Ninth In the World

Wailing screams could be heard after countless tree roots were cut off by Di Jiu. The tree net that formed above Di Jiu and Yu Jie suddenly began to collapse. Perhaps Di Jiu’s knife was too terrifying, because the tree roots that formed the net in an effort to locate and target Di Jiu and Yu Jie immediately shrank back. In the blink of an eye, countless severed tree roots were lying on the ground.

“Phew!” Yu Jie breathed a sigh of relief. She had not been able to calm down while there had been circles of tree roots above her head that could have killed her at any time. However, now that Di Jiu had cut the net down, her fear had lessened a lot.

“Wait for me here. I’ll go take a look.” After severing the tree root net, Di Jiu was far less worried. As long as he could stop the tree roots from passing by him, Yu Jie would be safe.

Di Jiu did not wait for her to answer. He just walked straight towards the Tiny Treant again.

The Tiny Treant must have known that Di Jiu was about to wage war against it. This time, Di Jiu had taken several steps, when the tree roots started shooting out at him like arrows.

The kitchen knife in his hand rolled up into a ball of saber flare that formed a saber wall. Anything that hit that saber wall would be torn up by Di Jiu. A mixture of red and green liquid splashed in the air as the Tiny Treant’s eyes turned red from pain. The Tiny Treant, which was angry with Di Jiu, shot out more tree root arrows violently with even greater strength.

Eventually, an arrow broke through Di Jiu’s knife wall and aimed straight at Yu Jie. The Tiny Treant believed that if it had not been for Yu Jie’s locator, it would not have provoked a person like Di Jiu and would have been free to keep sucking blood there.

Di Jiu had not expected that a tree root would break through his knife wall and try to kill Yu Jie. It was too late to retaliate with his knife, so he raised his hand and threw a fireball instead.

The arrow that had broken through his saber wall slowed down to avoid the knife wall. Di Jiu had thrown the fireball with all his strength, so it eventually caught up with the tree root.

Bang! Bang! There was a burst of pungent smell in the air as the tree root arrow instantly turned into a flame. Sounds of fire could be heard as it was burned.

“Ouch!” The Tiny Treant, whose tree root arrow had been burned by the flame, felt so much pain that its head was deformed.

Di Jiu suddenly realized that fireballs were more effective than the saber flare when it came to dealing with those tree roots. Although the saber flare could damage them, it was still not fatal. Di Jiu now knew that the fireballs posed a deadly threat to the roots.

As soon as he understood the purpose of the fireballs, Di Jiu started blasting them out one after the other. When the fireballs landed on the tree roots, the sound of burning intensified.

“Don’t do this! I admit defeat, I admit defeat!” a young voice screamed. All the tree root arrows were suddenly withdrawn, and the tree root vine that had been eager to attack shrank back quietly.

When the sneaky attacks of the tree roots were over, Di Jiu was able to approach the Tiny Treant easily.

The Tiny Treant was a foot tall at best, but at its feet were circles of tree roots entangled like a rattan nest.

“This is all my fault, my friend. I apologize. I would like to lead you out of here now,” the Tiny Treant said timidly, its eyes filled with worry and fear. If the young man in front of it were to drop a dozen fireballs now, then it would definitely die.

Its dao level was just not high enough, yet if it condensed its body, it could easily extinguish the flames, no matter how many fireballs this guy threw.

Friend? Di Jiu scanned the Tiny Treant with his eyes. It did not look like a friend to him.

Di Jiu did not speak at all. Instead, he created a huge fireball and let it hover above his palm.

“Please let me live, my friend. Practising was really difficult. Please show some mercy…” When it realized that Di Jiu was about to throw a big fireball at it, the Tiny Treant panicked.

Di Jiu sneered, “Practising was really difficult? How many innocent lives have you taken here? Do you think practising was easy for them? You might as well die…”

Di Jiu lifted the fireball up. It looked like it was about to go down soon.

“No, I’ll tell you the secret way out…” The Tiny Treant did not know how to make Di Jiu stop, so all it could do was bargain about telling him the secret that everyone that entered that place wanted to know: the way out.

Given Di Jiu’s speed, he could have already smashed the fireball if he wanted to. Why would he wait until now? When the Tiny Treant started pleading with him, he stopped the fireball. “The secret way out? Given my strength, do you really think I need you to tell me that?”

Di Jiu was bragging. Unless the Tiny Treant told him, he’d really have no idea how to get out. However, he could see that the Tiny Treant was not very intelligent and could not tell if he was telling the truth or not.

