Chapter 474 - Palace
Swoosh!
More than a hundred silhouettes seemed to simultaneously burst forth in an instant. Just like the Xu Huang trio before them, all of them stared at the Divine Spiritual Tree with reddish eyes. As their breathing became heavier, unconcealable greed erupted from their eyes. The enticement of this Divine Spiritual Tree truly was too much for them to bear.
Witnessing the scene before them, Mu Chen’s group did not take action at all. Instead, with an unsympathetic gaze, they simply watched the fellows whose rationality had been consumed by greed.
Their speed was exceptionally quick. In the span of merely ten breaths, they had already neared the Divine Spiritual Tree. However, there was something unusual happening. They did not face any resistance at all, and with a strong gust of wind, they had barbarically tore the Divine Spiritual Fruit right off the tree one after another into their hands.
“Haha, a Divine Spiritual Fruit! With this, I can survive the Human Body Disaster!”
Grasping onto the Divine Spiritual Fruit that radiated with boundless Spiritual Energy, they could not help heartily laughing in that moment. Eyes filled with ecstasy, they immediately stuffed the Divine Spiritual Fruit right into their mouths in a single bite.
Boundless Spiritual Energy rippled out from within their bodies. However, immediately after, shocked and inconsolable expressions appeared on their faces as they suddenly felt an indescribable heat gushing out from inside their bodies. As this happened, their skin turned crimson red, while black-coloured blood started oozing from all their pores. Unexpectedly, black flames were mixed within the trails of black blood flowing out from them.
“Ah!”
Mournful screeches spontaneously erupted and resonated, as a figure was suddenly drenched with black blood, and black flames rolled out from inside his body, enveloping him entirely. With a loud bang, he exploded into a bloody mist. The mist floated on the wind, eventually floating back to the Divine Spiritual Tree and condensing, forming another Divine Spiritual Fruit.
This strange scene caused those who had retained their senses and not acted rashly to feel ice-cold all over.
Bang! Bang!
Following the first person who had been engulfed by the black flames, the other unfortunate ones who had similarly consumed the Divine Spiritual Fruit soon met the same fate. Black flames erupted from their bodies, before they immediately turned into clumps of bloody mist. All the blood mists were eventually absorbed by the Divine Spiritual Tree, forming one Divine Spiritual Fruit after another, hanging plumply on the tree, swaying in the wind.
In a short span of only a few minutes, many of those unfortunate souls who had eaten the Divine Spiritual Fruits had exploded into bloody mists, and were turned into new Divine Spiritual Fruits in the process.
Gulp.
Xu Huang and the rest had watched the scene unfold with deathly-pale expressions on their faces, while being unable to help swallowing a mouthful of saliva. Fortunately, they had been obstructed by Mu Chen, if not, their current state would be exactly the same as those people.
Mu Chen also deeply exhaled. Staring solemnly at the Divine Spiritual Tree, he slowly said, “This thing’s definitely not a Divine Spiritual Tree!”
In the surrounding region, all of the teams had quietened down with some of them having pale expressions on their faces. Even someone like Xia Hou was watching on with tightly knitted brows. These teams had exhausted all their methods in order to charge past the Dark Origin Forest
full of demonic trees and arrive here. Was it all for naught? What about the supposed ancient inheritance? Could it be that it was referring to this extremely strange demonic tree in front of them?
“Eh? The Divine Spiritual Tree seems to be changing!”
In this moment of silence, there was a sudden exclamation of shock. As the many gazes hurriedly shot over, everyone saw that within the light pillar, the Divine Spiritual Tree was actually changing gradually from its original emerald-green luster into a slightly black colour. In just half a minute, the Divine Spiritual Tree, originally abundant with a divine aura, had become covered in a demonic aura. The Divine Spiritual Fruits on the tree had also changed in appearance. They actually had sinister human faces on them, with black blood flowed continuously from the fruit.
“This is…”
Tang Mei’er stared at the demonic tree that had just drastically changed, taking in a sharp breath. “It seems like this is actually a Demonic Spiritual Tree. It’s absolutely not a Divine Spiritual Tree!”
Mu Chen’s group wore grave expressions as they nodded in agreement. Even though the Demonic Spiritual Tree only differed from the Divine Spiritual Tree by just a single word, they were two entirely different objects. It was said that these strange trees had the ability to confuse people’s conscious thoughts, and could emit a scent akin to an otherworldly treasure from far away, attracting greedy treasure seekers, while changing its appearance into such treasures. However, once people consumed its fruits, they would be immolated by demonic flames and turned into a bloody mist, before being absorbed by the Demonic Spiritual Tree.
It was then that Mu Chen realised why he had felt that something was off earlier on. As it turned out, the tree in front of them was not a Divine Spiritual Tree, but rather, a strange and dreadful Demonic Spiritual Tree.
