146: Chapter 146: The Truth, the Pitcher Plant

Traveling through the Void Realm was not a pleasant experience.

Morgan was held in Wren's grip, surrounded by the constantly receding chaotic shadow currents.

His current fifteen-meter-tall dark gold body contained world-destroying power.

But during Wren's void stealth, he could only be dragged along like a sandbag.

The entire sequence of events had happened too quickly.

From Wren's sudden appearance, to him forcing an absurd set of mimicry data on him, to both of them transforming and escaping into the Void Realm.

The entire process was seamless, leaving Morgan absolutely no time to think.

His mind was a complete jumble.

"Captain," Morgan finally couldn't help but speak, his voice sounding somewhat muffled in the void passage.

"Where are we going? What kind of monster's gene did you just force into me?"

Wren tore through the Void Realm ahead of them, not looking back.

"To the center of this Divine Realm," Wren's voice transmitted into Morgan's mind. "As for the creature you are mimicking, it is the overlord of this place."

Overlord?

Morgan dithered for a moment.

In his mind flashed images of the monsters that had driven them to a dead end.

"Morgan, ever since we were separated in the big explosion, I have been observing."

Wren slowed down slightly to let Morgan keep up. "The ecology of this Divine Realm is far more complex than we imagined. There are primarily seven high-tier creatures here."

Seven types?

Morgan counted silently in his head.

The Liquid Metal Crabs at the bottom of the River Styx, and the Bone Fish in the water.

The Demon Vultures flying in the sky, and those bats that can release Soul sonic waves.

Plus the Insectoids covering the land, eating them like snacks.

That makes five.

Plus this dark gold behemoth that he and the captain were currently mimicking.

Morgan glanced at the black-gold wings on Wren's back, then at his own thick dark gold arms.

Although their forms differed, their Origin aura shared the same source, suggesting they were different branches of the same species.

Just like how those insects were divided into Heavy Armor Beetles and Electric Insects.

"Captain, even counting the one we are mimicking now, that's only six types at most," Morgan questioned.

Wren's black wings flapped slightly, avoiding a void crack.

"There is one more," Wren said calmly. "In the northern lands of the Divine Realm, there is a group of pure elemental lifeforms born from magma and toxic fire. They burn high-tier Insectoids as fuel."

Morgan sucked in a breath of cold air.

Treating those terrifying insects as fuel—what kind of Hellish Divine Realm was this!

"Of these seven creatures, which one do you think is the strongest?" Wren posed a question.

"The Insectoids," Morgan replied without any hesitation.

He had personally experienced the horror of the insect tide.

That tight mental network, that fearless charge, and that all-encompassing suppression across land, sea, and air.

Any Starry Sky Wanderer who encountered such an insect tide would have no choice but to flee in panic.

Wren sneered.

"Wrong."

"On the surface, the Insectoids are massive in number, occupying the boundary between land and ocean, and even daring to go into the water to snatch food."

Wren's voice was filled with wariness: "In reality, they were forced there."

"That's impossible!" Morgan cried out.

"I saw with my own eyes the Insectoid army sweeping across the wasteland. How could a faction of this scale be forced to the fringes?"

Wren turned his head, his eyes devoid of emotion.

"Because there is one race that is simply too strong."

"So strong that the Insectoids dare not take a single step into the center of this Divine Realm."

"So strong that the Demon Vultures of the sky and the Bone Fish of the ocean can only rely on natural geographical environments to barely maintain their living space."

"The Insectoids go to the Extreme North to seek death and to the River Styx to snatch food; they have no intention of expanding whatsoever."

"They can only search for resources in those peripheral areas. As for the resources in the core region, they don't even have the right to look at them."

Morgan was completely dumbfounded.

The Insectoids, who had ground their elite Starry Sky Wanderer squad into the dirt, were actually just a peripheral force in this Divine Realm?

Just what kind of monster was occupying the core region?

He lowered his head and looked at his own liquid gold body.

"Captain... Could it be..."

"Exactly," Wren confirmed his suspicion. "What we are mimicking now is precisely the true ruler of this Divine Realm."

Their travel through the Void Realm continued.

