Liuyu Heaven has never exactly been known for backbone.
If he had even a shred of it, a dignified Tier Five powerhouse, turned into an octopus and kept in a fish tank—he’d have offed himself ages ago.
But he’d rather trade banter with Lin Yuan in the fish tank every day than kill himself. Clearly, we’re dealing with a complete jellyfish.
Jellyfish types begging their enemy for rcy in the face of death? Honestly, that’s just par for the course.
Besides, Lin Yuan isn’t just his enemy anymore.
Lin Yuan is now both his enemy and his master.
So begging Lin Yuan for help cos naturally—Liuyu Heaven doesn’t even have to think twice about it.
Because Iron-Back Daoist’s self-detonation ca out of nowhere, Lin Yuan almost forgot about Liuyu Heaven for a mont.
The Four Departnts had already enveloped him before Lin Yuan finally heard Liuyu Heaven’s pleas for help.
Luckily, even self-detonation needs ti to brew.
Taking advantage of Iron-Back Daoist’s countdown, Lin Yuan quickly summoned Liuyu Heaven over.
Liuyu Heaven can’t die yet—Lin Yuan still needs him for a few things.
Not to ntion, Liuyu Heaven did a pretty solid job as navigator this ti around.
He led straight to Iron-Back Daoist—not a very powerful Tier Four if we’re being honest.
Perfectly countered by yours truly, didn’t even break a sweat dealing with him.
This was nothing like the life-or-death death match I’d imagined.
Sure, it was intense—but nowhere near as deadly as I’d expected.
Lin Yuan needs to hunt down ten Tier Four Evil Spirits, and carve the Ten Yama Kings tattoos on his soul.
For him, that’s ten battles to the death.
And for Lin Yuan, the first of those ten battles is always the riskiest.
Why? Because the first fight is when he’s at his weakest.
Now, with the first battle won, he can use Iron-Back Daoist’s Power of Rules as ink, and carve a Yama King tattoo onto his soul.
aning, by round two, his power will have leveled up big ti.
And so on—the further he goes, the stronger he gets, and the easier those fights beco.
Never thought Liuyu Heaven would manage to deliver such a perfect opponent, helping get past the hardest fight.
With that in mind, Lin Yuan decides that once he’s back in the Real World, he should reward Liuyu Heaven properly.
Like...
Should I upgrade his fish tank?
"Boom!"
Right then, Iron-Back Daoist finished charging up—an earth-shattering blast shook the world.
Even wrapped in the Four Departnts, Lin Yuan could feel the monstrous energy.
After the explosion, that wave of energy spread all the way to the Four Departnts.
Praise Departnt collapsed first. Then ca Punishnt Departnt.
But with Praise and Punishnt Departnts having taken the brunt, by the ti the blast hit Investigation Departnt, there wasn’t much strength left.
At that mont, Lin Yuan and Liuyu Heaven were sitting cozily in the innermost Yin Law Departnt.
When that bit of leftover energy reached Yin Law Departnt, all it did was send a few muddy yellow ripples through the energy fluctuations.
The fight’s over. Way easier than Lin Yuan ever dread.
Drawing back his power, Lin Yuan once again found himself out in the world.
He looked around—the entire Iron Back Mountain had been blasted into oblivion, leaving only a giant crater where the mountain used to be.
As for the temple—not a trace left, wiped out completely.
What really threw Lin Yuan for a loop: those two ancient, dried-out pagoda trees at the temple gate sohow survived.
Iron Back Mountain was blown away, revealing hundreds of ters of tree roots under those two old pagoda trees.
The mountain’s a pit now—those trees are holding themselves up on their roots, still dry but just as stubborn as ever.
"These two old pagoda trees are definitely sothing special!" Lin Yuan thought to himself.
After all, Iron-Back Daoist was a Tier Four powerhouse.
A Tier Four self-detonation? Just ask any Tier Five, it’s insta-death. Even another Tier Four could only survive if they had tricks up their sleeve like Lin Yuan.
These two pagoda trees were smack-in-the-center of that blast’s ground zero.
And yet, they weren’t touched a bit—still standing proud.
Lin Yuan pocketed Iron-Back Daoist’s Power of Rules, and imdiately started investigating the two pagoda trees.
The roots run deep. Even with Iron Back Mountain gone and the ground caving in for hundreds of ters, only the tip of the iceberg of their root system is showing.
"What if..."
"What if I could yank these two pagoda trees out of here, and give them to Headmaster for a proper study—bet there’d be so wild discoveries!" Lin Yuan muttered to himself, eyes glued to the trees.
Now that Lin Yuan’s finished his fight with Iron-Back Daoist, with no more energy fluctuations, it won’t be long before every Demon Fiend, freak, and ghoul in the area cos sniffing around.
Ti’s short if Lin Yuan wants to research these trees.
After thinking it over, Lin Yuan settled on one simple, violent solution.
