A/N: Everyone, this chapter is full of mistakes due to lack of time. I will edit it in a few hours >.< sorry for the inconvenient, I didn’t want to leave you without a chapter early.

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More than a dozen jade branches were thrown towards Bai Zemin, twisting in a spiral shape while their points, more terrifying than a sword, were aimed at different vital and crucial parts of his body.

Head, heart, shoulders, legs, legs, arms, chest, stomach. It was clear that the Mana Eater Tree was not only aiming to inflict fatal wounds but was also preparing to damage Bai Zemin’s joints and thus diminish his battle power in case the fatal attack failed.

Bai Zemin’s expression remained impassive. He used less than a second to convert Strength into Magic, and at the same time as he advanced instead of retreating to meet the twenty or so jade branches, he used his knowledge of space force.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Booom!!! Boom! Boom! Boom! Booom!! …

“Uh?” At the same time as around twenty muffled explosions occurred, the Mana Eater Tree’s surprised voice came out from the jade tree as if it couldn’t believe what was happening. 

Although the Mana Eater Tree had just launched a casual attack that didn’t even contain 30% of its strength, each of those jade branches were moving fast enough to take the breath away from Third Order soul evolvers. But the most terrifying thing was the penetration force of each branch as the Mana Eater Tree was hoping to at least force its opponent to retreat.

After blocking the incoming attacks by distorting the space before him, Bai Zemin kicked the ground and writhed like a snake. It took him only an instant to cross the distance between him and the jade tree, reaching the trunk in the blink of an eye.

This time, Bai Zemin attacked a little differently from his past attacks. While slightly bending his knees and bowing his body, he stabbed with his spear more than a hundred times in less than a second.

The air exploded and sheared off, causing two sheets of wind to form two long trenches on the sides of the jade tree. However, the most terrifying explosion was the one born from the clash between the actual attack and the terrifying defense of the Mana Eater Tree.

Using a similar principle to the Void Fist skill, Bai Zemin used accumulations to increase the power of his attack.

BOOOOOOOOM!!!

The earth split and the surrounding trees immediately flew away.

Bai Zemin’s eyes sparkled with surprise as he saw that his attack had done nothing more than leave a small, easily ignored white mark on the surface of the jade tree’s trunk. 

Even if it had only been an attack to test the waters, his enemy’s defense turned out to be a thousand times more than Bai Zemin had estimated at first!

The Mana Eater Tree did not give him time to be too surprised as more than fifty branches immediately attacked him. 

From such a close distance it would be difficult to dodge more than fifty extremely fast attacks. Bai Zemin barely had time to twist his body and take half a step back, which allowed him to dodge about ten branches, before the hot friction caused by each branch and the wind gently burned his face.

Just when the Mana Eater Tree believed that his attack would result in at least some minor injuries, the golden glow around the young enemy’s body returned.

BOOM!!! BOOM!!!! BOOM!!!! BOOM!!!! BOOM!!!! BOOM!!!! …

Faster than lightning, Bai Zemin stabbed and slashed with his spear at different angles. 

“Hahahaha! Not bad!” An extremely joyful laughter came from the jade tree as all the jade branches were successfully hit and repelled by the golden spear in the enemy’s hands. 

Bai Zemin silently activated Crimson Flame, and at the same time as the blood red flame burned on his spear he spun 360 degrees and slashed outwards at the same time letting out a war cry that shook the entire area.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!

Although War Cry’s effect only lasted half a second as the enemy was too powerful and the level difference too great, Bai Zemin managed to strike over 100 times before retreating just in time to dodge the incoming attack of the Mana Eater Tree.

Bai Zemin remained standing in the same place where he had been standing at the beginning of the battle. At the same time, the Mana Eater Tree slowly made its branches retreat after cutting the ground before it and forming a large crater.

