DipNovel Chapter 39 Jie Ziyang
Chapter 39 Jie Ziyang
Wu Xie didn't even have time to think about why Lao Yang did this. Driven by his survival instinct, he rolled and crawled on the mat, running wildly toward the only way out!
The heatwave chased after them, and the wooden coffin crackled and popped under the intense heat. Faintly, chilling scratching and howling sounds could be heard coming from inside. The firelight illuminated the entire underground space as if it were daytime, and also revealed the outline of the towering bronze tree in front of them!
"My God..." Master Liang's legs went weak and he almost knelt down. Wu Xie was also too shocked to speak.
The bronze tree was so enormous that it exceeded the limits of human imagination. In the firelight, the patterns on its surface seemed to come alive, pulsating slightly like blood vessels.
They finally reached the open area beneath the bronze tree, where the temperature was slightly lower, but the air was thick with smoke and the stench of burning. Uncle Tai and the others, having survived the ordeal, collapsed to the ground, panting heavily, but their gazes towards Wu Xie and Lao Yang were even more hostile.
"That fire just now... was it your doing? Trying to leave us there?" Uncle Tai stared coldly at Lao Yang, slowly raising the muzzle of his gun.
Lao Yang's face turned pale, and he stammered as he tried to explain, "I...I didn't..."
"Master Tai!" Liang Shiye suddenly spoke up. He pushed up his glasses, his eyes flashing. "These two lads can't be kept. They know too much, and the journey has been strange. They're a burden to carry around. It would be better to..." He made a throat-slitting gesture.
Wu Xie felt a chill in his heart. He should have realized that Liang Shiye, this opportunist, would do anything to protect himself in a desperate situation.
Uncle Tai nodded and gestured for his men to step forward.
Just then—
"Hiss! Hiss!"
Two dark figures darted out from the shadows at the base of the bronze tree like ghosts, moving so fast that they left only afterimages!
There were two monsters, completely black with streamlined heads and sharp claws and teeth, that lunged straight at Uncle Tai's two henchmen.
"Ah—!!!" The scream abruptly stopped.
One of the minions was pounced on by the monster, its sharp claws tearing open his throat. Another was whipped away by the long tail like a steel whip, crashing into the bronze tree, the sound of bones shattering clearly audible.
All of this happened in the blink of an eye. Uncle Tai and Master Liang were so frightened that they scrambled to the side and disappeared into the darkness in an instant.
Wu Xie and Lao Yang were also stunned. They watched as the two monsters, after killing people, did not continue to attack them, but stood still. The eyeless head seemed to glance at them before chasing after Uncle Tai.
"What...what is that?!" Wu Xie's voice trembled.
"I...I don't know..." Lao Yang's face was ashen, "But...they don't seem to...want to kill us?"
Wu Xie didn't think so. In his opinion, the two monsters were only temporarily distracted by Uncle Tai and the others, and it was not a good place to stay for long!
"Quick, climb the tree!" Wu Xie gritted his teeth. "The only way out might be from up there!"
The two began to climb the massive bronze tree trunk with their bare hands. The surface of the trunk was cold and slippery, but fortunately, some raised patterns provided leverage.
As Wu Xie climbed, he suddenly felt the tree trunk vibrate slightly, as if something was running towards him.
"It's a monkey!" Lao Yang exclaimed.
A large group of masked monkeys approached them from the tree trunk. Wu Xie was very anxious and dodged while climbing upwards.
Just as a monkey slashed his arm and blood gushed out, the monkey froze, then collapsed motionless. Then, its mask miraculously fell off, and it ran away on its own!
"You...your blood..." Lao Yang's eyes widened.
Wu Xie was also stunned, then he remembered the Qilin Blood that Qin Yuan had given him in the Lu Palace. Could it be because of that?
Without time to think it through, they continued climbing upwards. The Gu monkey dared not approach any further, but the crisis was not over.
The higher Wu Xie climbed, the more he felt a strange dizziness. The scenery around him began to distort, and the patterns of the bronze tree swayed and rearranged before his eyes, as if they had come to life.
He heard many voices: his third uncle's instructions, fragments from his grandfather's notes, and even the strange experiences in the underwater tomb... all flooding his mind in a chaotic mess.
"No...something's not right..." He shook his head, trying to stay awake, but the more he tried, the more out of control his thoughts became. Now he was starting to picture all sorts of monsters: the Forbidden Woman, the zombie, the alien he had just seen... a Qilin, a Zhulong...
Lao Yang's condition was even worse. His face was flushed, his breathing was rapid, his eyes were sometimes clear and sometimes unfocused, and he was muttering words that no one could understand.
