632: Chapter 632 What's Buried Under the Tree?

Li Heng followed Xiao Hei into the interior of the tree roots, and the light changed.

The outside was silver-white with dark-gold patterns; the inside was reversed—dark-gold warm light was everywhere, and the silver-white patterns had receded into thin lines embedded in the walls on both sides.

The path became steeper as they walked.

It wasn't a man-made passage. It was a gap naturally formed during the growth of the tree roots, winding and extending deep underground. The narrowest point only allowed one person to pass; Li Heng had to turn sideways to squeeze through.

Xiao Hei led the way in front, moving very fast.

Its dark-gold patterns resonated at the same frequency as the surrounding walls; with every step, the patterns on a section of the wall would suddenly brighten and then extinguish after a few seconds.

It was like someone was opening doors. Opening doors for them one by one.

"Are you the only one who can walk this path?" Li Heng patted a hanging root fiber overhead.

Xiao Hei turned back and spat out a bubble. The image inside the bubble showed a group of dark-gold creatures of the same race traveling through this passage. There were many of them, packed densely together.

"So you used to walk this path often."

Xiao Hei nodded.

"To do what?"

Xiao Hei didn't answer. It stopped for two seconds at a fork and then chose the narrower, steeper gap on the left.

The temperature was rising.

It wasn't a temperature change caused by Spiritual Qi. It was physical heat. The air was dry, and the dark-gold patterns on the walls began to get hot. Li Heng casually formed a thin film of Spiritual Qi over himself for insulation and continued downward.

They walked for about fifteen minutes.

The passage suddenly opened up.

Li Heng squeezed out of the gap and stood at the edge of a spherical space.

The space wasn't very large. It was about one or two hundred meters in diameter, just enough to fit a school building.

The ceiling was a dense crisscross of tree roots, and the dark-gold light seeping through the fibers illuminated the entire space. The floor was a smooth silver-white metallic material, covered in spiral patterns.

Something was placed at the center of the patterns.

An egg.

A dark-gold egg.

It was as tall as two people, oval-shaped, and the dark-gold patterns on its surface were exactly the same as those on Xiao Hei. The shell was translucent, and something could be vaguely seen curled up inside.

Xiao Hei rushed over.

It pounced onto the eggshell, its four limbs clinging tightly as its dark-gold patterns connected with those on the shell. Once the frequencies synchronized, the entire egg glowed slightly.

The thing inside the eggshell moved.

A dark-gold figure five or six times larger than Xiao Hei rolled over and curled up even tighter.

Xiao Hei lay motionless on the eggshell. Its single golden eye closed.

Only the extremely faint sound of a heartbeat remained in the entire spherical space. Thump, thump, thump.

Li Heng walked to the front of the egg and observed for a while.

"Is this one of your kin?"

Xiao Hei opened its eye and nodded.

"The Master of the Tree left it behind to protect this egg? For three hundred and sixty thousand years?"

It nodded again.

"That hand in the sky just now—those eyeballs—what they want to eat isn't us."

This time Xiao Hei didn't nod. It slapped the eggshell hard with its front paw.

The eggshell hummed.

The creature inside rolled over again.

Li Heng crouched down and pressed his palm against the surface of the eggshell.

It was warm.

The heartbeat frequency inside the eggshell was almost identical to whatever was in that giant cocoon in the Earth's core.

"The one in the Earth's belly, is that also an egg of your kind?"

Xiao Hei's claws scratched the ground a few times.

It wasn't an egg.

The image it scratched out was a broken eggshell, empty inside, with the shell fragments being corroded and decayed by a black substance.

"Hatching failed? It was contaminated?"

Xiao Hei nodded frantically.

Li Heng stood up and rubbed his chin.

"So the whole story is this—your race thrived within this tree in the Source Realm. The owners of those hands in the sky came to eat you. The Master of the Tree fought to the death to save the last egg and you. But the egg on Earth had a problem and was contaminated, turning into that giant worm. The gate of gui xu and the three pillars were all to let that worm break out of its shell. Right?"

Xiao Hei lay there without moving.

The light in its single eye dimmed.

Li Heng patted the eggshell, his voice very soft.

"Alright. I understand now."

He turned around to face the passage he came from.

At that moment, the walls of the spherical space suddenly trembled.

It didn't come from above. It was from the side.

The spiral patterns on the silver-white floor suddenly stopped spinning. All the patterns pointed in the same direction at the same instant—about forty-five degrees west of overhead.

Immediately after, Li Heng's Communicator rang.

Fang Yuan's voice came through with static and panting.

"Dean! The crack split open early! It wasn't four hours—only twenty minutes have passed—"

"How many hands?"

"It's not hands."

Fang Yuan's voice paused.

"It's a head."

A roar came through the Communicator.

That roar passed through the Immortal Mountain's defensive Formation, through the tree roots, and through the two-hundred-meter-deep ground layer, reaching the spherical space.

The creature inside the eggshell suddenly contracted its body.

Xiao Hei jumped down from the eggshell, all its patterns instantly glowing at maximum intensity as it arched its back toward the passage.

Li Heng had already started walking back.

He stopped after two steps and glanced back at the egg.

"Xiao Hei, you stay here and guard."

Xiao Hei got anxious, hissing as it tried to follow.

"Guard the egg."

Li Heng's tone didn't change, but Xiao Hei froze.

"What they want to eat is the egg, not us. I'll go up and block the guests; you watch the house down here."

He leaned over and touched Xiao Hei's head.

"I'll bring you some spicy strips when I get back."

Xiao Hei hesitated for three seconds before retreating to the front of the eggshell and lying down.

Li Heng turned and ducked into the passage.

His speed was ten times faster than when he came.

The dark-gold walls receded rapidly beside him, and the gaps in the tree roots automatically pushed open and closed as he passed.

Fifteen seconds later, he burst out from the tree roots and stepped onto the silver-white ground.

He looked up.

The sky was no longer a crack.

It was a hole.

A large circular hole at least three kilometers in diameter. The edges of the hole were curled with rotting silver-white fragments, and a black viscous substance dripped down from the opening.

A head poked out from the hole.

A white head.

It had no facial features. Its smooth oval surface was covered with densely packed, closed eyeballs.

Fang Yuan stood at the edge of the Immortal Mountain; he struck the five thunders shaking heaven drum three times, and the three purple lightning pillars that boomed upward were all swallowed by the eyeballs on the head's surface.

Xie Wangsheng's Formation had been expanded to maximum power, and a silver protective shield covered the Immortal Mountain tightly.

The King of Eternal Night led the Security Department in the front, and the Nine Ancient Kings released all their pressure.

But the volume of that head was twenty times that of the Immortal Mountain.

Everyone's attacks hit it like throwing pebbles into the ocean.

Li Heng stood by the tree roots, looking up for two seconds.

Then he spoke. His voice wasn't loud, but the entire Source Realm could hear him.

"Students, step back. Security Department, step back as well."

"I'll be teaching this lesson."