30: Chapter 30: The Entrance to Calamity!

The poisoned saber-wielder's left leg gave out first!

His left foot went from dragging to his entire lower leg refusing to obey, his knees went soft forward, and his entire body listed to the side.

His shoulder slammed against the edge of the shield-bearer's shield beside him, emitting a muffled sound.

The shield-bearer instinctively gave him a hand, causing the shield surface to deflect.

A half-arm-wide gap appeared in the outward-facing defensive arc.

Right now!

Jiang Ming didn't use an ultimate move, nor did he activate the Tree Realm, doing only one thing.

The thickest primary combat Root Spike popped out from the mud layer directly beneath the gap, entangling the ankle.

The Root Spike wrapped around the saber-wielder's left leg and yanked downward, dragging him down before he even had time to cry out.

He fell flat on his back into the muddy ground, the back of his head striking the gravel with a muffled thud as the toxin spread along the old ankle injury into the deep blood vessels.

He struggled twice on the ground and stopped moving, looking as if he were dead.

The remaining five people reacted simultaneously, the two shield-bearers reflexively moving to fill the gap.

The flames in Cheng Lie's right palm suddenly flared to illuminate forward, while the rear-row torchbearer and machete-wielder simultaneously turned their heads to look in the direction where the saber-wielder had been dragged down.

The back-to-back formation fractured at this exact moment.

Everyone's attention was on the fallen saber-wielder, and no one was watching the other side.

Cheng Lie realized the problem almost immediately.

Instead of looking at the fallen saber-wielder, he raised his head and swept his gaze across the surrounding tree line.

Then he ordered: "Torches low! Form a fire circle! Do not rescue!"

Both torchbearers diagonally thrust their torches into the ground simultaneously, wanting to encircle a fire isolation zone.

But before the fire circle could close, Jiang Ming had already initiated the full burst of Photosynthetic Energy Storage.

The 360 points of extra energy accumulated in the trunk battery throughout the entire day poured into the primary root network within fractions of a second.

The impact did not strike inward from the periphery; instead, it thrusted straight upward from directly beneath the ground.

The muddy ground on the inner side of the fire circle suddenly bulged, and two thigh-thick black roots broke through the soil simultaneously from both sides of Cheng Lie's feet—not to pierce people, but to flip the floor.

The wet mud and gravel were flipped over in one piece; the two torchbearers who had just planted their torches were simultaneously knocked down by the shockwave and mud clods, their torches slipping from their hands to roll into the wet mud as the flames hissed and extinguished two torches.

The fatal flaw of the fire circle tactic was never that the temperature wasn't high enough, but that fire could only burn the outside, not directly underneath.

Humanity's mindset for defending against tree monsters was always "start a fire outside to block it".

But Jiang Ming was never outside to begin with; his root network had been laid beneath the entire team's feet for who knows how long.

The two shield-bearers were simultaneously flipped over by the roots bursting from the inside, one shield flying out of hand while another was obliquely stuck halfway into the mud.

The gap in the fire circle was torn open, and the formation of six people changed from a circle to a scattered pile.

Cheng Lie managed to stay standing; he was currently the only person who hadn't fallen during the root network's impact.

He jumped away the moment the soil beneath his feet bulged, his movements a beat faster than an ordinary person's.

But he was utterly panicked.

The flames in his palm changed from a bright blaze to a violently flickering orange-red, resembling a lightbulb with unstable voltage.

Jiang Ming did not give him time to breathe.

The complete form of Birth of the Tree Realm activated.

Three anchor trees resonated simultaneously.

The withered elm tree at the fork, the crooked pine in the Fallen Wood Area, and the charred old pine on the Gravel Slope.

The resonance circuit completed its closure in less than half a second, and this time the coverage radius of the Tree Realm was not twenty-five meters, but directly enveloped the entire battlefield.

Dozens of black roots broke through the soil simultaneously from all directions, thick roots building the framework, fine roots weaving the meshes, and branches bending down from above to patch the top.

The entire area resembled the closing oral cavity of a giant beast.

