Martial Peak

Yang Kai continued to converse with the heart of the Divine Tree, helping it to perfect its consciousness.

After repeating this process many times, Yang Kai began treating the Divine Tree as a real, sentient being. It had its own emotions and judgements now and couldn’t be considered just a towering tree any longer.

As a result of their interactions, the Divine Tree became closer and closer to Yang Kai, completely opening its heart to him without any reservations.

Its current consciousness was still on the level of an ignorant and naughty baby. Every time Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar came to visit, it would show great joy, often grabbing him and dragging around inside its trunk, as if taking him on a tour of its body.

Its thoughts right now were quite simple; in short, it was a white sheet, unstained by anything, fully expressing its emotions innocently, without the slightest deception.

It would be happy when Yang Kai came, and sad and reluctant when he left. Many times, even if it was in a state of deep sleep, its Spiritual Energy would reach out and tightly wrapped itself around Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar, refusing to let go.

This made Yang Kai very happy as well, such purity causing him to feel somewhat ashamed of himself.

As it playfully communicated with Yang Kai, the Divine Tree’s awareness also grew rapidly.

One day, when Yang Kai sent his Soul Avatar into the Divine Tree’s heart, a thought so incredible was transmitted to him, welcoming him. Soon after, the Divine Tree’s consciousness rushed over, hovered in front of Yang Kai, and hugged him intimately.

Yang Kai was dumbfounded by this sudden development and only tried to convey a message to the Divine Tree after quite some time.

He didn’t expect though that within a single breath, a response would be given to him. Although this thought was still somewhat unclear, at the very least, Yang Kai could figure out what the Divine Tree was trying to convey to him.

Yang Kai grinned happily. The consciousness of the Divine Tree had finally fully formed.

After such a long time feeding it with his Yang Liquid, the Divine Tree had successfully evolved into a sentient life form. Yang Kai had made great contributions to the birth of this life, and although it would have reached this point on its own, the time required would have undoubtedly been significantly longer.

A strong sense of accomplishment suddenly welled up in Yang Kai’s chest.

It was as if he was watching a child he had been taking care of finally stand up and take a stumbling step forward.

However, the Divine Tree still had much to learn.

Yang Kai immediately began sending his thoughts to the Divine Tree’s consciousness, teaching it how to better express its emotions and communicate properly with him. However, this little guy was too naughty, compared to studying these things, it seemed more interested in playing with Yang Kai, refusing to sit still and learn for any significant length of time.

After a long time chasing it around, Yang Kai took back his Soul Avatar from the Divine Tree and rubbed his somewhat sore forehead.

A moment later though, many branches suddenly curled towards Yang Kai and at the same time a message was passed to him in the form of a Spiritual Energy communication.

Yang Kai was stunned as he looked at the branches that were extended towards him, noticing that each of them had a golden fruit hanging from them.

“Are you giving these to me?” Yang Kai asked after thinking about it for a moment.

The branches trembled light in response, the Divine Tree’s way of nodding.

Yang Kai smiled and shook his head before replying, “I appreciate your intentions, but I can’t accept these fruits.”

He was still being monitored by the Sun Clan’s masters, if he was to accept these fruits now, it would only bring him trouble. Even though Yang Kai had constantly been drooling over these fruits filled with rich Yang Qi since the moment he laid eyes on them, he had never even tried to pick any of them.

But how could Yang Kai have known the Divine Tree would be so stubborn, continuously extending its branches towards him as if vowing to never give up unless he accepted its gift.

No matter how Yang Kai tried to persuade it, nothing worked, and in the end, the Divine Tree made the fruits fall from its branches before shoving them into his arms.

Yang Kai’s face immediately went black, unable to think up a way to explain away this situation.

As for the Divine Tree, like it had just accomplished something great, its branches swayed back and forth as if it was celebrating.

Yang Kai didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he stared at the seven ripe fruits he could neither keep nor discard in his arms. After thinking about it, Yang Kai decided to take just take what came, jumped down from the trunk, and called out to the nearby Sun Clan masters.

Immediately, several Sun Clan powerhouses who had been monitoring Yang Kai came over to see what the matter was, but upon seeing their precious fruits in the hands of this little human brat, they immediately became enraged.

“Boy, you dare to steal the fruit of the Divine Tree, you must be seeking death!” One of them roared as his bristled with anger, looking as if he would attack in the next moment.

Yang Kai simply turned to this man and coldly replied, “I didn’t steal them, they just fell off.”

“Bullshit, even if the Divine Tree’s fruit full ripens, if it is not picked, it can remain hanging for a hundred years without issue! Your ability to spout nonsense is truly awe inspiring you little bastard!”

“I told you I didn’t steal anything, if I really had stolen them, I would have eaten them already,” Yang Kai was too lazy to explain anything to them and simply tossed the fruits over to the nearby masters.

The few Sun Clan clansmen hastily caught these fruits, gloomy expressions filling their faces.

The man who spoke just now quickly came to his sense though and coldly snorted, “Don’t think that you can escape punishment for your crime. We will report what happened here to Leader, what your fate will be will be decided by him!”

Yang Kai simply spat disdainfully, not caring in the slightest.

