As everyone celebrated their victory and Hua Qiang absorbed and refined the Dark Energy from Wutian, deep within the Holy Land, beneath the vault wall where countless roots had taken hold and drawn nourishment, a pair of eyes that had been closed for ten thousand years slowly opened a slit.
The rosy radiance of the Holy Land's barrier had long been stained a somber blood-red by smoke and ash. The air was thick with the scorched stench of shattered laws, while black patterns left behind when Wutian's "Lawless Heaven" ultimate move tore space apart still lingered within the crisscrossing cracks in the ground.
In the silence after the battle, only the World Tree, which supported the entire heaven and earth of the Holy Land, continued to let out a heart-chilling groan.
This divine tree had existed since the birth of the Holy Land. Its lush branches and leaves had once veiled the sky, its massive trunk had reached the top of the barrier, and its roots had wound through the whole land like silver veins—after all, this realm itself had been derived from the World Tree's origin power.
But now, its upper half had nearly turned to charcoal. Broken branches drooped at an angle, while the leaves that had once glimmered with light had withered into ash. At the slightest gust, they fell rustling away, exposing the savage wounds on the trunk. Even the last thread of vitality was rapidly draining from those bone-deep cracks.
After adapting to his surging power, Hua Qiang had been about to return to the Small World to play cards with his wives when his brows furrowed slightly. Then his gaze abruptly sharpened, locking tightly onto the World Tree's roots.
An abnormal energy fluctuation was surging there.
Looking down along the trunk, he saw a