NOVPUB◎Genesis◎
Under Yan Luoyue's guidance, everyone moved the Spiritualized Ones who had fallen into a deep slumber after touching the nightmare to the side.
Once freed from the nightmare's influence, these individuals quickly woke up.
Their speech and behavior appeared entirely normal.
They even remembered their encounter with the nightmare before falling asleep. However, when asked what they had seen in their dreams, the group wore expressions of near-perplexity.
"It felt like… land? Endless stretches of land?"
"Emotions, perhaps—intense, sorrowful emotions!"
"Unfamiliar patterns, countless intricate patterns."
The answers varied wildly, with no two alike, resembling a scene from the fable of the blind men and an elephant, but in an otherworldly context.
After listening for a while, Yan Luoyue found no useful information to reference. She realized this was like the story of the colt crossing the river—she would have to experience it herself to understand.
Within the Free Alliance, Tang Fei, Dao Fei, and Xiong Fei believed that since others had already explored the dream and found it safe, Yan Luoyue could proceed without worry.
Cen Mingxiao, however, took a more cautious stance and proposed a theory.
"What if the demons, knowing of your and Brother Wu’s arrival, deliberately set this trap for you?"
After all, across the entire Spirit Realm, apart from Wu Manshuang and Yan Luoyue—both of whom had reached the Nascent Soul stage—none of the Thirteen Cities' inhabitants could wield divine sense.
If Yan Luoyue were to fall into an endless slumber, they wouldn’t even have a way to wake her.
Yan Luoyue asked, "What are you suggesting?"
Cen Mingxiao declared firmly, "Let me go first."
In his view, Yan Luoyue and Wu Manshuang were on the verge of returning to the Cultivation World.
Once they did, they could relay the Spirit Realm’s alliance to the Cultivation World.
Thus, not a single mishap could befall them.
Their safety was far more important than one—or even a hundred—Cen Mingxiaos.
Yan Luoyue chuckled softly. "Thank you, Brother Cen, but I know my limits. It won’t come to that."
Cen Mingxiao turned to Wu Manshuang. "Brother Wu, what do you think?"
Wu Manshuang neither agreed nor disagreed with Yan Luoyue’s stance. He simply stated, "I’ll go with her."
"……"
Cen Mingxiao stared at them both for a long moment before finally sighing in resignation.
"Fine. But if you sense anything wrong, you must return immediately."
As Yan Luoyue extended her divine sense toward the slumbering nightmare, she overheard Cen Mingxiao deliberately speaking loudly to those nearby.
He said, "Tang Fei, if you ever see me acting foolish in the future, remind me—the Free Alliance must never become a 'couple-run shop.' That would lead to autocracy."
A bewildered Tang Fei: "Huh? Oh… alright."
The subtly implicated Yan Luoyue: "……"
The equally subtly implicated Wu Manshuang: "……"
……
The moment her divine sense touched the nightmare’s body, Yan Luoyue was enveloped in a sensation of weightlessness.
When she opened her eyes again, all she saw was boundless darkness.
Originally, Wu Manshuang had been holding her hand tightly.
Yet, at some point, the dream had cleverly separated them.
At first, Yan Luoyue thought the endless darkness was merely a transition.
But after a while, she became aware of the darkness, the stifling heat, and a burgeoning desire to grow. Suddenly, she realized—she was a seed buried in the soil.
…So, this was the memory of the Moonfall Tree.
If so, was Wu Manshuang now experiencing the perspective of the Frostveil Stone, feeling what it was like to be a rock?
The thought eased her mind slightly.
Yan Luoyue jokingly referred to this buried perspective as the "live burial viewpoint."
Yet, as a seed, the darkness felt safe, the warmth was comforting, and the slight dampness invigorated her.
The Moonfall Tree thrived in the soil, perfectly at ease—after all, plants belonged in the earth.
Once, during an exchange among disciples of the Dharma Transmission, Yan Luoyue had stayed with Chang Lili. Back then, she had dreamed of becoming a seed.