At that moment though, a horrifying energy suddenly welled up and an aura of hostility filled the air. Before anyone could understand what was going on, numerous golden whips lashed out towards all of the Sun Clan masters.

When they noticed the approaching crisis, each of the Sun Clan’s masters’ expressions changed greatly and they hastily tried to dodge.

Unfortunately for them, these attacks were not only fast, they were incredibly numerous, so none of them were able to escape, each of them being struck multiple times before they could even comprehend what was happening.

*Pa pa pa…* A series of sharp impacts rang out and all the Sun Clan masters were violently thrown back, blood leaking from their wounds. Facing these rapid attacks, none of them was able to put up any kind of resistance.

One of the less powerful Sun Clan cultivators was directly turned into a bloody fog, not even his bones remaining.

Yang Kai was startled by this sudden development while An Ling’er hastily hid behind him, her tender body trembling as she stared at this gruesome scene in utter shock.

The Sun Clan masters who had just been flung through the air didn’t even have enough time to pick themselves up before a second barrage of golden whips descended upon them, and even though they could see these attacks approaching them, they still weren’t able to resist this indiscriminate bombardment.

*Pa pa pa pa…*

The lashing sounds rang out endlessly and every Sun Clan cultivator received no less than a hundred strikes to his body. In the blink of an eye, all five of the remaining masters had been beaten to death.

Yang Kai turned back and stared at the huge Divine Tree behind him with astonishment.

At that moment, there was not the slightest wind, yet all of the Divine Tree’s leaves rustled madly, it’s thick and dense branches swaying back and forth as if in a fit of rage.

From the crown of the Divine Tree, a golden radiance so dense it could be seen with the naked eye appeared and then condensed into long, thick whips.

The dead Sun Clan cultivators were struck once more by these golden whips.

Broken bones and pieces of flesh were scattered about as a rich bloody smell filled the air.

Yang Kai clearly felt the Divine Tree’s violent, near hysterical anger; apparently it had become enraged because of these people’s attitude towards Yang Kai.

Yang Kai was completely dumbfounded, never having expected such a development to occur.

He had only handed those fruits over to the Sun Clan thinking he could spare himself some trouble; after all, he was still not sure he could escape from this place, he didn’t even know where the exit was.

Although he knew better than anyone that the Divine Tree had gained sentience and was now a completely different existence than before, he hadn’t anticipated it would launch such a vicious and powerful attack simply because he had been treated poorly.

The Divine Tree’s attacks lacked any kind of rhyme or reason and could only be described as it randomly lashing out with its enormous stores of energy; however, that was still more than enough.

“Yang Kai…” An Ling’er stuttered, shivering quite noticeably as she clutched his clothes tightly, he beautiful eyes filled with confusion.

Upon hearing An Ling’er call out to him, Yang Kai came to his senses and quickly conveyed his thoughts to the Divine Tree, soothing it’s raging anger.

Receiving this comforting, the golden energy whips which hung from the Divine Tree’s canopy finally stopped their assault, picked up the fruits which had fallen to the ground, and delivered them back to Yang Kai.

“Why does it look like… it has its own consciousness?” An Ling’er’s thoughts were in a state of chaos as she stared at the Divine Tree behind her.

“Where should I even begin?” Yang Kai smiled bitterly.

In the time it took for this brief exchange between Yang Kai and An Ling’er, the Divine Tree’s recalled all its golden whips, plucked every ripe fruit on its body, and angrily shoved them towards Yang Kai.

There were sixty or seventy in all, each one containing an unimaginable amount of Yang Attribute energy.

Yang Kai took a deep breath before letting out a long sigh, feeling the situation was now beyond redemption.

The Divine Tree had acted purely out of goodwill towards Yang Kai just now and had not even hesitated to kill several people just to help him.

However, this violent attack had also given Yang Kai a big pleasant surprise. The Sun Clan cultivators who had been nearby just now were all Transcendents, but not one of them had been able to resist the indiscriminate bombardment of the Divine Tree.

His eyes flashing a cold, sharp light, Yang Kai’s mouth gradually curled into a grin.

This was, perhaps, an excellent chance!

“I’m going to destroy the seals binding you; after that, defend yourself!” Yang Kai quickly said to An Ling’er, swiftly sending his True Qi and Divine Sense into her body.

The seals in An Ling’er’s body were nothing in Yang Kai’s eyes, but he had not previously undone them to avoid drawing any unwanted attention. But now that the situation had developed to this point, there was no point in trying to remain low key anymore.

In the blink of an eye, An Ling’er felt that her long stagnant True Qi once again began to flow and the barrier around her Knowledge Sea shatter, completely restoring her freedom.

The next moment, from all directions, countless figures flew over. The rampage of the Divine Tree just now had obviously alarmed the Sun Clan, and they were now rushing over in order to investigate.

As soon as they arrived and saw the broken and bloodied bodies lying on the ground, the Sun Clan masters became infuriated. None of them bothered even asking what had happened and simply directed their murderous intent towards Yang Kai, their True Qi subsequently welling up in preparation to attack.

Seeing this, Yang Kai simply let out a light chuckled before storing all the Divine Tree’s fruits into the Black Book space and then releasing a powerful pulse of Spiritual Energy, which hid an innumerable number of Soul Devouring Insects in it.