With a sharp crack, the porcelain bottle hit the ground. Countless fine roots immediately swarmed over it.
To prepare for the crisis looming ahead, Yu An had no choice but to revive some of his vitality. Since he had previously drawn all his vitality inward, his tree body was now in a state that was half dormant and half withered.
In this state, his roots could not absorb and convert nutrients to sustain his tree body. He had only done this so he could evade the Insect Race's detection.
But now, it was clear that things at the settlement were spiraling out of control. In particular, nobody knew when the rampaging beast might come this way.
So Yu An had no choice but to play the Corpse Stench Devil Plant leaves—his trump card—early.
Even if it meant taking a little risk.
In truth, he had another option: he could remain dormant and have Old Man Yu crawl out of the cellar, move the rocks, and pour the liquid over his tree body.
But if he did that, there was a good chance Old Man Yu wouldn't make it back.
Besides, having Old Man Yu smear the liquid over him would be nowhere near as effective as absorbing the Corpse Stench Devil Plant's liquid himself.
So, sacrifice Old Man Yu to save himself?
Yu An still hoped to give the Yu Family a leg up so that, in the future, they could become a lineage that protected him. But even setting that aside, he simply wasn't the sort of person who was cold-blooded and utterly selfish.
And to put it sentimentally, Old Man Yu alive would be far more helpful to him.
He also thought of how Old Man Yu had kept him company lately and fed him Spirit Stones one after another.
The old man's original intention had been to trade him for Immortal Destiny in the future.
But to ignore the facts and talk only about the result was just being a thug.
If it were him, and he came across a Rare Species, he'd surely think about selling it in exchange for cultivation resources. That was human nature.
After all, who could have guessed that a human soul lived inside this Rare Species sapling?
Would Yu An really resent Old Man Yu for that alone?
Even after turning into a tree, Yu An wasn't so petty.
Besides, the stories Old Man Yu had told him had helped him identify with this world and form deeper ties to it. And then there were the Spirit Stones the old man had fed him. Whatever his original intentions, that was what had happened.
That was cause and effect, something that had to be repaid.
This was Yu An's cultivation insight as a Rare Species elm tree.
The Heavenly Dao turned in cycles; retribution never missed its mark.
As a Rare Species with the Divine Ability of Town Protection, if he connived against Old Man Yu, he would only be conniving against himself in the end.
Rather than let Old Man Yu risk going outside and drawing the Insect Race here, he might as well absorb the Corpse Stench Devil Plant's liquid himself.
Absorbing and converting all kinds of nutrients was simply an instinct of plant life. So when those fine roots slipped into the porcelain bottle, they absorbed every drop of the Corpse Stench Devil Plant's liquid in just a few seconds.
In theory, Yu An had no sense of taste. He could see and hear, but most of what he perceived came from his soul; his tree body and leaves served as his eyes and ears.
Before this, whether he absorbed soil from the Spirit Field or Spirit Stones, he had never had any concept of smell or taste.
Yet after absorbing this small bottle of Corpse Stench Devil Plant liquid, he somehow "tasted" an indescribable flavor.
It wasn't a foul smell. After all, fragrance and stench could sometimes be one and the same.
Take the scent of jasmine and the stench of feces: both came from the same substance, indole.
At low concentrations, indole smelled like jasmine or fruit; at high concentrations, it gave off a putrid odor.
Then there was ambergris. It was initially fishy and foul, but once dried, it became a top-grade fragrance that could clear the mind.
And though the Corpse Stench Devil Plant's liquid had "corpse stench" in its name, it didn't actually smell putrid either. One look at how Old Man Yu had instinctively drawn in a deep breath, his face faintly rapt, was enough to tell.
But to Yu An, the flavor was so unpleasant that it made him uncomfortable all over. Every part of him, inside and out, recoiled from it.
But the more he recoiled, the more certain Yu An became that the Corpse Stench Devil Plant's liquid was good stuff. Its scent didn't target the ordinary sense of smell in humans; it targeted the unique "olfactory" sense of plants like itself and the Insect Race.
So the stronger his revulsion, the more effective it would be against the Insect Race.
Yu An immediately forced down his discomfort and sent the liquid along his roots, through the vascular tissue—that is, the tree's phloem and xylem—and throughout his entire body.
Compared to his tree body, the small bottle of Corpse Stench Devil Plant liquid was a mere drop in the bucket. But what he really needed was its scent.
After all that, Yu An gathered as much of his vitality as he could into his roots within the root-space.
At that very moment, the wolf-bear that had fled Tiezhu's house and gone on a rampage through the settlement was also charging toward Old Man Yu's home.
In the sky behind it, the locust-like member of the Insect Race could just barely be seen.
Farther away, roughly dozens of miles out, a squad of the Insect Race was closing in at speed.
The squad numbered around twenty or thirty. Its leader was noticeably larger than the others, and the antennae atop its head trembled without pause, as if receiving some kind of signal.
"Second Brother."
Inside the Blessed Land.
Yu Dashan hurried down from the second floor, his face pale.
"What's wrong?"
At the sight of him, Yu Ershan sprang to his feet. Even Yu Xiaoshan, who had been exercising with a stone in his hands, looked over in confusion.
"I—I was cultivating my senses just now when I suddenly felt panicky. I couldn't calm down no matter what. Do you think something happened to Father?"
Yu Dashan spoke with worry written all over his face.
This world didn't have the idiom "a sudden premonition," but it had similar sayings.
Especially during sensory cultivation, people could often foresee events closely related to themselves.
And since news of the Insect Race's arrival had already spread throughout the entire Blessed Land, it was no wonder Yu Dashan's thoughts had turned that way.
"No. You know the tunnel we dug and that little cellar. As long as Father hides in there, even if one or two members of the Insect Race find the settlement, they won't discover him."
Yu Ershan took a deep breath and forced himself to stay calm.
In truth, when Yu Dashan voiced his suspicion, Yu Ershan's heart had given an inexplicable lurch too.
It was as if something bad really was about to happen.
But he still chose to reassure Yu Dashan instead of voicing his own feelings.
No matter what was happening at the settlement, there was no way they could rush back.
Rather than let Yu Dashan lose focus and be unable to cultivate properly, it was better to "hide" all of this from him.
"Really? The Insect Race really won't find Father?"
Yu Dashan stared intently at Yu Ershan's face. He knew his second brother was clever and far better at weighing things than he was.
"Really."
Yu Ershan nodded firmly.
Before you continue