Banyan Tree Demon

Though the Demon Tiger was fast, under these circumstances, it was naturally affected.

The flames burned ever more fiercely. After a brief hesitation, the Demon Tiger turned and circled around from the side.

Seeing this, Qin Yang secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Logically speaking, with the Demon Tiger's strength, this sea of fire posed no great threat to it. But its nature was what it was, and it still chose to avoid it.

This was more or less what he had expected. No one had come here for at least several thousand years. Even if there were demons here, they had likely never seen anything like this.

He was the donkey from Guizhou, exhausted of all its tricks...

Just taking advantage of this country-bumpkin Demon Tiger not knowing good stuff when it saw it...

Still, this method could not buy them much time.

"Senior brother Qin, if this keeps up, we're dead for sure..." Little Fatty's face was deathly pale, cold sweat streaming down from his temples...

The gap was far too great. This Demon Tiger was two major realms above them. If not for the Demon Tiger being such a bumpkin, acting entirely on instinct and innate talent with no experience to speak of, they would have died long ago...

"Stop talking nonsense. Run first."

As they charged deeper into the dense forest, the trees around them gradually changed. The towering trees slowly vanished, replaced by a stretch of banyan-like trees. They were not tall, but aerial roots hung down from their branches, while the ground was densely covered in tangled roots.

Roar...

With a roar, wild winds surged from behind, uprooting mountains and toppling trees. Demonic winds howled toward them. Before they even caught sight of the Demon Tiger, the gale had already lashed their cheeks with pain, like the biting frost winds of the depths of winter, nearly flaying the skin from their faces...

"Run inside!"

Qin Yang shouted in a low voice and fished a talisman covered in a halo of light from his Storage Bag. Its gentle radiance flowed and rippled like a murmuring stream.

As Qin Yang activated the talisman, the sound of dripping water rang beside their ears. Specks of rain slowly began to fall.

The talisman turned into a streak of light and vanished. Above the forest, water vapor and spiritual qi rapidly gathered. In merely two or three breaths, a dark cloud spanning several miles covered the sky above the woods.

Silently, the scattered droplets abruptly turned into a torrential downpour. As the curtain of rain fell, even the demonic wind sweeping through the air seemed to weaken by more than half.

Spiritual qi rose in vapors, mist curling through the air. The lifeless trees around them seemed to awaken beneath the spiritual rain. Vigorous life surged up from underground, and as the rain grew heavier, the erupting vitality became stronger and stronger...

"Senior brother Qin, a Small Cloud Rain Talisman?" Little Fatty stared wide-eyed, his lips trembling. The faint joy that had just appeared in his eyes instantly turned into despair...

With such an enormous display, he had truly thought it was some powerful talisman. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected it to be nothing more than a Small Cloud Rain Talisman used to irrigate spirit fields...

At that moment, amid the pouring rain, a dark shadow arrived in the blink of an eye. A fan-sized claw slapped Little Fatty, whose face was full of despair.

Whoosh...

Little Fatty let out a scream as his body flew backward, snapping two banyan trees in succession before slowly sliding down the trunk of the third.

"Junior Brother Zhang!"

Qin Yang cried out, his expression turning ugly. Little Fatty was covered in blood, slumped against the tree, dead or alive unknown. Blood continuously spilled from his mouth, and his life force rapidly weakened...

There was no time to look further. The Demon Tiger was already closing in from behind.

After only a few breaths of frantic running, the Demon Tiger behind them drew ever closer. The howling demonic wind alone had already sliced his clothes full of tiny cuts, while fine cracks appeared across his skin. They had all been carved by that wind...

"You took the benefits without doing any work. It's time to eat, and you're still sleeping! Kill the Demon Tiger, and I'll give you another round of spiritual rain! If I die, you won't get a damn thing!" Qin Yang roared.

At once, the surging vitality within the thriving forest abruptly swelled. The intertwined roots spreading across the ground seemed to come alive in an instant, transforming into countless thick giant pythons. They piled together into a ball of serpents and swept in from every direction.

In an instant, the Demon Tiger was sealed inside. Roots lay beneath the ground, while the aerial roots hanging from the banyan trees around it also began to writhe. Above its head, branches and canopies turned into a great net that blotted out the sky.

The Demon Tiger was both shocked and enraged. It opened its mouth and roared, and demonic winds erupted as demonic qi shot into the heavens. It was as though countless blades rang together, shredding everything in their path. The encircling roots, aerial roots, and branches were all ground into powder within those demonic winds.

Unfortunately, though the Demon Tiger tore them apart quickly, the roots surging from behind were even more boundless, endless and all-encompassing. The entire forest seemed to have come alive at that moment.

The battle became a pure war of attrition...

Qin Yang, meanwhile, was tightly bound to a tree trunk by a root, helplessly watching the battle not far away.

After less than half an hour, a mournful cry from the Demon Tiger rang out amid the countless clustered roots, followed by a shrill scream.

Not long after, the roots that had formed a great ball retreated. Within lay a tattered black tiger skin devoid of all luster, draped over a dried skeleton...

Then, on the trunk of the banyan tree before Qin Yang, an aged face formed from piled bark emerged and stared straight at him.

"Only if you let me go can I give you another round of spiritual rain."

The old face did not move, but the roots binding Qin Yang slowly withdrew.

Qin Yang secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Earlier, he had truly been out of options. He could not defeat the Demon Tiger, nor could he escape it, so he could only flee in this direction.

Everything on the high-definition map was crystal clear. Once enlarged, he could even see the direction of every tree branch. Among this vast stretch of banyan trees, only the one at the very center bore a human face.

The moment he saw that, Qin Yang knew there was a Banyan Tree Demon here, its reach extending for at least dozens of miles.

After fleeing in here, there was not even a single blade of grass besides the banyans. Birds and beasts had vanished, insect calls were nowhere to be heard. How could he not realize that this tree demon had grown strong enough to devour all the spiritual qi and vitality here, yet had no choice but to fall into slumber, letting itself grow slowly and piling up its cultivation through time?

The spiritual power and water vapor gathered by a high-grade talisman, a Small Cloud Rain Talisman, were things this tree demon would never let pass. Its awakening had been inevitable.

Now it seemed that this tree demon could at least be negotiated with...

The moment he landed, Qin Yang immediately took out over a dozen Small Cloud Rain Talismans, activated them all in one go, and tossed them out. He only had one high-grade talisman, but he had quite a few mid-grade ones...

As the drizzling rain fell, a slight change finally appeared on the old face of the tree demon. It seemed very pleased...

When the spiritual rain dissipated, the tree demon's old face resumed staring expressionlessly at Qin Yang.

"Senior, our transaction is complete. I don't have any materials left on me either. When I come again next time, I'll prepare more for you. Is that all right?"

The tree demon neither spoke nor moved, but its roots blocked Qin Yang's path, while it continued to stare at him expressionlessly...

Qin Yang's face immediately turned as black as the bottom of a pot...