Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Numerous tree sprites flooded out.

Yun Tianlan smiled. “You think it’s that easy to leave?”

With a light wave of his hand, he conjured a cloud.

The Basking Moon Sect’s spell arts were famed for being ethereal and light, and while their movements seemed simple and weak, their moves were actually infused with immense power.

This ethereal cloud seemed above the world, but when it fell on the tree sprites, those thousands of tree sprites felt as if a mountain had come down on them. An ordinary foe would have been instantly crushed, but these were elite sprites who had followed the Tree Ancestor and been toughened by a True Immortal’s will for several thousand years. Thus, not a single one died, and all that happened was that they slowed down.

The Rootless Tree Ancestor angrily said, “You’re trying to stop them while I’m still here?”

Two sky-obscuring hands swung down. There was no trace of any Immortal Art or Divine Connection, simply a manifestation of absolute strength. This Rootless Tree Ancestor was basically a tree version of a peak body cultivator.

Yun Tianlan chuckled. “Haven’t I already stopped you?”

He waved his hand again, summoning more white clouds. He didn’t seek to kill, only to hinder, and all of the tree sprites were slowed to a crawl.

Seeing this, the Rootless Tree Ancestor roared, its hands turning into countless branches, weaving themselves into a net that was cast at Yun Tianlan.

Yun Tianlan was caught off guard by this sudden transformation, hastily transforming into a breeze and fleeing.

But while that net of branches seemed to have large openings, each opening was actually packed with energy that Yun Tianlan bounced off. A moment later, Yun Tianlan reappeared, still within the net. The Rootless Tree Ancestor drew in the net, ensnaring Yun Tianlan as it snarled, “Now die!”

The net turned back into a giant hand and squeezed.

A world-destroying power was suffused into this hand, enough to crush even a True Immortal.

But at this moment, Yun Tianlan was surrounded by a rainbow light that pushed back against the hand.

Yun Tianlan smiled. “Break!”

A silver spear appeared in his hand, and he thrust it at the tree hand.

The tree hand was instantly punctured, and the Rootless Tree Ancestor let out a growl of pain. Yun Tianlan elegantly flew out of the hole he had made, his head wearing a flat-topped crown and his hand holding the silver spear. Both items twinkled with Dao Runes, informing his foe of their nature.

“Dao armaments!” the Rootless Tree Ancestor wailed.

Yun Tianlan laughed. “Is it a surprise? This old man is the True Immortal of Rosecloud, the ancestor of Basking Moon. Isn’t it only right that I have two Dao armaments? Or has the Rootless Tree Ancestor reigned for so long that you’ve forgotten that we humans are good with weapons?”

Yun Tianlan was correct.

Fiends had dominated for too long here, so long that they had forgotten how humans were strong and frightening.

But today, Yun Tianlan was helping it remember what humans had always relied on.

The silver spear shone with the luster of the Great Dao.

This was a divine spear of the Dao of Yin Yang, and like the Myriad Immortals Cauldron, it was focused on the conversion of Reality and Illusion. But the Myriad Immortals Cauldron, which held myriad beasts, converted Reality to Illusion to imprint the beasts on the cauldron and had little combat power of its own. The Silver River Spear was the exact opposite. It was a pure weapon of war, and its power was to turn the illusory to real to attack.

As Yun Tianlan raised aloft the Silver River Spear, the spiritual energy in the air formed into a massive white tiger.

The Silver River Spear’s Dao Runes flashed, and the tiger became a real one, roaring into the air and lunging at the Rootless Tree Ancestor.

The Rootless Tree Ancestor snorted, and one of its giant hands transformed into thousands of branches that wrapped around the tiger and tied it up so tightly that all it could do was wail.

Yun Tianlan simply chuckled, and a moment later, countless more tigers appeared.

The Dao Runes flew off the spear and merged with the tigers, upon which there was a chorus of roars, giant tiger after giant tiger manifesting, this time lunging at the tree sprites.

The Rootless Tree Ancestor transformed both its arms into countless branches that shot out.

Yun Tianlan laughed. “You should worry about yourself first.”

He swung his left hand, creating a rainbow which fired off tens of thousands of beams of light that intercepted the Rootless Tree Ancestor’s branches, leaving the tigers free to battle with the tree sprites.

At the same time, Yun Tianlan threw out the Silver River Spear, and it transformed into a roaring silver dragon that charged at the Rootless Tree Ancestor.

This silver dragon was a transformation ability possessed by the Silver River Spear when it had still been a divine treasure. Yun Tianlan had forged it by combining the bones of a silver dragon with various precious metals, allowing it to manifest a mighty silver dragon phantom. When the divine treasure had been upgraded into a Dao armament, the silver dragon phantom gained physical form, one made of the very same rare metals used to forge the spear.

