Chapter 175: The Hungry Tree (2)

Then, Kyrian simply fell to his knees and collapsed sideways onto the dusty ground, feigning a final breakdown. He remained motionless, but his senses stayed at their maximum alertness.

It did not take long for the suction root, which until then had been moving with vegetal slowness, to tremble.

Its tip, a kind of rounded mouth without teeth but with an inner black glow, lifted itself from the ground like a snake scenting the air.

It turned in Kyrian’s direction. The energy of hostility that impregnated it seemed to grow sharper, more interested.

Kyrian maintained his façade of weakness. The root approached, sliding over the ground with a wet and repulsive sound.

It did not rush. It seemed to evaluate him, as if the strange combination of superficial weakness and deep richness confused its simple predatory instincts. After a long moment of hesitation, the tip of the root gently touched Kyrian’s forehead.

It was like being touched by a finger of freezing ice. A strange wave, unknown to Kyrian, of pure negative will flowed from the contact.

Kyrian felt something trying to penetrate his mind, not to read his thoughts, but to implant a command, a blind obedience.

It was a primitive and overwhelming impulse.

’Get up. Come. Feed the Mother Root.’

His eyes, by instinct, wanted to react. The purifying power within them yearned to burn that intrusive spiritual filth. But Kyrian kept them under control. He allowed the intrusive energy to enter.

It was one of the strangest and most violating sensations of his life. It was not like losing control of his body, it was as if his body received a new programming, a line of hatred and submission written directly into his mind.

His limbs moved, not by his own will, but obeying an external order. He stood up, the movements awkward and stiff, and began to walk, dragging his feet, toward the monstrous tree on the horizon.

As he walked, the second layer of influence hit him. A wave of hatred welled up in his chest, cold and irrational. Hatred for the light, for the air he breathed, for the very beating of his heart.

Hatred for everything that was alive and not under the root’s dominion. It was an overwhelming feeling, meant to erase any rational thought, any resistance, turning the victim into a raging and self-destructive servant.

Kyrian let the hatred flow through him. He felt it, sharp as a blade, but he observed it from a distant and unshakable part of his mind.

He could sever the connection if he wished. At any moment. His eyes, his innate power, were doors that the tree’s and the black mass’s primitive influence could not truly break down.

But the others, the cultivators who had been caught, the weaker beasts, did not have this defense. Now he fully understood the silent horror emanating from those forms dragging themselves at the base of the tree. They were trapped inside their own bodies.

Terrified spectators as they were led to the slaughterhouse, their minds flooded by a hatred that did not even belong to them. It was an extremely powerful spiritual torture.

’Perfect.’ Thought the cold part of Kyrian, even as his face maintained a vacant expression and his body marched.

It was exactly what he needed to get close to the core of the tree. Little by little, he was being led closer while the book in his mind showed even more signs of wanting to move.

The walk was slow, hypnotic. Other forms joined him along the way. A beast with a broken paw dragging itself, a man with empty eyes and a drooling mouth, all moving at the same somber rhythm toward the tree.

The air grew heavier, more laden with black mist. The smell of decomposition, putrid energy, was suffocating.

Finally, they reached the shadow of the tree itself. Up close, it was even more terrifying. The black trunk seemed to pulse, and the low hum of energy was almost deafening.

The exposed roots formed a forest of twisted pillars. And among them, trapped like fruits in a web, dozens of humans and beasts were chained by black vines that emerged from the ground, their bodies visibly withering as vital energy was slowly extracted.

Kyrian was led into a clearing between the roots, near one of the main suction channels, a colossal root that plunged into the ground, vibrating with the energy flowing into it.

Here, the connection with the collective mind was stronger. The impulse to remain still, to ’offer oneself,’ was almost irresistible.

He obeyed. He stopped, staring vacantly at the pulsing trunk.

But inside him, now at a much closer distance, the book in his mind was no longer just a passive observer. It was an awakened hunger, a predator that sensed its prey point-blank. Kyrian did not even need to try to activate it or call it.

