hsntnovel Chapter 482 Epidemic
Chapter 482 Epidemic
"This doesn't look like an arrival! Perhaps there's more to it than meets the eye!" Wanliuchun said.
"Whether he arrives or not, he must be dealt with!"
"That's right!" Wanliuchun strongly agreed with Jian Shiyi's words.
At this moment, the ancient tree is suspended in the crack. Even though countless roots have been cut off, they have all been repaired in a very short time, like thousands of venomous snakes dancing wildly in the air.
Dark gold patterns pulsated wildly on the black tree trunk, each flash accompanied by a tremor of the earth.
Xu Si no longer hesitated.
The star field unfolded silently, and crimson starlight seeped out from the void, enveloping a space of several hundred meters in radius.
After advancing to Sequence 7, this was the first time he had fully unleashed his star field. The feeling was completely different from before; the entire star field was more like his inner world.
The sword of kingship, empowered by Sword Eleven, possessed such intense sword intent that it seemed poised to overturn the entire sky.
The silvery-white sword light, like a bolt of lightning, once again traversed the sky, slashing at the ancient tree's newly restored dark golden roots.
Sword Eleven's sword intent was like a waterfall, and the silver-white sword light became even more fierce with the blessing of the star field. This strike left a sword mark in the crack that would not fade for a long time.
The newly grown roots of the ancient tree dissolved upon touching these sword marks, and were difficult to recover in a short time.
Dark golden sap gushed from the broken roots, dripping onto the cracked ground with a hissing, corrosive sound, and even scorching the void with streaks of tears.
"Something's not right with this." Wan Liuchun's brows furrowed even more deeply.
Ancient trees are the very essence of life itself, and their sap contains boundless vitality. Yet, the sap before us has only a negative, corrosive effect.
"Plague!" Xu Si could hear the tremor in Jian Shiyi's metallic voice.
The moment he uttered those two words, everything in the world changed.
"Retreat, retreat, retreat!"
"It was the god of plague who sent it to this world!" Wan Liuchun guessed the same thing.
If that's the case, we're doomed.
Xu Si was also struck dumb when he heard those two words.
He knew all too well what a plague meant, and even more so what a plague unleashed by a god meant.
For Earth, which is currently extremely weak, this is practically an unsolvable problem.
"If this thing really was cast down by the god of plague—"
Xu Si didn't finish speaking.
Wanliuchun finished the sentence for him: "Then after it lands, it won't even need to advance to the ninth rank; this world will be completely dead!"
"So we must resolve this now." Xu Si's voice was calmer than ever before.
Jian Shiyi even disengaged directly from the [Sword of Kingship], his entire armor gleaming, clearly having entered a state of extreme seriousness.
The sword intent surging around him said it all.
Sharp, decisive, and leaving no room for compromise.
It seems that only the Sword of Kings remains unaffected.
Crimson sword light crisscrossed the sky, each strike leaving deep marks on the invisible barrier surrounding the ancient tree, like a carving knife sculpting on a hard stone slab.
The roots of the ancient tree broke and regenerated repeatedly amidst the sword light, then broke again and regenerated once more.
Each break resulted in a spray of dark golden liquid, which, upon landing on the ground, corroded deep, bottomless holes, and even distorted and warped light when it fell into the air.
"We can't delay any longer," Wanliuchun's voice suddenly rang out.
Xu Si also sensed it.
The ancient tree's counterattack was not fierce; in fact, it could be described as passive.
But their attack had little effect, and the arrival of the ancient tree continued.
Wanliuchun lightly stepped on the air with her bare feet, her snow-white skirt fluttering in the air currents.
That pose was far more perfect than Marilyn Monroe's.
She moved.
This was the first time Xu Si had seen Wan Liuchun truly take action.
Without any earth-shattering momentum or overwhelming energy torrents, her figure simply disappeared from the edge of Nirvana and reappeared above the ancient tree in the next instant.
It seems to have characteristics similar to Xu Si's leap.
However, Xu Si felt that it should be more than that, perhaps related to the life levels she mentioned.
She stepped barefoot into the void, and suddenly countless fine threads sprouted from the red rope on her feet, covering the entire sky like a blanket.
It gave Xu Si the feeling that he wanted to sew up that crack.
Wanliuchun's bare feet trod in the void, and the red rope at her ankle suddenly broke apart, turning into countless red threads as fine as hair.
