Chapter 199

Chapter 199: Dodder Flower Sprite

“Sucking spiritual power?” Shen Sang Ruo’s brows knit tight.

Su Xi Yu’s voice turned weak as she said: “Yes, and it’s fast.”

With spiritual power draining away, the three already felt faint.

Shen Sang Ruo and Ye Huai exchanged a look. [A Yin-Yang Tree Demon isn’t supposed to be aggressive. If it dodged so many Elders in the clearing, it must be unusual.]

The others seemed to reach the same thought, and their faces turned grim.

The Yin-Yang Tree Demon was strange. That meant they could not just leave. If they could not figure it out, they did not know what it might do to Su Xi Yu and the other two. Leaving them here would be dangerous.

The branches bound them so tightly they could not even crush the teleportation token to exit the Secret Realm.

At this point, the situation had changed. The Yin-Yang Tree Demon was no longer just slowing them down. It was threatening their lives.

A demon above the Mid Nascent Soul Stage in a Mystic-tier Zone, and contestants at risk of dying, would count as a serious failure by all Elders who cleared the Secret Realm.

Outside, True Lord Gu Ci and the rest watched the projection of Su Xi Yu and the others and sensed something was wrong from their expressions, but without sound from inside the Secret Realm, they could not tell exactly what had happened.

Immortal Lord Chang Li and his two companions also saw that something was off. They held down the urge to ask True Lord Gu Ci to force the Secret Realm open for a rescue and decided to wait a little longer. Shen Sang Ruo and Ye Huai were still free. There might be a chance. They chose to trust them.

On Fengling Terrace, nearly every gaze fixed on Shen Sang Ruo and Ye Huai.

While dodging branches and roots, Shen Sang Ruo reviewed every detail from the moment they stepped into this area.

Another black and white branch sliced across her vision. On the black parts, deep green hairlines curled. On the white parts, faint green threads ran. They seemed placed to blend in with both colors.

She remembered the trees in that small grove all had vines swaying in the wind. Even the hidden roots had vines on them.

[So the vines are the problem.]

Her eyes sharpened. She swung the Luan Feather Fan, and the branches and roots in front of her were swallowed by Glazed Flame.

They paused, then wriggled again.

This time she watched closely. Where the vines touched the flame, they curled tight, and the branches and roots froze for exactly the same length of time.

A thought rose in her heart. [A demon with intelligence should fear pain. What if the tree is being controlled by those vines? We have been attacking the Yin-Yang Tree itself and ignoring the tiny vines. When the vines recover, they keep driving the branches and roots to attack. The hunted think the bark is just too tough and give up, then end up bound and drained of spiritual power to death.]

She lifted her head and swept a cold look across the weaving branches and roots. A thin smile tugged at her mouth as she said: “Let’s see what dares play ghost here.”

She tilted her head toward Ye Huai and sent a sentence into his Divine Sense.

When Ye Huai nodded, she gathered her spiritual power and exploded forward. The branches and roots did not react in time, and she opened a wide gap.

Borrowing the wind, she shot into the sky. Looking down, she saw branches and roots crisscrossing like countless venomous snakes. With the Yin-Yang Tree at the center, they covered nearly a thousand meters around. The sight was shocking.

Her gaze turned hard as she said: “Not afraid of pain, are you?”

The Luan Feather Fan gleamed with a soft blue light.

She poured all her spiritual power into the fan and, in a few breaths, swept out several great fans of fire.

Blazing Glazed Flame fell from the sky like judgment. Starting from her, the fire rolled forward in wave after wave, leaving a boiling sea of fire behind.

In a very short time, her Glazed Flame covered more than a thousand meters ahead, engulfing every branch and root of the Yin-Yang Tree. That naturally included the countless vines.

If she burned only a small patch, the enemy could recover quickly. But what if she burned it all to a crisp? Fire restrains wood-type demon beasts, and her Sunset Glassfire Art strikes across a wide area.

If someone’s luck was bad today, it was the demon’s.

The extreme heat turned the area into a roaring furnace. Firelight speared the sky.

Thanks to Shen Sang Ruo’s warning, Su Xi Yu and the other two wrapped their bodies in what spiritual power they had left, and Shen Sang Ruo carefully avoided their positions, so they could endure for a while.

The tiny vines in the firestorm writhed and curled. If their cultivation had been lower, the Glazed Flame would have turned them to ash. There were so many of them that the agony surged back to the main body like a flood.

It hurt so much the spirit seemed ready to cry. A sharp, piercing wail rang out, and the creature hurried to yank its fragrant vines back.

If it did not, they would be cooked.

Without the vines’ control, the branches and roots went limp and slumped to the ground.

Shen Sang Ruo snapped: “Senior Brother, Senior Sister!”

Taking the chance, the three who were trapped tore free and burst out of the sea of fire.

“What was that thing?” Song Wei Yan’s face was pale as he frowned. He had almost been sucked into a dried husk.

Shen Sang Ruo answered in a low voice: “It should be a Dodder Vine that has become a demon.”

Dodder is a parasitic spiritual plant that feeds on other spiritual plants.

No one expected that after turning into a demon, it would dare to drain a person’s spiritual power and even their flesh and blood.

“It parasitized the Yin-Yang Tree and sucked up all the Yin-Yang Tree Demon’s cultivation, turning it into a puppet,” she added. “Its cultivation is no weaker than the original Yin-Yang Tree’s.”

Otherwise it could not have controlled such a massive number of branches and roots.

Very soon, they learned the Dodder Flower Sprite was stronger than they thought.

Once it had pulled its vines back and was no longer being burned, the pain faded. Realizing its “prey” had escaped, it grew furious.

A strange, thin voice hissed in their ears: “You cannot run.”

The group was facing the Yin-Yang Tree, but a rustling came from behind. They turned and saw countless tiny green tendrils pushing up through the blue-green grass.

These were the Dodder Flower Sprite’s own vines.

Everywhere they looked, twisted vines spread, covering the entire meadow.

They finally understood: the moment they stepped onto this grassland, they had stepped into the Dodder Flower Sprite’s territory. And they now knew how this grassland had formed.