In that dream, she had endlessly extended her roots until one fine tendril brushed against a pitch-black stone.
The memory unfolding before her now was much the same, though with a few added details.
As a divine entity, the Moonfall Tree absorbed spiritual energy as naturally as a plant absorbed water and nutrients.
At that time, the earth was saturated with a frigid, lethal spiritual energy—one that extinguished all life, leaving not a single blade of grass for miles.
But to the Moonfall Tree, this energy was cool and nourishing, a rich source of sustenance that felt pleasant.
So, she stretched her roots further, unknowingly reaching toward the source of the cold energy.
After what felt like an eternity, one particularly slender white root finally touched the origin—a massive stone covered in frost-like patterns.
The stone was as cold as the energy it emitted.
Only many years later would the Moonfall Tree learn that this was the power of "Ultimate Yin Death."
But at the time, she only felt a vague sense of familiarity.
Then, joyfully, she spread her tiny tendrils, much like a little girl hugging her favorite stuffed bear, and climbed along the stone’s patterns.
Back then, language and writing had yet to exist.
The newly sprouted seed and the icy stone communicated through raw emotions and instincts.
The Moonfall Tree’s first message to the stone: Curiosity.
She wondered what this energy-emitting stone truly was.
After a long while, the stone responded with its own message: Fondness.
—The stone liked the delicate white tendrils that had quietly coiled around its base.
In that era, everything moved slowly. Even the wind lifting fine dust and letting it settle again did so at a leisurely pace.
The world, still in its infancy, was just beginning.
The Moonfall Tree barely had coherent thoughts—she was only just becoming aware.
Thus, even this exchange took an excruciatingly long time.
This conversation between the Moonfall Tree and the Frostveil Stone, though consisting of only two messages, spanned a full century.
The Moonfall Tree’s second message to the stone was more complete than the first.
She conveyed: "The world is vast, but you are all I sense."
Of course, the actual signal she transmitted lacked structured language and was far less concise.
She used her roots to convey her thoughts, sending vast waves of an empty, hollow sensation across. It took a long time before the message was fully transmitted.
Compared to the Moonfall Tree, the Frost-Covered Stone seemed a bit clumsy.
Without roots to gesture with, he could only struggle to express a single emotion: "There's also a fire. Annoying."
And so, the first thematic conversation in the world finally took place—
Moonfall Tree: "What is fire? I want to see it!"
Frost-Covered Stone: "It's annoying."
Moonfall Tree: "I want to see it, I want to see it!"
Frost-Covered Stone: "It's very annoying."
After several rounds of back-and-forth, the Frost-Covered Stone could no longer resist the Moonfall Tree’s persistence.
A surge of spiritual energy dispersed from his body, all of it becoming nourishment for the Moonfall Tree.
Before this, the Moonfall Tree had already silently extended her roots for dozens of miles.
Riding on this spiritual energy and drawing upon years of accumulated reserves, the Moonfall Tree—which had only sprouted a tiny bud—suddenly shot upward, growing rapidly like bamboo after rain.
In the blink of an eye, she broke free from the soil, embraced the spring breeze, and became a seemingly delicate yet vibrant sapling.
At the same time, the Moonfall Tree experienced the sensation of "hearing" for the first time.
She heard a melodious yet brief sound, which she later learned was the call of a bird.
Then, a beautiful golden flame flapped its wings and, with an enthusiasm and joy too overwhelming to resist, plunged straight into the sparse canopy of the Moonfall Tree.
Yan Luoyue: "!!!"
Yan Luoyue suddenly took a deep breath.
At this moment, she finally understood why Fenfen, Momo, and Honghong loved Jiang Tingbai’s woven grass crafts so much.
Because Jiang Tingbai’s sparse, hole-riddled weaving resembled the branches of the Moonfall Tree—and this was the original nest of the Crying Flame.
Since ancient times, pure yin cannot exist alone, nor can pure yang thrive in isolation.
