Chapter 3271: The Ancestor’s Transformation

"Ancestor!" a woman cried, her voice trembling.

She stepped forward and pressed her hand to his back, sending a surge of Qi into his body.

Her presence was commanding despite the fear in her eyes. She wore ceremonial robes woven with faintly glowing sigils, and her cultivation radiated immense power, though still shy of Transcendence.

She was the High Priestess of the Ephemera Sect, the Left Elder, counterpart to the Spatial Cultivator Lin Mu had slain earlier.

Unlike most sects, the Ephemera followed their own hierarchy. Their elders were priests and priestesses, their duties sacred and bound to the will of their dark mother, Ephemera herself. The High Priestess was, by all rites, their matriarch.

But now, with the Ancestor awakened and leading their final ritual, she had been relegated to his shadow.

"Xin’er..." the Ancestor whispered, looking at her through blood-streaked eyes. "You’ve grown so much... yet still you must bear this burden."

The sight of her tears ignited something within him... a fury deeper than hatred, sharper than despair. His trembling hands gripped his staff, and his crimson eyes burned brighter.

"Take the staff and focus on the ritual," he commanded, his voice suddenly resolute. "I’ll handle the rest."

"Ancestor—"

"Enough." His tone was final. "You are the only one who can carry this out. I have no vitality left. I’ve already lived through the glory of our sect. You are its future. You must bring back our Mother’s era."

For the briefest instant, a glimmer of grief passed through his gaze.

"Yes, Ancestor..." Xin’er whispered, her voice breaking as she gritted her teeth and took the staff.

WHOOSH.

As her hands wrapped around it, the ritual’s core flared to life.

Baleful Energy rushed toward her in dark rivers, fusing with her own Qi. The crimson glow of her aura intertwined with streaks of black, creating a dance of red and black that filled the area with a sickly rhythm.

Now unburdened, the Ancestor turned to face the Transcendents. The barrier still trembled, weakened but holding.

"You all... I’ll end you with my very life as the price!" he bellowed, slamming his foot against the ground in rage.

CRACK.

And before anyone could react, he struck the top of his head with his palm.

The sound of breaking bone echoed through the ritual chamber. Blood poured from the wound as the Ancestor’s skull cracked open, revealing glimpses of pale tissue within.

Lin Mu’s eyes widened. "He’s going to use a Sacrificial Skill!"

"He might be self-detonating!" the Darkhan Emperor shouted, his face draining of color.

A Transcendent’s self-destruction was a cataclysmic event. Even the combined strength of all of them might not be enough to survive unscathed. Worse still, their armies waited not far beyond the battlefield. A single blast could annihilate everything within several kilometers.

But Lin Mu narrowed his eyes, his instincts whispering otherwise.

"No... he won’t self-destruct," he said slowly understanding more. "He’d destroy his own ritual if he did."

The Abbot nodded, the glow of his divine flames reflecting in his eyes. "Indeed. I sense something darker taking shape."

HUMMMM.

The sound deepened. The air became heavy, suffocating. The Ancestor’s aura convulsed violently, and the barrier flared in response.

Then it began.

Wriggle. Wriggle. Wriggle.

Vines and roots burst from the Ancestor’s skin like living veins, slick and pulsating. They crawled up his body, coiling around his limbs, his chest, his face. His flesh darkened to a bark-like texture as they burrowed deeper.

SPLICK.

A sickening sound filled the air as the vines pierced through his skull. Roots slithered into his eye sockets and the open wound atop his head, threading into the soft flesh beneath.

The onlookers froze, horror etched into their faces.

The vines shuddered once, then began to draw something out. Slowly, the Ancestor’s brain and eyes were pulled free, connected by tendrils of living root. The grotesque spectacle made even battle-hardened cultivators recoil.

"What in the heavens..." the Darkhan Emperor muttered, revolted.

The brain and eyes floated upward, supported by the mass of vines that now twisted together like muscle fibers. They pulsed with a faint rhythm just like the beating of a heart.

The Ancestor’s desiccated body began to wither rapidly, his flesh collapsing inward as if drained of life.

The very essence of his being, his Qi, his vitality, his Dao foundation, was being devoured by the vines. But rather than feeding the ritual, it was absorbed entirely into this new, rising form.

The roots converged, merging into a humanoid figure. The Ancestor’s brain became its core, encased in hardened wood that gleamed like polished obsidian. His eyes, glowing a deep crimson, nestled at the top, gleaming with cruel intelligence.

The form grew taller, its arms and legs elongating, branching like the limbs of a tree. Bark replaced skin. Runes of black and scarlet crawled across its surface like living insects, rearranging themselves constantly into sigils of forbidden power.

From the top of its head sprouted a crown of blood-red branches, each tipped with thorned leaves that oozed a faint mist of corruption. The air around it warped, the scent of earth and death merging into something unnatural.

When the transformation was complete, what stood before them was no longer human. It was a divine abomination: a fusion of man, tree, and Dao.

"That energy..." Lin Mu said quietly, his expression tightening. "Those are not Dao Traces but Dao Insights."

"It is as you suspect," the Xian Sword Sect Patriarch replied, his voice low with unease.

"How does he possess them in that form?" the Emperor demanded.

The Abbot’s eyes gleamed with recognition. "He has turned into a Dao Embryo."

The revelation made even the Transcendents pause.

"That’s possible?" the Emperor asked in disbelief.

"Rarely," the Abbot said. "But for certain cultivators, with the right Dao... it can be done."

Lin Mu remembered another. "Like the Titan Forms. I’ve met one who became the Thunderclap Titan."

The Abbot nodded gravely. "Indeed. This is a Titan form as well—but born from corruption, from the union of Wood Dao and Baleful Energy. The embodiment of decay, vengeance, and Dao itself."

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