Chapter 49 No, it is not like this. Things should not have turned out this way...

Ji Yaoguang had long since thoroughly witnessed and understood the power of the primal artifact. Therefore, the moment his fingers touched the heart, a massive phantom totem emerged behind him. Above the shadowed canopy, countless concentric circles formed by green and withered leaves rotated around the branches, sucking in and converting all spirituality from space, whether it originated from the living or the dead.

Almost simultaneously, all the other trees in the hall began to wither.

This was his dominion: spring was about growth, but reproduction, and all growth and reproduction, required a source, sustenance, and plunder.

The disturbance of the source, the pollution of the source, could also become the wellspring of growth.

This was his underlying confidence in daring to seal the primal artifact.

For such a long time, during the years before he met Ah Zhao, he had fed on the power of the source, using his own dominion and willpower as a seal to filter out the pollution within, preventing it from tainting this world.

Therefore, he could do it this time as well...

At that moment, the heart was already tightly clutched in his hand, pulsing faintly for a fraction of a second.

Simultaneously, every living creature present—regardless of whether they possessed a physical heart—felt a throb in their chest.

It was a shudder originating from the soul, as if some entity had awakened.

Pitch-black smoke spread instantly from his fingertips, staining the entire hall like the scene of a blazing fire filled with soot. The surrounding trees withered, and black, water-like smoke climbed upward from his wrists, crashing and fusing with the faint cyan light vibrating across his skin.

Just as Ji Yaoguang was about to withdraw his hand, a young, vibrant hand grabbed his wrist. The youth within the trees turned his head to gaze. He had already reverted to his original youthful and unbridled appearance, yet his gaze was clear and foolish, filled with confusion and incomprehension.

"This is my heart..." He exerted force in his wrists, intending to shove the heart back into his chest.

Ji Yaoguang was astonished to discover that, despite belonging merely to a witchcraft apprentice, the sheer power contained within that strength actually surpassed his own. Step by step, the heart was being pushed back into the youth's chest.

"This isn't your heart," Lin Zhao leaned in from the side. "You are Weisheng Wu, and this is the heart of the Wu God. Think carefully—if you shove it back in, you'll become the Wu God, and Weisheng Wu will cease to exist."

The youth merely dazed for a moment, a trace of confusion flashing in his eyes, before he said with resolute certainty, "That is my heart. It needs to be handed over to Siji; I cannot give it to you."

"Wake up." Lin Zhao grabbed the arm with which Ji Yaoguang was holding onto the heart. Smoke as dense as substance burned between his palms, transforming into a scorching power. It felt like drinking a bowl of hot soup when starving, prompting him to increase his suction strength. "Siji is already dead, and you are dead too. By the way, what God of Si were you again?"

The youth shook his head. "I don't know. I forgot. My heart must be given to Siji; that is the source."

Seeing that the youth was still somewhat communicative, Lin Zhao patted the old tree's hand. "Try letting go of his heart."

Ji Yaoguang was somewhat reluctant, his expression solemn. "Ah Zhao, this is very dangerous. Once the source is unchecked, its pollution will expand rapidly, and the entire Di Kingdom will become a land of bloody sacrifice..."

"But he's stronger than you, and you can't snatch it back from him right now anyway," Lin Zhao said, wrapping his arms around Ji Yaoguang's. "I absorbed some just now and feel like I can't take in any more for the moment. Putting it back should cause some changes."

He found that his ability still had a minor flaw: whenever he could drain something, he would drain it completely, regardless of whether his frail little quail-like body could handle it. He would always try to suck it dry in one breath first, utterly incapable of moderating himself between eating a single full meal and being constantly full.

Ji Yaoguang calmly replied, "What do you mean I can't snatch it? I just haven't exerted my full strength yet."

As his words fell, layers of totem tree patterns suddenly surfaced across his body, and even his fair brow flickered with arborescent markings.

Then, he pinched hard and pulled.

