Xie Zhaolin stared in shock as the flower sea that had been rooted firmly in the ground began to writhe violently.
A deep rumble shook the earth. Soil churned, and countless thick gray-brown roots burst out of the ground. They weren't just attacking and binding tools anymore. They turned into endless "legs" that lifted the entire flower sea and drove it forward!
The roots surged like mad, hoisting up that gorgeous yet sinister sea of blossoms and trampling over the earth in crazed pursuit of her!
The sight was too bizarre, too horrifying!
Something that should've been a plant was now chasing her without end!
Her scalp went numb, and alarm bells rang in her mind. Without thinking, she whirled around and sprinted desperately toward the depths of the jungle, away from the flower sea's direction!
"What the hell is this thing?!"
Her thoughts roared with turmoil.
Whether it was the detailed records she'd gotten from the Tianxing Auction House, or her memories of roaming the Demon Realm in her previous life and reading countless tomes, nowhere had it ever been written that a Bewitching Beast Yam could move its entire body, let alone display such a strong, relentless will to attack and chase!
This had completely shattered common sense!
Her five beast souls were clearly frightened too. Even though they were souls, they felt instinctive fear toward such an enormous and unknown horror. With a series of uneasy, sharp cries, they vanished in streaks of light and shot back into her spirit beast pouch at her command.
If not for the fact that flying too high over the Endless Beast Plains would immediately make her a target for even worse horrors, she would've ridden Xue Xiao's soul and escaped skyward without hesitation!
Now she could only rely on her legs and her movement technique!
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Her figure flickered through the forest at blistering speed, her movement art pushed to the absolute limit. Residual shadows trailed behind her, her speed terrifying. But the booming rumble at her back only grew louder, closing in fast!
She'd hoped the towering trees would block the flower sea's path, thinking those massive trunks that took several people to encircle might at least slow or stop it. The next scene made her blood run cold.
The flower sea didn't slow at all. Its foremost roots slammed into the giant trees with unstoppable force!
Crack! Crack!
The deafening sound of wood snapping filled the air. Those ancient trees that had stood for who knew how many centuries were smashed aside like twigs, shoved down and flattened beneath the violent charge of the roots!
Where it passed, chaos followed. The dense forest was ripped apart, a wide path bulldozed straight through the jungle!
The distance between them shrank at a terrifying rate.
That sweet fragrance was already wrapping around her again!
She could feel the crushing oppression and ground-quaking force bearing down right behind her!
Seeing the flower sea so unstoppable that even ancient trees couldn't hinder it, she clenched her teeth and abruptly changed direction. She stopped relying on terrain to block the monster and instead bolted toward a location marked on her map—the lair of a Golden Core realm beast, the Earthsplitting Bear!
Draw the disaster east!
It was the only way she could think of to stall the flower sea's pursuit. If she could lead it to the Earthsplitting Bear, maybe its ferocity could clash with this bizarre plant and buy her some chaos. But as she neared that region, a roar filled with terror thundered from the bear's lair!
A hulking shadow covered in earthy yellow fur exploded out, smashing trees apart as it fled headlong away from the flower sea!
It didn't even glance back at its den. It abandoned its cubs without hesitation!
The Golden Core Earthsplitting Bear had merely sensed the flower sea's aura from afar, and it fled in sheer panic!
Her heart plunged to the bottom. Even a Golden Core beast ran at the mere presence of this thing?! The terror of this monster was far beyond what she'd imagined!
Sure, she had Escape Talismans that could get her out instantly, but every use meant one less, and this wasn't quite desperation yet. She didn't want to burn them if she could avoid it. Just as her mind reeled, a surge of spiritual power and faint voices echoed from ahead!
"Senior Brother, look! Something's wrong over there!" a woman's voice shouted.
"What's that sound?!" a man's voice followed, edged with confusion.
Her eyes flicked toward the noise. A team of five or six cultivators emerged from behind a cluster of giant ferns.
Their robes matched, clearly disciples of a small sect. Most were at mid to late Foundation Establishment, with the middle-aged man at their head exuding a half-step Core aura. They too had been startled by the earth-shaking booms. They turned warily toward her direction, just in time to see her sprinting straight toward them.
The leader barked harshly, "Stop! Who's there?!"
The rest moved instantly, weapons flashing as they tried to block her approach.
But she had no time to waste on them. Her speed never faltered as she veered past their flank in a blur, the wind of her passing whipping their robes violently.
"You—!" The half-step Golden Core cultivator froze, then roared with anger, about to order his men to attack this reckless stranger who dared ignore them. The words stuck in his throat.
All of them went rigid, eyes bulging wide as they saw the nightmare closing in behind her. Brilliant blossoms blotted out the sky. Endless writhing roots swept forward in a flood!
That suffocatingly sweet fragrance rolled over them first.
"Urgh…"
"What is that…"
The weaker disciples' eyes glazed over instantly, faces twisting into eerie, intoxicated smiles. Their weapons slipped from nerveless hands as they lost all resistance.
Even the half-step Golden Core cultivator and two late Foundation juniors only held on a breath longer before the fragrance invaded their minds too. They stiffened in place, their wills stolen.
The next second, countless roots surged forward, wrapping the entire squad in an instant. Wet, muffled sounds echoed from within the blossoms. The flower sea was devouring them alive. The team vanished almost immediately, swallowed whole. But their sacrifice wasn't meaningless—it stalled the flower sea's advance for the briefest instant. Distracted by this easy feast, its pursuit slowed just slightly.
She caught it instantly!
Their destruction stirred no ripple in her heart, no guilt at all. The only value they held was in using their deaths to buy her the sliver of time she needed. She accelerated again, pulling ahead a little more!
The law of this world was simple: the weak were meat, the strong survived. That truth had long since etched itself into her bones. To her, everything in existence could be split in two—what she could use, and what she couldn't.
Those cultivators were the former. They became stepping stones to delay death. That was their fate, their worth. If she'd hesitated, if she'd wavered because of some so-called "Dao," she'd be the one being devoured alive right now.
What did other people's lives have to do with her?
Her life was the heaviest, the only thing worth protecting at any cost!
For that, sacrificing strangers, painting the land in blood, paving the road with bones—she wouldn't blink.
Only by being ruthless could one live long.
At this moment, she stopped hoping to draw the disaster onto others. Instead, she stretched her divine sense to its limit, frantically scouring for any sign of spiritual power nearby.
Other cultivators, beasts, even natural restrictions full of danger—
Anything that might become an obstacle for the flower sea, she would throw herself toward it!