“We were enticed here by this damned thing?” Tang Mei’er clenched her teeth in reluctance. “Could it be that the supposed ancient inheritance is also a scam?”
Mu Chen wrinkled his brows.
“Mu Chen!” Suddenly, Lin Zhou whispered, before pulled out an emerald-green jade plaque. There were many tree patterns engraved on the jade plaque, and at this very moment, it was glowing with a lustrous green light. Passing the jade plaque to Mu Chen, he said, “Something seems to be happening to this thing!”
Being instantly startled, Mu Chen immediately received the jade plaque. This plaque should be the piece that Lin Zhou’s team had obtained.
As he grasped the medal, he could feel the warmth spreading from the medal. Looking over towards the Demonic Spiritual tree, he could see that at this moment, seemingly as a result of absorbing all the bloody mists, ray after ray of black lights were appearing on the Demonic Spiritual Tree. With every ray of black light that appeared, the jade plaque grew warmer and warmer.
Mu Chen’s gaze sparkled. With a flick of his finger, the jade medal transformed into a ray of green light and shot out.
Swish!
As it shot out, the jade plaque had actually charged straight into the Demonic Spiritual Tree. Immediately, mournful screeches seemed to sound out from the tree. In the next instant, rays of light exploded from within the tree and its trunk rapidly split open. Boundless Spiritual Energy undulated in the surrounding space, before distortions started to appear. In the next instant, an enormous wooden palace appeared from within.
The wooden palace hovered in mid-air, while the space surrounding it seemed to have formed its own realm, emanating an ancient air of vicissitudes from within.
This change in the situation caused everyone present to feel shocked, including Mu Chen, who had actually triggered this incident.
Countless gazes were tightly locked onto that ancient wooden palace. However, this time round, no one dared to act rashly again. Those unlucky fellows who had gone ahead of them had already taught them a rather bloody lesson.
Under those countless attentive gazes, the ancient wooden palace suddenly gave out a buzzing sound. The thick, heavy, wooden doors that were tightly closed started to slowly open, bit by bit. An ancient smell swept out, rippling out into this space.
“It seems like only after absorbing enough fresh blood will the Demonic Spiritual Tree trigger a response from the jade plaque.” Mu Chen softly commented. It seemed that those ancient experts who had left their inheritance were not kind people, actually requiring such a bloody method to open the wooden palace. Although most of them had lost their lives due to their avarice, normal people would not have thought of such a ruthless and brutal method.
“This should be the ancient inheritance hidden in this location.” Mu Chen glanced at Tang Mei’er’s team, laughing. “How about it? Interested?”
Hearing this, Tang Mei’er simply smiled charmingly and replied, “After facing so much difficulty in charging into this place, if we return empty-handed, it would not fit our style of doing things.”
“Great, let’s make a move then.”
Mu Chen sucked in a breath, and his expression turned sharp. Shooting a glance at Xia Hou’s team, his figure flashed and he shot out directly at that ancient wooden palace. Behind him, Luo Li, Tang Mei’er and the others tightly followed.
“Go!”
Upon witnessing this, Xia Hou chuckled indifferently. With a wave of his hand, five figures turned into rays of light and shot out, tightly following them towards that ancient wooden palace.
With them leading the way, the entire area immediately turned fiery, and team after team hurriedly rose into the air. After the heavy price they paid to summon this ancient inheritance, if they did not receive something worthwhile in return, they would not be able to bear it.
“Captain, are we still going in?”
The Martial Spiritual Academy team’s three remaining members stared at the ancient wooden palace in the distance, asking softly.
Zhou Yuan had a pale complexion, but his expression had a tinge of craziness. Tightly gripping his metal rod, he shouted out, “Go! The team that carried out that sneak attack on us must definitely be around here somewhere too, god damn it, this old man wants to tear them apart!”
Once he said that, he stepped forward without any hesitation and shot out.
Accompanying the continuous stream of teams charging towards the opened ancient palace, this area also became exceptionally lively. Those teams which wear missing members were looking for potential allies instead. After all, wanting to reap a bountiful reward in this place was impossible without sufficient strength.
At the edge of the Dark Origin Forest, shadows fluttered about. Soon after, multiple silhouettes slowly walked out from the shadows. Their leader lifted his pale face and stared at the ancient palace, giving a cold laugh. “It truly is the Divine Wood Palace, it seems that we were looking for the right thing.”
“It seems that the teams from four of the Great Academies have all entered.”
“What a waste, we had wanted to eliminate one or two in the forest, but we didn’t settle even one of them. These fellows truly are not weak, forcing us to use other methods in the end.”
The silhouette shook his head, and starting walking. A cold and indifferent laughter spread from the shadows.
“However, I won’t be giving you the chance to walk out of this Divine Wood Palace alive.”