The book, completely blank in his consciousness, reacted violently. It vibrated, a pulsation so strong that it made Kyrian’s very vision tremble for an instant. Then, without warning, without command, a pure white flash burst forth from his forehead.

The book materialized in the air in front of him.

It was not an illusion or a projection of energy but the physical book. Its covers were made of an unknown material. It shone with a white color like snow.

It floated, its blank pages flipping furiously, as if stirred by a silent storm. The energy it emanated was not of any element Kyrian knew. It was absolute purity.

The black mist and putrid energy around it reacted. It was as if acid had been poured onto living tissue. The mist recoiled, hissing and evaporating wherever the book’s light touched. The tree itself, the body of the Black Mass, shuddered from one end to the other.

And then, from within the core of the tree, from inside the great fissure in the trunk where the putrid and corrupted light emanated, a scream erupted.

It was not a sound for the ears, it was a sound of pure terror and desperate hatred that exploded in the minds of all living beings for kilometers around.

Kyrian saw the immediate consequences. The beasts and humans trapped in the vines, already on the brink of death, went into convulsions.

Blood gushed from their eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouths, their fragile forms could not withstand the overflow of energy that surged from the desperate scream.

Even the more distant beasts in the wave, those still fighting at the Screaming Cliffs, must have felt a shock of pain and confusion.

Kyrian was spared. His eyes, at the moment the scream began, shone with an intense crimson. A subtle but incredibly resilient mental barrier arose in his mind, protecting him, deflecting the mental attack.

He felt the pressure, a wall of hatred trying to crush him. But it could not penetrate his innate defense.

He frowned. Impressed.

’This time’s potency… is terrifying.’ He remembered the first Black Mass of hostility he had encountered, the one that had simply fled. The second, the Scarlet Sun disciple, had screamed, but that was a whisper compared to this roar.

The Black Mass, now terrified beyond any measure, tried again what it had done before, to retreat, to flee. But there was a problem. It was not possessing a small or mobile body.

It had completely fused with the gigantic tree, becoming its heart and mind. Its physical body was colossal. In its panicked state, escape was a practical impossibility.

So, it fought.

With an agonized roar that made the ground tremble, all of the tree’s roots revolted. They rose from the ground like the tentacles of an enraged kraken, slamming into the earth, crushing the carcasses around and the poor souls still trapped.

Gigantic branches writhed and descended like spears, shattering the ground. The tree itself seemed to lean, trying to crush the source of its terror. The floating white book.

Kyrian did not wait. He ran. His feet, now under his full control, propelled him backward, trying to get away from the zone of frenetic destruction.

He leapt over rising roots and dodged descending branches, his agility was nothing surprising. He always seemed to be on the edge, but with his eyes he could foresee and know where to step at the right moment.

Meanwhile, the book did not move. It remained floating, impassive, at the epicenter of the torment. When the tree’s roots tried to strike it, they simply… passed through it.

As if it were not fully on this plane of existence. Or else, they disintegrated upon reaching and touching the field of purity around it, reduced to black ash.

The book then advanced. It floated calmly toward the pulsing fissure in the trunk, the core of the tree. From a distance, Kyrian saw bands of white light, like ethereal chains, emerge from the book’s pages.

They wrapped themselves around the pulsating Black Mass of hostility inside the fissure. The concentrated form of the Black Mass.

Then it was like watching a celestial predator ensnare its prey. The darkness struggled, thrashed, but the chains of white light were relentless, not with brute force, but with absolute authority, as if imposing a supreme order upon the anomaly.

Then, the dissolution process began. The dense black mist started to break apart, not into smoke, but into countless tiny particles.

A wind that was not natural arose, blowing those particles toward the open book. Each particle was drawn in and absorbed by the blank pages, which received them without being marked, without changing color. It was a clean and final absorption.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep