The moment Lingren appeared, Yu Xing's nerves twitched.
In his perception, a sweet fragrance unlike anything from the Old Gods emerged. The Ghost Tree's instinct to devour one another surfaced, stirring restlessly.
Fortunately, Yu Xing's hatred of Lingren immediately won out. Whatever appetite the fragrance had stirred vanished at once.
He looked at that smiling face, and his gaze darkened.
"I knew you'd be waiting here," he said. His voice, still rough from his earlier excitement, came out cold and hoarse.
"Of course." Lingren tilted his head slightly, relaxed, as if they were just chatting. "If I did nothing, you'd probably think something had possessed me, wouldn't you?"
As he spoke, the lush green moss spreading from beneath his feet seemed to come alive. It flowed along the black sludge covering the altar, then began to climb.
The sludge melted away like snow beneath a scorching sun, fading as the moss silently devoured it. The moss grew darker, its deep green tinged with a faint, ominous hue.
More moss surged forward, like little green snakes, winding nimbly around the melting mass that had already lost its human shape.
In essence, moss and branches were the same. Both came from the Ghost Tree, and both absorbed all nourishment—an almost primitive instinct.
At the same time, the dark red runes on the altar floor, formed from blood eerily mingled with black sludge, began to rotate slowly, turning backward!
The "vessel" wrapped in moss also began to rise from the altar under the influence of some unseen force.
It was lifted into the air and turned upside down, like a reversed puppet hanging by its feet.
The black sludge that the moss had not yet entirely devoured was affected by gravity and the reversed runes. Slowly and thickly, it dripped from the feet