Vassal species were special races that lived under the protection of distant ancestors or deities, relying on their power or receiving tremendous opportunities for growth from them.
For the translucent spirit monsters and vine dragons before them, this divine Jianmu tree was the foundation of their survival and development. They shared a symbiotic, dependent relationship with it. Had the Spirit Tamers not come knocking at their door, these vassal species would simply have continued their peaceful lives, never leaving the territory sheltered by the divine tree.
Now, however, they had no choice but to appear as guardians and do everything in their power to stop Fang Qianyuan and his army from approaching.
Through the divine Jianmu tree, they seemed to have sensed the intruders' intense desire to pluck its fruit.
At that moment, atop the divine tree's crown, where the fruit rose like emerald mountain peaks, streaks of light blazed brilliantly. Petals as enormous as millstones fluttered through the air, transforming into the same translucent spirit monsters with cicada wings they had seen earlier.
As it turned out, these spirit monsters were transformed from the divine tree's petals. For the time being, they could be called "Cicada-Wing Flower Fairies."
They seemed to be the beings closest to intelligent life in this world. A hazy collective consciousness and a sense of racial identity had already begun to emerge among them, and they fiercely resisted the Expeditionary Corps' assault. Originally, each had grown atop the tree in the form of a half-withered petal, continuing to nurture its spiritual awareness and intelligence. Now, however, they detached themselves one after another and appeared before the invaders as spirit monsters capable of spirit communion.
The vast majority of these spirit monsters were at the seventh through ninth transformations of human rank, but there were also