One had to say that Aksai had chosen the right time for the evacuation of the regular citizens, allowing them to escape Devil’s Den prematurely.
If the corrupted druid had been given sufficient time, he could have let the demon tree grow some more and extended the range of operability for his tree devils at the cost of facing temporary instability in the Yantra.
He could have then managed to stop a majority of the citizens from escaping Devil’s Den.
However, Aksai’s initiation of an all-out war made that possibility practically impossible.
Because Aksai had charged toward the city square with an army of martial artists, the tree devils from various danger zones also had to congregate in one region so that they could stop the intrusion.
The demon tree itself was busy handling the increased load of operating on loads of tree devils at the same time.
If one were to consider the demon tree as the network and the tree devils as the nodes, then at this point the network was too busy handling the load of the nodes to process the server’s additional requests.
The corrupted druid’s Yantra was indeed top-notch. However, the druid had trouble controlling the Yantra the way he wanted due to the vast area it was spanned over. Plus, the isolation barrier itself was of the 2nd-order grade while the corrupted druid himself was only in the Spirit Refining Perfection Realm.
As such, the 2nd-order Barrier-bypass talisman that Aksai had Zinnia use on the isolation barrier could not be stopped from affecting the Yantra from where the corrupted druid was.
And it looked like the corrupted druid also didn’t want to create a distance between himself and the demon tree itself for some other reason, which limited his range of activities in Devil’s Den.
The corrupted druid was forced to accept the fact that the survivors were escaping Devil’s Den without him being able to do anything about it. It had not only halted his Spirit cultivation practice but also stopped him from advancing in the 2nd Spirit cultivation realm anytime soon.
The time and effort the tree druid had invested in turning Serenity Peak into his Devil’s Den had gone down the drain because of Aksai’s well-planned actions.
One couldn’t be sure if the nightmare in the city had ended for every survivor at this point. However, they could definitely say that this particular corrupted druid had chosen the wrong city as the target for his demonic cultivation.
***
“These Spirit essence ripples. It seems my plan worked.’
Aksai saw the ripples in the isolation barrier and immediately understood that Zinnia had successfully used the Barrier-bypass talisman he had given her.
In the next moment, he saw the corrupted druid canceling his cultivation practice. The wood-like skin and the web of vines on his body disappeared as he stood up, eyeing Aksai and his allies menacingly.
“%%$$###**&&$$$#,” the corrupted druid spoke in an unknown language as he looked at Aksai with angry expressions.
His voice was hoarse and deep, and his eyes were bloodshot, reflecting the anger he felt in his heart. He had used a Spirit spell to converse directly with Aksai despite the sizable distance between them. Aksai was the only one who could hear the corrupted druid speak.
He pointed a finger at Aksai in accusation as if he could tell that Aksai was the only one who could sabotage his setup. After all, Aksai was the only Spirit cultivator amid the sea of martial artists in Serenity Peak, and only a Spirit cultivator could find a way to breach the isolation domain using the ways of the Spirit essence.
The druid could tell that Aksai could not understand a word he had said. In the next moment, he spoke in a language that Aksai knew well. It was the same language that was used in Cultivation World Dadangar.
“You… who are you? And how did… How did you get inside my Yantra?” the corrupted druid asked as he looked at Aksai with hatred.
‘He… he can speak?’
Aksai was shocked to find out that the corrupted druid could speak the native language of Dadangar. Although his use of the language was full of errors, Aksai could understand the druid’s intentions clearly.
However, was the druid’s ability to converse in Dadangar’s native language enough for the corrupted druid to strike up a conversation with Aksai? Unfortunately for the druid, it was not.
Aksai was not shackled by the Devil’s Den the same way the rest of the martial artists were.
He wasn’t fighting this battle so that he could free himself from the nightmare he didn’t have. He also didn’t have the hero complex budding in his heart, fighting with the corrupted druid so that the denizens of Serenity Peak could get liberated.
Aksai only wanted to kill the druid and acquire his body so that he could perform various bloodline experiments on them. He also wanted to acquire all the secrets that the corrupted druid had.
The only reason he had set the citizens free was to ensure that their escape would halt the corrupted druid’s practice and shake his roots up.
Aksai actually didn’t have any reason to strike up a conversation with the corrupted druid. So he chose not to.
He pretended not to understand the druid’s words and kept on fighting with the tree devils in front of him, making quick work of the woodland zombies one after the other.
“You… I know you can understand me,” the corrupted druid spoke in an angry tone as he looked at Aksai with cruel intentions. He raised his hands and was about to use the demon tree’s powers to halt Aksai’s moves.
However, before he could do that, something disastrous happened to him.
This whole time, a backlash was getting built up due to a majority of survivors leaving the Devil’s Den.
After the last person from the crowd used the tunnel created by the talisman to leave the isolated domain, this backlash hit its user all at once.
The druid convulsed in pain, clutching his head with his hands, releasing a painful cry that sounded more monstrous than human.