Chapter 1444: The Little Seedling
The glowing string guided him through the ruined palace. Crumbling pillars loomed like the broken spines of giants, shattered walls sagged under centuries of neglect, and the cracked stone floor whispered of a time when this place was resplendent with glory.
He halted before a colossal statue of a goddess. Though half-destroyed, its face eroded beyond recognition, but a faint sense of benevolence and purity lingered, as if even ruin could not erase her divinity.
Zhao Li Xin spared it only a brief glance before pressing on, following the thread of light deeper into the heart of the palace.
Finally, he arrived at a place encircled by towering pillars, each cracked and leaning, as though they too had grown weary of standing. It might once have been a garden; the shattered stone paths and toppled benches whispered of tranquil beauty lost to time. But at its center lay a vast, gaping hollow—an emptiness so profound it seemed almost alive—as though something immense had been wrenched from the world, leaving only a wound that would never heal.
Suddenly, the silver box in his hands began to tremble violently, harder than ever before. The sealing array that was supposed to bind it cracked like splintering glass, runes flickering erratically before fading away one by one.
Zhao Li Xin’s brows knitted in alarm. But before he could react, the box burst apart with a deafening snap of energy. A blur of motion shot out, the creature within, darting straight into the gaping hollow at the garden’s center.
A heartbeat later, the ground shuddered. From the void, colossal roots erupted, bursting forth with terrifying speed. They spread like wildfire, splitting stone and devouring earth, twisting and writhing as though they were alive.
Zhao Li Xin leapt onto a shattered pillar just in time as the roots consumed everything in their path, weaving into a tangled mass of blackened branches that swallowed the ground until nothing remained but a churning sea of living wood.
Zhao Li Xin remained calm, his heartbeat steady and unshaken. From his perch atop the shattered pillar, he watched the roots spread like a living plague, clawing through the ruins as if they sought to swallow the world itself. But in this forsaken place, there was nothing left to claim, nothing but...him.
The creature sensed it. Its roots recoiled, then struck all at once, a thousand jagged branches lashing toward him like the fangs of a starving beast.
In that moment, his eyes narrowed.
Soon after the flames erupted, not merely fire, but a blinding inferno of pure will, surging outward in a tidal wave of dark purplish light.