Gongxi Chou was utterly speechless.
Or rather, at that moment, he was no longer capable of thinking.
Wei Cheng raised his spiked club toward Jimò Qiu. Familiar, profound patterns of a formation spread through the air, and a pillar of light slammed toward Jimò Qiu's position. He dodged aside, but the instant he landed, he saw a pair of hands thrust out from the center of the pillar, tearing it open with all their might.
A strange head poked through the opening.
It was strange because he had never seen anyone like this before!
The exposed skin was clearly tree bark, an eerie brownish hue. Green moss formed its eyebrows, branches and leaves its hair, and its torso was a tree trunk. When it stepped out of the pillar of light, everyone finally saw its full height—eight zhang tall—and sucked in a collective breath.
Gongxi Chou's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. He struggled violently to break free. His movements were so forceful that the chains on his shackles clanked loudly. "How dare you disturb the ancestors of my clan!"
He didn't bother to keep his voice down, and plenty of people heard him.
They looked from Gongxi Chou to the treant.
It seemed they were weighing whether the two belonged to the same species.
As unbelievable as it seemed, Gongxi Chou really wasn't lying. After a member of the Gongxi Clan died, their body was handed over to the High Priest for a special cremation. Their ashes became a plant seed, and their soul was laid to rest. When Gongxi Chou was young, he had seen them move the ancestral graves.
Back then, the ancestors in the graveyard had all suddenly begun to wither. The old priest had gone to ask what was wrong, and the ancestors had said