Envelop both pagoda trees in the power of the Four Departnts, then go all Lin Yuan Hulk-mode and forcibly uproot them.
No sooner said than done—Lin Yuan wrapped them both in Four Departnts’ power.
But as soon as he did, he felt sothing odd in his gut.
The Four Departnts only covered the visible part aboveground—those roots in the dirt seed totally untouched.
Like the roots pierced right through the Four Departnts, extending way out past their reach.
Ti’s ticking—Lin Yuan stops overthinking and goes full brute force, trying to yank one of the trees out.
"One, two, three..."
"Three, two, one..."
Channeling Zhong Kui’s avatar, Lin Yuan transforms into a giant dozens of ters tall, and tries to pull up the pagoda tree.
No matter how hard he pulls, the tree doesn’t budge.
Forget pulling it out—he couldn’t even make it wobble.
"Can’t move it at all?" Lin Yuan scowled, deeply puzzled.
Giving up on uprooting the tree, he squatted down to study the roots.
Roots tangled everywhere, exposed in the open—the deeper ones still buried in the earth.
"Wait a sec!" Suddenly, Lin Yuan spotted so finger-thick centipedes wriggling between the roots.
And these centipedes weren’t Tier Five or Tier Six Evil Spirits.
Actually, they’re not Evil Spirits at all—just plain-jane centipedes, nowhere near even Tier Nine.
Normal centipedes.
And they survived a Tier Four’s self-detonation.
This...
Only one explanation.
The pagoda trees blocked the entire blast, so the explosion never touched the centipedes.
Lin Yuan even had a new thought creep up in his mind.
The origins of Iron-Back Daoist.
A bunch of centipedes live in the pagoda trees’ roots, and Iron-Back Daoist has been posted up at Iron Back Mountain, watching that shrine, since the day he ca into being.
Maybe it wasn’t the shrine he was guarding at all, but...
Those sa two pagoda trees.
The idea made Lin Yuan even hungrier for answers.
Just what are these things?
Too bad—they couldn’t be yanked out. No way to take them with .
"If I can’t take the whole tree, I can at least chop off so branches!" With that, Lin Yuan raised Zhong Kui’s Demon-Slaying Sword and slashed at the limbs.
"Clang!"
The sword struck the branch, ringing out like steel on steel—but the branch didn’t even twitch.
Even the branches are axe-proof?
Lin Yuan was absolutely dumbfounded.
He took out a Tier Four like Iron-Back Daoist!
And now, he’s stumped by two dried-up pagoda trees?
Can’t yank ’em; can’t trim ’em.
Branches were a bust. Next up: the thinner roots.
If the branches are uncuttable, maybe the roots will slice?
So he brought down his blade on the roots.
This ti, instead of steel ringing, it felt like slashing into cotton, or a spring—nothing for the sword to bite into.
Then the root snapped back, springing Lin Yuan halfway across the field.
"Thud!"
Lin Yuan landed hard, eating dirt, face-first.
Climbing up, Lin Yuan stalked back over to the two pagoda trees, stubbornly inspecting them again.
After a while, Lin Yuan suddenly yelled at the trees, "Give so roots or so branches, or we’re gonna have a problem!"
"Axes, saws, fire, flood—whatever it takes, I’ll try it all on you."
Getting launched by the pagoda tree gave Lin Yuan the idea these trees might actually be sentient.
Hence the talking—gotta gamble a bit.
Lin Yuan’s luck never disappoints. Right after he shouted, one of the pagoda trees snapped off a half-ter chunk of root.
The root floated over, lifted by invisible power, and landed before Lin Yuan.
Sentient for sure—just wanting Lin Yuan to piss off instead of harassing them forever, one pagoda tree lopped off a root as payoff.
Bagging even one pagoda tree root was already a massive win.
Lin Yuan had a hunch this bit of tree root would be worth way more than Iron-Back Daoist’s Power of Rules.
Root in hand, Lin Yuan bowed to the pagoda trees, "Many thanks, seniors, for the gift."
The tree that broke a root pointed its dried-out branch at the distance and waved side to side.
It couldn’t talk, but Lin Yuan got the gist.
"Scram already."
The tree thought, "Calling it a gift, huh? You think I don’t know what ga you’re playing?"
Lin Yuan wasn’t dumb—he got what he ca for, so it’s ti to bounce.
Who knows what these trees really are? What if a minute later they turn into twisted tree demons, angry ents, or whatever, and beat the crap outta ?
Lin Yuan stowed his Deceitful Demon and slipped away—at this point, Demon Fiends and freaks were already crowding Iron Back Mountain to snoop around.
Lin Yuan casually crushed a few Tier Five Evil Spirits. He roared, "I, Liuyu Heaven, act under orders from the World Honored—what makes you think you can snoop?"
"Anyone caught peeking—exterminate on sight!"
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