At this point, Yino suddenly felt something was wrong.
He turned back to look at Yuebai, but she appeared even more tender and affectionate, her gentle and sweet smile actually letting two clear tears fall. For a moment, Yino finally realized Yuebai’s true plan.
[Liuli, quickly gag this damn fox!!!]
In the sea of consciousness, Yino suddenly gave the order.
Meanwhile, Liuli had been listening entranced, her face and neck flushed red, seemingly imagining her own recent experience of being branded with demonic marks from Yuebai’s tearful description.
By the time Liuli was awakened by Yino’s call, it was already too late. Yuebai continued speaking with tears in her eyes as she slowly closed them:
“Xumo, don’t worry.”
“No matter how much I’m brainwashed by demons, I won’t forget you. As long as I remember you in the last moment of my life…”
“Perhaps, someday in the future, we’ll meet again under that bridge?”
“Perhaps, someday in the future, you’ll find a ring containing your master under that bridge again?” As Yuebai’s voice fell, she seemed satisfied, but also appeared to lose consciousness as her tail drooped.
Drip!
At some point, a large teardrop fell from Xumo’s face, hitting the floor with a heavy splash. Xumo knelt on the ground, hands gripping the floor tightly, as black flame wings gradually manifested behind him. In an instant, everyone present, including Yino, felt a suffocating pressure.
The entire ancient hall fell into silence, with only the sound of the young man’s teardrops falling.
Yino looked at those familiar black flame wings, reminded of Chen Jianxin’s rampage in Snow Village.
[Sigh… why do protagonists and bosses all have second phases… this really became annoying]
[Yuebai, you’re quite the actress!]
Yino cursed internally, glancing back at Yuebai while quietly summoning the Frost Chant sword back to his hand. For a moment, Yino’s peripheral vision caught the seemingly unconscious white foxgirl’s lips curling into a subtle, triumphant smile.
[Damn it, I knew it was all an act!]
[This undying vixen, I should have listened to Liuli and used the branding iron!]
Yino cursed internally, realizing he had been too soft-hearted.
However, the increasingly heavy atmosphere of corruption in the ancient hall left Yino no time to settle scores with Yuebai.
At the same time, Jinyue and Liuli noticed the gravity of the situation.
But just as everyone was on guard for Xumo’s outburst, a crushing wave of abyssal energy suddenly erupted from deep within the ancient hall—
BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!!
Terrifying dark energy awakened within the treegirl.
Black mist, like a fountain, instantly filled the sealing barrier.
BOOM! BOOM!
In the void, everyone could hear the monster tearing at its chains even through the barrier.
CRACK-!!!
With a violent chain break, the barrier sealing the ancient treegirl finally reached its limit. Terrifying dark energy spread continuously along the floor, huge cracks and black-purple evil energy even corroding massive fissures into several stone pillars of the ancient hall.
Everyone turned to look, their hearts trembling.
Even the corrupted Xumo was the same.
“–?!!”
Xumo was still lost in the agony of his life-and-death separation from his master, teetering on the edge of demonic deviation.
But when his clouded eyes met the fierce gaze of the ancient treegirl in the seal, whose form resembled an incarnation of hell itself—
Crack!
Xumo felt something shatter in his heart.
His face turned pale. For a brief moment, through the treegirl’s abyssal eyes, he glimpsed a future where the entire Azure Forest and hundreds of miles around had transformed into a sea of flames.
He saw the ancient treegirl wave her hand casually, leaving thousands of miles of scorched earth…
He saw thousands of spirit beasts, blood-crazed, charging toward human settlements…
He saw the imprisoned treegirl, who had endured over a hundred years of humiliation and hatred, living a fate worse than death!
At this moment, compared to this corrupted, demon-fallen ancient tree spirit, Xumo felt his painful separation from his master was nothing. Under the demon’s world-consuming hellfire, he not only felt his own insignificance but also understood through the ancient treegirl’s eyes what true vengeful fury meant!
“No… no… this isn’t right… no, no, no…”
“If this continues, the entire Azure Forest will become nothing but ashes!”
Xumo stood up abruptly, his face ashen, shaking his head in fear while stumbling backward.
But as another massive burst of dark energy exploded, the demonic shockwave knocked him to the ground.
For a moment, in his panic, his eyes met the white foxgirl’s gaze again.
Yuebai looked at him with tears in her eyes, desperately trying to signal something, but Xumo avoided her gaze as the demonic explosion continued, gritting his teeth—
“Right! Master was right!”
“While there’s life, there’s hope!”
“The demonic abyss is about to explode. This disciple must leave first. If fate allows, I’ll wait under the bridge every day for our reunion, Master!!!” Leaving these final farewell words, Xumo didn’t even wipe his tears before fleeing in panic, running wildly.
Yino: [Hahaha, as I expected]
The ancient hall fell into deathly silence once again.
Suspended in mid-air by vines, Yuebai watched helplessly with unblived eyes as the young man’s figure disappeared behind the hall’s doors, she didn’t expect a child of prohisies to run and leave her behind…
Afterward, the white fox girl’s enchanting eyes grew blank, seemingly speechless, unsure what expression to make. Even her cold smile directed at Yino earlier had completely frozen…
At some point, Yuebai’s gaze met Yino’s as he looked back at her.
She could see the cold smile on Yino’s face, and behind him, the treegirl descending the platform step by step, emanating abyssal demon dark energy.
The treegirl was like an evil soul emerged from the demon abyss. Each step she took released terrifying energy waves. Her oppressive presence not only scared Xumo witless but even made Yuebai, at the late Nascent Soul stage, shiver.
This wasn’t simply pressure from being one or two realms higher.
The ancient treegirl was one of the world’s oldest guardian spirits. Though human cultivators had sealed her away a hundred years ago, those years of compressed resentment had made her corrupted negative emotions even more horrifying. Just one look made Yuebai tuck her tails between her legs, instinctively wanting to submit.
This was genetic suppression—thousands of years ago, which fox hadn’t lived in the forest, worshipping ancient trees like other spirit beasts?
The white fox girl shrank her neck, her nine tails wrapping around from her crotch, tightly squeezed between her legs.
But just as Yuebai’s primal fear of the ancient tree demon’s abyssal aura reached its peak—
“Brother… Yino…”
“Can you… hug Lily…”
Yuebai’s expression froze.
Before her eyes, the treegirl, bearing the heavy burden of the abyss, tiredly stopped before Yino.
She slowly raised both hands, her originally corrupted, vacant face struggling to squeeze out a sweet smile.