"Old Yang! Hang in there!" Wu Xie grabbed his arm.
Just then, a deafening roar came from below, shaking the entire bronze tree!
Wu Xie looked down in terror and saw an unimaginably huge shadow rising from the ground in the dark abyss—a giant serpent! No, it was more terrifying than a serpent; it seemed to have horns on its head, its body was as thick as the trunk of a bronze tree, and its entire body was covered with bluish-black scales that gleamed with a metallic sheen in the dim light.
Zhu Jiuyin!
It seemed to be awakened by the sea of fire and the smell of blood. Its huge head slowly rose, and its scarlet eyes locked onto the two tiny humans who were climbing.
"Quick...quick, get out of the way!" Lao Yang screamed.
Wu Xie looked around and despairingly discovered that they were stuck in the middle of the tree trunk, unable to go up or down. Just as Zhu Jiuyin opened its huge maw, preparing to suck them into its belly, Wu Xie glimpsed a small, inconspicuous recessed opening not far above and to the side where the tree trunk met the rock wall!
"Over there!" With his last bit of strength, he dragged the almost limp Lao Yang towards the hole!
The two crashed heavily into the cave, tumbling several meters before coming to a stop. The entrance wasn't large, but it was just big enough for them to squeeze through. Zhu Jiuyin's massive form slammed against the rock wall a few times, sending rubble flying, but ultimately, due to its enormous size, it couldn't squeeze in. With a final, unwilling roar, it slowly sank back into the abyss.
Having survived the ordeal, Wu Xie and Lao Yang collapsed inside the cave, panting heavily. The cave was pitch black, with only a faint glimmer of light coming in through the distant firelight at the entrance.
Wu Xie groped around, trying to find another way out. He took out a waterproof flashlight from his backpack, and the light illuminated the scene deep inside the cave.
Leaning against the rock wall sat a long-dried corpse, dressed in a jacket and jeans that were popular many years ago, with a backpack beside it.
Wu Xie approached and saw a wallet on the corpse's chest. Curious, he opened it and immediately saw the ID card inside.
Jie Ziyang!
Wu Xie felt as if his blood had frozen instantly. He stiffly turned his head, looking at "Lao Yang," who had just been fleeing alongside him and was now filled with shock and sorrow.
"Old Yang" slowly stood up, looked at the corpse, then at Wu Xie, and a very complex smile appeared on his face, a mixture of relief, sorrow and a hint of eeriness.
"Wu Xie," his voice no longer stuttered, "you still found out."
"I'm not Lao Yang, or rather, not entirely."
"The Bronze Tree possesses the ability to materialize. I am its strongest obsession, a phantom materialized by combining the power of the Bronze Tree."
"The real Lao Yang died three years ago, when he first came here."
The beam of the flashlight trembled; the innocent world was utterly overturned in that moment…
Just as Wu Xie was shocked to discover the truth in the cave, Qin Yuan's hand finally touched the surface of the translucent cocoon at a higher point on the bronze tree.
The texture wasn't as hard as he'd imagined; instead, it was a gel-like substance somewhere between a solid and a liquid, with a slight warmth, as if mimicking the body temperature of a living being. The instant his fingertips touched it, the multicolored core crystal within the entire cocoon suddenly burst forth with dazzling light.
[Warning! Core consciousness resistance detected! The energy core possesses a rudimentary intelligent defense mechanism!]
The system alarm blared in Qin Yuan's mind, and at the same time, a vast and powerful, yet chaotic and distorted, mental force surged into his mind along his arm!
"Well……"
Qin Yuan groaned, his vision instantly filled with countless fragmented and chaotic images.
—Under the vast starry sky, a colossal creation of indescribable form slowly sailed by, casting several streaks of light toward a blue planet. One of these streaks landed deep within the Qinling Mountains…
—The bronze tree is deeply rooted in the earth, its root system frantically absorbing geothermal energy, and the patterns on its surface light up one by one, forming a huge energy matrix...
Countless humans dressed in ancient sacrificial robes were driven to the foot of the tree. They knelt and offered sacrifices. Their fear, piety, despair... all these intense emotions were absorbed and transformed by the bronze tree, becoming the fuel that kept it running...
Time flew by, the rituals ceased, and the bronze tree gradually fell silent. But deep within its core, the vast fragments of absorbed consciousness, nurtured by the energy, surprisingly developed a chaotic self-awareness… It remembered its mission: to collect energy and await the "ultimate" summons from the main system. It also learned to utilize the remaining fragments of human consciousness to protect itself…
These fragments of information violently assaulted Qin Yuan's consciousness, attempting to assimilate and devour him, turning him into yet another puppet controlled by the core. Qin Yuan felt his mind being torn apart, with the wails and murmurs of countless people echoing in his ears.