The root network contracted from all sides toward the middle, the canopy layer pressed downward, the soil layer pushed upward, and the six living people were trapped in a wooden prison shrinking every minute.

Cheng Lie burst—that's right, he literally burst!

The flames in his right palm suddenly changed from neutral orange-red to incandescent white, the scorch marks on his arm lighting up simultaneously, his entire hand looking as if it had been stuffed into a smelting furnace.

He struck out with a palm toward the closing root network wall directly ahead.

A basketball-sized compressed flame directly exploded on the root network wall.

Three primary offensive roots were blasted apart simultaneously, their severed ends burned to a charcoal color, and sparks splashing onto the wet mud were still sizzling.

Jiang Ming's entire tree heart twitched violently from the pain, the sensation of three roots breaking simultaneously transmitting into the tree heart, and his energy value instantly deducted nearly three hundred points.

The full-force strike of a fire-type Awakened far exceeded the lethality of any previous attack.

But after releasing this strike, Cheng Lie dropped to a single knee.

The scorch marks on his right arm spread from his wrist to the bend of his elbow, and fine beads of blood seeped from the cracks on the surface of his skin.

It was internal energy backlash.

He panted heavily, his chest heaving so violently that the outline of his ribs could be seen from the front rows.

His lips turned pale, and his left hand propped against the ground wanting to stand up, but his knees slipped.

A Tier 1 Awakened's explosive power was indeed strong, but the mental consumption and physical load rate were too high.

He could release this intensity of flames at most one or two more times before his body would give out first.

Jiang Ming did not contend with him on burst output.

He switched the Tree Realm's strategy from "fully enclosed trap and kill" to "continuous compression and consumption".

The root network no longer actively attacked Cheng Lie, instead slowly shrinking inward from all sides by half a meter per minute.

The ordinary team members' space was squeezed narrower and narrower, under the combined action of high temperature and root network density.

The air inside the Tree Realm began to grow muggy, the oxygen concentration was dropping, and sanity values were plummeting faster than ever before.

The first to lose control was a torchbearer; he held up the last burning torch and pushed it against the root network wall, wanting to burn a hole and crawl outward.

The moment the flame touched the root network, the network retreated slightly, but the thick roots on both sides immediately filled the position.

Squeezing him even tighter.

Panicking, he took a fierce step back and stepped on another companion's foot, throwing his elbow out as the torch slipped from his palm and landed on the pile of dead leaves beside his feet.

The dead leaves caught fire, and sparks splashed onto his own trouser legs, burning several scorched holes into the synthetic fiber fabric.

Patting his trouser legs while jumping aside, he bumped into a shield-bearer behind him, and the two tumbled down together as the torch rolled to Cheng Lie's feet.

Chaos didn't need him to manufacture it personally; the spatial compression and sanity suppression inside the Tree Realm would naturally spawn chaos.

Cheng Lie caught the rolling torch and stood up, propping himself on his knees with his left hand.

His right arm could no longer be raised, the scorch marks had spread to his shoulder, and the flames had completely vanished from his right palm.

He switched the torch to his left hand, not releasing the flame of the Awakened, and used only ordinary fire to burn the nearest thick root.

This momentary hesitation was precisely captured by Jiang Ming.

Two poisonous spikes sprang up simultaneously from the mud beneath Cheng Lie's left and right sides—not a frontal attack, but rather targeting the lower side of his torch-holding hand and the outside of his right leg.

The first spike pierced the outer side of his right thigh, passing through the tensor fasciae latae muscle, injecting the toxin directly into the deep femoral vein branches.

The second spike plunged beneath his left rib, angled slightly upward, grazing the outer edge of his spleen.

Cheng Lie grunted miserably, throwing the torch with his left hand to smash at the Root Spike on the left; the torch hit the Root Spike and bounced off, while the Root Spike had already retracted back beneath the mud.

He lowered his head to look at his right leg.

The wound on the outer side of his thigh was not deep, but the blood was dark red, and the edges of the wound were already beginning to go numb—not painful, but devoid of sensation.