The Frost-Covered Stone and the Crying Flame carried the extreme yin of death and the extreme yang of life, forces unbearable to most living beings.
One turned fertile land into barren wasteland, while the other turned the sky into a burning pool of blood.
Thus, before this day, no life existed on this land—until the graceful figure of the Moonfall Tree emerged from the soil.
As a divine being, the Moonfall Tree could balance yin and yang.
The spiritual energy of the Crying Flame and the Frost-Covered Stone was mostly channeled directly into the Moonfall Tree’s growth.
And the Moonfall Tree acted like a filter, gently infusing the harmonized yin-yang energy into the earth, creating a nurturing ground for life to emerge.
The Crying Flame’s call sounded like a bird, and its form resembled one too.
When it spread its fiery wings, it could freely soar to any corner of this newborn world.
The little flame often lingered outside, curiously observing the emerging life.
But stones and trees could not move. So, while the Crying Flame roamed the world, the Moonfall Tree and the Frost-Covered Stone leaned against each other, keeping one another company.
Moonfall Tree: "Your patterns are beautiful."
The Frost-Covered Stone had never seen his own appearance. He asked, puzzled, "What?"
So, the Moonfall Tree draped her delicate roots over the stone, tracing the frost-like patterns on its surface.
"—Just like my roots. Beautiful!"
The Frost-Covered Stone understood: "You, beautiful."
Moonfall Tree, confused: "No, you. You’re beautiful."
The Frost-Covered Stone insisted: "You are the most beautiful."
Their debate lasted for centuries.
Through such exchanges, their communication gradually became more fluent, allowing them to convey increasingly complex thoughts.
One day, the Moonfall Tree said to the Frost-Covered Stone, "I’ve grown a leaf."
The Frost-Covered Stone asked, "What is... a leaf?"
The Moonfall Tree found it hard to explain—she simply knew what to call it.
After thinking, she said, "Wait."
She gazed fondly at her newly sprouted leaf.
Though it pained her, she shook her branches without hesitation.
The small, fresh green leaf was shaken loose, tracing a graceful arc through the air before landing softly on the Frost-Covered Stone, carried by the breeze and fine mist.
It was as if a blind man had finally seen color. That day, a single emerald leaf entered the Frost-Covered Stone’s existence.
The emotion he conveyed to the Moonfall Tree was indescribable joy.
Yan Luoyue looked left and right, thinking the tender green of that little leaf was exactly the same shade as Wu Manshuang’s serpent form when it first hatched.
Later, more plants began to flourish across the land.
Once, a seed was carried by the wind near the Frost-Covered Stone.
The moment it touched the soil, it withered and died. Its once-plump shell turned into a dry husk that could ignite in an instant.
At the time, the Crying Flame was perched on the Moonfall Tree’s branches.
The little flame chirped in a bird-like manner, "Big Stone, you killed it!"
Frost-Covered Stone: "I didn’t..."
The Crying Flame flapped its wings furiously. "No! It died after touching your energy!"
Frost-Covered Stone insisted, "Not me..."
The argument between flame and stone lasted so long that the Moonfall Tree had to intervene.
"Stop fighting!"
The Crying Flame snorted and flew away.
After watching the golden bird vanish into the horizon, the Frost-Covered Stone finally stopped denying it.
He said dejectedly to the Moonfall Tree, "I know... it was me."
—The seed had indeed died because of him.
Caught between her two friends, the Moonfall Tree felt helpless for the first time.
Unsure how to comfort the beautiful stone, she shook off leaf after leaf from herself, covering his surface with these translucent, jade-green treasures.
The leaves formed a soft, layered blanket over the Frost-Covered Stone.
The Moonfall Tree liked this.
Covering the stone in leaves felt like marking him as her own.
The black-and-white stone was now adorned anew.
And so, the Frost-Covered Stone’s emotions brimmed once more with delight.
To the Frost-Covered Stone, the Crying Flame was scalding.
It was blazing, noisy, irritating—seeing it once every three thousand years was more than enough.
