"Whew, good thing I made it in time!"
A figure wreathed in a golden tornado came running from afar. But he didn't approach the battlefield, stopping when he was still a mile or two away.
To avoid being accidentally struck by Willow Deity, Bai Yixin had deliberately found a safe place from which to enjoy her display of overwhelming might.
It seemed he had made it in time, though the battle was almost over!
In the sky, a huge purple foot came crashing down, stomping toward the willow tree at the entrance to the village.
It was an attack from Purple Mountain Marquis, one of the four powerful experts who had come to besiege Stone Village. Purple Mountain Marquis was the strongest person in this vast stretch of the Great Wilderness.
Bai Yixin wondered how powerful a marquis who dared to call himself king in these remote wilds could be. He guessed that Purple Mountain Marquis was at most in the Inscription Realm, and might even only be in the Spirit Transformation Realm.
The attack looked astonishing, but was all show and no substance.
Willow Deity moved her sole willow branch, swaying it with the breeze. She lifted its tender tip and gave it a gentle wave. A green vortex appeared, growing larger and larger until it became a tornado that reached the heavens!
A slight stir from a tender sprout had created such a terrifying celestial phenomenon. One could only imagine how powerful the charred willow tree at the village entrance truly was!
"Boom!"
The green vortex expanded, reaching the heavens and connecting sky to earth. Its majestic force shook the surrounding lands.
It surged like a mountain flood, crashed against the sky like a boundless sea, and roared so loudly that the experts trembled on the verge of collapse and suffocation.
The huge purple foot was pulled into the vortex, followed by the entire purple giant. In the span of a breath, it crashed down and collapsed, its whole form swallowed by the tornado and torn apart!
Everyone fell silent, their faces filled with horror and terror.
Only Bai Yixin gazed at Willow Deity in amazement, wondering how long it would take him to become as strong as she was.
A hundred years? A thousand? Perhaps even longer.
The tornado howled like a Primordial Fierce Beast roaring, shaking the entire mountain range.
No one could withstand even one of Willow Deity's attacks. The people of the Golden Wolf Tribe, the Thunder Clan, the people from Luofu Great Swamp, and the Flood Dragon Clan were all slaughtered until they broke and fled!
The willow branch moved again, its light blazing. In an instant, it stretched four or five miles, then swept around with tremendous force. The towering stone mountains, the dense forests, and the enemies who had besieged Stone Village were all cut in half. The earth rumbled as corpses fell in heaps and blood sprayed everywhere!
"Pfft!" "Pfft"...
But after cutting down the key figures, the willow tree didn't slaughter everyone indiscriminately. It only attacked the Scale Horses and other beasts. The willow branch pierced one mount after another, stringing them along its crystalline length.
In the end, several hundred mounts—including Scale Horses, Unicorns, and Moon Rhinos—were all impaled on the Willow Branch and carried back to Stone Village.
The surviving members of the four clans fled for their lives, not daring to linger any longer.
"Grandpa Chief, are you all right?"
A shout came from outside Stone Village. It was Bai Yixin, who had run back after the spectacle was over.
"Child, are you all right?!"
The crisis had come too suddenly. Only now did the villagers remember that Bai Yixin was still outside the village.
"I'm fine. I saw something was happening in the village, so I ran back. I didn't come into contact with those people outside. I hid far away and watched Willow Deity slaughter them all!" Bai Yixin said, looking a little awkward as everyone gathered around him.
"That's right. We have Willow Deity to thank!"
The villagers revered the willow tree and worshipped it from the bottom of their hearts. It had protected Stone Village. Every one of them called it Willow Deity, praying here with utmost sincerity.
Suddenly, a divine thought rang out: "This is food. Make sure you prepare enough. A great calamity is coming."
"Who?" The villagers of Stone Village were startled.
"It's Willow Deity!" Bai Yixin said, his eyes shining as he looked at the charred willow tree.
The willow tree had been broken for many years, leaving only a section of its charred trunk, more than ten meters in diameter. It had just one branch left, green and glistening, swaying in the breeze.
"We pay our respects to Willow Deity!"
The villagers were all frightened. Their hearts filled with reverence at the willow tree's unimaginable display of power, many of them prostrating themselves and begging it to protect the peace of Stone Village.
Some of the elderly villagers trembled as they stepped forward to lead the prayers, expressing their reverence with sincere words and devout hearts.
A mysterious and wondrous power appeared, much like the sacrificial power recorded in the Bone Book, which had been produced when the ancient ancestors made offerings to Heaven. It spread outward like ripples.
"Heed Willow Deity's warning and start storing food!" an elder said, regaining his composure.
The village immediately sprang into action. The carcasses of several hundred mounts lay in the streets, piled up like small hills. They were enough to feed the villagers for a long time, but had to be processed to keep them from rotting.
"The time has finally come. The struggle over the Mountain Treasure deep in the mountains is about to begin again." Bai Yixin mused.
The calamity Willow Deity had warned them about could only be the disaster the Mountain Treasure would unleash, leaving a hundred thousand miles awash in blood.
As he thought, Bai Yixin did as he usually did: he found an empty spot and took nearly a hundred hunted animals out of his backpack, piling them into a small mountain.
Every household was busy processing their prey, so Bai Yixin couldn't just sit around. He summoned a small rain cloud with a little rain spell beside each person to make washing easier.
Then Bai Yixin got to work processing the animals, as practiced as ever. He skinned them, washed them, cut the meat into strips, and handed it to the women to make smoked meat.
While Shi Chuan and the others were hard at work making smoked meat, the deepest part of the primordial mountains was also anything but peaceful.
A massive figure appeared, wreathed in thick mist so that its true form could not be seen. Yet its terrifying aura shook the heavens and earth. The peaks and valleys trembled, while birds and beasts cowered on the ground, shivering as they bowed toward it.
It towered between heaven and earth, its height impossible to measure, its head rising into the clouds. A pair of dark green eyes, like two lakes embedded in the sky, each stretched for several miles. The enormous eyes were terrifying, and their killing intent soared to the heavens!
"This holy treasure is mine." Its deep voice rolled like thunder, shaking the mountains as if they were about to collapse. In the distant ranges, countless fierce birds and beasts trembled.
A huge iron staff answered it, thick as a pillar holding up the sky. It swept over with howling winds, rolling stones, and surging clouds and mist.
A great battle unfolded. Two unfathomable beings laid down primordial treasure runes to hold the mountains and rivers steady as they fought to the death.
Deep in the mountains, flames blazed in another direction. Little Red Bird appeared and entered an earth-shaking battle with another terrifying creature.
Four supreme beings were fighting. Their power exceeded all imagination. Even powerful descendants like Demon Ape and Blazing Fire Bull Demon trembled and hid in the distance, not daring to move.
"Boom!"
Suddenly, a deafening crash rang out from the heart of the vast mountain range. Rocks shot through the sky as the earth split open, and chaotic energy spread across the entire range.
Immortal light soared into the sky, auspicious mist surged, and it was as if the world had returned to the time before its creation. A chaos treasure seemed to have emerged, rising and falling as it shook the entire Great Wilderness.
"The Mountain Treasure has emerged!"
With a rumble, the depths of the mountains erupted into chaos, and the fighting grew even more fierce. Four unimaginable terrifying beings fought to the death over the newly unearthed Mountain Treasure.
The battle was beyond imagining. The four supreme beings fought fiercely, heedless of their lives. A terrible aura swept toward the eight directions, striking fear into all living things and making them tremble!
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