That white, root-like thing writhed on the ground for a moment before extending its root system and creeping up onto the High Priest’s severed head. It spread out with extreme caution, for fear of disturbing the foot pinning the head down.
Now in control of the High Priest’s head, it could finally produce sounds intelligible to humans.
“Please spare me, great Lord of All Entropy! I had no intention of disturbing your activities—these were all accidents! It was this damned fool who acted on his own and disrupted your peace. I place him entirely at your mercy. If you fear soiling your hands, I will deal with him myself!”
It was terrified, truly terrified.
It had assumed that even if its projection across tens of thousands of planes stirred up some trouble, the worst outcome would be expulsion from the divine statue node it had hidden in a nearby plane. It had never dreamed that Luo Shang could disregard every mystical barrier, bypass all spatial and worldly obstacles, and reach straight through to seize its core body!
And the node it grabbed was the most vital one.
The Life Lady—or Life Lord, as one might say, since as a plant it was hermaphroditic, shifting form with the world’s changes and the whims of its believers. If the first devotee envisioned it as a goddess, then a goddess it became; if as a god, then a god.
It manifested in this world as the Goddess of Life simply because the High Priest had devoured too many web novels. The moment he heard “God of Life,” his mind filled with images of a golden-haired, blue-eyed elven goddess. In truth, it was merely a self-reproducing tree.
Mobility was never a tree’s strong suit compared to animals, so the Life Tree had patiently cultivated its plane, reshaping it into a biosphere revolving around itself. It was the world, and the world was it. Only then did it conceal the plane away.
Even if that entire world were obliterated, a single twig or leaf would suffice for its revival.
By all rights, even if this vital segment were seized and pulverized, it would not truly perish—merely suffer a grievous wound to its vitality before regenerating from another branch.
Yet somehow, Luo Shang had stripped away even that right to rebirth. It sensed with dread that death here would be final!
Luo Shang had utterly negated the Path of Life it had followed, nullifying its very powers!
How could it not fear under such conditions?
It regretted everything now, down to its roots.
“Don’t think flattery will save you,” Luo Shang said flatly.
“Projecting into various worlds to harvest faith? Everyone does it. If I’d caught someone from another domain, that would be that… but you’re walking the Path of Life.”
“Oh ho, so this thing dared covet the Peaches of Immortality Garden Dungeon? And here I thought it knew its own limits,” β-62 said, covering her mouth as she snickered from the sidelines.
Chen Guyi silently pressed down harder, nearly pulverizing the head and the white root-like mass entwined around it. “Indeed. A Player on the Path of Life showing up here is suspicious in itself.”
Mythologies across cultures described trees as conduits linking worlds—like the World Tree spanning the nine realms of Norse Mythology, or the Jianmu from the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Such divine trees were Projections of “Players,” too.
This tree treading the Path of Life was no legendary divine tree, merely one that had chosen a similar road.
The Trees of Peaches of Immortality were divine trees as well. Should they awaken to consciousness, they too could qualify as Players. But if snared and domesticated by superior Players before that, they became mere fodder for others advancing along the Path of Life.
Animals like humans or divine beasts sought to consume the Peaches of Immortality, unraveling the Dao within. Plants like this self-proclaimed God of Life, however, aimed to “devour” those trees outright—eradicating them to claim sole dominion as the one true Tree of Peaches of Immortality across the Myriad Worlds and Planes. That was progress on the Path of Life.
In a way, tree Players struck even more ruthlessly than their animal counterparts. The latter merely wanted a few fruits; the former sought to uproot the entire Dungeon.
“Did I invite you to test my capabilities?”
Luo Shang gazed at the pure white branch before him. He tilted his head skyward, his vision piercing the clouds, the world itself, and beyond.
“Now I don’t even know how many players are watching my every move, waiting to see if my strength has weakened so they can tear a chunk of flesh off me. I figured they’d send someone with real ability, someone who could let me stretch my muscles properly. But in the end, it’s just you…”
Luo Shang eyed him with clear disdain.
“I’m truly sorry my power isn’t up to snuff!!!” the Life Tree bellowed.
“Who fed you this intel?” Luo Shang asked.
The Life Tree’s branches rustled awkwardly, hemming and hawing.
“Can’t say it, or won’t? β-62,” Luo Shang commanded.
“As you wish.” β-62 smiled faintly as slender threads extended from her fingertips, poised to infiltrate that segment of white wood.
“Those few common species capable of following the Path of Life… Sacred White Wax Tree. Their memory storage is typically in the third minor section beneath the spirit-body root, fourth branch—transmitting thoughts through spirit-power-reinforced fibers…”
The short-haired woman murmured the details as she drew closer.
“Wait—you’re one of those long-lost Void Lineage Scholars! That twisted inheritance profession that supposedly dissected the physiology and weaknesses of every species in the Void. Stay back! Don’t come any closer, aaahhhh!!”
