Cave Refuge

For the kind of ghost that developed spiritual wisdom but actively avoided combat, Dong Tianyu did not directly destroy it. Instead, like in a chicken-eating game, he continuously reduced the size of the space within the Hundred Ghosts Banner. As the space inside the banner shrank bit by bit, those ghosts that had originally hidden at the edges were left with no choice but to join in the chaotic melee among many ghosts.

Knowing that the battle inside the Hundred Ghosts Banner might not end anytime soon, Dong Tianyu simply took the banner back into his Dantian to continue nurturing it, then carefully observed the Sky-Reaching Giant Tree in front of him.

Back when Dong Tianyu had not yet left Pengcheng, this giant tree completely occupied the central area of Pengcheng. If it were not for Dong Tianyu's Divine Sense and his meticulous exploration, even he might have been in mortal danger had he recklessly entered beneath the tree's shade.

If it were not for Dong Tianyu's Divine Sense, which could directly observe the creatures nearby, he would not have been able to detect those tiny bugs hidden in the shadows of the tree.

In Dong Tianyu's observation through Divine Sense, those bugs were very tiny and filled every space in the shade. Because of this, whenever a creature stepped into the shady space, those bugs would inevitably enter the creature's body with its breath, even though many creatures had strong defenses on their bodies' surfaces.

However, the flesh and internal organs of most creatures were almost completely defenseless, hence the phenomenon of creatures disappearing into the shadows—most of those disappearing creatures were completely devoured by the bugs.

If these bugs hadn't feared light and continuously hidden in the shade, even Dong Tianyu, who already had a Cave at that time, would not have survived unless he kept hiding in the Cave.

Under normal circumstances, to eliminate the Sky-Reaching Giant Tree and those terrifying bugs inside it would almost be impossible without deploying the Nuclear Peacemaker Envoy.

Methods like setting fires or using missiles had been attempted by the Pengcheng Government, but no one dared to enter the shade to place the incendiaries at the tree's base. Lighting it from the top had also been tried, and the moment the ignition source was dropped from the air, it would be carried off to an unknown area by vines ejected from the canopy.

Missiles had also been tried to bomb the area, but even if they managed to hit and explode on the canopy, they only blasted off some branches; against the lush and leafy trunk, the branches blown off were insignificant.

Thus, after several failed attempts, the Pengcheng Officials had no choice but to give up their plan to eliminate the Sky-Reaching Giant Tree and reclaim the city center.

However, who could have imagined that the very same giant tree, which had left everyone in Pengcheng helpless, unexpectedly became the main force in eliminating the otherworldly invaders during several subsequent natural disasters.

When this was first discovered, Dong Tianyu was quite curious. After all, he especially wanted to understand why those otherworldly creatures, when close to the giant tree, seemed irresistibly attracted to it, ignoring everything else and recklessly entering the shady area.

At that time, Dong Tianyu took a great interest in this phenomenon, but unfortunately, he never found a way to stay within the shady area for a long period. Although he attempted to enter the shade several times, because he stayed inside for too short a time, he ultimately did not find any suspicious objects that might strongly attract those creatures.

When Dong Tianyu had left Pengcheng, he still harbored deep regret. After the flood hit, Dong Tianyu really wanted to come back to visit, but various reasons delayed his return until now.

Perhaps it was the flood that had completely submerged the Sky-Reaching Giant Tree, so the bugs that had been hidden in its shade had all disappeared, but Dong Tianyu had not expected that with the departure of the bugs hosted in the shade, the trunk had once again become a host for fierce ghosts.

If it were not for Dong Tianyu using his Divine Sense to conduct repeated investigations and confirming that this giant tree had not developed spiritual wisdom, or that the spiritual wisdom had been destroyed by some creature, at this moment the Sky-Reaching Giant Tree—despite appearing unharmed externally—had completely lost the potential to grow and evolve further.

At this time, the giant tree was like those coma patients in hospitals, forever unable to awaken, surviving only by their life instincts, with no more potential to develop spiritual wisdom.

After using Divine Sense to understand the situation of this Sky-Reaching Giant Tree, Dong Tianyu always felt something was not quite right. Although the repeated scans with Divine Sense indicated that this giant tree, apart from having an abnormally large size, was no different from ordinary trees.

However, for some reason, whenever Dong Tianyu thought about leaving, he felt strangely uneasy. Thus, after drifting with indecision for a while, Dong Tianyu finally chose a very crude method—that was to send the Sky-Reaching Giant Tree directly into the Cave to be disintegrated.