Instead of spreading outwards, the threads climbed upwards, like a vine growing in reverse, spreading across the entire sky at an incredible speed.
Xu Si looked up, his star-shaped pupils slightly contracting.
What he saw was not silk threads, but a net being woven.
Each thread was precisely inserted into the edge of the dark golden crack, like a surgeon's needle, stitching the torn clouds back together, one stitch at a time.
The crack where the ancient tree is located is shrinking at a visible rate.
Spring refused your arrival.
Xu Si's mouth dropped open; he hadn't expected Wan Liuchun's fighting style to be like this.
And could she really stop the ancient tree from descending? Xu Si didn't believe it.
However, the sky is indeed healing.
The ancient tree seemed to sense the danger.
The dark golden roots that had been hanging in the air suddenly straightened up, no longer passively suspended, but actively and frantically stabbing towards the direction of trying to hold back spring.
Each root tip is condensed into a ball of dark golden light, the surface of which flows with disease-like patterns, corroding the air and leaving black scorch marks wherever it passes.
"Your opponent is me."
Jian Shiyi's voice came from the side, devoid of any emotion.
The silvery-white sword intent suddenly erupted, and a single sword light swept across the entire sky like a bolt of lightning.
This sword light was more than ten times stronger than the previous one, and the drooping dark golden roots looked as if they had been given a buzz cut, flat as flat as could be.
rustling...
Countless roots scattered from the sky, but before they could even touch the ground, they vanished into nothingness with a thud.
Wanliuchun did not turn back, nor was she distracted.
All her energy was focused on the red thread being woven above her head.
The insertion of each thread requires precise control; the slightest deviation will give the ancient tree an opportunity to take advantage.
But the corners of her mouth still turned up slightly.
"Good cut," she said.
Sword Eleven did not respond.
His silver-white figure hovered directly in front of the ancient tree, his armor gleaming with a cold metallic luster under the dark golden light.
He did not carry a sword, for he himself was the sword.
He raised his right arm, his five fingers joined together, and a silvery-white sword intent extended from his fingertips, condensing into a lightsaber over two meters long.
The sword intent was so solidified that the space at its edges was slightly distorted.
After the roots of the ancient tree were "flattened", it was silent for a brief moment.
Then, the dark gold patterns on the tree trunk began to pulsate at a faster frequency, like a heartbeat accelerating.
The severed roots did not grow back immediately.
Instead, the tree trunk itself underwent changes.
The dark bark began to crack, the fissures spreading from the base of the trunk to the top, like a giant mouth opening wide.
Deep within the cracks, the dark golden light no longer flowed, but surged forth.
A dark golden, turbid substance, resembling congealed pus, squeezed out from the crack and slowly coalesced into the outline of a 'slime'.
The moment that guy appeared, Gu Shu breathed a sigh of relief; it seemed the two were in a power struggle.
"Plague Beast?" Wan Liuchun's voice came from above, tinged with disgust.
"What the hell?"
Xu Si's star pupils contracted, and he extended his star pulse perception with all his might.
[Level 8 Anomaly Detected: Plague Beast (Descent Status)]
【characteristic:***,***,***,***,***】
Again, most of the information cannot be displayed.
Xu Si frowned.
"A follower of the plague god! It must be that guy's doing!" Wanliuchun said.
The voice pleading for spring echoed in the void, carrying an unusual solemnity.
That exquisitely beautiful face was slightly raised, her bare feet stepping on the void, and the red threads that spread out from her ankles were still weaving the huge net above her head, stitching up the cracks little by little.
However, Xu Si thought it was not like that; those threads were not binding the cracks but the ancient tree itself.
Wanliuchun's gaze, however, had already fallen on the dark golden, turbid, pus-like "plague beast" that was gathering.
If his silk threads also have a restraining effect on the ancient tree.
Neither he nor the Sword Demon really had any good solutions for dealing with the plague beast.
"How could something like this appear here? Could it be using the ancient tree as a cover to smuggle in plague beasts?"
Deep within Xu Si's starry eyes, a scarlet light spun rapidly.
His stellar pulse perception was repelled the moment it came into contact with the dark golden pus.
It's like oil meeting water, light meeting darkness, and order meeting chaos.
However, he could sense that the 'Plague Beast's' attention seemed to be constantly focused on him.
"Coming for me?" Xu Si frowned.