After that forceful pinch, the heart squeezed out countless streams of black water like an ink sac, yet the pull—remained utterly immovable. The youth still stood quietly there, not even the blood vessels on his wrists bulging, as if he hadn't exerted any strength at all.

Ji Yaoguang cast a sidelong glance at Lin Zhao.

Lin Zhao wore a half-mocking, half-amused expression.

"Siji, your foundation has been destroyed, you are dying," the youth said somewhat blankly. "No, you are not Siji. Why is a portion of Siji's dominion with you? Where is Siji? Xin, Xin! This is not according to the plan!"

His fingers abruptly tightened, snapping Ji Yaoguang's wrist straight off, and in the blink of an eye, he shoved the heart into his chest. Lin Zhao flared up in sudden anger, but was restrained by the newly regenerated right hand Ji Yaoguang quickly extended.

The youth clutched his chest, black smoke and black water intertwining around his body.

His spine was ripped open by snow-white vertebrae, and his ribs spread out from both sides like wings. Flesh and blood beneath the human skin grew and twisted, countless flesh tendrils rooting into the earth, while countless muscles spread and grew outward from the ground.

Lin Zhao had never witnessed such a spectacle before. In his astonishment, he directly unfurled a pair of wings and flew into the air. But coming to his senses upon seeing two bare wings resembling an oversized portion of Orleans grilled chicken wings, he decisively retracted them.

Tree roots clustered up from beneath Ji Yaoguang, precisely catching him.

"Old tree, what is the situation here? Has the boss entered phase two?" Lin Zhao hugged his arm, climbed up to a pleasant-looking branch behind him, and sat cross-legged.

"This is the secondary unsealing of the source," Ji Yaoguang said with a solemn expression. "Logically speaking, the source usually remains dormant. When it encounters living creatures, it undergoes its first unsealing; when it encounters a massive number of living creatures gaining spirituality, it undergoes a secondary unsealing, initiating a larger-scale bloody sacrifice."

"We didn't offer a massive number of living creatures, did we?" Lin Zhao was puzzled at first, then realization dawned on him. "That hand of yours definitely counts as a massive amount of spirituality."

Ji Yaoguang sighed softly, "Even a Heavenly Witch touching this primal artifact comes to no good end, yet an ordinary lesser witch has managed to acquire it now, instantaneously gaining strength surpassing my own. If word of this disappearance spreads out, I fear another storm of blood and slaughter will ensue."

"Tsk, old tree, you actually have the leisure to ponder this. You're quite unconcerned..." Lin Zhao jumped down from the branch and bumped his shoulder against Ji Yaoguang's. "How about it? Following your big brother has a bright future, right?"

Being able to restart life is just this awesome.

Ji Yaoguang reached out, wrapped an arm around Lin Zhao's neck, and pulled him tightly into his embrace. The sound of rushing wind rose behind them, and Lin Zhao felt a stinging pain across his scalp, as if it had been scraped against something while held down.

When Ji Yaoguang released his hold, the surrounding gray smoke had largely dissipated.

At that moment, they were no longer in a hall.

It was an open-air location. The sky bore no stars, but was instead hung with...

"What the fuck!" Lin Zhao was so frightened that he directly hugged Ji Yaoguang, nearly burrowing into his flesh. "What the hell is this creepy monstrosity!"

Suspended across the sky were ten colossal divine birds. They were already dead, twisted like a cluster of alien organisms. Only their barely recognizable heads and feathers allowed one to identify them as avian creatures. With terrifying giant pupils resembling stars, they gazed down at the two uninvited guests, quietly emitting a purple radiance.

The intensity of this pollution was a hundred times greater than that above the Di Kingdom or even the Hanhai Desert. Just by staying here, Lin Zhao had the eerie sensation of tasting a sugary dessert.

Ji Yaoguang managed to hold his ground, tightly embracing Ah Zhao with one arm while scanning the surrounding environment.

