Tang San told Xiao Wu about the consciousness he had heard.
Xiao Wu did not answer at once. She leaped onto a raised tree root and pressed both hands against the Ghost Vine. The aura of a Soft Bone Rabbit reached inward through her palms. Vines immediately coiled toward her waist, but Tang San's Blue Silver Emperor wrapped around her from behind and pulled her back to his side.
"It's full of Soul Beast blood," Xiao Wu said softly. "It can't tell who's approaching anymore. It only wants to keep eating."
Da Ming swam from the lake to the shore, the wound on his bull's head still seeping blood. "This Hollow Ghost Vine originally grew in the northern Valley. It fed only on rotting wood and groundwater. More than twenty years ago, it suddenly vanished from the Valley. Gu Changye must have captured it then and buried its roots beneath the Beast-Locking Stakes."
"Can it be saved?" Tang San asked.
Da Ming was silent for a moment. "All that's left of its own consciousness is the little you heard. If this drags on, the power it swallowed will burst its body apart."
Xiao Wu looked at the fallen Soul Beasts around them. Her fingers slowly curled into fists.
She would not push a living Soul Beast before Tang San simply because he needed a Soul Ring. The Ghost Vine had been tormented for over twenty years, and countless beast bones lay piled around its roots. Leaving it here would only let it drag away more Soul Beasts.
"Kill it," Xiao Wu said. "Don't let what Gu Changye stuffed into it remain in the Soul Ring."
Yuan Yu raised the Mystic Origin Vast Sea Bottle. "I'll collect the Blood Array's power. The Ghost Vine itself is yours."
He tipped the bottle