As they drew closer to the center of the Divine Realm, Morgan felt a distinct change in the surrounding environment.

The most direct change was the concentration of Spiritual Qi.

While the Spiritual Qi on the wasteland was already violent enough, the Spiritual Qi here had almost condensed into a physical mist.

With every breath, he could feel high-concentration energy washing through the blood vessels of this body.

"Look outside," Wren suddenly said.

Morgan looked outside through the barrier of the void passage.

What met his eyes was a vast, boundless blood-colored basin.

Outside the basin, there were dense crowds of gold and black figures.

There were simply too many.

Millions of monsters of various shapes gathered together, forming a gold and black ocean.

Morgan clearly saw what these creatures were doing.

They were fighting.

Hundreds of thousands of Tyrant Demons were divided into countless small circles, engaged in life-and-death struggles.

Dark gold fists smashed their companions' bones, and pitch-black blades sliced open chests.

There was no hatred, no anger, only a pure desire for power and a frenzy for battle.

Even if their limbs were shattered and their organs flew everywhere,

these monsters would heal themselves in an extremely short time, roaring as they threw themselves back into the fray.

"Starting at the Gold Tier Peak..." Morgan sensed the aura of these Tyrant Demons, his voice trembling uncontrollably.

As far as his eyes could see, even the smallest Tyrant Demons on the outermost periphery, who were being beaten the most miserably, were all at the Gold Tier Peak Realm.

"Starting at the Gold Tier Peak," Wren's tone was equally heavy. "This means that as long as they are born and grow just a little, they can reach the Gold Tier Peak. Adulthood means Platinum."

Morgan felt his worldview collapsing.

Gold Tier Peak!

Here, Gold Tier Peak was merely the lowest level of cannon fodder?

What made Morgan even more despondent was that he saw their own kind within the Void Realm.

Several Shadow Abyssal Demons with black-gold wings on their backs were lurking in the chaotic void currents.

They hid from and assassinated one another.

Void cracks were torn open at will in their hands like toys.

Even though Wren did his best to hide their aura while leading him, there were still several times they were almost caught in the crossfire of these fiercely competing Shadow Abyssal Demons.

"What are they doing?" Morgan could not comprehend this behavior.

"Filtering," Wren spat out. "The area of this basin is limited, and there are only so many core resources."

"Only the strongest individuals can approach the center. The weak are directly kicked out of the game."

Just then, Wren stopped.

There was no path ahead.

The void passage here had been forcibly severed by an absolute power.

"We're here," Wren said, tearing open the void barrier with his hands and leading Morgan out of the shadows.

After his feet touched the ground, Morgan subconsciously observed the surrounding terrain.

The moment he raised his head, his entire body froze.

His breathing stopped.

His thoughts ground to a halt.

Within his field of vision, there was no terrain, nor was there any sky.

There was only a tree.

A giant tree so massive that it defied any description.

The diameter of its trunk was thicker than any planetary moon Morgan had ever seen.

Gray-purple Law patterns flowed across the dark gold bark, each pattern emitting a suffocating pressure that would make even a Diamond Rank powerhouse choke.

Its canopy shrouded the entire sky.

At the edge of his vision, there were only lush branches and leaves.

When Morgan had previously gazed at the center of the Divine Realm from the wasteland, he had seen a red phantom stretching between heaven and earth.

At the time, he had thought it was some kind of special cosmic astronomical phenomenon, or perhaps an energy barrier set up by the Creator of this Divine Realm.

Now he knew.

It was a physical object.

It was the trunk of this tree.

"This... what is this..." Morgan's legs went soft, and his body began to tremble.

He had seen Transcendent-class starry sky behemoths.

He had also seen projections of divine kingdoms.

The thing before him completely transcended his Realm of comprehension.

Transcendent-class?

In front of this tree, a Transcendent-class entity could not even compare to a single twig.

Wren stood beside Morgan, looking up at the canopy that blotted out the sun.

"This is the strongest structure within this Divine Realm," Wren's voice echoed along the edge of the empty basin.

"Do you still remember those dark red small trees on the wasteland?"

Morgan nodded mechanically.