Gritting his teeth, he pressed his left hand onto his right thigh, applying the remaining residual heat in his palm to block the toxin's spread with thermal energy, but the paralyzing Speed was faster than his hand.

His right leg went from numbness to total loss of control, his knee buckling as his entire body tipped sideways, leaning obliquely against the trunk of the crooked pine.

Seeing that even the Awakened could no longer stand, the remaining few people saw their fighting spirit completely collapse.

Someone turned around and frantically chopped at the root network, hacking one root away only for another to take its place.

Someone cried out while retreating, only to find roots everywhere in front, behind, left, and right.

Someone hugged a companion's ankle, wanting to pull the companion out of the entangling roots.

As a result, their own feet got entangled as well. The Tree Realm was not fighting; it was digesting.

Jiang Ming's harvesting order was very clear: swallow the heavily injured first to prevent them from staging a final counterattack or Cheng Lie using fire for a finishing blow that might trigger a chain reaction.

The saber-wielder and the two torchbearers were simultaneously dragged deep into the mud layer where Nutrient Plunder initiated; devouring did not wait for people to die completely—how much could be converted, was converted.

One of the shield-bearers had his arm crushed and snapped when the Tree Realm compressed, his movements severely deformed as a Root Spike pierced into his chest cavity from the wound of his severed arm.

Another shield-bearer frantically chopped at the roots, his axe blade already dulled, roaring Cheng Lie's name until the very last moment, wanting to make him run.

"Pfft!"

A Root Spike pierced straight through his chest from behind.

He hadn't noticed the root behind him until he collapsed.

Only Cheng Lie remained inside the Tree Realm.

Leaning against the crooked pine, his right leg was already dragging on the ground and completely immobile, the blood seeping from the wound on his left ribs staining half of his clothes.

His left hand propped against the tree trunk while his right arm hung limply down, scorch marks spreading from his wrist to his shoulder.

His breathing began to grow shallow—not caused by blood loss, but by the Paralysis Toxin traveling upward along the subcostal venous plexus, compressing the phrenic nerve.

He still raised his left hand, spreading his fingers toward the closing root network wall in front of him, as a very weak dark-red spark lit up in his palm.

The residual Awakened energy flickered on the surface of his palm, resembling the last bit of red light in the ashes.

He wanted to immolate himself.

Pumping the Awakened energy back into his own body from his palm.

Triggering the collapse of his entire body's energy circuit.

Creating a self-destruction-grade incineration that didn't distinguish between friend and foe.

Jiang Ming did not give him this opportunity.

Three branches bent down simultaneously from directly above the crooked pine—the crooked pine was his semi-living node, and the branches moved as fast as the main body.

One wrapped around Cheng Lie's left wrist and twisted it outward, sparks spraying from his palm to only scorch the outer skin of the branch.

The second wrapped around his waist and pulled him away from the tree trunk.

The third flipped his body face up, clearing the chest cavity angle for the final strike.

The primary Root Spike broke vertically through the chest from the mud layer directly beneath the roots of the crooked pine!

Accurately passing through the gaps in the ribs, piercing out from his back to nail him into the tree trunk.

The flame flashed once in his palm and went out.

Cheng Lie didn't have last words like Old Chen did.

He died very quickly; the toxin coupled with the pierced heart

caused his nervous system to shut down within seconds.

His eyes were wide open, his face bearing reluctance and terror.

But his memory fragments were hotter than anyone else's.

During devouring, Jiang Ming could sense an obvious residual heat.

Tucked within the Awakened's memories were a large amount of physical perception data during the awakening process.

Including the running path of flame energy within the body, the central nervous system coding for palm temperature control, and a blurry image.

On the Settlement training ground, a short-haired woman placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Black Tree Mouth is entrusted to you; don't let Captain Cen down..."

That woman was presumably the Settlement's operation commander.

[Devoured Tier 1 Fire-type Awakened · Cheng Lie, Evolution Points +550.]