The two had only been testing each other during the first clash. Both Bai Zemin and the Mana Eater Tree knew that the enemy before them had much more in reserve; this was because in just 2 seconds, the ferocity of each attack was enough to kill a Fourth Order soul evolver it had just broken.

“Looks like it’s going to be a bit of fun.” The voice came from the trunk of the jade tree and his entire body glowed as a thin layer of pale green light covered him.

Bai Zemin’s eyes were extremely sharp and his battle sense was extremely frightening after experiencing so many hardships along the way. He not only noticed that the little damage he had done earlier had just disappeared but also felt his own Mana dropping rapidly just by standing in front of the enemy.

“I told you that you would enjoy the battle at first.” Activating Overlap Regeneration again to exchange Magic for Agility and Strength at the same time, Bai Zemin raised his spear wreathed in blood flames and stabbed the earthen floor in front of him, “But you won’t enjoy it much as the battle spreads out.”

In the eyes of Xia Ya who was watching from afar and supporting Shangguan Bing Xue in the sky, Bai Zemin’s action of stabbing the ground did not make any sense. However, she was soon surprised when part of the forest began to tremble.

“… Quite impressive, actually.” When the jade tree spoke, the ground split and over five hundred jade roots came out from beneath the earth. 

The more than five hundred jade roots twisted like giant tentacles. Each root was as thick and long as a Third Order corundum mutant snake, known to be over 300 meters long and as thick as two mutant trees put together.

“Now I understand why my Mana was falling.” This time, the voice did not come from the jade tree but seemed to come from everywhere: “Turns out you’re the cause, boy.”

Bai Zemin watched coolly as the surrounding mutant trees broke loose from the ground and surrounded him. At the same time, more than a thousand purple-colored tangled tangles slid along the ground toward his feet.

Bai Zemin noticed that although those mutant trees did not appear to be lifeless, they were definitely strong enough to fight against Second Order soul evolvers. The craziest thing, however, were the purple-colored vines. He noticed that each vine was surrounded by thorns and released a foul fishy smell as proof of the lethality of their poison; even Bai Zemin didn’t dare to get caught by those things!

With a low snort, his body spun like a whirlpool as he slashed out with Annihilation of the Falling Sky. Its speed was so fast that in an instant, a tornado of blood-colored fire was formed that soared over 20 meters into the sky and completely incinerated all the purple vines to ashes.

The Mana Eater Tree’s voice seemed to come from all over the forest instead of the jade tree as before. It didn’t sound particularly angry but excited as it said, “To think that you would discover my real body so quickly, not bad at all!!!! Now let’s see if you can deplete my unlimited mana reserves first or I’ll turn you into fertilizer first!!!”

“Be my guest.” Bai Zemin stopped abruptly and his surroundings glowed as blood-colored flames burned everything within 20 meters with him as the center. His black eyes glowed mysteriously as he calmly said, “The real battle begins now, Mana Eater.”

Bai Zemin had always been suspicious of the strangeness of the mutant forest. How could it be possible to cast magic capable of covering hundreds of kilometers and even thousands of kilometers, keep active that magic whose mana consumption should definitely not be small, and control hundreds of thousands of undead beasts…. There was only one explanation for this.

The jade tree in front of Bai Zemin was nothing more than a bait that the Mana Eater Tree used in order to disorient its enemies… The real body of the Mana Eater Tree was the entire forest!

Xia Ya’s pupils contracted to the size of needles when she realized the truth. Her beautiful face turned slightly pale as out of pure instinct she twisted her slender waist to lean to the side.

“This bastard…!” She gritted her teeth as she saw out of the corner of her eye a wooden arrow wrapped in green lights flying an inch from his head.

A second later and her head would have been passed from side to side!

The entire forest suddenly began to glow with green light. That layer of light caused the strength of every plant and every tree to grow enormously, but the strangest thing of all was that the mana that Bai Zemin had been draining with Dark Mist since its activation suddenly began to rise again and in less than 5 seconds it recovered as if nothing had happened.

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