But the Moonfall Tree was different. She was warmth in perfect measure.
The bond between stone and tree, nestled side by side—this was something the Frost-Covered Stone wished to last forever.
Slowly and solemnly, he said, "I love this."
Much later, the Crying Flame finally returned, and by then, their earlier quarrel was forgotten.
Stone and tree listened intently as the flame told them stories of the world beyond.
In the mouth of the Crying Crow's Flame, any soil graced by the falling leaves of the Descending Moon's Tree would burst into clusters of dazzling flowers the following year.
The stone and the tree were utterly perplexed. "What are flowers?" they wondered.
At the mention of this topic, the Crying Crow's Flame swelled with pride.
He declared, "They are ten thousand times more beautiful than a boulder, as lovely as a sapling, and yet only a thousandth as radiant as me—that is what flowers are."
The Frost-Covered Stone remained unmoved. After a long pause, it finally responded with a flat, "Oh."
The Crying Crow's Flame flapped its wings furiously. "Why aren’t you excited?"
The Frost-Covered Stone replied leisurely, "If they’re only a thousandth as radiant as you, they’re hardly worth looking at."
The Crying Crow's Flame: "???"
The little flame erupted in fury, its fiery crest flaring three feet taller.
Among the three divine entities, it had always been the quickest to speak.
After unleashing a torrent of indignant squawks at the Frost-Covered Stone—none of which were intelligible—it stormed off. But before leaving, it snatched a handful of the stone’s carefully collected leaves.
The little flame intended to bury those leaves in the soil, ensuring the land would bloom with even more beautiful flowers the next year.
The Frost-Covered Stone: "You’re taking my leaves?!"
The Frost-Covered Stone: "Come back!!!"
Alas, its protests were far too slow compared to the speed at which the Crying Crow's Flame fled. Stones, after all, have no legs. It could only watch helplessly as the little flame vanished into the distance.
With its most treasured leaves stolen, the Frost-Covered Stone was seething.
Fortunately, the Descending Moon's Tree remained by its side, shaking more leaves from its canopy as a gift.
Recalling the little flame’s earlier words, the Frost-Covered Stone asked in confusion, "What are flowers?"
It didn’t believe the Crying Crow's Flame’s description. "Nothing could be as beautiful as you," it said.
And it was in that very year that the Descending Moon's Tree bloomed with its first flower.
The tree adored this little blossom so much that the moment it unfurled from its bud, the Descending Moon's Tree gently shook it loose, letting it adorn the Frost-Covered Stone in all its delicate beauty.
—The finest things in the world ought to be shared with the friend who has stood by you the longest.
The tiny, exquisite flower captured the Frost-Covered Stone’s undivided attention. It cradled the blossom with utmost care and said to the Descending Moon's Tree, "So this is a flower? As expected, only you could produce such beauty."
By then, their telepathic communication had grown so refined that such ambiguous phrasing was rare.
The Descending Moon's Tree was puzzled. "What do you mean?"
The Frost-Covered Stone answered firmly, "The Crying Crow was wrong—nothing in this world could rival your beauty, unless it was a flower born from you."
Yan Luoyue gazed upon this scene: the stone and the towering tree nestled together, the Frost-Covered Stone draped in layers of emerald leaves, crowned by a freshly bloomed flower at its peak.
And then, Yan Luoyue understood.
—No wonder she bore the surname "Yan."
In its written form, the character "Yan" resembled nothing so much as a stone covered with three or four layers of leaves, gently holding a newly opened flower.
This was not the "yan" of speech, nor the "yan" of conversation.
This was the "saying" that belonged solely to the Descending Moon's Tree and the Frost-Covered Stone, preserved in the annals of time.
The Descending Moon's Tree grew ever taller.
The spiritual energies of the Crying Crow's Flame and the Frost-Covered Stone nourished it, and in turn, it harmonized the forces of yin and yang into an eternal cycle.
Thus, the world became increasingly hospitable to life.
One day, the Crying Crow's Flame returned from afar, its magnificent fiery tail noticeably shorter.