[Absorbed Trait: Heat Source Perception (Passive), can perceive abnormal heat sources higher than the ambient temperature within a 200-meter radius, with accuracy decreasing with distance.]

[Absorbed Trait: Flame Resistance Fragment (1/3)! Gathering three core fragments of fire-type Awakened or fire-attribute anomalies can synthesize "Flame Tolerance (Junior)", Current Progress: 1/3.]

[Absorbed Trait: Awakened Energy Residue! Strength permanently +10, Spirit permanently +30, Paralysis Toxin's effect Speed on the Awakened's nervous system slightly increased.]

[Fear Perception upgraded! Integrating the Awakened's mental residue, detection range expanded to two hundred meters, newly added "Heat Source Marker" stacking function.]

The summary of devouring gains from the remaining five people surged into the panel:

Evolution points directly broke through two thousand, maximum health rose to two thousand three hundred, maximum energy value rose to one thousand nine hundred, strength one hundred ninety, agility eighty-five, constitution and spirit both increased by a chunk... (too many words omitted)

Two new entry adaptation slots added, currently seven remaining empty.

The cooldown time of Birth of the Tree Realm shrank from two hours to one hour and twenty minutes.

Anchor resonance can be completed within half a second before activation.

A short new prompt appeared at the bottom of the panel:

[Regional Prestige Generating — — The fear signal intensity of human Settlements in the current area has broken through the threshold. Detected that the Settlement channel is frequently mentioning "Black Tree Mouth", "Cheng Lie lost contact", "The whole team is gone".]

[Title System about to unlock.]

He didn't rush to check the Title System.

The root network of the Tree Realm area slowly retracted underground, the chaotic soil area being larger than last time.

The explosion marks of Cheng Lie's final compressed flame still left a charred pit on the crooked pine's trunk.

There were too many battlefield remains to cover up entirely with "a large crawling anomaly passing by" like before.

There was no need to cover it up anymore!

Let them see!

Let the next batch of people coming to collect corpses see the broken roots all over the ground, the charred tree bark, shield fragments crushed by the root network, and the bloodstains of the Awakened mixed in the mud.

Let them know that these things weren't done by some passing anomaly, but by this forest!

He was no longer afraid of humans!

Dragging Cheng Lie's corpse deep into the root cavity of the crooked pine, storing it separately from the other corpses.

The Awakened's remains still had some subsequent utilization value, including slowly extracting the flame resistance particles within the flesh and blood?

Bones and scorched skin could potentially be used to reinforce the fire resistance of a specific Root Spike.

In the distance, in the direction of the Outpost, bone whistle sounds, gong sounds, and human shouts mixed together, piercing through the fog to transmit into his perception network.

The Settlement channel was probably already in an uproar.

Not a single one of the six-person elite search team dispatched by Black Tree Mouth, plus the Tier 1 Awakened, returned.

From the scattered disappearances of the initial Wooden Cabin survivors, to Xu He's Team losing contact, to Old Chen being fed, to the total annihilation of the logging team, to the current death in battle of the Awakened.

On the strategic map of the Settlement's upper echelons, the name Black Tree Mouth had jumped from a Level 3 danger zone to a Level 1 regional calamity.

The next ones to come would no longer be scouts, nor logging teams, nor even a six-person elite squad.

Next time it would be Zhong Yue, that fire-controlling veteran about to reach Tier 2, bringing more Awakened and a full establishment of the Extermination Team.

Coming with specialized tactics and weapons specifically targeting tree-type anomalies...

Tonight, he possessed an entire expanse of elite search team remains that had just been wiped out.

Over two thousand evolution points, an energy upper limit close to two thousand, a newly unlocked Title System, and three anchor trees currently undergoing their third resonance.

He switched Camouflage Mimicry from the charred wood mode back to the ordinary sick tree mode, his canopy slowly unfolding as a few new leaves emitted a dim dark-red glow in the night mist.

Black Tree Mouth—this name was given to him by humans; he reluctantly accepted it, and would immediately give it a new meaning in his own way.