"Do you remember those few roots we saw outside the Crystal Wall of the Divine Realm, which had pierced into the chaotic void currents to draw energy?"

Morgan nodded again, his face already as pale as paper.

"They are all a part of it," Wren delivered his final conclusion.

Tens of thousands of thunderclaps exploded in Morgan's mind.

He finally understood the truth of this Divine Realm.

The small trees in the Divine Realm, the root system underground, the tentacles in the void.

This tree's root system had long since spread to every single corner of the Divine Realm.

It was sucking in Death Qi, devouring corpses, and draining the Void Realm.

The entire Divine Realm was under its control.

"Have we... been in its stomach all along?" Morgan's voice carried a hint of crying.

He felt a wave of chill rush from the soles of his feet straight to his crown.

Their group of Starry Sky Wanderers had prided themselves as plunderers.

Tearing open the Time Light Cocoon, sneaking into this Divine Realm, trying to plunder its Origin.

And the result?

Every single move they made, all of their struggles, all of their despair—it was all under the watchful gaze of this tree.

Even their ability to sneak in might have been tacitly permitted by the other party.

The other party had deliberately not resisted, allowing their group of insects to crawl inside.

Why?

For amusement? To have some fun?

Their several thousand elite Wanderers were, in the other party's eyes, merely an insignificant extra meal...

Morgan broke down.

He fell to his knees on the dark purple soil.

He clutched his head with both hands, letting out a silent roar from his throat.

His lifelong pride and his desire for survival were crushed to pieces at this very moment.

Wren watched the broken Morgan in silence.

He did not speak to interrupt, nor did he step forward to help him up.

One or two days ago, when he had first sneaked his way here,

and looked up at this tree for the first time, his reaction had been no better than Morgan's.

In the face of absolute, mighty power, any semblance of sanity would appear laughable.

Wren gave Morgan a full ten minutes to process.

Until Morgan's roars gradually grew hoarse, and his emotions shifted from fear to numbness.

"At the beginning, when I learned the truth, I was just like you," Wren finally spoke, his voice surprisingly gentle.

Morgan raised his head, looking at Wren with hollow eyes.

"Later, I figured it out." Wren walked over to Morgan.

"What did you figure out?" Morgan laughed miserably. "Did you figure out how to die a bit more painlessly?"

"I figured out that no matter how strong this thing is, it is still just a structure," Wren's tone became firm.

Morgan was stunned.

"A structure?"

"Exactly." Wren pointed at the trunk that pierced into the clouds ahead. "Sense its aura carefully. Though massive, though terrifying, it has no Soul fluctuations whatsoever."

"The textbooks of the Human Federation, as well as the countless years of experience of our Wanderer race, all prove an ironclad rule."

"Structures within a Divine Realm cannot birth intelligence."

Wren analyzed logically.

"The more massive and higher-ranking a plant-type structure is, the more complex the internal Law structure within it becomes."

"Such a complex structure dooms it to only operate according to set rules."

"It will instinctively absorb energy, instinctively devour corpses, and instinctively take root in the Void Realm. But it will absolutely never think."

"It has no emotions, no consciousness. It cannot possibly have deliberately set a trap to lure us in, much less treat us as tools for amusement."

"Everything we have encountered is merely the defensive mechanism of this Divine Realm itself operating automatically."

Wren's words were like a shot of adrenaline, injected into Morgan's nearly depleted Soul.

The dead grayness in Morgan's eyes gradually faded, and a sliver of hope reignited.

That's right.

If this tree really possessed sentience, with its terrifying strength that Transcendent-class entities weren't even fit to compare to,

it would only need a single thought to crush all intruders into powder.

Why go to such great lengths to make them fight those monsters in the peripheral areas?

It had no sentience.

As long as it had no sentience, it was just a dead object.

A dead object meant there were loopholes to exploit.

Morgan slowly stood up from the ground.

He composed himself, suppressed the lingering fear in his heart, and asked a question he had wanted to ask all along.

"Captain, since you've already deduced that it doesn't have sentience, why did you bring me here?"

"Don't tell me you just brought me here to sightsee this tree."