The Descending Moon's Tree was aghast. "Who attacked you?"
The Frost-Covered Stone was equally surprised. "Who attacked you? How wonderful."
At these words, the Crying Crow's Flame exploded with rage.
It spread its wings and lunged at the Frost-Covered Stone—just as they had done before meeting the Descending Moon's Tree.
The two primal forces of life and death clashed, fire and stone locked in a furious, crackling battle.
Once the fight ended, the Crying Crow's Flame perched on a branch of the Descending Moon's Tree, preening its flame-feathered wings.
Proudly, it announced that it had severed a portion of its tail and left it in another world.
That flame, born from its tail, would now rise in the east and set in the west, filling that world with vitality!
Later, the Descending Moon's Tree learned that this world was called the "Mortal Realm."
Fifty years after this grand proclamation, the Crying Crow's Flame returned in disgrace.
This time, its tail was even shorter, and its first act was to pluck a few frost flowers from the Frost-Covered Stone.
"Solitary yang cannot thrive—there must be a moon!"
Under the combined scolding of the Descending Moon's Tree and the Frost-Covered Stone, the Crying Crow's Flame defended itself sheepishly:
"The Mortal Realm and the Demon Realm still lack two moons!"
Until it could regrow its splendid tail, the flame couldn’t bear to sacrifice another piece.
So it lingered in the Demon Realm indefinitely.
And because both the Crying Crow's Flame and the Frost-Covered Stone resided there, the Demon Realm had no need for a sun or moon in its sky.
By then, the Descending Moon's Tree had grown to monumental heights.
Its crown pierced the clouds, with rainbows draped around its trunk like silken sashes.
Though its roots remained tightly coiled around the Frost-Covered Stone, its canopy had stretched impossibly far away.
Even when it wished to gift the stone a leaf, the foliage would wither at the edges by the time it landed on the stone’s surface.
A bittersweet mixture of joy and longing radiated from the Frost-Covered Stone.
And so, one day, the Descending Moon's Tree made a resolute decision.
It twisted two of its branches nearly 180 degrees, directing their growth back toward the Frost-Covered Stone.
Even if the distance between them now spanned seas and skies, wider than the divide between birds and fish—
The Descending Moon's Tree would ensure its shade, leaves, blossoms, morning dew, and its unyielding affection for the Frost-Covered Stone would always find their way back.
Just as Yan Luoyue lost herself in this vision, a hand reached out and clasped hers with effortless familiarity.
Yan Luoyue turned with a smile, unsurprised to find Wu Manshuang standing beside her.
"I’ve been immersed in the Frost-Covered Stone’s memories," Wu Manshuang murmured. "It was an unbearably long solitude—"
Until one day, a slender white root pressed against the stone’s base, and a rain of emerald leaves blanketed him in warmth.
The Crying Crow's Flame burned so brilliantly it stung even a stone’s eyes.
But the Descending Moon's Tree’s leaves always glowed with a gentle, enduring light.
Wu Manshuang grinned. "You know, I just remembered why I took 'Wu' as my surname."
Recalling the origin of her own name, Yan Luoyue blinked in sudden understanding.
"Could it be…?"
"Mm."
Wu Manshuang’s eyes crinkled as her fingers intertwined with Yan Luoyue’s, locking them together in an unbreakable hold.
The character "Wu" appears as if the Moonfall Tree had twisted its branches for him, lowering its shade and blossoms towards him.
That most precious memory was eventually condensed into a single surname.
For the newly hatched little snake—with nothing but inherited memories—the surname "Wu" was as vital as life itself.
Yan Luoyue's eyes shimmered as she recalled the way the little snake had first described his surname.
In the snake's words, "Wu" was the "Wu with two forked branches."
At the time, Yan Luoyue had found it amusing.
But now, with the passage of time, looking back, she realized the name was actually an incredibly romantic depiction of reality.
...
The Frost-Covered Stone, plucked clean of its icy blossoms, and the Crying Crow’s Fire, which had shed its tail feathers, both entered a period of weakness.
