Chapter 731: Showoff

The tree trunk connects both ends, supporting the entire space between heaven and earth, its whole body emitting dazzling golden light.

That golden hue is unnaturally intense, bright to the point of aggression.

The patterns on the trunk surface crawl slowly; beneath them seems like blood flowing, each pulse pushing a ring of golden light outward.

Sacredness and aberrance coexist on this tree; it is sacred because it truly exudes a vast, instinctively awe‑inspiring majesty that makes one want to kneel, and it is aberrant because the thousands of human faces on the trunk are overly expressive—closed eyes appear to pray, while opened pupils show the cold indifference of a predator locking onto prey.

Qingque looked at the tree and hummed softly.

She was about to show off!

"Ha."

"A mere Abundance Offspring."

Her voice was small, yet it rang clearly across sea and sky, each word bearing the sharp, murderous chill that comes after infusing Patrol Hunt power: "With the edge of Patrol Hunt, let the light arrows eradicate all; this is the Imperial Bow Director of Destiny's decree, also the Luofu Cloud Riders' oath. You who have barely clung to life until now should stop here."

She paused, drew her right hand from behind, flicked a casual slash in front of her, and several jade‑like plates floated from void, spiraling slowly around her wrist, their surfaces glowing with a warm lapis‑blue sheen.

"Though I am not a Cloud Rider, having received the grant of Patrol Hunt—"

The curve at the corner of her mouth lifted another notch, "Then I'll take the trouble, adding a shift for the General."

As soon as the words fell, the giant tree moved.

Heaven and earth exerted force simultaneously.

The new sky above, now carpeted with roots, began to press downward; countless roots pulled from the seabed network, dragging swirling mud, sand and sea‑water residue, like an entire continent slowly sinking.

The new ground below, supported by the canopy, pushed upward; golden branches intertwined into a sturdier structure, lifting the whole earth and squeezing it upward.

The trunk itself swelled, and the crawling human faces on its surface began to break free from the woody fibers—first the faces, then necks, then shoulders and chests; complete, twisted beings peeled from the trunk, dripping wet golden slime, falling into the air, flipping mid‑air, and spreading their limbs.

Their forms were so bizarre that one wondered what the creator had in mind when designing them.

Some rose hundreds of meters tall, humanoid but bearing seven or eight arms, each arm ending not in a hand but an open mouth, teeth arranged in concentric layers extending down to the throat.

Others were quadrupedal beasts, a row of spines along the back, each spine tipped with an upright pupil that rotated independently without any synchrony.

Some omitted a body entirely, being merely a conglomerate of eyes—a few hundred eyes packed into an irregular sphere, each eye turning toward a different direction, the whites streaked with blood vessels.

Yet others retained a half‑human, half‑tree transitional shape: the upper half a twisted human face and torso, the lower half a trunk constantly sprouting branches; when they walked, the base of the trunk left trails of golden sap in the void.

They peeled off the trunk in dense masses, so numerous that the trunk's surface seemed to have its skin stripped away.

Golden slime stretched into countless filaments in midair; the fallen beings adjusted their posture, collectively turning toward the center of the Bubbles Sea where Qingque stood.

Overwhelmingly.

Like a swarm of locusts passing through.

Golden bodies, golden slime, golden eyes filled the entire space within Qingque's sight.

Heaven pressed down, earth pushed up, and innumerable monsters surged forward—the weight of the whole world seemed to crush toward the gray‑white figure standing on a fish's back at the center of the Bubbles Sea.

Qingque watched the scene, her expression unmoving.

In her turquoise eyes reflected the endless gold, and the few specks of lapis light deep in her pupils shone even brighter.

Yet she couldn't help thinking—she'd never seen a spectacle of this scale in this life.

In the past, when she was idly fishing at the Tai Bu Si, she only ever flipped through dossiers to glance at Cloud Cavalry battle reports—things like "the step‑away beast tide besieging Yuque", "Abundance Offspring breaking the blockade line and striking Luofu"; those textual descriptions felt like reading a storybook, finishing tea and turning the page, then forgetting.

Now these things stood before her, so close she could smell the sweet‑sour scent of the monsters' slime, close enough to see the nearest eye‑ball conglomerate reflecting herself—gray‑white long hair, standing on a blue fish, with layers of lapis‑blue bubbles behind.

The generals of that era must have faced such a sight.

The Imperial Bow's seven‑day formation, five‑star clouds above—those names recorded in dossiers for posterity, the battlefields they endured were roughly like this: heaven and earth pressing together, endless enemies pouring in from all directions, the whole world telling you: you are alone, and you must face the entire world.

The world is unpredictable, oh how unpredictable.

I, a Diviner who usually just fishes and plays cards, ended up in a situation of this caliber—who would believe me if I told anyone?

Card friend A would surely think she's bragging again, Card friend B would probably ask if she'd drunk fake wine, Grand Diviner—Grand Diviner would probably stare at her with those pink eyes and say, "Qingque, you're talking nonsense again."

She couldn't help shaking her head, a self‑mocking smile tugging at her mouth without her even noticing.

Bubbles surged around her.

Countless billions of bubbles descended from the inverted sea above, rose from the water beneath her feet, gathered from all directions, forming a flowing wall around her.

The sound of bubbles colliding merged into a soft rustle, like waves, like wind through a bamboo forest, like countless pearls rolling over silk.

Each bubble, before striking her garment's edge, automatically veered, spiraled around her a few times, then drifted away.

She stood on the blue fish's back, embraced by this lapis‑blue sea, her gray‑white hair alternating light and shadow in the fragmented reflections of the bubbles.

She waved forward.

In the void before her, several jade plates materialized out of thin air, larger and brighter than those used to blast the tree, the runes on them shifting from carved lines to flowing light, slowly rotating across the surface.

She pressed down with her other hand; a mass of azure cloud condensed from her feet, appearing more like water vapor compressed to the extreme than a cloud, semi‑transparent lapis‑blue, its surface swirling with tiny vortices.

She leaned back, crossed her legs, her posture as leisurely as waiting for tea service in a teahouse.

One hand propped her chin, the other idly twirled the floating jade plates; the plates spun lightly with her fingertips, emitting a crisp "ding‑ding‑dang‑dang" sound.

"Sure enough, still have to play cards."