70: Chapter 70 Eve of the Ancient Tree of Flesh and Blood

The evolution countdown hung right in the middle of the panel!

Every time the digits ticked... the tree core vibrated along with it!

Jiang Ming did not immediately press toward the Outer Gate of the Settlement!

He was waiting for the last few streams of energy inside his body to flow through the circuit!

And he was waiting for the Settlement side to burn away the last bit of order.

The main tree core was anchored deep within the main body area of Black Tree Mouth.

The main root network was entirely retracted into the deep hard soil.

The periphery left three circles of charred fake roots disguised as dormant wrecks of heavy injuries.

The canopy folded in, Photosynthetic Energy Storage was full, and the energy pool was sealed.

The secondary tree core remained in the root chamber of Tree Nest No. 1, and the water level of the annular damp soil zone was adjusted from full to semi-dry.

Three layers of silicified fibers were added to the outer wall of the root chamber, and all residual shed frames were pressed back into charred disguise.

The low-lying land of Tree Nest No. 2 and the wet pit area of the third node entered a purely locked state — without actively triggering the Tree Realm.

No toxic stingers were released, all anchor piles entered standby, and there was only one task: stop whoever rushed toward the Outer Gate.

The three nodes began to externalize synchronously.

The ground in front of the broken shed of Tree Nest No. 1 cracked open in large chunks, and thick roots beneath the mud slowly arched up from the damp soil like dark spines.

The debris of the shed pillars was pushed crookedly to one side.

Circles of dark root veins surged from the mudflat beneath the fallen log of Tree Nest No. 2.

The diameter of each circle was larger than the previous one, and the outermost circle had been pushed to the edge of the logging path.

The entire mud surface of the wet pit area at the third node began to undulate like breathing, with a small amplitude but an extremely steady rhythm.

Even the guards standing on the Watchtower at the Outer Gate could see that patch of ground bulging and contracting under the moonlight!

"There is something underground!"

Someone shouted on the Watchtower at the Outer Gate.

It wasn't an earthquake... the ground didn't shake.

It was just that the mud was moving, as if something was lying underneath catching its breath!

"Close the gate! Seal the Outer Gate!"

The border guard captain snatched the wooden sign off the wall and rushed toward the doorway.

Behind him, a granary guard grabbed two bags of dry rations and ran in the opposite direction. Running while looking back, he crashed headfirst into another coolie holding a wooden bucket. The bucket rolled out and hit the wooden fence, its bottom cracking, and water trickled out along the gaps of the fence.

"Run to the center! There's some in the south too!"

From the direction of Nan Gully, someone also shouted out.

No one verified it, no one looked back.

Shoving and trampling spread along the narrow path from the Outer Gate to the Central Main House. Someone was pushed down, someone climbed over the wooden fence into someone else's vegetable plot, and a child was yanked up by an adult, tucked under the arm, and kept running.

A few remnants of the combat line remained at the entrance of the Council Shed, and someone thrust a short spear into the ground trying to maintain order.

But even the patch of ground where the spear was thrust had been trampled loose by the surging crowd.

The puppet completed the last two instructions in this chaos.

Number Three stood up from the wounded corner on the side of the Camp Administration Room, leaning against the wall and walking toward the direction of Nan Gully.

It said vaguely to a few granary guards who were panting against the wooden fence:

"I saw it, the roots turned up from the bottom of the gully and have already passed the southern fence gaps."

It pointed toward the bottom of the gully!

In that dry fissure at the bottom of the gully—magnified by fear during the day—a section of shallow roots it had placed earlier was twitching slightly.

Another puppet knocked over a water transport cart on the northern transport line, and the barrels of clean water tipped over one after another.

It mixed with the lime spilled earlier into mud, blocking the only retreat channel from the northern side toward the Central Main House.

No one tried to rescue those buckets of water anymore; the transport team abandoned the cart frame and ran away by themselves.

The evolution countdown hit zero.

A soundless, muffled tremor erupted deep within the main tree core. It wasn't an earthquake; it was the entire energy circuit snapping its old shell simultaneously in the exact same second.

The wooden structure of the Ogre Tree stage was torn apart at the cellular level, the inner layer of the bark split open, exposing the rapidly proliferating dark red cambium.

The bulging blood veins on the surface of the roots spread from the main roots to the lateral roots. Every single blood vein was throbbing, its rhythm synchronized with the pulsation of the main tree core.

The energy transmission lines connecting the nodes no longer transported dark green sap, but instead gushed forth a liquid substance glowing with dark red bioluminescence, illuminating the entire root network deep in the wet mud into a translucent vascular network.

Perception changed along with it.

The forest will was no longer a contact-based vibration feedback, but an extension closer to the main body itself—able to distinguish whether the soles stepping on the root network were boots or bare feet, able to sense the accelerated heartbeat of a human hundreds of meters away, and able to judge from the concentration differences in fear emotions which person was about to collapse and which person was still holding back the thought of a counterattack.

The period of weakness pressed down at the same time.

The newly born dark red cambium was still very thin, the wood fibers had not yet had time to harden, and the outermost layer of the main tree trunk still retained the charred old shell.

If the Settlement remnants could piece together a final desperate Fire Attack Team at this moment,

and concentrate all remaining lamp oil to smash fiercely into a certain node, Jiang Ming would feel the pain.

But he did not pile all his strength into stubbornly biting through the Outer Gate.

He made all three nodes pull the containment strength to the maximum simultaneously: the root network of Tree Nest No. 1 formed an airtight strangulation zone outside the broken fence.

The annular damp soil zone of Tree Nest No. 2 liquefied into a half-foot-deep soft mud swamp, and the wet pit area of the third node turned all hard soil road surfaces in the direction of the retreat into churned slush.

Do not let them organize a final effective counterattack — this was the only thing he needed to do in this evolution!

Inside and outside the Outer Gate of the Settlement, it was completely divided into two worlds.

The people inside the gate formed a circle in front of the Council Shed; some were shouting about where to escape, and some were asking who the orders came from.

Outside the gate, three patches of ground arched up simultaneously, and the outer root fibers slowly extended from the cracked ground amidst the dark red gloss.

The root tips were no longer like wooden thorns, but more like breathing tentacles.

The cunning, lurking, sneak attacks, and disguise of the Ogre Tree stage, every corpse accumulated since hunting began, every segment of fear, every entry, and every victory.

Were all poured into the evolutionary torrent at this moment, crushed, and recombined into something heavier and even more terrifying!

The last moment before dawn!

He made a clear judgment in the torrent:

The next time he opened his "eyes", he would no longer be a few-meter-tall Ogre Tree of Black Tree Mouth! But a true demon!

And the Settlement would also face a true Flesh-and-Blood Ancient Tree for the first time! Despair!!