Chapter 690: One Swing of This Blade, and Thousands of Years of Cultivation Go Up in Smoke

The Xuantian ring fell into a long silence.

After a long while, Lin Yu finally spoke, his voice much deeper than usual. “Those fools who overestimated themselves and tried to uphold heaven and earth with nothing but a mere formation have long since turned to dust. There’s no need to mention them.”

Su Ming keenly sensed that Lin Yu was hiding something, so he wisely refrained from asking further.

Just then, the rocky ceiling overhead, which had already been shattered in one layer, suddenly emitted a tearing sound that made everyone’s scalp crawl.

“Crack, crack, crack...”

“Elder Woodheart’s life force... it’s weakening!” Elder Qingluo abruptly looked up, the color draining from her icy, beautiful face.

Great swathes of earth fell from above. Through the enormous opening, everyone could clearly feel a deathly pressure, powerful enough to crush the clouds, sinking underground like a heavy black storm cloud.

The sky above Withered Wood Cliff.

The purple moon that had once hung high in the sky was now completely obscured by endless death energy.

The Void split open, forming a massive rift a hundred miles long. A black manifestation, vast enough to blot out the sky, slowly emerged halfway from the torn space.

The Lord of the Nether Abyss!

The manifestation had no face, only a roiling mass of absolute deathly stillness. A gigantic hand, like a black curtain covering the heavens, pressed straight down toward the exposed trunk of the ten-thousand-year-old luminous banyan, carrying merciless laws that would destroy everything.

“Rumble!”

At this moment of life and death, the roots of the ten-thousand-year-old luminous banyan’s true body all lit up.

Countless emerald divine rays shot up from underground, converging into a green pillar of light that pierced heaven and earth. It collided with the black hand in midair.

When the two highest laws met, there was no deafening explosion, only a suffocating, soundless annihilation.

Within several hundred miles, all the towering ancient trees, spirit herbs, and vines bowed down at once, as if worshiping a god. The hard rocks, meanwhile, silently crumbled into fine dust beneath the crushing laws and scattered on the wind.

Inside the ancient sleeping hall, all the senior members of the spirit races felt a terrifying pressure descend upon them, like a mountain crashing down.

For the first time, Qingheng’s usually calm expression turned grave.

He abruptly turned to look at Su Ming, who was hiding at the edge.

Before Su Ming could react, Qingheng tapped the air with the broken staff in his hand.

A lush green leaf seemed to pass through space and instantly imprinted itself on the back of Su Ming’s left hand.

“Vmmm—”

A gentle green film of light enveloped Su Ming at once. The pressure, powerful enough to crush a Golden Core cultivator into a lump of flesh, was blocked by the film.

“Young friend of the human race.” Qingheng’s hoarse voice came through the film, carrying a trace of grim resolve. “You’ve already done more than enough by helping our people guard the outer perimeter of this ancient hall. You shouldn’t be made to bear the burden of what’s happening above with your meager cultivation. Whatever happens next, do not leave the formation!”

The entire underground space was like a small boat tossing in a storm.

Su Ming stood inside a root chamber that had been half crushed. The green leaf on the back of his hand gave off a faint chill as he struggled to resist the Manifestation Realm’s aftershock, which seeped in through every possible opening.

Ying clung desperately to the collar of Su Ming’s robe with her claws. Her ink-black eyes were full of terror, and she didn’t even dare to make a sound.

Su Ming could only peer upward through the gaps created by the violent trembling of the root veins, barely glimpsing the law clash above, which threatened to destroy heaven and earth.

This was a kind of battle that Golden Core cultivators could never understand.

There was no collision of magical treasures, nor any dazzling flashes of spellcraft. There was only the purest crushing struggle between “principle” and “momentum.”

“Rumble—”

Every time the black hand collided with the emerald pillar of light, a wail of agony rang out from deep within the earth.

Su Ming saw the main root veins of the luminous banyan buckle inward under the immense pressure. Countless fine cracks split the surface of the root marrow, hard as steel, and brilliant golden sap gushed wildly from within.