"My lord, please step back." Jian Shiyi shielded Xu Si behind him.
If the ancient tree was troublesome, then the plague beast was pure trouble.
No matter how you handle it, you'll probably get your hands dirty with 'shit'.
The red threads that hold back spring are still wrapping the ancient tree little by little from its roots.
Since the plague beast emerged from the ancient tree, the tree has remained quiet, almost as if it were watching a tiger fight from the mountain. It even seemed to want to be bandaged up and taken away by Wanliuchun.
That would be much easier than being enslaved by the "Plague Beasts".
But Xu Si and the others were unaware of this.
Even Wan Liuchun dared not make such an exaggerated guess.
If the plague beast doesn't interfere, Wanliuchun feels she has a great chance of packing up the ancient tree and dragging it into the Black Building.
If the "Plague Beast" intervenes, she doesn't know how the battle will turn out.
While it waited cautiously, the plague beast moved.
That dark golden, turbid, pus-like body had no limbs, no facial features, and not even any structure that could be called an "organ".
It simply writhed slowly on the ancient tree, like a clump of slime magnified countless times. Wherever it passed, the cracked, grayish-white bark seemed to be corroded into pitch-black scorched earth, and a sweet, nauseating smell filled the air.
The ancient tree struggled even more intensely, as if it were suffering unimaginable pain.
"You can have the tree, but I'll take care of the guy!"
Xu Si didn't know where he got the confidence to target an eighth-level monster, but he felt that the guy had come for him.
Xu Si felt that his greatest role now was to use himself as bait to separate the plague beast from the ancient tree.
If they are separated, it's easier to eliminate them one by one; but if these two are allowed to run rampant...
They probably really couldn't stop these two guys from arriving.
In Xu Si's view, there must be a way to save the ancient tree by retaining spring.
The best-case scenario is that Chun can deal with the ancient tree, and then the three of them can work together to defeat the "Plague Beast".
The worst-case scenario is that he neither lured away the plague beast nor saved the ancient tree, which would be an immeasurable problem. Perhaps only by advancing to godhood could he solve this problem.
Before Xu Si could figure out how to control the plague beast, the beast made its move first.
The dark golden pus didn't rush towards Xu Si, but instead split open from the center like a blooming flower.
More and thicker dark golden liquid gushed out of the crack. Instead of dripping, the liquid condensed, stretched, and deformed in the air, eventually transforming into a giant, skinless hand.
The five fingers are of varying thicknesses, and the bones at the knuckles are clearly visible, but they are not normal bones; rather, they are a turbid, translucent substance, like polluted amber.
There were no muscles connecting the bones; only dark golden pus slowly flowed from the gaps.
He opened his palm and grabbed fiercely towards Xu Si.
Unhappy.
It could even be described as very slow.
It was so slow that Xu Si felt he had plenty of time to think about which direction to hide in.
But the problem was—he found himself unable to move.
It's not that it's locked down or suppressed, but rather a more fundamental, life-level stagnation.
Like yourself in a dream, you are clearly aware that you are dreaming, and you want to open your eyes and sit up, but your body just won't obey you, as if it is being held in place by something unseen.
"Divine suppression?" Wan Liuchun's voice came from above, tinged with disbelief.
"No, it's a plague."
No matter how fast Jian Shiyi was, he was powerless against such pure suppression. He could only stand in front of Xu Si and try to slash at the giant hand with a sword light.
As a member of the family, he certainly couldn't stand by and watch Xu Si get into trouble. Even if the Sword Demon Clan was destroyed, he would definitely perish before his master.
This is the resolve of someone who is part of the family.
The enormous, skinless hand, covered in dark golden pus, now obscured half of the sky above Xu Si's head.
Sword Eleven's sword light slashed fiercely at his palm, but only left a clear crack. The silvery-white sword intent dissipated, corroded, and devoured it at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The dark golden pus at the edge of the crack surged and quickly healed.
Sword Eleven is completely countered.
"You go deal with the ancient tree, I'll handle things here!" Xu Si was finally able to move again; he wasn't just being stubborn.
He seemed to have come up with a way to deal with this type of bizarre situation.
He has experience dealing with this type of eeriness.
For example, the earliest encounter with the "Rotten Moon Swamp" and the "Rain Demon" in the Rain World.
Aside from being a higher level, it doesn't seem to be anything too scary.