Chapter 3276: The Mother’s Embrace

Far behind the battlefield, the Emperor of the Darkhan Dynasty slammed his mallets onto the Thunder God Drum.

ROAR!

In response, a thunderous sound wave tore through the sky as Little Shrubby’s roar echoed.

The drum’s surface flared with violet light, releasing a blinding surge of Dao energy; pure Dao Traces and Dao Insights, refined and condensed over countless years of the Emperor’s cultivation.

The divine sound rippled outward and merged with the pillar of lightning that Little Shrubby had created.

The lightning didn’t explode, instead it compressed. The raw Dao power was forced into the storm, funneling its energy directly into Little Shrubby’s body.

ROAR!

Electric arcs enveloped the beast as his body grew, swelling with pure Lightning Dao energy until he towered fifteen meters high. His fur became pure lightning, his claws sharp streaks of living thunder.

And above him appeared the spectral form of the Thunderbolt Cheetah bloodline, roaring with feral pride.

The lightning beast crouched low. The air warped around him as he sprinted, the world breaking under his speed.

KABOOM!!!

The Lightning Dao energy detonated against the barrier of Baleful Energy. The impact obliterated the defensive wall entirely. Runes, formations, and channels that powered the barrier were consumed by lightning, disintegrating faster than the eye could track.

"AAAAAAHHHH!" The High Priestess shrieked as blood burst from her eyes, nose, and ears.

The backlash of the collapsing formation ravaged her mind and body.

Even the crippled Ancestor saw what had happened and screamed in despair.

"NOOOOOOO!"

His Titan form began to crumble. Control was slipping from him, his brain destroyed, his link to the Treant body severed. It was only due to his Soul being intact that he was able to stay consicous.

"They did it!" the Grand Elder exclaimed.

"No time to celebrate!" The Patriarch’s voice cut through the chaos.

He unleashed another sword slash, a wave of power so wide it cut through nearly all of the remaining Ephemera Sect members, leaving only a dozen or so alive.

The High Priestess barely blocked it with her skull staff, but the backlash shattered her bones.

THUD.

She collapsed, coughing blood onto the cracked ritual ground.

"Amitabha," the Abbot said solemnly, stepping forward. "It is time to end this farce." The image of the wrathful Acala loomed behind him, blazing with divine fury.

But before his burning palm could fall—

TREMBLE!

The entire Marsh quaked!

"What?" the Patriarch muttered, sensing something vast beneath them.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

The ground split apart.

From the fissures, millions of roots erupted; black, veined, and pulsating with dark crimson light.

"What is this?!" the Emperor shouted. "Wasn’t it supposed to stop?"

"AHAHAHA!" The broken Ancestor laughed with manic glee. "You’re all finished! Mother has awoken!"

At his cry, the surviving Ephemera cultists smiled through their bloodied faces.

"Mother... take us into your embrace!" the High Priestess whispered, a faint smile appearing on her face.

The roots answered.

They snaked around her and the others, wrapping their bodies like serpents. Flesh and bone crumbled to dust, absorbed into the roots that glowed with a vile black-violet luster.

Even the Abbot was forced to retreat, his Wisdom Flames burning furiously against the encroaching tendrils.

"What is this abomination?" Elder Ice Drake growled, his breath freezing dozens of roots but unable to halt their spread.

Across the battlefield, the army began to panic. The Shades and Hollows that had once fought for the Ephemera Sect suddenly stopped attacking. Instead, they turned toward the fissure, bowing as if in reverence.

Daoist Chu, still controlling the defensive array, gaped. "They’re not attacking us... They’re worshiping something!"

A new aura filled the air... ancient, oppressive, and unmistakable.

Cattaleya felt her blood run cold. "No... it can’t be... This aura!" she gasped. "Celestial! It’s the power of a Celestial!"

The Grand Elder’s expression darkened. "Were we too late?"

"Everyone fall back!" the Patriarch commanded. "Retreat! NOW!"

They retreated rapidly, rising into the sky to escape the spreading corruption. Now that the baleful energy was being absorbed, they could freely move.

The roots devoured everything; the Shades, the Hollows, even the Baleful Energy that had filled the air. It was as though the world itself was being drained. Even a few unfortunate cultivators in the army were caught in it and were devoured whole.

Then, from the center of the fissure, a colossal root burst upward. It was five hundred meters wide, covered in pulsating veins that leaked crimson sap. More followed, rising in spirals until they tore open the land completely.

BOOM! BOOM!

The world shook as the true horror emerged.

A tree rose from the abyss, so vast that its ascent blotted out the light of the heavens. Its bark was a fusion of deep crimson and slick black, carved with writhing runes that glowed like open wounds. The scent that emanated from it was fetid and wrong, as if decay itself had taken root in the air.

Its crown was a forest of nightmare leaves; crimson and violet, each one shaped like a human tongue or an eye that blinked and wept blood. From the branches hung spectral figures that twitched and screamed silently, their translucent faces distorted in eternal agony.

The trunk itself pulsed like living flesh, and faces emerged across its surface; some crying, some laughing, others singing in maddened joy.

Everywhere one looked, faces smiled in distorted rapture. Yet those smiles were not comforting; they were the smiles of despair that had forgotten what joy was.

The tree’s aura seeped into the ground and sky alike, warping reality. Clouds turned violet, and the marsh waters boiled with black mist. It was as if the marshland itself was dying just to feed its roots.

The sound of its awakening was a chorus of whispers and screams that echoed directly in the minds of all who heard it. Even Transcendents felt their qi seas tremble, their souls shaking under the weight of something that should not exist in the mortal realm.

By the time the horror fully revealed itself, its height reached the clouds... ten kilometers tall and over three kilometers wide.

Lin Mu stared at it in grim realization. His voice was low, heavy with disbelief and dread.

"This... this is the Ephemera Tree..."

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