An Unusual Mutation Tree

"It's over!!"

Inside the Yun City shelter, Chu Mengxi saw that Gu Qijue remained unbeatable. And... she'd also heard that Gu Qijue had already taken over Mu Qingxue's shelter.

At that moment, she slumped helplessly on the sofa, her eyes vacant.

Why had I betrayed him?

Why hadn't I stood firm?

He'd already spared me and my family once.

Why had I still gone looking for trouble?

Chu Mengxi's face was ashen, her heart filled with regret.

She truly hadn't expected that taking this step would lead her straight into an abyss.

"Mom, Dad, little sister, I'm sorry. I brought this on you!"

Chu Mengxi wept in anguish. She truly hadn't expected things to turn out this way.

She wasn't the only one who had wavered.

Inside the Yun City shelter, after seeing Gu Qijue's power through the empire's public livestream, many Super Martial Artists had also wavered and wanted to follow him.

Chu Yuan was powerful, but he wasn't there with them.

Now, every Super Martial Artist in the Yun City shelter was watching the Mutation Tree gradually emerge in the city center through a satellite livestream.

The livestream was only available to Super Martial Artists, for fear of causing panic. The survivors weren't allowed to watch.

Today's Mutation Tree was different from yesterday's. Its branches bore enormous, fan-shaped leaves that were all gray-green.

It burst out of the ground with a rumble, growing to a hundred meters tall in just a few minutes, and it was still growing wildly.

Its roots spread across an unknown number of miles.

A strange fragrance slowly drifted through the air.

Mutated Creatures that caught the scent rushed toward the Mutation Tree in a frenzy.

The Yun River was only about fifty kilometers from the city center.

When that fragrant scent swept over the previously tranquil river, the water began to churn.

Rumble—

The Yun River, which had been calm moments before, erupted into a frenzy.

With a series of crashing booms, group after group of enormous monsters leaped out of the water.

Then they surged toward the land in a dark mass.

Crack!

A more than ten-zhang-long electric eel, lightning raging across its body, burst out of the water. It transformed into a half-human form, set foot on land, and raced toward the source of the scent.

Today, only one Mutation Tree had emerged in the entire Yun City.

It was the one in the city center.

It grew at an astonishing speed. In just a few minutes, it had reached five hundred meters tall, its branches spreading wildly.

Yet even after growing into such an enormous tree, it still hadn't stopped.

The rumbling of the earth was endless. Countless Mutated Creatures from every direction were converging on it, drooling as they came.

The scent spread incredibly fast. It had already reached fifty kilometers in every direction, and it was still expanding at a terrifying pace.

From a bird's-eye view, every monster in Yun City that caught the scent was converging on the still-growing giant tree.

The city center was like a whirlpool that drew in monsters.

No Mutated Creature could resist the fragrance once it reached them.

Rats, ants, insects... they covered the land and filled the sky.

Beside the Yun River, a shapeshifted Old Turtle spun its shell around and used it to divine an omen.

"Good grief! This trip spells disaster. I'm outta here!"

Its expression changed as soon as it finished the divination. With a splash, it plunged into the water and fled.

Countless Mutated Monsters were heading toward the Mutation Tree, but it was going the other way.

At daybreak that morning, the same terrifying scene unfolded not only in Yun City but in nearly every city across the Hidden Dragon Empire.

Yet the other empires on the Star Blue Continent saw no such chaos. Their Mutation Trees grew normally, and none of them caused the commotion seen in the Hidden Dragon Empire.

"Oh my god! What's going on?"

On the rooftop of a skyscraper five kilometers from where the Mutation Tree was growing in the city center,

Gu Qijue watched from there with three hundred and sixty-eight Super Martial Artists.

Everyone stared at the dark swarms of Mutated Birds and insects in the sky, and the swarms of rats and ants racing across the ground. Their scalps tingled.

All kinds of roars rang out across the land.

Every skyscraper and high-rise was crawling with Mutated Monsters.

Everywhere they looked, there were monsters.

If Gu Qijue hadn't been there, the Mutated Monsters would have swarmed over their building too.

"Good grief! That Mutation Tree is about to reach a thousand meters, and it still hasn't stopped growing. What's going on?"

"Terrifying! How many Mutation Fruits will it produce?"

Everyone stared in shock, sucking in one sharp breath after another.

Gu Qijue furrowed his brow slightly.

He didn't remember anything like this happening in his previous life.

He'd been at the very bottom then, treated like a workhorse and ordered around.

But if something this momentous had happened, he would surely have heard about it.

So what was going on now?

The gray-green Mutation Tree growing before him gave him a feeling of dread.

Amid the endless hordes of monsters were countless Variant-tier and Evil Seed-tier creatures, as well as ordinary Calamity-tier Bird Emperors and Insect Emperors.

Within a kilometer of the Mutation Tree, all kinds of flying monsters circled in the sky, while an endless mass of land-dwelling monsters gathered below, stretching for countless miles until they vanished from sight.

Even the Aberrant Creatures, which usually preferred to hide in the darkness, were appearing in great numbers, drooling as they stared at the Mutation Tree.

"This scent is so irresistible to us..."

Guilai and the other seven Aberrant Creatures behind Gu Qijue could hardly resist the temptation of the scent either.

"What kind of fruit could a towering tree like this bear?"

Even White Fox was having trouble resisting. The scent held a fatal allure for them.

But Gu Qijue remained silent.

His instincts told him:

There was something suspicious about the Mutation Tree that had grown today. It was highly unusual, and it made him feel threatened.

But he couldn't bring himself to leave just yet.

The Mutation Tree had already grown to fifteen hundred meters tall, nearly reaching the lowest clouds.

Its branches spread across two or three miles.

Not long afterward, enormous numbers of sea creatures came surging in, their numbers reaching into the millions.

Roar!!!

As they fought for positions near the front, the Mutated Creatures began slaughtering one another on a massive scale.

Their roars shook the heavens. The blood of the torn-apart Mutated Creatures was visibly sucked into the earth.

As more and more Mutated Creatures fell in pools of blood, the Mutation Tree began growing even faster.

Gu Qijue noticed what was happening. His eyes narrowed slightly as he said, "Listen up. When this tree bears fruit, we'll grab the fruits and leave at once. Whatever happens, don't look back."

"Yes!"

Seeing how grave his expression was, everyone nodded solemnly. They all sensed that something major might happen.

The scent in the air grew stronger and spread even faster.

"Good grief, this scent... I can barely hold back! But the more irresistible it is, the more dangerous this trip must be!"

Even the Old Turtle, now far out on the river, was drooling. Still, it resisted the temptation and fled even faster, afraid it might lose its reason and turn back.