Bang!
Without any warning, the tree stump suddenly sent the huge boulder pressing atop it flying, shooting several yards into the air.
A rich aura of life spread out. Before their very eyes, the dead Golden Osmanthus branched and leafed out, swiftly blooming into a swath of gold.
"What is that?"
Cao Erzhu's eyelids twitched in fright, disbelief written across his face.
He swore he was not seeing things. It truly was a stump only knee-high, accomplishing in an instant what should have taken decades, perhaps a century.
It had grown into a tree!
The lush Golden Osmanthus gave off an air of newborn life rising from ruin, utterly out of place amid the desolate Gui Zhe Ruins after the great tribulation.
Yet this was only the beginning.
Bang bang bang! Soon, grass and trees could be seen in every direction, breaking through stone from the cracked earth, stubbornly and bizarrely growing and climbing upward.
Some bloomed with crimson and pink flowers...
Some stood straight as swords, though they were merely weeds by nature...
Others could not even be called stumps—mere scraps of charred wood left behind after being struck by lightning. They suddenly lashed through the air. With the life force that had abruptly emerged within them having nowhere to go, branches grew upward and roots downward, completing the grand feat of "evolving into a tree" while still midair...
Cao Erzhu's eyes bulged round.
That tree was far too active. Before it had even fallen, its roots spread wildly in all directions. It seemed as though it had gathered and shaped itself into a human face, desperately roaring:
"Give it to me, give it to me!"
"Ah! Where is the soil? Where is the soil!"
Before it found any soil, the tree could draw nourishment simply by rooting itself