The journey continued beneath a gray, heavy sky.
The trail of devastation was an infallible guide, a deep scar in the land that seed to bleed misery.
As they moved away from the mountains and entered the true lowlands, the air grew thicker, laden with a sweet and rotten sll of mass death. Kyrian could also feel a heavy and oppressive spiritual energy even from afar.
Kyrian had prepared himself for a long search, to scour the region in search of a subtle anomaly, a hidden lair, or a corrupted beast that commanded the others.
But reality, when he finally caught sight of it, was so colossal and obvious that it dispensed with any need for searching.
On the horizon, where the flat and verdant landscape of the lowlands should once have been, there rose a monstrosity.
It was a tree. Or what remained of one, transford into sothing far beyond.
Its trunk, wider than a fortress tower, was a pitch-black color, studded with protrusions that resembled petrified veins and dormant eyes.
Its branches did not stretch toward the sky in search of the sun, they writhed like agonizing tentacles, so buried in the soil, others pointing sideways in a threatening manner.
The canopy was a living mist of dead, ashen leaves and a dark, pulsing energy that enveloped the tree like a veil of pestilence.
It was the Black Mass of hostility. But this ti its host was sothing that left Kyrian surprised. It was not a beast nor a human. But, in truth, a tree.
The darkness corrupted every centiter of the wood, from the roots to the highest tip.
Kyrian’s carmine eyes, already in their state of maximum perception, saw beyond physical appearance. They could see through the darkness of the black mass in a way others could not.
And what they saw was terrifying.
The tree was not stationary. It was growing.
Not in a natural, slow, imperceptible way, but in visible spasms, even at a distance. Its branches stretched centiters every minute, new black roots burst from the ground like hungry serpents, and the trunk expanded with a low, constant groan of wood and energy being forced.
It was visible growth fueled by a known source.
And Kyrian saw the source.
From the ground around the tree, in a radius of kiloters, countless filants of carmine energy, the drained blood and vital essence, flowed toward the monstrous roots. They were the remnants of the beasts and the poor cultivators who had been caught by the beast wave and had fallen.
The roots, thick as houses, extending for who knew how many kiloters underground, sucked that energy like a vampire.
The beast wave was not just an attack, it was a harvesting thod. The beasts, possessed by the influence radiated by the roots, marched to their deaths, and their essence was channeled back to fuel the tree’s growth.
Now he understood the scope of the influence. It was not a spiritual field in the air, but a physical network.
The tree’s roots, impregnated with the hostility of the Black Mass, extended beneath the earth like tentacles, guiding the wave underground and draining everything in their path. The tree was the brain and the source of the wave.
Kyrian felt the pressure then. A dense, crushing energy emanated from the vegetal creature. It was pure spiritual pressure, laden with hatred for life and an insatiable hunger.
Its cultivation was at the peak of the Core Formation realm. And it was not a common peak. The tree, with its colossal body and its nearly infinite energy source, for now, emanated a force that made the Gray Winged Wolf seem like a cub. It was the most powerful entity of the Core Formation realm that Kyrian had ever encountered.
The black horse, even at a safe distance, trembled. A low, anxious whinny escaped its throat. It felt the threat that monster posed to its existence.
Kyrian guided the horse to land on an isolated rocky peak, the highest point in a chain of hills bordering the lowland plain. From there, they had a clear view of the horror but were outside the imdiate reach of the visible roots.
He dismounted, his eyes fixed on the giant tree. His mind worked at full speed.
Understanding the being before him.
A tree that had awakened. A vegetal spiritual monster. He had read vague ntions of such beings in ancient scrolls.
They were absurd rarities, the result of centuries or millennia of spiritual energy accumulation in a place or of so specific event that fused a primitive consciousness with flora.
This one, however, was not a natural consciousness. It had been corrupted, taken over by the Black Mass of hostility, transforming its search for light and nutrients to cultivate into a voracious hunger for all life.