Yet, because of the balance between Yin and Yang, the sun and moon, the land grew vibrant with life.
Much like in the modern world, where new species are discovered every day,
this thriving world also saw new life emerging daily.
Newborn races, mixed-blood descendants of different species, creatures that learned to manipulate spiritual energy and gradually evolved—such phenomena were too numerous to count.
The world slowly took on a form familiar to Yan Luoyue. Until—
Until one day, an external calamity descended upon this world, quietly planting its first roots.
And the Frost-Covered Stone and Crying Crow’s Fire, still in their weakened state, remained unaware.
This was the best of times—whether in the human realm, the demon realm, or the spirit realm, all flourished, taking their first steps in exploring the Great Dao.
Yet it was also the worst of times—among the three divine artifacts, two were still recovering. Meanwhile, the unwelcome intruder rode the tides of the era, silently amassing strength for its next move.
The invasion of the alien creatures was initially imperceptible.
Because the world was simply too vast.
They drifted into this world like specks of dust, wisps of fluff, or floating duckweed—utterly inconspicuous.
The invaders behaved as though they were native to this world. They landed, took root, sprouted, and then slowly swelled like inflating balloons.
Only when they believed they had gathered enough strength to challenge the native species did they bare their fangs, eyeing the vast cultivation world with predatory intent.
One day, a massive, tumor-like crimson nest began to expand in a corner of the demon realm.
A fissure split open in the gelatinous red mass, and from it poured forth countless alien creatures.
They spread across the land like ants swarming from their nest.
At first, the invaders did not immediately raise their blades.
Each of the creatures emerging from the nest carried a slender tendril.
Whenever they captured a native demonic beast or a demon, they inserted that tendril into the creature’s flesh.
Soon after the thread was implanted, the demonic beings would lose their will, following the invaders back into the crimson nest.
From then on, the winds carried no trace of them.
Outwardly, the tumor-like nest appeared soft and peaceful.
Nurtured by the invaders, it grew day by day. Aside from the thickening stench of blood, everything seemed calm.
This anomaly persisted for some time before finally drawing the attention of nearby native demons.
A vigilant demon approached the crimson nest to investigate.
His kin watched as his figure disappeared into the nest’s entrance.
Yet in the end, not a single one returned unscathed.
In truth, at the very beginning, the crimson nest had briefly emitted an unusual scent.
But after gorging itself on native species, that scent was masked.
It was as though someone had used excessive spices and incense to smother the underlying stench of decay.
Yet when the nest swelled to the size of a mountain range, the alien, otherworldly menace could no longer be concealed by any means.
And so, it was exposed to the senses of the three divine artifacts.
The first to discover this was the Crying Crow’s Fire, which loved to flit about unpredictably.
It flew back from afar, hastily informing the Moonfall Tree and the Frost-Covered Stone of the news, then spread its wings and soared toward the nest.
For some reason, as Yan Luoyue watched the proud figure of the Crying Crow’s Fire, an inexplicable unease stirred in her heart.
She suggested, "Crying Crow, shouldn’t you first retrieve your tail feathers from the human and spirit realms?"
Indeed, for beings like them, time was measured in millennia.
A mere few tens of thousands of years had passed—not nearly enough for the Crying Crow’s Fire to regrow its tail and restore its former vitality.
"No need!" the Crying Crow’s Fire declared confidently. "Watch me burn that thing to ashes in one strike!"
It had every right to such confidence, for the Crying Crow’s Fire embodied the most extreme Yang energy the world could not withstand.
Were it not for the tempering influence of the Frost-Covered Stone and the Moonfall Tree, the entire cultivation world would have been reduced to flames.
Yet it should not have been so assured.
Because until the moment of confrontation, few could truly know what kind of opponent they faced.
The Moonfall Tree stretched out its branches but failed to hold back the fire’s advance.
That day, Yan Luoyue’s gaze descended from the clouds.
