Chapter 243: Remnant Tree Heart (Please Subscribe)

After killing the person, Du En didn't even take a breath; he retracted his storage bag, shook off the charcoal shell from his body, changed into new clothes, took out a demon bone shovel, and nimbly began to bury the corpse.

Because of the nirvana, there were no external items left on Cui Wei, and even his life-bound magical treasure, which had never been revealed, no longer existed; it could be said he had truly achieved a rebirth in the literal sense.

Then, it must be said, he was truly worthy of being a Firmiana Phoenix that had received the phoenix's legacy blood and was capable of nirvana; after death, his corpse and the death intent contained within his death were truly equivalent to one against a hundred!

Therefore, as of now, he was equivalent to having buried two hundred and six corpses, with two hundred and ninety-four still remaining.

"However, this situation still seems a bit small for a phoenix..."

Du En thought this, made the death ground vanish, and flew toward the central pillar in the deep valley.

This central pillar had suffered devastation and was long on the verge of collapse; the Phoenix-Blood Firmiana standing here had also withered and died after the Red Flame Phoenix Spirit flew out.

But as soon as he approached, he immediately felt a phantom pain, as if the intense agony of being scorched by the lingering Red Flame, which had penetrated his body, mind, and soul, had reappeared.

His expression did not change, but he secretly said to himself, "As expected."

The Firmiana Phoenix had indeed achieved nirvana, but it actually hadn't taken away, nor did it want to take away, the most fundamental thing!

Du En arrived before this withered spirit tree, raised his hand and thrust it directly in, digging open the dead and decayed trunk; the slight force that rippled out became the final straw that broke the camel's back, causing this central pillar of the deep valley to collapse directly.

Rumble—

Amidst the collapsing earth and stone, the dead and decayed trunk of the Firmiana also turned into fly ash; only a piece of the tree heart's main root, shaped like a long, narrow inverted water drop and appearing reddish-brown with a faint red glow, was held tightly in Du En's hand.

Whoosh—

A flame jumped up, directly making Du En experience once again the feeling of being scorched by the Red Flame just moments ago.

However, although this was a remnant of the Firmiana's old body and the remaining essence of the Great Vehicle phoenix's legacy blood, it was now just a rootless tree and was in a state of deathly silence; therefore, after jumping once, it did not continue to manifest anything further.

"It seems I can only wait for the cooldown of my divine ability to pass before I can try to deal with it."

Du En endured the pain and used a full ten percent of his magic power to arduously extinguish this flame, not letting it truly ignite; his expression remained calm from beginning to end, without the slightest ripple, as he silently made his decision in his heart.

Immediately, he found a container to store it in, then carefully tucked it into his storage bag.

If it showed even a hint of erupting, he couldn't put it away and would have to carry it by hand or have his cast-image hold it.

Fortunately, it was truly in a state of deathly silence now, and it was successfully collected by the fourth-tier storage bag as a fourth-tier top-grade spirit item without any accidents.

After finishing this, Du En looked around and saw only the root and vein network of the spirit-nurturing ground, which was already eighty percent destroyed and considered a total waste, along with some remaining corpses.

Du En immediately triggered his golden flames to cremate the remains of these poor people, and incidentally combed through this deep valley area to avoid any remaining arrangements left by Cui Wei.

After confirming that there were no hidden dangers here, he did not linger for a moment, rose into the air again, and flew toward Chiwu City.

The activity over there was very obvious, or rather, once the deep valley section fell into silence and the spiritual energy veins collapsed, the entire Chiwu Mountain Range only had that place still able to inhale and exhale massive amounts of spiritual energy, maintaining the original spiritual environment.

Because, in reality, the city of Chiwu was the port for the local spiritual energy output.

Thus, the operation of that demonic array became increasingly intense and arrogant, causing the moon, which had begun to sink and yield, to be completely stained with a layer of evil red.

At this very moment.

In that mountain hollow outside the city, the desperate bottom-dwellers, numbering less than ten thousand, were gradually calming down, or rather, because of the ongoing deepening of their corpse-transformation and the pain produced during this process, they had to shift their attention back.

"Pain, so painful..."

"Don't be afraid, my lady, your husband is here, here..."

A pair of Daoist companions among the bottom-dwellers inexplicably caught the attention of Huizhun.

He watched them secretly with his divine sense, his eyes becoming somewhat dull.

Actually, he wasn't thinking of anything, and there was no fluctuation of emotion; it was just inexplicably so.

And before him, that group of Foundation Establishment cultivators from Yunyi City had already begun to lose their patience.

"The corpse energy over at the city is monstrous; it's clear that although some array points of that demonic array were destroyed, it is still operating in an orderly fashion. If the city defense stalls and fails at this moment, I fear those inside the city are already in grave danger!"

"Using the lowly cultivators outside the city as starting material, then charging into the city to succeed in a vicious cycle—looking at the monstrous corpse energy now, it is likely already like this, rolling larger and larger, and about to completely spiral out of control!"

"We are clearly here, yet we haven't accomplished anything. If this gets out later, we might be reprimanded for inaction and then punished!"

"We might even be sent to the front lines—a dead end!"

"Therefore, the current plan..."

They appeared anxious and restless; not daring to turn back to break the array, they all thought in unison to first eliminate the "hidden danger" here, so that afterward they could argue that they had actually taken action but had fallen for the villain's scheme and been lured away from their post.

However, doing so meant they could not bypass Huizhun, who was blocking the way.

This soldier of the Inspection Guard remained silent and appeared somewhat dull, but in reality, he had long been practicing to recuperate, his injuries and magic power recovering rapidly, fully living up to his reputation as a first-class elite.

At present, his aura was stabilizing, but because he could not fully suppress the leakage caused by his wounds, it made these second-rate Foundation Establishment cultivators from Yunyi City secretly feel alarmed.

This was actually one of the reasons for their anxiety.

Although the person in front of them was someone their Ninth Master had ordered them to find, Ren Li was not here right now, and tonight had muddled into this current situation, so they inevitably felt a surge of malice.

As long as it was done cleanly and they claimed he was caught in the crossfire and died heroically, who would know?

Sensing the restless malice of this group, Huizhun came back to his senses and coldly reprimanded them: "The Hub City Inspection Guard is here; who dares to act rashly!"

Huh?!

Someone from the Hub City Inspection Guard?!

The crowd from Yunyi City was greatly shocked, and for a moment, their malice temporarily receded.

However, they did not leave and remained where they were.

No one asked Huizhun to prove his identity; after all, if it were truly proven, wouldn't that leave them with no room to maneuver?

Rather than that, it was better not to verify it—perhaps it could be used later?

The malice had only temporarily receded and soon came rolling back.

"Just because he says he's from the Inspection Guard, he is?"

"Perhaps it's a villain's scheme!"

"The real inspection soldier might have already been killed, and he just snatched the person's identity token!"

Naturally, they didn't dare say this directly, but communicated via divine sense, intensely and unanimously wanting to disregard everything and take ruthless action.

They couldn't just keep standing here in a stalemate, watching the opponent's condition recover to the point where he could wipe them all out, could they?

(End of chapter)