Reincarnated as a Ginkgo Tree: I Create an Eternal Divine Kingdom - Chapter 128

“Mist Sovereign.”

A voice, like thunder, rang out, “I have observed you for months and have discovered that your true form is a ginkgo tree, unable to leave the Misty Forbidden Zone. Though you possess extraordinary talents, in this era of great contention, your immobility means you will eventually be left behind. However, before you lies a path that can allow you to keep pace with the times.”

“Oh?”

The voice from within the mist replied. This voice had a marked difference from the one in the clouds. The clouded voice was domineering, while this one conveyed a sense of calm. The former was like thunder, while the latter resembled the deep sea.

At this moment, Su Mu understood why this dragon had come to attack him. The dragon had been observing him and assumed it had seen through his limitations, believing that Su Mu could not move and therefore could be easily taken advantage of.

This might have been true when Su Mu was at the fourth tier. However, Su Mu was now at the fifth tier.

“Surrender to me,” said the thunderous voice. “Offer everything you have to me, and I will share with you three-tenths of the opportunities I gain.”

His response was met with a few moments of silence.

Suddenly, the mist in the void roiled violently. A massive white dragon, tens of thousands of feet long, emerged from the mist, as if two dragons were now facing off against each other.

At the same time, Su Yao’s aura suddenly surged!

Originally at the peak of the third tier, she inexplicably advanced to the peak of the fourth tier. Her eyes, once cold and aloof, now transformed into a deep, tranquil gaze like the depths of the ocean.

With a flash, Su Yao leaped onto the back of the mist dragon and charged toward the Kunlun Plateau. Grasping her Qingzhou Sword with both hands, she unleashed a slash.

Endless sword energy erupted.

This was the seventh-tier Sword Mastery.

The sword energy instantly transformed into a vast river of swords, pouring down upon the clouds over the Kunlun Plateau. The clouds were cleaved open by the sword river, revealing the true landscape to the beings of the Misty Forbidden Zone.

Cascading down steep cliffs, towering into the clouds, was a waterfall 30,000 feet high, like a starry river descending from the heavens. Below the waterfall stood an 8,000-foot-tall mountain, around which coiled a massive creature.

This creature had the body of a fish and the tail of a snake, resembling a giant lizard with golden scales and four clawed feet.

A dragon.

This was clearly a golden dragon.

The golden dragon was about 1,300 feet long, and its aura was somewhat fluctuating. At first glance, it seemed to be at the peak of the fourth tier, but upon closer inspection, it felt like it was at the fifth tier!

Upon closer examination, the beings of the Misty Forbidden Zone noticed a deep gash across the golden dragon’s abdomen, and everything became clear.

Obviously, this golden dragon had originally been at the fifth tier but had suffered severe injuries and temporarily fallen to the peak of the fourth tier.

“Roar!”

Facing the charging mist dragon and Su Yao, the golden dragon let out an angry roar. Behind it, clouds surged, quickly forming a colossal cloud dragon.

The cloud dragon and the mist dragon clashed violently.

The golden dragon itself engaged in battle with Su Yao.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Its scales were incredibly tough, able to clash head-on with Su Yao’s Qingzhou Sword.

Of course, at this moment, it was clear that Su Yao was not herself, but rather Su Mu’s will had descended into her body. And this time, Su Mu had met a truly formidable opponent.

Although he could project his power into Su Yao’s body, Su Yao was not his true form. His power, when channeled into Su Yao, was greatly limited. After all, Su Yao’s physical body was too weak to bear his full strength.

In an instant, Su Mu and the golden dragon were evenly matched.

But the golden dragon was no longer calm. It had initially been certain that Su Mu couldn’t extend his power far, intending to first seize most of Su Mu’s territory and gradually weaken his strength. When its wounds healed and it returned to the fifth tier, it planned to completely annihilate Su Mu.

But things had turned out far differently than it had anticipated.

Su Mu hadn’t even made a move, yet he had summoned a mist dragon and bizarrely elevated a human woman under his command from the third to the peak of the fourth tier.

As time passed, the golden dragon began to feel like it could no longer hold on.

“Mist Sovereign,” the golden dragon finally spoke, “I underestimated you today. Let’s return to our previous state of non-interference. What do you say?”

Su Mu couldn’t help but laugh.

This golden dragon was dreaming.

It had invaded the Ancient Wilderness Mountains, and after realizing it had kicked an iron plate, it now wanted to go back to the way things were without paying any price?

The air trembled.

A ginkgo branch suddenly extended across a distance of 5,000 miles, appearing at the edge of the Kunlun Plateau. The branch then fiercely struck the golden dragon.

This ginkgo branch was Su Mu’s true form. This strike was undoubtedly a genuine fifth-tier attack.

How could the golden dragon withstand this?

In an instant, the scales on its back were shattered, revealing a deep wound. The golden dragon was utterly terrified.

It had made a mistake.

It finally realized it had been completely wrong. For months, it had observed Su Mu not making any offensive moves, which led it to believe that Su Mu was incapable of launching attacks.

But this strike from Su Mu had completely awakened it. It turned out that Su Mu wasn’t unable to attack; he simply hadn’t bothered to do so.

Now it seemed that Su Mu hadn’t attacked it before and had maintained a state of non-interference out of sheer courtesy.

