Wish Candle

Beth had launched the citywide sacrifice.

But it hadn't gone as smoothly as Dean Pang had imagined.

Beth had been forced to launch the sacrifice ahead of schedule.

Time rewound.

Before Thor had left the Inverted Tree, Shaya had already arrived in the Tree Heart Space, thanks to its unique spatial properties.

The moment Shaya entered, Beth noticed him.

"You came back on your own. I thought you wouldn't show up until the very last moment."

Her voice was hoarse, devoid of emotion.

If Shaya hadn't known he'd thoroughly crossed Beth, he might have thought she was truly calm.

Shaya still looked human, but his body glowed faintly.

His light illuminated the entire Tree Heart Space.

It also illuminated Bethana at the very bottom.

She lay naked on a Witchcraft Array that floated in midair, hollow at its center.

Bethana wasn't truly naked. At this point, only her cheeks, neck, and limbs retained patches of pale skin. Everywhere else, her body had turned into a dense mass of roots.

There were tens of thousands of them, curling and hanging like threads on a loom.

Each root was covered in equally countless, tiny hairs.

It seemed like the result of combining the traits of human skin with tree roots.

Bethana didn't need to see Shaya to sense his arrival.

Shaya knew that, too.

He also knew that Bethana used these fine-haired roots to control every Spirit Body within the Inverted Tree.

When she didn't need them, the Spirit Bodies stayed still as designed, or repeated the same simple actions over and over.

But whenever Bethana needed them, those Spirit Bodies could become deadly weapons.

Utterly loyal to their master, they fought their enemies to the death.

They would keep going until the last bit of energy in their Spirit Bodies had