Those twenty giant pupils in the sky shifted along with their movements, staring fixedly at them as if they might swoop down at any moment and swallow them whole in a single bite.

This was a place of void. If there was anything distinctive about it, it was that the ground beneath their feet seemed entirely composed of flesh and blood.

The entire earth resembled the corpse of some colossal creature—specifically, a rotting corpse. From countless wound-like rivers, various streams of black water and gray smoke continuously bubbled up. Rotting and lifeless, the corpses of the purple birds in the sky blocked out almost the entirety of the visible horizon. The oppressive weight was heavy enough to make one breathless.

"What kind of hellish place is this?" Lin Zhao frowned in disgust. "It's even uglier than the Hanhai."

"This is the resting place of the Wu Gods. I wonder which one it is," Ji Yaoguang murmured, sensing the suppressive force originating from the blood source. "Mount Chatu has always hypothesized that such a place exists, and that it might be the source of the pollution. If we bring back some materials, we should be able to verify it."

"Putting it that way, the situation is a bit complicated. Were we pulled into this world, or was this world summoned to the Di Kingdom, covering the location where the Di Kingdom stood?" Lin Zhao asked with a headache. "The former would be fine—we'd just find a way out. But if it's the latter, it seems we've brought trouble to the Lord of the Di Kingdom once more."

"It's fine, they won't have time to come looking for trouble with you," Ji Yaoguang closed his eyes slightly to sense the surroundings. "My taproot cannot sense the earth of the Di Kingdom, only a tiny space. This child is currently acting like a nail, pinning a location of the Di Kingdom together with this world. As long as we slay him or extract the heart, we can cleave the worlds apart once more."

"Then we won't be trapped here, right?" Lin Zhao looked up at the corpses of the ten twisted giant birds in the sky, feeling as if bugs were crawling all over his body, unwilling to stay a single second longer.

"How would we know if we don't try? After all, I've never been to this kind of place before either," Ji Yaoguang said. "Actually, I've always wanted to find this place while in the Hanhai. I just didn't expect that as long as I found you, Ah Zhao, these places would naturally reveal themselves."

"What were you looking for a place like this for?" Lin Zhao asked curiously.

"I hoped that one day, after you transformed into the Great Sun, we could come here together to resolve all the pollution. That way, the world would be pure and clear..."

"You rotten tree! You actually wanted to scam me into northern Myanmar!"

"I was only thinking about it!" Although he had no idea what northern Myanmar was, he immediately clarified.

"You aren't even allowed to think about it! I have the final say on all these matters, you hear me?"

"Alright." Ji Yaoguang immediately changed the subject, pulling Ah Zhao back down to the side of the youth, who had already transformed into a puddle of bizarre, inhuman matter. Aside from his head, which remained intact, he had completely fused into a part of the earth beneath them. Even half of his head had sunk in, leaving only a single face still visible.

Lin Zhao couldn't help but sigh, "What a pitiful child. Not only did he run into this kind of mess, but he also encountered a troublesome father. Even if he restarts his life in the future, he won't be able to take the military examinations of the Witch Kingdom or enter Mount Chatu..."

As those words fell, a spark of clarity suddenly welled up within the youth's already murky pupils.

*No, it shouldn't be like this...*

*I haven't yet... haven't told the Sovereign that the Di Kingdom is in danger...*

He wanted to speak, but could no longer form words.

It seemed he was already dead.

Even his soul was about to merge with the Great One.

Then... so be it.

Seeing the old tree prepare to dig out the heart once more, Lin Zhao stepped forward to help close the youth's eyes.

Yet at that moment, the youth's eyes snapped wide open. From within the flesh and blood, a fleshless skeletal hand reached out and grabbed the little bird's toes with terrifying force.

In an instant, smoke billowed and heaven and earth trembled.

As if sensing something, within the surrounding darkness of the sky, the phantom of a terrifying giant hand was beginning to emerge.