The tree provided a colossal body, a network of roots, and a monstrous base power. The black mass provided will, hatred, and the ability to corrupt and control other forms of life to feed the system.
The book in Kyrian’s mind suddenly showed signs, shuddered, and pulsed lightly.
As if it felt an overwhelming hunger, a desire. That being, the tree full of darkness was a banquet of corrupt energy, the greatest the Kyrian had ever encountered.
But there was a problem. How to obtain it? Kyrian noted that the distance was too great for the book to act on its own.
In fact...
Kyrian instinctively knew he needed to get closer. It was as if the book briefly communicated with him in so way. The distance was too long, the black mass might flee as soon as the book appeared.
Kyrian then thought.
Attacking the tree directly would be suicide.
Facing a peak Core Formation entity, with a body that, by all indications, possessed one of the greatest regenerations by draining the surrounding vegetation, was madness.
Moreover, the herd of beasts was still there. Disturbing the core could cause the wave to turn against Kyrian.
He needed a plan to get close enough. He needed to reach the right point for the book to strike the heart of the Black Mass, not necessarily to destroy the tree completely.
He only needed to separate the darkness from the spiritual monster and drain the hostile energy directly with the book.
His eyes scanned the tree again, searching for weaknesses. And a way to approach without being imdiately noticed.
The dark mist around it was denser at certain points, especially at a large fissure in the main trunk, from which a putrid, pulsing light seed to emanate.
It appeared to be the heart of the being. The origin of the corruption.
As he pondered what to do, a different movent caught his attention. At the base of the tree, among the thick roots, humanoid forms crawled. They were weak, their vital energies nearly extinguished.
’Hmm? Survivors?’ Kyrian thought.
The tree had not actually killed them imdiately, it kept them trapped, draining them slowly like fruits on a vine, perhaps to extract sothing more. Kyrian could not say.
But he could feel their fear, their despair.
’Do these emotions feed the black mass of hostility?’
Suddenly, a plan began to take shape in Kyrian’s mind. It was risky, a bit insane, but in his mind it had a logic after everything he had seen so far.
He could not destroy the tree. Nor could he approach by flying, which would make him an extrely easy target.
Turning to the horse, Kyrian took out many dium-grade spirit stones.
"You will stay here. Recover as much as possible. Hide your energy. If I do not return in one day, go back to the Crimson Court and inform Dong Zhen." The order was clear. The horse looked at him, whinnying softly, but nodded its head, seeming to understand the gravity.
Kyrian then began to descend the hill, not toward the tree, but parallel to the edge of the devastated zone, keeping his distance. His approach needed to be stealthy. His objective was not the tree, nor the main roots.
It was the tree’s feeding system.
He would follow the reverse flow. He would locate one of the main points. The channels from which the suction originated. A specific large suction root that was actively draining beasts.
The descent of the hill was silent, a glide of shadows among rocks and the skeletons of shrubs. Kyrian suppressed his Qi to the maximum, becoming little more than a blur.
His eyes, however, remained alert, the deep carmine scanning the ground ahead, avoiding stepping on any roots.
He was not looking for the main roots, thick as buildings. He sought sothing smaller.
Like a capillary of the tree’s system. With his eyes, it did not take long to find what he was looking for.
A root the diater of his arm, black and shining like wet obsidian, erging from the soil like a diseased vein of earth. From it, thinner filants extended, sucking the last remnants from a pile of beast carcasses.
Kyrian stopped at a safe distance. Now ca the plan.
He closed his eyes for a mont, concentrating. Within him, blood intent began to work.
He did not use it to control but to mask. He slowly reduced his apparent blood flow and made his pulse seem weak and irregular.
Externally, he appeared to be a wounded cultivator on the brink of death. However, the brilliance of his unique existence could not be erased. To any subtle sensor, his eyes remained like a dormant ember, deep and temptingly rich.
It was a perfect bait. It seed easy to dominate but promised a banquet of pure energy.
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