Ninth In the World

Di Jiu observed the tree stump for a few minutes and made sure there was no problem before he carefully crossed over to it.

When his foot landed on the dead bark residue, a crunching sound was heard. Di Jiu deliberately stepped on it a few times. The ground underneath was very sturdy, so there were no abnormalities. Then, he chanced another step forward and stepped on the roots of the tree with his feet.

Something was not right. As soon as Di Jiu stepped on the roots of the tree, he felt that something was wrong. He had not heard a sound ever since he had approached it, and the surroundings were deadly silent.

Although there were sounds of birds and monster roars everywhere on the Fairy Planet, he could not hear a thing. This was obviously not normal.

Di Jiu immediately tried to retreat, but realized that he could not. His surroundings were a blurry gray color. How could such a setting even exist? Even Di Jiu’s mental strength could not detect anything outside.

Di Jiu’s heart sank as he realized that he had entered a trap array. He used six tactics against the trap array, but none worked.

The deeper one got into such a situation, the calmer one had to remain. Di Jiu stood in the same spot and thought about the direction he had come from before he took a step back.

He was unfamiliar with the array path, so he decided to take a step back towards the front of the tree roots, where he had stood previously. However, even after he took that step, he did not end up standing before the roots of the tree. His surroundings were still blurry and gray.

Di Jiu reached out, pulled the kitchen knife from his waist, and held it in his hand. He did not step on the knife to fly away. This was a Dharma Array, which meant that if he dared fly on the knife, he would most likely end up in a worse predicament.

Di Jiu used the Quintessential Essence gathered on the kitchen knife to slash down.

The white light that came out of the knife seemed extraordinarily clear in that blurry gray space. Boom! A loud sound was heard before Di Jiu felt the ground under his feet vanish and he suddenly lost all support.

Although he tried to condense his Quintessential Essence frantically, he realized that it could not be condensed. Before he could take out the kitchen knife, his feet had landed on the ground.

Crack! A sound was heard as he broke one of his legs.

Di Jiu grabbed a pill and swallowed it without hesitation. Then, he hit his broken leg several times.

Given his cultivation level, he should not have broken his leg by falling from such a height, yet he had. It seemed like that place had predetermined how strong a fall would have to be in order to break his leg bones.

Fortunately, Di Jiu was a top medical master, so he’d had a high-quality healing pill with him.

After dozens of consecutive hits, his broken leg recovered quickly. The pill was turned into a liquid medicine that, driven by Di Jiu’s Qi Circulation, quickly moisturized his leg bone.

Pretty soon, Di Jiu could already stand up slowly. However, he did not, as the location was too suspicious and his leg was still very fragile.

In the short while it had taken him to heal himself, his mental strength had penetrated his surroundings, making him feel immense relief. As Di Jiu’s mental strength swept around and assessed the situation, he took a deep breath.

He was surrounded by various tree roots that had trapped him inside a limited space. Di Jiu could not understand how he had wound up in that space, as there was no entrance around.

That problem aside, in the middle of those tree roots were also countless white bones, including both animal and human bones…

Di Jiu’s mental strength was quickly directed to someone calling for help. He knew that person. It was tutor Yu Jie!

Yu Jie’s clothes had been torn into cloth straps, revealing many parts of her body.

Although she had originally been a beautiful woman that caught most people’s attention, Di Jiu had always felt indifferent towards her. He had not found Yu Jie attractive or seductive.

A tree root was now piercing Yu Jie’s waist as she hung amidst that tree root web. Her face was terribly pale, and her hands and feet were still twitching slightly. Di Jiu, who had not seen Yu Jie in more than a month, thought that she looked as thin as a bamboo pole.

The reason he had been able to see her distress signal was because Yu Jie was holding onto her locator. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed to be in a coma. However, if she had been able to ask for help, then she had to be occasionally awake.

When Di Jiu’s mental strength landed on the tree root piercing Yu Jie, he soon understood what was going on.

His mental strength saw the tree root sucking Yu Jie’s blood clear as a day. Although the process was very slow, the blood was penetrating the roots gradually.

Di Jiu felt that his leg bone had healed well enough for him to walk. He immediately stood up as his Quintessential Essence condensed into the kitchen knife in his hand.

When he did, Yu Jie opened her eyes. As soon as she saw him, her expression became desperate. Perhaps she had lost too much blood, but she had not expected Di Jiu to show up.

