After the Immortal Disappeared

Chapter 403: Chapter 402: Spirit Seed VS Wind Demon

With a sickening CRUNCH, a workhorse slammed into the ground, instantly becoming a bloody, mangled mess.

At the same time, Fushan Yue kicked a nearby guard to the ground. The man landed just in time to be crushed by the horse. He didn’t even make a sound as his brains splattered across the Chiyan Envoy’s face.

The Chiyan Envoy was just about to wipe his face when he suddenly felt his body go light. He had been grabbed by the collar and hauled into the air.

Fushan Yue, holding him tight, leaped off the cliff!

Seeing this, two guards charged forward with angry shouts. The Wind Demon exhaled, and two powerful gusts of wind shot out, sending them flying.

Targeted and precise.

’Huh, so he’s after the Chiyan Envoy?’ This greatly surprised Hee Lingchuan. Fushan Yue’s target had switched from the Shanyu Kingdom’s envoy to the one from the Chiyan Kingdom.

’Is there some connection between the two of them?’

’The Shanyu Kingdom is dealing with civil unrest, so what’s wrong with the Chiyan Kingdom?’

He had too little information on hand to deduce any credible conclusions.

Debris rained down from the sky, but the members of the Guard Team were remarkably resilient. Even as they dodged and weaved, they still sought ways to counterattack. The Chiyan Envoy had been unexpectedly abducted; if they couldn’t protect the rest of the envoy mission, their task would be a total failure.

The Primordial Power coating the arrowheads shifted from deep blue to dark green. It was clear their morale hadn’t been crushed. On the contrary, facing a desperate situation had united them against a common enemy.

This was the one thing the Wind Demon was wary of. Even if the guards’ shots went wide, the swirling air currents would ultimately guide the arrows right to it.

Hee Lingchuan’s gaze followed Fushan Yue’s figure, so he saw that neither he nor the Chiyan Envoy had been smashed to pieces. Instead, they used a Gliding Wing to glide back to Wind Demon Mountain!

They landed on a lower, outer section of Wind Demon Mountain, an area riddled with caves. The Wind Demon blocked the Guard Team’s line of sight, so they failed to spot where Fushan Yue and the envoy had gone.

Hee Lingchuan was about to sneak down to investigate when he saw the Guard Team leader take out something glittering with golden light.

It was the Spirit Seed of the King of Treasure Tree.

The very treasure his Divine Bone Necklace had designated for collection.

Hee Lingchuan immediately reined in his Rock Sheep.

The appearance of the Spirit Seed, however, sent the Wind Demon into a towering rage. Its form began to fluctuate, and it shockingly sprouted two thick arms from its sides!

Most of the arrows the guards shot at it were now blocked by these arms, which then hurled them viciously back.

Then, it closed in again, swinging its arms to smash violently against the phantasmal giant tree. The force of the wind behind each blow was unimaginable.

Once, twice... ten times.

Each heavy blow felt solid, and everyone could hear a loud grinding sound, like a tarp about to be ripped apart.

The wooden staff on the ground swayed violently as well.

After all, it was only a branch of the King of Treasure Tree; it couldn’t possibly possess the tree’s full might. It was already a miracle that it had held on this long.

At that moment, the Guard Team leader knelt, cradling the Spirit Seed in both hands, and began to chant.

A deep voice seemed to echo around them.

As an observer, Hee Lingchuan noticed the Wind Demon gradually turning red as it gathered all the outer gales inward. The effect was so profound that even on the opposite peak, Hee Lingchuan felt his surroundings fall utterly still. Even the ceaseless mountain wind had stopped.

Concentrating all its power would make its attack more potent. Clearly, such a furious assault was a heavy burden even for the Wind Demon.

Both sides were giving it their all.

The wooden staff on the ground finally gave out, unable to bear the immense pressure hammering down upon it.

With a muffled POP, it was ripped from the ground.

The entire Guard Team instantly lost their shelter. A monstrous gale swept everything and everyone into the sky.

Whether it was people or corpses, heavy carriages or giant boulders, nothing was spared.

The barrier was broken. The Wind Demon had won.

It let out a victorious howl.

The Guard Team leader couldn’t keep his footing either, but with sharp eyes and quick hands, he snatched the wooden staff out of the air and pressed the Spirit Seed into its tip!

The shapes of the two objects didn’t match, so it was a mystery how they fused. Before Hee Lingchuan could get a closer look, the leader hefted the staff like a javelin and hurled it violently at the Wind Demon!

Normally, at such close range, anything would be blown off course by the gale. This staff, however, was an exception. It flew completely unaffected by the wind, holding a steady course for its target—

And plunged into the spot where the Wind Demon’s head should be.

The Spirit Seed suddenly erupted in a brilliant flash, like the sun reappearing in a darkened world.

Though the Light Burst lasted only a moment, it spurred the wooden staff into furious growth—it grew longer, thicker, and sprouted branches...

Hee Lingchuan stared in a daze. ’Aren’t those the aerial roots of the King of Treasure Tree?’

Without this special talent, it would be impossible for a single tree to form a forest and support such a massive, heavy canopy.

In just a few breaths, the staff had grown into a giant ball of roots, caging the Wind Demon within. It happened so quickly that the growth even severed the creature’s two arms.

A closer look revealed that every root was covered in fine, aerial tendrils, woven into an irregular net even denser than human capillaries.

Of course, the Wind Demon wasn’t going to remain imprisoned. It dissolved into several gusts of wind, trying to squeeze its way out.

