Chapter 775: I

The coat of the general's uniform was long gone, the asymmetrical skirt torn to only a few strips of cloth hanging at the waist, the left thigh‑high stocking ripped with several large holes, revealing skin underneath soaked in golden liquid.

Dust and golden pollen on her hair mixed together, the gray‑white strands stuck into stiff little rods, sprouting several tiny flowers she couldn't be bothered to pluck.

A thin golden vine also sprouted from her neck, climbing upward along it and almost reaching the base of her ear.

Her face, however, was clean—probably because when a branch whipped her away, her face hit the ground and scraped off a layer of skin; the new skin was pink and smooth, forming a stark contrast with the dirty skin around it.

With her expressionless face and hollow jade‑green eyes, she looked both miserable and ridiculous.

The blue‑gold jade tokens lay scattered around her body, their light dimmer than before by several degrees.

"It hurts." she said to the sky.

In the distance, the trunk of the golden giant tree had been blasted open with a huge hole.

Blue‑gold light still slowly flowed across the cross‑section, the result of her repeatedly gnawing at it with the giant whales for several rounds.

Several blue‑gold giant whales circled the trunk, each time they opened their mouths tearing off another piece of golden wood from the trunk.

But the golden monsters covering the trunk were just as numerous; the strange creatures peeled from the bark clung to the whales like locusts, frantically gnawing at the whale bodies with bone blades, light beams, and teeth.

Each time a chunk of the blue‑gold flesh was crushed, new bubbles welled from the wound to fill it.

The whales' sizes visibly waxed and waned in this war of attrition—when a piece was bitten off it was replenished, then bitten off again.

Above, an endless expanse of golden branches wove a canopy.

Thick branches could cover a whole city, thinner ones still tens of zhang thick, interlaced and woven into an airtight net.

The net slowly pressed downward, each inch accompanied by a dull roar and the fine sound of countless bubbles being squeezed and popping.

Below, likewise, layers of golden roots carpeted the space, pushing upward from beneath.

From above and below, the sea of bubbles was squeezed into a narrow middle layer less than a thousand zhang thick.

The bubble mass strained to hold, each second billions of bubbles crushed by pressure, while new bubbles welled up from within to replenish them.

Burst bubbles turned into droplets, which re‑condensed into bubbles.

The cycle repeated.

The blank battlefield Qingque had blasted open earlier was long gone.

Now the whole space had been compressed into a sandwich: abundance above and below, with a struggling layer of blue‑gold in the middle.

The moon, of course, was no longer visible.

That blue moon, which had slept from beginning to end, with its little (-O-) emoticon face, was completely blocked outside by the thick layer of golden branches.

Qingque had lost track of how long she'd been trapped in this airtight golden cage; her sense of time was gone, she only remembered bursting out of the tree's interior, then being yanked back by the outer branches, bursting out again, and being gang‑attacked.

After several rounds of this, she finally used a full‑power surge of the fish school to gnaw through the trunk and burst out of that hole.

But after charging out she found the outside even worse—the branches pressing from above and below had sealed off all retreat.

"This fight is truly damn hard."

Qingque said to the sky, her voice hoarse, her tone lazy to the point of giving up.

As she spoke, a half‑dried streak of golden fluid still clung to the corner of her mouth.

She sat up from the bubbles, lowered her gaze to the writhing golden branches below her waist, and reached out to pull out the largest one on her shin.

Pulling it out brought a small piece of root with it, the tip still dripping golden liquid.

She tossed the branch aside casually and clapped her hands.

Then she plucked a small flower from her forehead, crushed it, and the bits sifted down between her fingers.

Qingque's mind was racing at high speed.

The situation is both complex and simple, depending on how you look at it.

Shuhuo's regenerative power was absurd—no matter how she blasted away tissue, the tree could regrow it in an instant.

After fighting this long, its offensive remained at a steady high level in both number and intensity, showing no sign of weakening.

This means something must be constantly supplying it.

Where is the source of nourishment?

The whole world lies within its reach; its root network has spread to depths she dare not dive, and the branches atop the sky already exceed the detection limit of her bubble swarm.

If the entire world is already part of its body, then her half‑day of fighting is like scratching against something so vast it has no borders.

Too huge.

Even if a core truly existed, hidden deep in the trunk or in the void beneath the roots, once it reaches a certain size it might as well not exist.

If you can't find it, it's as if there's no weak point.

"I'm so annoyed——"

Qingque leaned back and lay again on the bubbles; a golden branch twitched at her waist, and she slapped it flat with a palm.

So far her body has held up; Patrol Hunt's power has been actively repairing her flesh, the damage present but not fatal.

The problem is mental fatigue; her brain has been running at high intensity.

Every move she makes must weigh angle, coverage, and follow‑up; each judgment determines whether she can survive this wave of assault.

This state has lasted too long; now when she closes her eyes her mind is filled with sword‑blade trajectories and the piercing angles of threads.

Rest a bit. Just a bit.

She lay on the bubbles, listening to the distant whales' dull gnawing on the trunk and the monsters' shrill howls, feeling the faint rise and fall of the bubbles beneath her.

She closed her eyes and counted about twenty breaths, then opened them again.

Her jade‑green pupils had regained clarity; the few blue‑gold specks deep within them began to flow steadily, their rotation speed increasing.

Qingque slowly sat up, gathering the scattered blue‑gold jade tokens one by one, polishing each anew in her palm.

The light on their faces faded from dim back to a warm, moist sheen as before.

After picking up the last token she glanced down at the writhing branches below her waist and slapped the spot with the biggest gap.

Blue‑gold light exploded from her palm, covering the entire corroded area.

The golden branches withered in the light, turned to ash, and the newly grown muscles and skin sprouted again from the wound, smooth and whole.

She moved her newly healed left leg a little, the knee bending and straightening, the ankle rotating once, confirming that all joints were functioning normally.

When she stood up, the Bubbles beneath her feet automatically rose a bit, lifting her to a higher position.