“No, no, there’s a confinement array here that makes it hard to get out. I inherited this array from the retreat expert, that’s why…”

Di Jiu snorted and interrupted the Tiny Treant. “You liar. Who are you trying to fool? A small tree root like you would never get the inheritance of the retreat expert.”

“I’m not lying to you. I used to be the essence of this giant tree. Vitality essences in time attain a hint of spirituality. The expert hollowed out my body and tried to break through the realm at the deepest point of this tree root. Unfortunately, he broke through the realm too fast and killed himself. That anxious bastard actually caught me and swallowed me…”

Di Jiu found this funny. The expert trying to break through the realm must have chosen to retreat there to target the essence of the tree spirit. If he’d faced a problem while breaking through the realm, it would have been strange if he had not swallowed the essence of the tree spirit.

The Tiny Treant slowly added, “The bastard wanted to refine me, but he did not have the endurance to do so. Instead, I got a lot of his memories. In the end, he died and I survived.”

Di Jiu knew that the Tiny Treant was like the tree spirit of the big tree on the football field. Tree spirit essence was very difficult to refine, so he did not expect anyone to be able to do this. As a result of this failed refinement, the tree spirit had gained a lot of self-cultivation knowledge and been refined into a Tiny Treant. Maybe after a while the Tiny Treant would actually be able to leave.

“So what did you learn?” Di Jiu asked casually.

The Tiny Treant sneaked a peek at Di Jiu’s expressionless face before it said timidly, “I know all about this array formation. I obtained it from the expert’s consciousness…”

Di Jiu frowned. “I am not interested in this kind of thing.”

“My friend, an array formation is something every self-cultivating individual must master. It is one of the most important techniques. If you knew about it, you would not be trapped here now.” When it heard that Di Jiu was not interested, the Tiny Treant raised its voice anxiously.

Di Jiu snorted. “In that case, let me take a look at it and see if it has any value.”

As soon as he’d heard the words ‘array formation’, he had gotten very excited. Compared to alchemy, blacksmithing and refining talismans, he was more keen on learning about array formation.

He had unfortunately not gotten such a chance so far, so when he found out that the Tiny Treant knew all about array formation, he was over the moon. The Tiny Treant was not intelligent, so he could hide from it the fact that he actually wanted to learn.

When the Tiny Treant saw Di Jiu’s lack of interest, it added hurriedly, “I arranged the confinement array outside. Isn’t it amazing?”

“How is that amazing? I came here to teach you a lesson and I subdued you successfully. What else have you got?” Di Jiu yelled.

“I also know all about tree root arrows…” The Tiny Treant’s voice was a little weak, as it was obvious that the damage its tree root arrows had caused on Di Jiu was almost zero.

“Garbage!” Sure enough, Di Jiu dismissed this idea immediately and deliberately raised the fireball again.

“I can tell you about the tree root net…” The Tiny Treant answered quickly in a trembling voice.

“Garbage!” The fireball rose again, looking ready to fall.

“I have something from that self-cultivating expert…”

“Garbage… Wait, that’s actually not garbage. Hurry up and show it to me!” Di Jiu retracted the rising fireball quickly.

Relieved, the Tiny Treant used a tree root to hand him a jade slip.

Di Jiu seized the jade slip and browsed through it with his mental strength. Although he was inwardly happy, he said slyly, “Are you giving me a useless jade slip? Where are all the spirit stones, medicinal pills, and dharma treasures?”

As soon as he said that, Di Jiu suddenly seemed to think of something very important. “Is there perhaps a storage ring?” he asked loudly.

When it heard his words, the Tiny Treant got scared and said quickly, “There is not…”

Di Jiu smiled. “Are you trying to deceive me? How could anyone retreat here without a storage ring?”

The fireball in his hand rose again, its flame becoming even more intense.

“I really don’t have a ring. All I have is this jade slip. He might have thrown it out…” The Tiny Treant’s voice trembled as it looked at Di Jiu’s fireball fearfully.

Its fear of being burned to death was as strong as Yu Jie’s fear of having her blood drained.

Di Jiu frowned. He believed that the Tiny Treant was not lying. It had indeed only acquired a partial array formation.

“Where is the man’s corpse? Take me there.” As he thought about the Tiny Treant’s intelligence, Di Jiu wondered whether it would even have been able to find a storage ring.

“Yes, sir…” The Tiny Treant quickly pointed to a large pit in the distance and added, “It’s over there.”

Di Jiu, who had seen that place, knew that it was full of bones. As he was about to go take a look, he suddenly stopped in his tracks. “No. I’m worried that if I leave you alone, you will run away. I should just burn you first.”