"Get out!" Qin Yuan roared in his heart, his survival instinct as a top predator erupting from his bloodline. It was a spiritual quality completely different from the complex emotions of humans, a pure survival instinct.
Two wills clashed fiercely in his sea of consciousness! The core consciousness was chaotic and vast, relying on energy accumulated over thousands of years, while Qin Yuan's will was condensed and sharp, carrying a ferocious intent to destroy everything.
For a time, they were deadlocked!
But human spirit is ultimately limited, and just as Qin Yuan was beginning to feel exhausted, a turning point appeared!
"Roar!" A huge roar came from under the tree, as if something had happened.
The materialization of Zhujiuyin consumed a massive amount of energy stored in the Bronze Tree, especially the materialized rules of power contained within it. Qin Yuan keenly sensed that the chaotic stream of consciousness surging into his mind suddenly experienced a momentary stagnation and weakening!
"Now!"
His eyes flashed with fierce light. He was no longer just passively defending. Instead, he transformed all his mental power, along with the cold, devouring desire in his instincts, into an invisible dagger. He used the gap in the opponent's weakening power to stab fiercely into the deepest part of the core consciousness!
[Warning! Core defenses have been compromised! Contact depth has increased! Energy connection being established...]
Qin Yuan "saw" it: inside the cocoon, at the very center of the seven-colored crystal, there was an extremely tiny, blurry humanoid figure composed of pure light points. The figure was made up of countless fragments of consciousness and energy, its features indistinct, but one could vaguely discern a resemblance to Lao Yang's outline? No, not only that, but many other unfamiliar faces overlapped together.
This is the chaotic intelligence born from the Bronze Tree's energy core! It utilized the fragments of consciousness that escaped when the priests and accidental intruders died, and combined them into this distorted guardian consciousness!
At this moment, the chaotic intelligence was watching Qin Yuan's invading will with horror. It mobilized its remaining energy to try to fight back, but the consumption of Zhu Jiuyin, which Wu Xie had unintentionally manifested, made it somewhat powerless.
"No...don't...destroy..." The fragmented thoughts, a mixture of countless voices, came through, filled with fear and pleas.
Qin Yuan showed no pity. This thing was essentially a malformed programming error, a hidden danger left by the "Ultimate" system. He began to forcibly sever the connection between the core crystal and the overall energy network of the Bronze Tree.
A violent surge of energy raged through his body; had it not been for the system's assistance in stabilizing him, he would have been either burst apart or assimilated long ago. The remaining alien squad below, seemingly sensing the Queen's peril, let out frantic howls and attacked the puppets attempting to climb up with even greater ferocity, using their bodies to buy Qin Yuan time.
On the other side, inside the cave, the beam of a flashlight trembled as it illuminated Wu Xie and his companion.
"Materialization...illusion..." Wu Xie murmured, repeating the truth Lao Yang had just told him. His mind was a mess, yet many clues suddenly connected. Lao Yang's excessive enthusiasm after his release from prison, his unusual obsession with the Qinling Mountains trip, his strange behavior from time to time, and his illogical act of risking his life to light oil in an attempt to burn Uncle Tai and his group alive despite being in danger...
"Why...why did you lead me here?" Wu Xie's voice was hoarse, and his hand unconsciously reached for the dagger hidden at his waist, even though he knew it might be useless.
Lao Yang, or rather, this being formed from the mixture of Lao Yang's intense obsession and the energy of the Bronze Tree, revealed a bitter smile on his face.
"Because I need 'truth'," he said slowly, his voice no longer deliberately stuttering, but carrying a hollow echo. "I am merely a flawed product formed from his strongest thought before he died: 'Bring Wuxie here, get the treasure, heal Mom.' Then, mixed with other fragments of consciousness captured by this tree."
"I possess most of Lao Yang's memories and emotions, but I am not him. I cannot truly stray too far from the energy radiation range of this tree; I need an anchor point to help me exist stably, and even truly come back to life."
His gaze fell upon the enormous bronze tree outside the cave, his eyes filled with complex emotions: "The core power of this tree requires a specific 'key' or a strong will to be safely extracted. Lao Yang couldn't do it; he died too quickly. But you, Wu Xie, you are special. Your destiny, your unwavering commitment to 'truth,' dictates that you are the most suitable 'key.'"
Wu Xie felt a chill run down his spine. He realized that he had been manipulated by something unknown from beginning to end and used as a tool to achieve its goal.