However, each tendril glowed with Golden Light, collaboratively forming a sturdy barrier that forcibly contained the Wind Demon within the sphere.

The Wind Demon thrashed about wildly inside, creating a huge commotion, but it could not break free.

This was one of the King of Treasure Tree’s signature Demon Techniques:

The Root Binding Technique.

Any discerning eye could see that the Guard Team leader had used the power of the Spirit Seed to subdue the Wind Demon. The King of Treasure Tree’s Spirit Seeds could grow into Border Guardians throughout the land, and the Demon Power they contained was astonishingly abundant.

Moreover, the ability of trees to block wind, stabilize sand, and absorb water was beyond question.

In this day and age, with Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi so scarce, perhaps only the King of Treasure Tree could accomplish such a feat with its unique talents.

The Guard Team leader had only been able to use the Spirit Seed after communicating with the sliver of the King of Treasure Tree’s Spiritual Sense left inside it.

Of course, deploying it had been a last resort. If too much of its stored power was consumed, it might not be able to properly grow into a Tree Guard later. This would be a major blow to the stability of the Treasure Tree Kingdom’s northern border.

In this era of scarce Spiritual Qi, it took the King of Treasure Tree a full thirty-six years to nurture a single Spirit Seed.

The desperation of the situation and the safety of the envoy mission had ultimately forced the Guard Team leader to make his decision.

With the Wind Demon contained, the gale suddenly weakened, and everything in the air began to rain down.

The first guards to land scrambled to rescue others.

Fortunately, the Special Envoys from both the Xuluo Kingdom and the White Elephant Kingdom were still alive, though injured to varying degrees. The Envoy from the Xuluo Kingdom was only saved because his belt caught on a short tree. But the first thing both of them did upon being rescued was gasp desperately for air—

it had been impossible to breathe inside that high-speed vortex.

Anyone or anything swept into the vortex by the Wind Demon would have died or passed out from suffocation, if they weren’t first killed by flying debris.

Many others were less fortunate, falling off the cliff to be smashed to pieces, beyond any hope of rescue.

The Guard Team leader also landed, taking only a single breath before anxiously starting the mantra to completely subdue the Wind Demon. No matter how high his Combat Power, he was helpless against such an intangible foe. His only option was to diligently recite the incantation taught by the King of Treasure Tree.

The problem with learning something on the fly, however, is a lack of proficiency.

This mantra, in particular, was ridiculously long and tongue-twisting. Some of the syllables sounded impossible for a human to pronounce. For the King of Treasure Tree, reciting it was a trivial matter, but if the Guard Team leader mispronounced a single syllable, he had to start over. The more mistakes he made, the more anxious he became, which only led to more mistakes. With sweat beading on his brow, he finally had no choice but to take a deep breath and start again from the very beginning.

Meanwhile, the Wind Demon wasn’t idle. It spun frantically inside the root ball, creating another vortex to draw in the surrounding north winds and replenish its strength.

After all, the King of Treasure Tree was not personally controlling the root ball, so it could only operate on its default settings. It prevented things from getting out, but not from getting in.

So even while trapped, the Wind Demon could still draw an endless supply of power from the outside world.

As the Wind Demon’s struggles grew more violent, the floating root ball began to drift eastward—

toward the ruins of the Piaomiao Sect. It was moving quite fast, at least fifty miles per hour.

The Guard Team leader saw this happening but had no better solution than to straighten his tongue and chant the mantra as fast as he could.

Having learned his lesson that haste makes waste, this time he closed his eyes and calmly recited the mantra syllable by syllable. This time, at last, it was flawless.

Just as he was halfway through the recitation, a RUMBLING sound came from behind.

The first few rumbles were masked by the wind, but the ground soon began to tremble. A few Guard Team members noticed first. Turning around, their faces drained of color.

”Captain, Captain! Boulders!”

The seven or eight giant boulders previously tossed into the air by the Wind Demon had now landed back on the mountain ridge. Whether by coincidence or the Wind Demon’s design, they were now rolling down in a line, gathering speed and momentum!

Two of them even shattered into four or five smaller pieces halfway down the slope, which only made them accelerate. Despite their smaller size, they were still more than capable of crushing a man to death.

With the Spirit Seed Barrier gone, if these boulders hit them, they would all be turned into meat paste!

Yet the Guard Team leader remained focused on his mantra. A Personal Guard beside him had no choice but to grab him, shove him out of the way, and yell, ”Move! Everyone, get out of the way!”

A large boulder rolled before them and suddenly cracked in two. The resulting fragments shot erratically toward the two men.

The Guard Team leader was forced to conjure a shield to block the debris. The impact knocked him back several steps, interrupting his mantra once again.

He looked around to see everyone scrambling for their lives. Who had time to act as his protector?

A few unlucky souls were struck by the rocks and fell screaming into the abyss.

The others who witnessed this were horrified; no one dared to approach.

The captain was furious but helpless. He could only take a deep breath and begin the mantra yet again!

But during this delay, the Wind Demon had battered the root ball all the way up and over the peak of Wind Demon Rock.

Hee Lingchuan now had a rough idea of why the Wind Demon was so desperate to return to this place. But as he urged his Rock Sheep downward, he suddenly frowned.

There were now quite a few outsiders on the mountainside.

There’s no shortage of clever people in the world. Some of the merchants had come to their senses, realizing the Official Road was the Wind Demon’s hunting ground, while the opposite peak was safe. In truth, as long as they stayed away from the main group, the Wind Monster left them alone.

So they had crossed over.

But in Hee Lingchuan’s eyes, they were just coming over here to die.