Within arm's reach, I was invincible

"Tsk, tsk..."

Yu Ziyu took a long look at Qing'er, who had fallen asleep among his roots, shimmering with starlight, and smacked his lips.

He could not be sure about anything else.

But there was one thing Yu Ziyu was already certain of.

A "monster" combining the strengths of nonhumans and humans was about to be born.

Others might not know, but how could he not?

Besides her two innate talents, fire-elemental talent and spiritual talent, this girl also received a greatly disproportionate share of humanity's resources.

On Yu Ziyu's side, he had promised her large quantities of life essence and was even using his roots for her soul nurturing.

Just thinking about all this made Yu Ziyu's scalp tingle.

Not to mention that the girl now actually possessed this vast wealth of resources.

If she still could not rise with all that?

Then probably no human could rise either.

"Luckily, I have my cheat, evolution points. Otherwise, given enough time, I really might not be able to keep you under control, girl."

Sighing inwardly, Yu Ziyu was somewhat astonished at the opportunities this girl had received.

Opportunities like these were straight out of a protagonist's template!

An ordinary person really might not be able to keep her under control.

But now, with Qing'er using his roots to nurture her soul, she could be said to have established something akin to a contract with him.

Symbiosis?

No.

More precisely, it should have been parasitism.

Qing'er needed to depend on his existence. Without Yu Ziyu, Qing'er would not exist either.

It was precisely because of this that Yu Ziyu was confident the girl was entirely within her control.

Besides, fundamentally speaking, their interests did not conflict.

One was a ghost, the other a tree.

One incorporeal, one tangible, yet both were outliers even among nonhumans.

In this transcendent age, being able to meet was already an extraordinary stroke of fate.

And supporting each other was all the more destined.

So, with this in mind, Yu Ziyu was cultivating this girl as a trusted confidante from the bottom of his heart.

And now, the girl had not disappointed him.

Given time, Qing'er would surely become his right-hand woman.

At this thought, Yu Ziyu's gaze toward Qing'er softened a little.

Crack.

As a branch snapped, a drop of concentrated life essence slowly fell into the glimmer of starlight atop his roots.

But what Yu Ziyu did not notice at that moment was that, the instant the life essence touched that mass of light-

Deep within the glow, the corners of a sleeping girl's mouth suddenly lifted slightly, her eyes still closed.

"Mas... ter."

With a trace of attachment, Qing'er sank into a deeper sleep.

Time flew, and in the blink of an eye, deep winter had arrived, with heavy snow swirling through the depths of the mountains.

All between heaven and earth was a vast expanse of white. Snowflakes drifted thickly from the sky, as though white tents had been drawn up all around, and the earth was clothed in silver.

Yet amid this silver-clad world, the hazy mist still lingered, coiling over the mountains.

But that was not what was frightening. What was truly frightening was that this thick fog had already enveloped hundreds of mountain ranges.

At that moment, looking down from the sky, one would see the thick fog stretching northeast to southwest from one corner, more than a hundred kilometers long and thirty to forty kilometers wide, all shrouded in hazy white mist.

With a peak every few hundred meters, "hundreds of peaks across over a hundred kilometers" truly was no exaggeration.

Fortunately, however, this thick fog was only spreading through the mountains and had yet to drift toward the cities.

Otherwise, what awaited would not merely have been human troops stationed along the mountains' perimeter, maintaining constant vigilance.

It would have been a veritable hail of bullets, or even artillery firing in unison.

But, honestly, would the artillery humanity took such pride in really work against this seemingly living mist?

Deep within the thick fog, Yu Ziyu smiled, a peculiar look crossing his face.

Several months had now passed.

And during that time, Yu Ziyu had not done much.

Other than constantly maintaining the spread of dense fog, the other thing he did was continuously strengthen himself with the evolution points earned through the hunting of the "pets" he kept.

For several full months, Yu Ziyu had used hundreds, even thousands, of evolution points to strengthen his myriad branches.

It had to be said that such expenditure was truly frightening.

Yet compared with the expenditure, the gains were worth it.

At that moment, if one looked up toward Beiyu Canyon-

One would clearly see a green waterfall dozens of meters wide cascading from the sky.

As though the Silver River were plunging from the ninth heaven.

It was precisely such a sight.

And these were the myriad branches Yu Ziyu had now strengthened.

Every branch was Lv2 in terms of level.

Leaving everything else aside, the combat strength of a single branch was enough to strangle ordinary Entry-Level seven or eight mutated beasts, or even Entry-Level nine ones.

And now, Yu Ziyu had over a hundred such branches.

It was easy to imagine how terrifying a sight it would be when hundreds of branches struck to kill in unison.

The heavens collapsing? The earth splitting?

Even more alarming was that the reach of Yu Ziyu's branches had now extended to around a hundred meters.

In other words, everything within a hundred-meter radius of him had become his domain.

"Whew..."

Letting out a deep breath, Yu Ziyu finally felt a sense of true "strength."

By humanity's classification of spiritual energy peaks, his current spiritual energy peak was at least around seventy to eighty thousand.

And if such terrifying spiritual energy appeared in a mutated beast...

By Yu Ziyu's estimate, that mutated beast would be capable of destroying a county town within half a day.

Of course, as a willow tree, Yu Ziyu had no such ability.

However, if a beast with a spiritual energy peak of around seventy to eighty thousand appeared within a hundred meters of him, Yu Ziyu believed it would not live to see tomorrow.

And this was Yu Ziyu's confidence.

Invincible in close combat against those of the same level.

To put it in boastful terms-

Within arm's reach, I was invincible.

Any being daring to offend him within a hundred meters had either yet to be born or had already become a corpse.

With a chuckle, Yu Ziyu felt a little more assured.

(*^▽^*) Thank you to reader Bingxue Piaoling for the tip...

Thank you all so much. ^_^

(Event period: June 12 to June 14)

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