And what she saw was the Crying Crow’s Fire, channeling its supreme Yang energy, crashing into the crimson mountain.
The enormous red tumor was surprisingly elastic.
The Crying Crow’s Fire struck like a meteor, slamming into its very center.
For an instant, the nest was flattened into a concave disc, its color making it resemble a gigantic red blood cell.
In that moment, the opaque nest was deformed by the impact.
From its arched entrance oozed an indescribable, nauseating "filling"—something that would sicken anyone who glimpsed it.
But...
But the crimson sphere was not completely shattered.
Yan Luoyue noticed that when the Crying Crow’s Fire collided with the nest, it seemed to absorb a portion of the fire’s radiance.
At that instant, her extensive combat experience made her realize the truth.
She gasped. "Frost-Covered, this is—!"
Before she could finish, the unfolding scene revealed the outcome.
Just as the Crying Crow’s Fire launched its second attack, the crimson nest retaliated—spewing forth a light as blinding as the sun.
So this massive, mountainous monstrosity was alive!
The dazzling brilliance turned the heavens and earth into a white void.
A wave of scorching heat exploded outward from the battlefield, instantly vaporizing the nearest lake.
The Moonfall Tree, which had been swaying freely in the wind, suddenly stiffened. Its branches ceased their joyful rustling, as though the tree had died.
In the wind, she sensed a familiar, fragmented aura.
After a while, the blinding light that had sealed everything away slowly dissipated, revealing the outcome of the clash.
Both the nest and the Crying Crow's Fire were severely damaged, shattered simultaneously.
The Crying Crow's Fire was torn apart by the impact, scattering into several smaller flames.
Meanwhile, the enormous, round, blood-red tumor burst into murky, gelatinous fragments, lifelessly scattered across the land.
The torn remains felt eerily familiar to Yan Luoyue—yes, this was a Rolling Demon.
If the Rolling Demons she had seen in the demonic seals of the Demon Realm could be called Giant Rolling Demons,
then this mountainous behemoth, nourished by countless invading outsiders, could only be described as a "Super Ultra Mega Rolling Demon."
The Rolling Demon was shredded to pieces, and most of the invaders inside perished.
But the true mastermind behind it all was only now revealing itself.
The moment they sensed its presence, Yan Luoyue and Wu Manshuang exchanged a glance.
Yan Luoyue murmured, "It's the one."
Wu Manshuang didn’t speak but gave a deep nod.
This was the same entity that had once peered at them from across worlds in the Silver Light Underground Arena.
Somehow, it had taken control of this Rolling Demon, turning it into a living fortress.
The Rolling Demon’s shell became the perfect armor for the hidden puppeteer.
Meanwhile, the mastermind manipulated the invading outsiders, forcing them to feed the Rolling Demon.
A bizarre symbiotic relationship had formed between them.
Now, with the Crying Crow's Fire grievously wounded and scattered, and the Rolling Demon slain,
the mastermind stood exposed under the open sky. Its first act was to shoot countless thin, thread-like strands toward the Moonfall Tree.
At that moment, the Moonfall Tree sensed its frenzied, triumphant laughter.
The threads carried an aura suspended between life and death—neither fully alive nor entirely lifeless.
Years ago, in the Matchmaker’s Temple, Wu Manshuang’s poisonous blood had failed to corrode the Left-Spiral Conch Demon’s silver threads.
Here, the outcome was the same.
The tangled threads shot toward the Moonfall Tree, winding around its trunk and roots, binding them tightly.
Even the lethal power of the Froststone failed to turn them to ash.
Watching this, Yan Luoyue let out a long sigh. "This is… a Puppeteer, isn’t it?"
Between the two, Wu Manshuang was more familiar with Puppeteers.
His inherited memories contained knowledge about them, and he had even encountered one in reality.
After a moment of scrutiny, Wu Manshuang said, "Judging by the evolutionary tree, it’s a higher form of life, evolved from a Puppeteer."
Yan Luoyue closed her eyes briefly.
