By the Azure River (Part 2)

Lu Chen looked over the river's surface. He found no wreckage from the raft, but neither did he find any other clues.

Perhaps they had crossed the river successfully. Or perhaps they had already been buried beneath its waters.

He put away the blueprint and began searching the riverbank for the so-called "Hollow Mulberry Wood."

By all logic, this wood—specifically noted as capable of restraining Soul Devour Vines—should grow near the Azure River.

He spread out his divine sense and searched carefully.

Sure enough, in a relatively low-lying stretch of sand about half a li from the riverbank, he discovered several strange trees.

The trees were not tall, only two or three zhang high. Their trunks were silvery gray, their bark smooth and fine as jade.

Their branches and leaves were sparse, the leaves long and narrow, a nearly transparent pale silver that glimmered faintly beneath the leaden-gray sky.

What the trees emitted was not lush vitality, but a peculiar aura where ethereality and stability coexisted, as though they could anchor the restless energy around them.

"This is Hollow Mulberry Wood?" Lu Chen approached. Even the sand and gravel around the trees seemed exceptionally clean, and the omnipresent streams of ash-black deathly energy appeared to have been repelled.

He tried felling one with the Azure Nether Sword.

The blade struck the trunk with a sharp clang like metal striking iron. The wood was extraordinarily hard, yet possessed a strange resilience.

Fortunately, the Azure Nether Sword was sharp and Lu Chen was strong. After some effort, he cut down two Hollow Mulberry Wood trunks as thick as bowls and roughly two zhang long, then gathered several thicker branches.

With the materials ready, he returned to the river bend bearing traces of a camp and began building a raft according to the