“Didn’t expect you to be so well-versed in this line of work. Quite the scholar. Since you know what’s what, β-62, show him your real talents.” Luo Shang stroked his chin thoughtfully.
Some players had unusually high magic resistance, rendering mental spells useless. That was when β-62 came in handy.
Luo Shang would dial back the surrounding Entropy Growth Rate enough to suppress large-scale supernatural feats, then leave the rest to β-62’s hands-on approach. It usually produced solid results.
“I’ll talk! I’ll talk!” The High Priest’s face was a mess of snot and tears, smearing across every feature.
“Don’t do this to me! I’ll spill it!”
Chen Guyi pulled his foot back in disgust, desperate to avoid any contamination.
By now, the Life Tree had realized something was off. It’d clearly been set up as cannon fodder, with the other players biding their time to see how it fared. They were all too cunning to rush in themselves. Instead, they’d egged on underlings like it—whose strength fell short—to test Luo Shang’s current condition.
Luo Shang had a history of vulnerability. After surviving his Dao Tribulation, he’d weakened to the brink of death.
Certain players had pounced on that chance. Some, leveraging their superior agility and stealth skills, had drawn off Ke Yanjin, Luo Shang’s guardian. Others had seized the opening to charge at Luo Shang himself, aiming to end him.
In the end, Luo Shang had bluffed them with an empty fort stratagem, convincing them his old power remained intact. The truth only emerged after his full recovery, at which point he hunted down every player who’d plotted against him. He even claimed the top spot on the “Do Not Offend” Black Name List for a stretch—naturally, with Ke Yanjin pinpointing those locations for him.
Luo Shang ran the scheme twice more after that, feigning weakness to lure out more would-be assassins before turning the tables and slaughtering them. Only twice, though; by the third round, no one dared take the bait.
This young sprout of a Life Tree simply hadn’t known Luo Shang’s dark track record. He’d barreled ahead on his own, convinced his moves were covert.
After all, striking at Su Mingyao was tantamount to striking at Luo Shang.
This went beyond the fallout from Plot Following failures—it was something else entirely.
Su Mingyao stood apart from every other figure in the plot. Kill off someone like Shen Changqing, disrupt the Plot Following, and Luo Shang could prop up a corpse, clone, puppet, or whatever to fill the role. But Su Mingyao? No dice.
Sure, Luo Shang could scrape together a substitute for Su Mingyao’s scenes after his death, barely keeping the world’s machinery grinding. Yet Su Mingyao’s death—and his corpse—held deeper significance for Luo Shang.
From the moment of their births, when they’d served as each other’s proxies, a arcane bond linked them. Causally speaking, their destinies intertwined.
Slay Su Mingyao, then weaponize that death’s Destiny, and you could wound Luo Shang. Less potent than targeting Luo Shang’s own Fate Line directly, but effective nonetheless.
Much like curse rituals that used effigies in place of the victim, Su Mingyao himself was nothing less than a massive proxy doll for Luo Shang.
Su Mingyao could naturally be crafted into a substitute puppet for Luo Shang, one that would shield him from a single fatal strike—just like Ke Yanjin’s father’s Dried Fish Amulet. Ke Yanjin had forged that talisman by leveraging their father-son bond; some random fish wouldn’t have achieved the same effect of blocking a lethal attack. Once created, swapping out the bound individual turned it into an exceptionally useful tool.
There was another way to follow the plot: kill Su Mingyao outright and have Luo Shang step into his role.
Then send a puppet to impersonate Luo Shang and walk the path of Su Shang. Afterward, Luo Shang would truly supplant Su Mingyao as this world’s Child of Destiny, free from any worries about death or the whims of fate.
But Luo Shang wanted none of that. He had no desire to become someone like Su Mingyao, nor to be seen by others in Su Mingyao’s guise. He insisted on treading the plot openly, under his own name and identity. Most of all, he utterly despised Shen Changqing and had zero interest in playing out any romantic entanglements or intimate contacts with him as Su Mingyao.
Su Mingyao couldn’t die… at least not in some hidden corner beyond Luo Shang’s sight, where his body might be stolen away to cause trouble for Luo Shang later.
If anyone was going to kill him, it could only be Luo Shang himself—no one else was even allowed to lay a finger on him!
Now unbound and slumped on the ground, Su Mingyao suddenly froze. For a fleeting moment, he sensed thick killing intent lurking behind Luo Shang’s lowered eyelids.
He hurriedly told himself he was imagining things.
Su Mingyao knew full well that his suicide had been a reckless gamble, betting on Luo Shang’s lingering conscience to come save him—rather than simply puppeteering his corpse to advance the plot.
In the end, Su Mingyao had won that bet. But if given another chance, he wouldn’t dare try it again.
After all, even Luo Shang could grow exasperated.
