But this was not all. The next moment, the Heavenly Dao Tree suddenly felt a chill spread from its roots to its crown, and its trunk was overwhelmed with a great sense of fatigue and loss of control.
“Are you also stealing my vitality?” the Heavenly Dao Tree asked, its voice filled with sorrow and disappointment, “Weren’t you here to save me?”
Its voice was full of disbelief and sadness, and all its leaves rustled as if in unified condemnation of Bai Shengyi.
“Aren’t you very weak?”
The Heavenly Dao Tree suddenly realized that at some point, Bai Shengyi’s expression had turned cold.
It weakly argued, “I am indeed very weak, and I can only maintain this state for a while. And that’s not important. No matter what, you can’t steal my vitality! I was already on the verge of death!”
“Is that so?”
Bai Shengyi raised an eyebrow indifferently, and with a lift of her hand, more and more spiritual energy flowed into the sapling.
“Wind.”
She wrote another word in the air with her brush, and a spring breeze suddenly arose in this space.
The spring breeze blew gently but unceremoniously, stirring up more spiritual energy and forming gusts of spiritual energy tornadoes that poured into the sapling.
This flood-like infusion caused the sapling to grow into a three-zhang-tall tree in the blink of an eye, and this tree was still growing.
The Heavenly Dao Tree panicked.
Not only did the spiritual energy and vitality of this space gather around the newly born tree, but even its Heavenly Dao origin force was draining away.
Suddenly, countless green leaves soared into the air from the crown of the tree, shooting towards Bai Shengyi like arrows!
Killing intent, fully revealed!
“Bai Shengyi, be careful!”
The Year Star Divine Fire exclaimed, its flames spreading out to block some of the green leaf arrows, but a large portion still rapidly approached Bai Shengyi!
Too fast!
And too unexpected!
This Heavenly Dao Tree actually attacked Bai Shengyi by surprise.
The Year Star Divine Fire couldn’t bear to watch and closed one eye. The other eye, however, widened the next moment.
This was the most shocking sight it had ever witnessed since leaving Mount Tianhuo as a fire spirit—
Wherever the green leaf arrows went, flowers bloomed.
The soft and tender flowers, glowing with the fierce red of flames, turned all the green leaf arrows into ashes in an instant, falling like rain.
“Sheng Hua,” Bai Shengyi murmured.
Spring Vermillion First Sword, Sheng Hua.
Previously, the flowers produced by this sword technique were merely a result of wood-elemental spiritual energy, but now, with the perfect fusion of her wood and fire elemental spiritual energy, the flowers produced by this move carried flickering flames.
And this flame was not any divine fire, but the spiritual root fire within her dantian.
“Ahhhh…”
The Heavenly Dao Tree’s screams echoed around.
As it turned out, the ashes that fell onto the tree directly corroded it, leaving its smooth, flat bark pitted and disfigured.
For the first time, the Year Star Divine Fire saw the spiritual fire in Bai Shengyi’s dantian. It sent a wisp of flame to approach the sparks, but immediately retracted it just as it was about to touch.
“Your fire is so powerful!” It couldn’t help but give a thumbs-up and flutter its lotus petals, muttering, “With such powerful fire, why would you need my help? Without my help, you can handle this tree yourself…”
However, Bai Shengyi was not as relaxed as she appeared.
The Heavenly Dao Tree was first and foremost the Heavenly Dao, and only then a tree. As the Heavenly Dao, its most powerful force was not spiritual energy, but rules.
Every part of the Heavenly Dao Tree contained profound rule mysteries that, with her current ability, she could not fully comprehend. She could only forcefully suppress it, leaving it no room to retaliate. Although this struggle and stalemate seemed to last only a few moments, in practice, it felt like thousands of years.
The currents of time washed over all things in the world, embracing the growth of everything.
Three crystal-clear jade-green bridges spanned across Bai Shengyi, the new tree, and the Heavenly Dao Tree, with more and more spiritual energy and vitality rushing towards the new tree.
The wind between heaven and earth suddenly turned wild. A trace of blackness surged into Bai Shengyi’s scorching hot dantian. She felt a sharp pain, but soon, the pain disappeared.
The Cycle Brush struggled to open its sleepy eyes and saw the black mist move to the edge of its sea of consciousness, forming a mouth with traces of blackness lingering around it.
“Bibi remembers, this black mist is…” A great sense of fatigue washed over it, and the Cycle Brush fell back into a deep sleep.
In the folded space, the new tree had already branched out. What was once a single tree had become two, then three… increasingly tall green trees occupied the decaying black-brown withered branches and leaves, squeezing the Heavenly Dao Tree’s living space.
“Stop! You hurry up and stop!”
The Heavenly Dao Tree had just recovered from the pain of the flame’s scorching when it saw its territory shrinking. The sapling, which it had previously ignored, had firmly rooted itself in the black mud, completely unaffected. It was completely panicked.
It had a premonition that the tree planted by this woman could completely replace it!
Its branches turned into long vines and strangled towards Bai Shengyi, but upon touching her, a fiery red spiritual light appeared on Bai Shengyi’s body, enveloping her completely!
“Ahhhh!”
The Heavenly Dao Tree let out another scream, and more than half of its green leaves instantly withered and turned to dust.
“The Heavenly Dao Tree, it can be replaced, right?” Bai Shengyi asked with piercing eyes, completely certain.
The Heavenly Dao Tree inwardly knew it was true. This woman never intended to save it!
“You lied to me before, didn’t you?” inconspicuous black threads spread out from the central root, silently expanding.
Bai Shengyi remained silent, instead increasing the force with which she transferred the vitality from the Heavenly Dao Tree to the new tree.
A silent contest.
One tree rapidly decayed and withered as if sprinkled with Paraquat, while the other grew vigorously as if bathed in sunlight and rain. The decaying soil was its source of nourishment, and the gentle spring breeze was its warm cradle.
It grew wildly and unrestrained.
It stood tall and upright.
Even the invading black threads were decomposed and assimilated by it!
Time ticked by, and large beads of sweat appeared on Bai Shengyi’s forehead, face, and neck. Her face flushed with a mix of red and green, but her tightly furrowed brows slowly relaxed.
Before her, there was no longer any black-brown scenery, only an overwhelming emerald green that stretched to the horizon.
A sapling, palm-sized, lay weakly on the ground, its tone still filled with bewildered astonishment, “Why? Why weren’t you and the new tree corrupted by the demonic affliction?”
“Demonic affliction? You mean this thing?”
Bai Shengyi opened her eyes, her complexion returning to normal.
She drew out a fine, black, thread-like substance from the new tree and, to the Heavenly Dao Tree’s disbelieving eyes, summoned her spiritual fire into her palm and directly incinerated it.
“The new Heavenly Dao Tree has my spiritual fire within it, so it naturally wouldn’t fear a mere demonic affliction.”
She leaned down and looked at the withered sapling before her, calmly asking, “So, can you hand over the Divine Wood Heart now?”
“Why? Why did you do this?” the Heavenly Dao Tree asked, utterly confused. This confusion made it extremely uncomfortable.
It had clearly seen within the folded space that Bai Shengyi believed Cheng Yuzhi to be the one stealing vitality. Coupled with its own words, Bai Shengyi should have believed it more and tried harder to save it. Why did she suddenly turn against it?