I am the sacred tree, evergreen for eternity.

"Stop, child."

Don't make the same mistake again.

Before the words were even finished, a murderous aura suddenly arose around the altar.

Dozens of auras from the Mingling Realm bloomed simultaneously, and spiritual light surged in from all directions like a tide.

Xuan, Meng, and Feng led their elite warriors in single file, their armor clanging and their blades flashing like a forest, completely surrounding the altar.

Xuan raised his hand and threw a bloody fox head, which rolled to the feet of the three-tailed fox demon.

Its silvery-white fur was soaked in blood, and its amber-colored vertical pupils were wide open, its eyes wide open in death.

"Twin demons are indeed rare."

"One end is holding me back in the dense forest, while the other is tempting Liang here..."

"The other one is probably in its lair, waiting for us to walk right into its trap."

Xuan slammed the iron axe into the ground with a muffled thud like thunder.

The fox demon with purplish-black pupils bristled, and its four legs involuntarily retreated.

"You...it's impossible?!"

"How could you possibly have escaped the ambush?!"

The fox demon's voice was shrill and piercing, filled with unbelievable fear.

The elites of the three tribes stood here in perfect formation, not one missing.

The ambush in the dense forest and the carefully planned delay had clearly become a joke.

Liang's hand, gripping the iron knife, froze in mid-air, his face ashen, like that of a dead man.

"How...did you find out?"

Xuan looked at him, his eyes filled with regret.

"You can fool us, but you can't fool the tree god."

Liang suddenly turned his head and looked at the lush green branch.

In a daze, he saw—

A towering sacred tree stands atop the mountain, its spiritual light cascading down from its canopy, turning the entire mountain peak into a verdant, shimmering blue.

That is the Tree God himself!

A complex mix of emotions welled up in his bright pupils: awe, resentment, despair...

Chaos and disorder, like a red-hot iron branding my heart.

"A tree spirit? A tree spirit!"

"Why are you so late—"

He roared hysterically, unleashing all the pent-up grievances and anger he had suppressed for decades.

"We've struggled in this swamp for sixty years, sixty years!"

Where were you when we endured the erosion of miasma and the consuming of poison?

"Where were you when we knelt and prayed day and night, until our foreheads were bloodied and mangled?"

"Our child was born with toxins, and where were you then?"

He looked up at the branch, tears mixed with blood, but stubbornly refused to fall.

"Tree God..."

"You've never given us hope, yet now you mock my delusion?!"

A flash of inspiration appeared on the branch, as if it had been touched by something.

A breeze rustled through the branches and leaves, creating a soft whisper.

The purplish-black lines had spread to Liang's neck, and then spread towards her face and chest like a spider web.

The accumulated turbid air over the years had clearly eroded Liang's mind.

Xuan took a step forward, and the spiritual light instantly transformed into flames, attempting to suppress the swirling turbid air.

"Liang, stop being so stubborn! Let go of that demonic heart!"

"I'm perfectly sober!"

Liang's voice grew increasingly frantic and chaotic, and a murky purplish-black mist had already clouded his light brown pupils.

At the edge of the altar, a dozen figures emerged from the shadows.

That was a Mingling Realm expert from the western tribe, Liang's confidant, and an old brother who had followed him through life and death in the miasma for decades.

"Chief... turn back!"

"We are human, a branch of the Xia clan, and we are born to be mortal enemies with those beasts!"

"The poison wounds on our bodies are our destiny, but also the pride of those who have taken root in this western frontier!"

These burly men, their faces streaked with tears, desperately tried to save their leader.

Bright lips trembled, and the fingers gripping the knife handle loosened one by one.

Suddenly, he smiled.

A manic, desolate, and chilling laugh.

"It's too late...it's too late!"

His laughter exploded on the altar, tears mingling with blood as they streamed down his face.

"I'm beyond saving, why turn back!"

He shoved the purplish-black demon king's heart into his mouth.

He swallowed it.

In an instant, the weather changed dramatically.

Turbid gas erupted from Liang's body like a volcanic eruption, and a purplish-black pillar of light shot into the sky, turning the sky above the altar pitch black.

His body began to swell—his animal skin clothing was torn apart, his muscles bulged, and two bone spurs protruded from his back, carrying foul-smelling blood.

In the blink of an eye.

Liang transformed into a monster two zhang tall.

Its entire body was covered in purplish-black scales, its fangs were interlocked, and its vertical pupils were cold and sinister.

The turbid air condensed into a solid black mist that swirled around it, and purplish-black arcs of electricity crackled and leaped, each flash causing the air to tremble.

That foul air—far exceeded the period of seeking the Dharma.

They gripped the iron axe tightly, the wind tightened the bowstring, and the spiritual light of dozens of Mingling Realm cultivators burst forth simultaneously, their blades aimed at the monster.

But the monster did not attack.

It just stood there hunched over, a flicker of struggle occasionally flashing in its purplish-black vertical pupils—that was Liang's last consciousness.

Battle is imminent.

"well--"

A sigh came from that verdant branch.

It was very light, as light as a falling leaf.

But it was also very heavy, as heavy as an entire mountain pressing down on it.

In an instant, brilliant spiritual light descended simultaneously from the earth, from the sky, and from all directions.

The moment Yu Su's spirit field opened, the air on the entire altar froze.

The wind stopped, the leaves ceased to sway, and the torch flame froze into an amber-colored solid.

The purplish-black turbid air seemed to be gripped by an invisible giant hand, locked tightly inside the monster's body, unable to leak out even a trace.

The leaping arcs of electricity extinguished, the surging black mist dissipated, and the monster's body gradually shrank under the suppression of the spiritual field.

The turbid energy was peeled away and dissolved layer by layer by the spiritual light, turning into nothingness from the root.

The two-zhang-tall monster disappeared.

Its scales peeled off, its bone spikes broke, and its body shrank.

Liang knelt naked on the stone slab, soaked to the bone, panting heavily.

His eyes regained their clarity—a clean, near-amber color, without a trace of purplish-black turbidity.

He looked down at his hands, his fingers, now human-like, trembling uncontrollably.

"By the Tree God!"

"What...what have I done..."

Two lines of bloody tears slid down Liang's cheeks, and that silent sorrow lingered in the air.

He faced the branch of the tree spirit and slammed his forehead heavily against the stone slab.

With each blow, blood seeped from his head, blooming into scarlet flowers on the bluestone slab.

"All sins have been committed against me."

"It has nothing to do with our own people, and nothing to do with the western frontier."

"Tree God...please don't abandon us..."

His forehead was pressed firmly against the ground, and he dared not lift it.

In the silence, a leaf drifted down from a branch and gently landed on Liang's head.

A spiritual light surged from the leaves, and a profound message unfolded in everyone's consciousness—

The cultivation methods of spiritual fields, the secrets of condensing spiritual light into domains and harnessing the power of heaven and earth...

Beyond the main trunk, there is a slender branch:

The application of spiritual light to dispel turbid air and toxic fog.

This is a method that can dissolve and even transform the miasma and turbidity deposited deep in the blood into something useful.

It never needed the heart of a demon king, nor the turbid energy, nor betrayal.

turn out to be--

The Tree God has never abandoned humanity.

The human race, however, has wavered in its faith.