The Lan You’s rapid growth, fueled by the Fertile Soil, wasn’t limited to its visible parts. Its root system had expanded even more dramatically underground.
From its seedling stage, the Lan You’s roots had always been far more developed than its upper body. Once its roots took hold in the soil, especially with the Fertile Soil as fertilzer, they grew thicker and longer, spreading in all directions, each tendril absorbing energy from the earth.
The energy in the surrounding soil paled in comparison to that of a high-level evolved like Ye Zhongming, so the vast root network became the key to sustaining Lan You’s growth.
Yet beneath the testing grounds, the soil wasn’t empty. It teemed with life—mutated rats.
Previously, Ye Zhongming had forbidden these creatures from burrowing under the mountain villa. The Rat King and his mate wouldn’t dare disobey.
But the Lan You’s energy fluctuations proved too tempting. Disregarding the ban, they tunneled underground toward it.
Of course, the Rat King and his army hadn’t lost all reason. They dug deep, avoiding damage to Cloud Peak’s defenses, and limited their tunnels to a few passages to prevent collapses.
By the time they reached the area beneath the Lan You, the battle beasts above had already been absorbing energy for some time.
Underground, barely any energy seeped through. Unwilling to accept this, the Rat King attempted to communicate with Ye Zhongming mentally. When that failed, impatience won out. He ordered his elite forces to dig upward, breaching the surface.
So the Rat King’s elite mutated rat army began tunneling upward furiously.
What happened next filled the Rat King with instant regret.
His forces never broke through to the surface. Instead, they encountered Lan You’s descending roots.
When the first rat accidentally brushed against a root, tragedy struck.
The roots came alive, surging from all directions, piercing the rats’ bodies. Even a five-star mutated rat lasted mere seconds before being drained into a desiccated husk.
The Rat King’s elites were the cream of his army—many were five-star, six, or even seven-star rats. They quickly noticed the anomaly. At first, they tried fleeing, digging in other directions. But the roots were everywhere, inescapable.
Forced to fight, the mutated rat army resisted.
Yet their efforts were futile. Even seven-star rats could destroy nearby roots, only for new ones to sprout instantly. The underground dominators stood no chance—the Lan You’s roots slaughtered and absorbed them en masse.
Though only a fraction of the rat army had come, they were all elites, numbering over 100,000. Their mass deaths replenished the energy the Lan You had nearly exhausted from the Life-Nourishing Soil.
Aboveground, Ye Zhongming, on the verge of giving up, suddenly felt the energy feedback increase again. He paused his decision to end the skill.
Unaware of the cause, he couldn’t pass up this unexpected boon.
Watching the Lan You resume its frenzied growth, the surrounding evolved finally relaxed. At least for now, their leader seemed likely to recover fully.
While Ye Zhongming’s situation improved, the Rat King’s worsened.
His forces were being massacred. Within minutes, most mutated rats had been drained into lifeless husks.
Now concerned only with survival, the Rat King fled with his remaining 10,000 subordinates.
As a high-level mutated lifeform, it raced through the tunnels swiftly, soon escaping the dug-out area.
The Rat King and his mate allowed themselves a sliver of relief, planning to return to Cloud Peak aboveground. They’d explain the situation to Ye Zhongming and investigate what had annihilated their elites.
But their relief lasted barely ten seconds.
Tender, milky-white roots burst from the surrounding soil, attacking the last of the mutated rat army.
Skills erupted underground, causing tremors noticeable even to those above. Ye Zhongming and the battle beasts sensed the disturbances but assumed that Lan You caused them. With Ye Zhongming still not fully restored, no one investigated.
The Rat King and his mate—both eight-star beings—fought desperately as they fled, their numbers dwindling rapidly.
These two mighty survivors of the apocalypse now faced their greatest existential threat.
They unleashed every skill, blasting open new tunnels. Their eight-star strength carried them far beyond Cloud Peak’s borders—kilometers away in mere moments.
For underground combat and escape, their speed was astonishing.
The roots seemed to thin—they were nearing the edge of the Lan You’s range.
But at that moment, two roots, far thicker than the others and tinged red, slithered through the soil like vipers and struck.
The Rat King and his mate thrashed wildly, but resistance was useless. Five minutes later, they joined their subordinates as dried husks.
The mighty eight-star rulers of the underground had met their end through sheer misfortune.
The energy from two eight-star beings propelled the Lan You into another growth spurt, its height now nearing eight meters!
The energy it radiated triggered evolution in five- and six-star battle beasts!
Of the nearly 20,000 warbeasts present, how many were seven- or eight-star? The vast majority now entered an evolutionary state.
The spectacle was awe-inspiring, leaving Cloud Peak’s members speechless.
Ye Zhongming recovered all his lost life force, even absorbing some excess energy.
He considered ending the skill now, avoiding further risk, but then realized he couldn’t deactivate it.
Instantly, heaven became hell again.
After all this, was he still doomed to be drained into a withered corpse?