The silver dragon charged into the tree’s body, blasting a large hole through it.

The dragon tore its way through the trunk and flew back into the sky, letting out a triumphant roar.

Yun Tianlan summoned the Silver River Spear back to his hand with a wave and gave the Rootless Tree Ancestor a cold glare. “So?”

The Rootless Tree Ancestor’s giant body swayed, but the human face on the trunk gave a strange smile. “So? It was nothing much!”

Yun Tianlan was startled, and then he instantly went on his guard, the crown on his head unleashing a curtain of rainbow light to protect him.

At the same time, the Rootless Tree Ancestor opened its mouth and spewed out a cloud of mist.

This cloud contained numerous small spores, which rushed toward Yun Tianlan. They rammed into the rainbow light and began to explode.

Each spore would spread an extremely potent toxin when it exploded, and Yun Tianlan quickly found himself surrounded by a thick cloud of it. Worst of all was that this poison cloud was an innate spell art of the Rootless Tree Ancestor, so it wasn’t so easily dispelled.

Yun Tianlan instantly realized that he was in trouble. There were far more spores than he had expected, and relying on the defense of the crown meant that he had neglected to evade the spores. As a result, he was now surrounded by poison.

It had to be understood that Dao armaments could not be used without limit. So long as it wasn’t a natural Dao armament, then it required a cultivator to activate it and provide it energy. The crown was a powerful defensive tool, but it couldn’t be used forever. On the contrary, relying on it to defend against the spores simply meant that he would be surrounded by more and more poison. Once the defenses disappeared, what awaited Yun Tianlan was a terrifying attack that even he didn’t want to deal with.

Yun Tianlan felt like he had a big headache.

The spores were still piling on, crashing into the crown’s barrier in wave after wave.

Yun Tianlan didn’t dare to let the spores touch him, and started to evade.

The Rootless Tree Ancestor laughed. “Now you realize you have to evade? Isn’t it too late?”

Amid the laughter, its two giant hands once more transformed into a net that sealed off all of Yun Tianlan’s exits, all the while more spores rushed in.

Yun Tianlan grunted, “Fire!”

At this, flames raged across the heavens, beginning to burn away the spore clouds.

The Rootless Tree Ancestor sneered. “Mist!”

A heavy fog descended, thick with moisture, quenching Yun Tianlan’s flames.

Yun Tianlan waved his Silver River Spear, and a shining moon rose, its light driving away the mist. At the same time, he shouted, “Wind!”

A great gale stirred, blowing away the spores.

The Rootless Tree Ancestor shouted back, “Fixate!” upon which the wind disappeared and the spores regathered.

These were two Supreme True Immortals, able to speak words into laws. Their every action, even thought, was a spell art, ready at a moment’s notice to be summoned from their memory.

Thus, as they competed in spell arts, they each had a counter for their foe, and if they didn’t know one, they could just create one. While Yun Tianlan had two formidable Dao armaments, the Rootless Tree Ancestor had his innate Divine Connection and invincible tree body, like a body and law cultivator in one.

Neither side was able to get the upper hand.

Although Yun Tianlan couldn’t win, he was in no rush, for his main goal was to hold down the Rootless Tree Ancestor and its tree sprite army. This alone would lead to victory.

The Rootless Tree Ancestor gradually started to get nervous. Although it couldn’t leave here, its Divine Will had a vast range. It could sense that the fiends were being hunted down by cultivators, and beyond the domain, another domain was approaching. Soon, a war that involved the entire domain would take place.

If the domain-merging war began with its side already reeling from major wounds, the rest of the war would be without suspense. The invaders would swiftly pacify the entire domain, and it would have no hope of resisting.

Unlike the Ice Dragon Emperor, the Rootless Tree Ancestor wasn’t known for its ability to move around. Escaping this domain was extremely difficult for it.

The Rootless Tree Ancestor immediately hardened its heart, glaring at Yun Tianlan. “You really think you can invade my domain so easily?”

It planted its legs into the ground, turning them back into roots. To Yun Tianlan’s surprise, the roots began to quickly burrow deep into the ground, reaching the very depths of the earth and still spreading. In the blink of an eye, Yun Tianlan could sense that the tree’s roots had formed a network that spanned almost half the planet.

And beyond the limits of Yun Tianlan’s Divine Will, the Rootless Tree Ancestor’s roots were still spreading, intending on encroaching across the entire Divine Spring Domain.

As the network of roots grew, the Rootless Tree Ancestor also grew larger.

It bellowed, “Yun Tianlan, so what if you have Dao armaments? With my endless roots, the entire Divine Spring Domain is my source of power! The world is my Dao armament!”