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“But are these people heading to the Battlefield of Chaos too?”

Li Mu wondered.

These people might be powerful enough in this world, but none of them has power and strength comparable to Li Mu, never mind Bi Yan at her current stage. “Surely sending them into the Battlefield is nothing but sending sheep to the slaughter?” he mused sardonically.

More streaking lights approached. More daredevils were racing from all over the reservoir, eager to secure themselves a place on one of the twenty-one giant flowers like commuters who were rushing to get on a subway train.

“HMPH!”

Old Swindler emitted another shock wave in form of a snort.

One by one, the streaking lights vanished, and figures of incapacitated Cultivators began plummeting down to the ground like kites on a loose string.

“I practice Buddhism, hence my mercy. But test me, and you’ll learn the limits of my compassion.”

Old Swindler’s voice reverberated through the air like a thunderclap.

There was no fury nor was there any venom in his voice, but no one dared to challenge him.

“Seal!”

Old Swindler performed another hand seal and fired a spell into the trunk of Mimameidre.

A strange wave of eldritch energy swept through the tree’s every bark and limb and all twenty-one flowers furled their petals and engulfed everyone in their respective bulbs.

Li Mu sat inside the bud and watched the folds of the petals that wrapped him up stiffened and hardened, encasing him in some sort of shell. A soft fragrance filled his nostrils, entering his body not only through his nose but also through the pores on his skin.

It was a very comfortable sensation—soothing and tranquil, in fact.

“It’s as if I’m back in my mother’s womb… So if the portal is made up of all these flowers, then how are we going to be transported into this Battlefield of Chaos?”

As Li Mu mused quietly, his vision slowly went blurry. Resembling a sedative effect, a calming sensation overtook him, and his consciousness gradually ebbed away.

The rest of the Cultivators scattered all over the reservoir watched with amazed gazes. None of them had seen anything as bizarre as this before.

Mimameidre has been here in this city for a very long time and the residents here have grown accustomed to seeing the mammoth tree’s shade over the area. But no one had seen this coming, especially Old Swindler’s incredible might that few of them could ever comprehend, much less understand just how absurdly strong and powerful he actually was through the brief skirmish just now.

All they saw were twenty men and women, plus a dog, sitting on the top of the giant flowers. Then the petals wrapped them all up back into the same bulbs before the blooming before the petals peeled off, revealing no one, and no dog, inside.

But in place of them were these tiny olive-green fruits, nestled deep in the center of the flowers.

“W-Where are they?!”

“Gone?! Or have they all been turned into those fruits?!”

“What sort of magic trick is this?! Or is this a magic display gone wrong?!”

The Cultivators all exclaimed with tremendous shock and consternation.

Old Swindler remained where he was, watching the fruits quietly.

Next, the fruits began to grow at visible and yet unbelievable speeds. Enlarging so quickly, the fruits turned from green to a faint orange-yellowish hue until their shapes began to change, steadily taking on the form of gourds.

The lustrous gold that coated the tree slowly subsided. Reduced into barely just a sliver, it shot into the calabash gourd that Li Mu had transformed into.

The clock ticked by.

The twenty-one fruits really have turned into twenty-one ochre and large calabash gourds.

Old Swindler looked satisfied.

Until something else happened.

An obscured figure, one massing in visible ripples of his wrath and malice so thick that they felt so graphic and real, appeared in the highest empyrean of the sky without warning. The figure fired a blast straight for the gourd that Li Mu had transformed into.

“Still not giving up yet, eh?”

Old Swindler’s hand reached out swiftly, and he magically seized the energy bolt intended for Li Mu and crushed it with his sheer might. Next, he grasped control of the residual dregs and hurled them back in the direction where they came from.

“Do not test my patience, Void. Try something like that again, and don’t blame me for breaking the covenant when I hunt you down myself.”

Old Swindler muttered, looking up.

Far and far overhead, the Void opened his eyes, his very person shuddered as he magically forced the incoming bolt Old Swindler fired at him to dispel.

He closed his eyes again.

“So it is true… The monster whose exploits that even Immortal Lords all feared… He has returned…”

He sighed.

The emanation of his presence that was just about to ripple far and wide vanished and the sky resumed its peace.

“For that young brat to enter the Battlefield of Chaos after his emergence from the Imperial Casket of Existence… Whether it is woe or laughter… We shall see… Time will tell…”

In a village known to the locals as Oststern。

“The Tree of Eternity is bearing fruit!”

A loud exclamation took the entire hamlet by storm.

Villagers and peasants all dropped whatever it was they were doing and thronged towards the twenty-meter-tall giant tree that stood guard just outside the village.

Before long, almost the entire village congregated around the magical tree.