She really wanted to speak to him, but she could not utter a word.

Before Di Jiu could take a step forward to destroy the tree root piercing her body, multiple tree roots extended towards him. One of them headed for his abdomen. It seemed like the root wanted Di Jiu to suffer the same fate as Yu Jie. It wanted to pierce his body and hang him up.

Di Jiu threw the kitchen knife in his hand furiously. A screaming whistle could be heard as the knife flew by fiercely. Its powerful killing intent seemed to declare that the knife would destroy anything that stood in its path.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Several sounds were heard as the tree roots blocking Di Jiu’s way were cut off. Di Jiu could clearly see blood seeping out of the roots he had severed. He even heard a subtle groaning sound.

Experiencing Di Jiu’s powers made the rest of the tree roots retreat. Di Jiu leapt into the air and struck with his kitchen knife again before he landed on the ground.

The Saber Qi struck with a devastating whirlpool, but the surrounding tree roots seemed to guess Di Jiu’s intentions. About eight tree roots attempted to restrain him as he executed this move, but the huge whirlpool that arose from the Saber Qi destroyed them. In the end, the knife landed on the defenceless tree root piercing Yu Jie.

Di Jiu had used the Di Clan’s third saber move called the Whirlpool Saber.

“Ah!” Di Jiu, who could hear more clearly this time, knew that the voice that cried out did not belong to Yu Jie.

He immediately destroyed the tree root and caught Yu Jie as she fell from the air.

Yu Jie, who was in Di Jiu’s arms, seemed to have barely any flesh left. Her leg bones were also broken. The fractures in Yu Jie’s leg bones were worse than Di Jiu’s, and both her legs were broken. Her blood had also been drained for a long period of time, which made it very difficult for her to recover fast.

Although Yu Jie had watched Di Jiu strike with his knife, when she saw several tree roots head his way, the despair that filled her heart made her faint again.

Di Jiu casually took out a pill and stuffed it into Yu Jie’s mouth while he paid attention to their surroundings. He had destroyed roughly a dozen tree roots, so the rest of the roots, which seemed to have realized the extent of his powers, did not attempt to block his path again.

Di Jiu’s leg had just recovered, and the tree roots he had just cut off were only a few of many, so if they did not keep bothering him, he did not intend to attack them.

As his mental strength reached out, he saw a Tiny Treant sitting in the midst of the tree roots.

The dense sea of tree roots seemed to stretch out from the body of the Tiny Treant. Despite the casual sweep of Di Jiu’s mental strength, he could feel the rich vitality within the Tiny Treant.

He did not know what kind of creature the Tiny Treant was, but he did know that it drew blood from humans and monsters in order to strengthen its vitality. Di Jiu was unable to find his way out of the Dharma Array, but he did not know if this had anything to do with the Tiny Treant.

After a lot of consideration, Di Jiu decided to kill the Tiny Treant. Despite its rich vitality, it had almost killed him, so Di Jiu would not let the matter rest. This had happened because he had attained the sixth-stage Qi Refinement realm. If he had still been at the fourth-stage Qi Refinement realm, would he have been able to destroy so many tree roots with one slash?

If he had not posed a threat to the Tiny Treant, then he would have faced the same fate as Yu Jie. If he had not been a medical master, it would have also been difficult for him to cause any damage to the tree roots after breaking his leg.

He would have had to wait until his bones had fully recovered before he could fight them.

Di Jiu’s pill was very effective. After a short period of time, Yu Jie opened her eyes. When she saw Di Jiu sitting next to her, she asked in surprise, “Di Jiu, did you save me?”

“Do you see any other people around?” Di Jiu, who recalled that Yu Jie had once called him trash, was slightly offended. If he knew that she was such a mean woman, he might not have come over.

“I didn’t expect you to be so strong. I am sorry. I thought you were a guy who relied on his relations. That’s why I discriminated against you.” Yu Jie felt really grateful for Di Jiu’s help.

She had been waiting for death alone and watching her own blood drain slowly out of her ever since her body had been pierced by a tree root. Loneliness and fear was simply not something ordinary people could bear. She was an ordinary person after all.

“Forget it. I do not hold grudges.” Di Jiu waved his hand. He was currently thinking about ways to kill the Tiny Treant. If he and Yu Jie were to move, would the tree roots around them suddenly attack them again?

The main issue was that Yu Jie would be a burden. Her legs were broken, so she could not walk yet.