itself.

After all, this root ball wasn't controlled by the Treasure Tree King personally and could only follow the fixed settings from the factory; it restricted things inside from getting out, but it didn't restrict things outside from getting in.

So even though the Mount Fengmo was locked up, it could still continuously draw power from the outside world.

As the Mount Fengmo crashed harder and harder, the root ball floating in the air began to fly toward the east—

That is, toward the ruins of the Misty Sect, and the speed was quite fast, at least fifty miles per hour.

The guard unit leader saw this and had no good solution, so he could only straighten his tongue and chant the incantation as fast as possible.

Having learned from his previous mistakes and knowing that haste makes waste, he closed his eyes this time, calmed his mind, and chanted the incantation word by word. This time, there were no errors or omissions.

Just as he reached the halfway point, a rumbling sound came from behind.

The first few sounds were masked by the gale, but the ground soon began to tremble. A few guard members noticed first, and when they looked back, they couldn't help but be shocked: "Captain, Captain! Rolling stones!"

The seven or eight giant rocks that had been lifted into the sky by the Mount Fengmo just moments ago had fallen back onto the ridge. Whether by coincidence or the Mount Fengmo's intent, they were rolling toward them in a line, rolling faster and faster, with ever-increasing momentum!

Two of them even shattered into four or five pieces halfway there, and instead of stopping, they accelerated. Don't look at them as having become smaller; they were more than capable of smashing people to death.

The spirit seed barrier was already broken; if these giant rocks smashed down, they would all be turned into meat paste! However, the guard unit leader continued to chant. The personal guards beside him had no choice but to grab him and push him away, while shouting, "Dodge, everyone dodge!"

A large rock rolled in front of them and suddenly cracked into two, with the stone fragments shooting toward the two of them blindly.

The guard unit leader had to raise his shield to block, and he was knocked back several steps, the incantation interrupted once again.

Looking around, everyone was dodging; where would they have the time to protect him?

Several unlucky ones were hit squarely by large and small stones, screaming as they fell to the bottom of the cliff.

Others who saw this scene were terrified, and no one dared to get close.

The captain was furious but helpless, so he had to take a deep breath and chant the incantation again!

But during this delay, the Mount Fengmo had crashed the root ball all the way upward, crossing the peak of Mount Fengmo Rock.

He He Lingchuan also roughly guessed why the Mount Fengmo had to return here, but when he drove his sheep downward, he suddenly frowned.

At this time, there were actually quite a few outsiders on the mountainside.

There was no shortage of smart people anywhere; some merchants had come to their senses and realized that the official road was the Mount Fengmo's hunting ground, while the opposite mountain peak was safe. In fact, as long as they stayed away from the crowd, the wind monster wouldn't come to grab them.

So they had come over.

But in He He Lingchuan's view, they were just here to die.

During the double points period, continuing to ask for monthly tickets~ Love you.

(End of chapter)