Each drop of sap evaporated into a ghastly white mist the instant it hit the ground, before it could even seep into the soil, consumed by the death energy filling the air.

“Focus and watch closely!” Lin Yu’s voice rang through Su Ming’s Consciousness Sea like a thunderous bell. “Don’t concern yourself with the explosions on the surface. Watch how they draw upon the laws of heaven and earth!”

Su Ming struggled to suppress the shudder in his chest, as if his heart were about to leap out.

He drew a deep breath. A faint blue light rose in his eyes as he pushed Observation of the Minute to its utmost limits. Two lines of blood slowly ran down from the corners of his eyes, but he didn’t dare even blink.

In his field of vision, the world shed its colors, leaving only the flow of energy.

“Master, the Lord of the Nether Abyss’s death energy isn’t simply pressing downward,” Su Ming rasped, describing everything he saw. “That black hand is only borrowing the momentum of heaven to apply pressure. The real killing move is the law of deathly stillness seeping up from underground. He’s seizing control of the terrain!”

“Exactly!” Lin Yu instructed in a solemn voice. “Life force originates from the earth. The Lord of the Nether Abyss wants to sever Woodheart’s connection to the earth and turn him into water without a source.”

Su Ming stared fixedly upward.

The law of deathly stillness was like countless invisible black snakes, crawling up through the tiny rootlets of the luminous banyan’s main roots, seeping through every opening as they tried to rot and wither the ten-thousand-year-old tree from within.

Gray-black spots began appearing on Elder Woodheart’s pillar of life force. They were signs that his foundation was being corroded.

“Is Elder Woodheart about to lose?” Su Ming asked through clenched teeth.

“You underestimate a tree that’s lived for ten thousand years,” Lin Yu scoffed.

Before he had even finished speaking, a deafening crack suddenly rang out above, shaking even the soul.

“Crack!”

Su Ming watched in shock as Elder Woodheart didn’t try to summon his life force and fight the law of deathly stillness invading his body head-on.

Instead, green light suddenly twisted around the middle of the main root. Elder Woodheart actually severed a large section of his own main root, cutting away the part that had already been heavily contaminated by death energy!

The severed root, as thick as a mountain, was riddled with rotting life force and foul-smelling death energy. A burst of wild power hurled it viciously beyond the heavens, where it exploded in midair and turned into a cloud of ash-gray lightning and fire.

Su Ming felt his heart tighten, a chill shooting straight up his spine.

“That is what it means to cut off a limb to save the body.” Lin Yu sighed softly from inside the ring. “Even the strongest people standing at the peak of this world aren’t invincible. They simply understand better than anyone when they must give something up. They dare to cut away what hurts most to keep the entire root system from rotting through. My disciple, remember this well.”

Lin Yu secretly grumbled, That old tree spirit is ruthless with himself. One swing of that blade, and thousands of years of cultivation have probably gone up in smoke. If it were me, I’d have grabbed everything I owned and run ages ago. Why stand around playing the tragic hero?

Su Ming took a deep breath, etching that brutal resolve deep into his mind.

Ying clung desperately to the collar of Su Ming’s robe with her claws. Her ink-black eyes were full of terror, and she didn’t even dare to make a sound.

Without the support of the main root, the luminous banyan’s control over the earth plummeted.

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

With their life force no longer sustaining them, three enormous root passages underground crumbled at once under the aftershock of the Manifestation Realm clash.

Countless rocks weighing tens of thousands of jun crushed down with black water, like the collapse of the world itself, heading straight for the ancient sleeping hall.

Inside the ancient sleeping hall, the eleven green formation lines flickered unsteadily beneath the violent impact.

“Hold the formation!” Qingheng shouted furiously. He slammed the broken staff in his hand against the ground, and the phantom image of the royal seal in midair gave off rippling waves of green light, holding the roof firmly in place.

“No senior is to come to our aid! Anyone who disobeys will be expelled from the Royal Court!” Qingheng issued the order in the sternest terms.