But it had mistaken that courtesy for timidity and had brought upon itself a severe beating.

In the next moment, the golden dragon turned and fled toward the interior of the Kunlun Plateau.

It fled!

In its current state, it couldn’t withstand a fifth-tier being. If it didn’t run, it feared it would be killed by the Mist Sovereign.

With the golden dragon’s retreat, the morale of its beast army crumbled instantly. On the other hand, the morale of the mist army soared.

The members of the mist army were all incredibly excited. They had witnessed the Mist Sovereign use a branch to whip a dragon, causing the dragon to flee. This filled them with pride.

A dragon was a creature of legend.

For the Mist Sovereign to defeat a dragon, it was nothing short of a divine act.

Su Mu did not hesitate. He had long wanted to expand his territory into the Kunlun Plateau but had been blocked by the golden dragon. Now that the golden dragon had been defeated, he naturally took the opportunity to seize its territory.

After conveying his intent to conquer to his subordinates, Su Mu quickly withdrew all his power. In truth, he didn’t have much power left. The strike across 5,000 miles had consumed a tremendous amount of energy. This situation was somewhat better than when he had previously launched a long-range attack on Nanjing City, but not by much. This time, he had also channeled a significant amount of power into Su Yao’s body, nearly exhausting his strength.

So, if the golden dragon hadn’t fled, Su Mu might not have been able to do much about it.

But the golden dragon didn’t know this and was utterly terrified, fleeing in panic.

This worked out well for Su Mu.

Su Mu ordered his mist army to take advantage of the situation and invade the Kunlun Plateau. He was particularly curious about the Kunlun Plateau, which had been one of the most top-tier forbidden areas in the world since ancient times. The Kunlun Plateau’s area alone accounted for a quarter of the Great Xia Empire’s total land, equivalent to the size of three provinces.

Such a vast region, largely untouched by external forces throughout history, must harbor untold resources.

Su Mu himself returned to the core of the Misty Forbidden Zone, focusing on recovering his strength. At the same time, he sent his immortal mushrooms to spread toward the Kunlun Plateau, making sure not to waste this opportunity.

Over the past six months, Su Mu had carried out multiple large-scale hunts. The immortal mushrooms that had followed him had also grown significantly. In fact, the greatest improvement among his subordinates was not in Su Yao but in the immortal mushrooms, which had grown alongside Su Mu.

[Species: Immortal mushroom]
[Height: 4 inches]
[Lifespan: 23,000 years]
[Rank: Fourth-tier, Upper Grade]
[Abilities: Symbiosis, Immortal Mycelium, Mycelium Entanglement, Mycelium Corrosion, Spore Division]

Compared to the second-tier immortal mushroom, the current immortal mushroom had gained two new abilities. The first was Mycelium Corrosion, which enhanced its corrosive capabilities. The second was Spore Division, which significantly increased its reproductive abilities.

Furthermore, the immortal mushroom’s greatest strength was not in its other abilities but in its survival capability. It could thrive on the surface, underwater, in drylands, and even in cold environments. And it remained inconspicuous. By now, immortal mushrooms were spread throughout the Ancient Wilderness Mountains. It was also Su Mu’s most powerful subordinate, but until now, not even his other subordinates had paid much attention to it. After all, mushrooms were such a common sight in the forest.

Receiving Su Mu’s intent, the immortal mushroom quickly extended new mycelium and produced spores. Many of these spores were carried by the wind into the Kunlun Plateau, where they released new mycelium.

This allowed the immortal mushroom to reach the Kunlun Plateau faster than the mist army.

When the mist army began to fight, the corpses of the Kunlun Plateau’s beasts were quickly decomposed by the immortal mushrooms. Half became nutrients for the immortal mushrooms, while the other half became Su Mu’s lifespan. An immense amount of lifespan flowed toward Su Mu from afar.

In addition to the immortal mushrooms, Su Yao, as Su Mu’s anchor, also continuously provided him with life force as she hunted the beasts.

Two days later, the mist army had advanced 200 miles into the Kunlun Plateau. At that point, the mist army halted. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to continue but that they had glimpsed the true nature of the Kunlun Plateau.

At 200 miles in, they sensed several fourth-tier auras. Moreover, farther away, there seemed to be an aura that surpassed the fourth-tier!

There were other fifth-tier beings on the Kunlun Plateau.

If they continued their advance, they might provoke serious trouble.

So they chose to consolidate their newly acquired territory. They had already expanded the Misty Forbidden Zone’s domain by a hundred miles, which was a tremendous achievement.

In the core of the Misty Forbidden Zone, Su Mu pondered.

“No wonder that golden dragon was injured,” he thought.

From what Su Mu could estimate, the Kunlun Plateau was likely more terrifying than he had imagined. Otherwise, the golden dragon, a fifth-tier being, wouldn’t have sustained such severe injuries and been confined to the edge of the Kunlun Plateau.

Su Mu believed that with the golden dragon’s evident greed, it wasn’t that the dragon didn’t want to enter the heart of the Kunlun Plateau; it simply lacked the strength to do so.

But why was the Kunlun Plateau so terrifying?

As Bai Qianzhang had said, the current level of spiritual energy in the world shouldn’t be able to sustain such powerful beings in the Kunlun Plateau.

And yet, despite their immense power, why hadn’t these beings invaded other regions?