For years, the Tree of Eternity had been Oststern’s guardian spirit, keeping the village safe from any attacks of magical beasts and monsters of the wild especially when the villagers were resting in the night. Only villages, hamlets, and other human settlements with Trees of Eternity guarding their entrances could thrive in the Battlefield of Chaos. Such was the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection that governed this dimension.

And it was the sizes of these magical trees, as well as their health and exuberance, that determined how large a human settlement would be.

Big cities would have more than one Tree of Eternity.

With barely a hundred mouths in Oststern, the local Tree of Eternity was a sickly and malnourished creature of a tree just twenty meters tall with a crown of yellowish and shriveled leaves. The pitiful sight of the tree looking like on the verge of bending over and crashing down had left the entire village on apprehensive tenterhooks.

The demise of the tree would mean that the hour to abandon this village has arrived.

But a Tree of Eternity bearing fruit signifies the coming of a rebirth. Even if the Tree is nearing death, bearing fruit would mean that a miracle is at hand.

Hence when everyone in Oststern heard about the village’s Tree of Eternity bearing fruit, they had to come. With joy and celebration, they huddled around the tree to witness a miracle unfolding right before their eyes.

“It’s true, Mother! Look at the Grandpa Tree bearing fruit!”

It was a tiny little round-faced girl with black locks and bangs, clothed in a peasant’s patched-up clothing not unlike the rest with a coy and babyish voice.

Believing that Trees of Eternity has sentience of their own, the residents of Oststern have been affectionately referring to their Tree as “Grandpa Tree”.

All eyes were on Grandpa Tree’s crown.

A fruit the size of a grinding stone was hanging from a branch at the top.

“That looks so large,” remarked the village headman with surprise. “When was it sighted?”

Waves of chatter and whisper swept through the congregation. By the end of the raucous discussion, the conclusion that everyone came to was that the fruit had grown out of nowhere. Just ten minutes someone passed by the tree and that person could swear that the fruit was not there at the time.

“No matter what, Grandpa Tree has borne fruit and that’s good news! We’re saved! Now, the next order of business is to keep the tree safe until the fruit is ripe enough for the plucking!” The village headman announced exuberantly.

“I wonder if it’s male or female?”

“What’s the rush? We’ll still have to wait for at least a month before the fruit ripens.”

“Heh, I remember it was Feng who snagged the adoption last time.”

The villagers chattered with excitement.

All of Oststern was in a celebratory mood.

The villagers took turns guarding the tree, making sure that no bird nor pest ever got close to disturbing the peace of the tree.

The month slipped by quickly.

Still, the basil-green fruit only just grew, and its color slowly turned pale yellow, instead of the golden-orange hue that was chronicled in the village’s history as the color of the tree’s fruit to be fully ripe.

The village headman called for a meeting yet nothing of the discussion yielded any ideas.

A month had passed and yet the fruit of the Tree of Eternity remained unripe. Something like this was unheard of.

“We should just wait.”

So said the oldest village elders.

The long vigil lasted for another month.

But by the end of the second month, the fruit had grown into a four-meter-long calabash gourd of sleek gold.

“It’s ripe! It’s finally ripe!”

The villagers were ecstatic. They found a ladder that they used to scale the tree and pluck the fruit. The fruit was then brought to the town square for everyone to see. Some even gave the fruit a hug, plus a kiss.

“Get the consecrated cleaver! It’s time to cut it open!”

The village headman called loudly.

A large two-handed cleaver with distinctive patterns of banding and mottling reminiscent of stone that was draped with a large white fabric was carried by four burly men.

The oldest village elder, a one-hundred-and-two-year-old Feng Feng was a lanky and wiry rod of a man who looked like he could barely stand in the wind. He ambled towards the humongous cleaver and gripped its hilt. He ran one finger along its edge and cut himself, dropping a bead of deep red from his finger onto the cleaver’s blade.

The best Acoucheurs could use their blood to become one with a consecrated instrument to fully unleash its potential.

And Feng Feng, the one-hundred-and-two-year-old village elder of Oststern was the settlement’s oldest, sharpest, and most experienced Acoucheur.

With virtually the whole village watching, the elderly Feng Feng lifted the giant cleaver with just one arm—a feat that took the collective strength of four well-built young men to replicate—and held it aloft, making what was an incredible act look easy. His eyes flared with anticipation, confidence, and conviction as he observed the fruit, looking for a seam that would serve as the weakness of the gourd’s shell, then he brought the giant weapon with a vicious swing.

CLANG!

A metallic ring of steel resounded.

The top half of the giant gourd split open.

A little golden chick barely the size of a man’s hand popped out from the inside, gawking at everyone blankly.

The entire village was stunned.

“I-It’s not a human!”

“I’ve never seen anything like this before! How could Trees of Eternity bear fruits that have chickens inside?! What is going on here?! Is this a devil?! Wait, no devils should be born in the human territory! It doesn’t work that way!”