—Rolling Demons, Puppeteers. Who knew what else was lurking beyond?
For this unique Puppeteer, Yan Luoyue and Wu Manshuang dubbed it the "Puppet Web."
The moment the silver threads ensnared the Moonfall Tree, the scene before Yan Luoyue and Wu Manshuang descended into chaos.
It was as if the Moonfall Tree had fallen under its overwhelming influence.
An endless flood of information surged past them.
Countless symbols and characters piled densely together, dizzying to behold.
Recalling past speculations, Yan Luoyue suddenly understood.
She whispered, "Now I’m certain—this is a Frankenstein’s monster stitched together from the internet and the Puppet Web."
The two were swept up in the torrent of junk data.
The sheer volume of meaningless yet overwhelming fragments reminded Yan Luoyue of a modern-day tool called a "Caller Bombardment."
In essence, this was an information overload attack.
Imagine forcing a modern human to process images, text, and videos at 2,000 frames per second, far beyond the brain’s capacity.
Within hours, the person would likely suffer a mental breakdown.
The Moonfall Tree’s spirit was far more resilient than an ordinary human’s.
But the Puppet Web’s data flood was thousands, even millions of times more intense than 20 frames per second.
Most importantly—
Yan Luoyue winced as if in pain and muttered, "Damn its cables! This thing has zero respect for the young and old alike."
Beings like the Moonfall Tree, whose life cycles spanned hundreds of thousands of years, grew slowly over vast stretches of time.
For example, some insects lived only a month—
spending a week growing, twenty days foraging, mating, laying eggs, and then dying.
But a human infant, at one month old, would barely know how to cry.
In other words, though hundreds of millennia had passed, the Crying Crow’s Fire, the Moonfall Tree, and the Froststone were still very young.
From a broader perspective, this world was still in its infancy, far from reaching its prime.
Among countless worlds, the cultivation realm was like a newborn, not yet approaching its vigorous adolescence or maturity.
Alongside the deluge of meaningless data, the Puppet Web also flooded the Moonfall Tree’s consciousness with endless negative emotions—
disgust, terror, envy, grief, fear, dread, horror…
Among these, fear was the most recurrent.
At the end of this emotional onslaught, the Moonfall Tree seemed to glimpse a murky, gray haze fused into the silver web, grinning savagely at her.
The overwhelming tide of information and emotions drowned the Moonfall Tree.
In the end, the Moonfall Tree was defeated by the Puppet Web.
"…"
Pressing her fingers to her forehead, Yan Luoyue struggled to stay calm.
Above her, the golden bar representing her spiritual energy had plummeted.
Now she understood why the Dream Messenger had only now delivered this ancient tale.
Before this, Yan Luoyue’s spiritual strength had been too weak to bear such knowledge.
Learning it earlier would have doomed her to the same crushing defeat as the Moonfall Tree.
Beyond that, Yan Luoyue felt she had cracked the case: "This monstrosity shouldn’t be called the Puppet Web—it’s the Puppet Emotion-Devouring Web. Because it’s also stitched together with an Emotion Devourer."
The power of this Emotion Devourer dwarfed the one Chu Tiankuo had encountered.
Amid the digital flood, it had gorged on more negative emotions than it could ever consume in reality.
The Puppeteer’s threads, the internet’s data stream, and the Emotion Devourer’s regurgitated feelings had merged seamlessly, birthing this abomination that invaded the cultivation world.
Before Yan Luoyue could curse further, the scene before them abruptly plunged into darkness.
"...Is it over? Really?" Yan Luoyue murmured uncertainly.
They hadn’t even explained how "Unity of Ten Thousand Realms" came to be yet.
In the next instant, the scene before the two of them shifted abruptly.
Wu Manshuang recognized it immediately. "Wait, this is the perspective of Manshuang’s Stone... Where’s Luoyue’s Wood?"
The corner of Yan Luoyue’s lips twitched slightly as she muttered, "I have a feeling that during this stretch of the past, Luoyue’s Wood... was probably temporarily offline."
