Chapter 1480: You Will Be Struck by Heavenly Lightning
After this preaching session, Qin Mu continued his relentless attempts to refine the World Tree. His cultivation had greatly increased, and his magical power was abundant, allowing him to envelop the World Tree within his domain. However, refining it remained an arduous task.
Two days later, the World Tree once again pierced a massive hole through the domain of his Embryonic Divine Treasure.
Qin Mu stood stunned for a moment, while the others secretly glanced over but said nothing.
Qin Mu dispersed his domain and turned to leave.
"Celestial Venerable Mu is probably in despair," people murmured.
Not long after, Qin Mu found Tai Yi, who was repairing the Black Mountain. This Tai Yi was an elderly version, decrepit and slow, carrying a bucket with trembling hands.
Qin Mu bowed, took the bucket from Tai Yi, and proactively helped him repair the Black Mountain that had been cracked by the previous night's tremors.
Tai Yi was happy to have some leisure and supervised Qin Mu's work from the sidelines.
Once Qin Mu had fully repaired the cracked Black Mountain, he set down the bucket and smiled at Tai Yi.
Tai Yi picked up the bucket and was about to leave when Qin Mu quickly stopped him, offering an apologetic smile. "Brother, that great axe of yours—it looks quite impressive. How was it forged?"
"That is my Dao weapon, a companion treasure born from chaos."
Tai Yi spoke unhurriedly. "When I was born, I used this very treasure to cut down the World Tree. No other treasure could harm that divine tree in the slightest."
Qin Mu opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Tai Yi's beard twitched, and he said decisively, "I cannot give you this treasure."
Qin Mu quickly replied, "I'm not asking for it—I want to borrow it. Lend it to me for a while, and I'll return it."
The elderly Tai Yi looked him up and down, suspicious. "What do you intend to do?"
Qin Mu remained silent.
"Lending it to you for a bit shouldn't be a problem."
Tai Yi produced an axe. In his hand, it was extremely small, but before Qin Mu, it became immensely large. "You may use it for half a day. After half a day, this axe will fly back to my side."
Qin Mu quickly thanked him and dragged the great axe away. At first, the axe wasn't too heavy, but the farther he walked, the heavier it became. Eventually, even Qin Mu was panting and had to stop to rest.
"This axe is too heavy. I'm afraid half a day will pass before I even reach the edge of the World Tree."
He wiped the sweat from his brow and thought to himself, "Tai Yi said he'd lend it to me for half a day—was he just messing with me? Can't it be a little lighter?"
The moment he thought this, the axe became lighter. Overjoyed, Qin Mu hoisted it and dashed toward the World Tree, leaping like flying. "When I thought of it being lighter, it became lighter. Could this be a treasure that grants wishes?"
As he thought this, the axe lightened even more.
Qin Mu was both surprised and delighted. He stood the axe before him and thought, "What if it were a long blade..."
The great axe didn't change. Tai Yi's voice came from within the axe: "Stop thinking. It's an axe, not a wish-granting treasure. I'm the one helping to reduce its weight."
Qin Mu felt a bit embarrassed.
Lingering Flower, Lan Yutian, Ming Huang, and the others were still beneath the World Tree, contemplating and sharing their insights. Then they saw Qin Mu striding toward them like a shooting star, dragging a massive axe straight for the World Tree.
They quickly stood up, only to see Qin Mu reach the tree, his body expanding rapidly, his muscles bulging. With a thunderous roar, he swung the axe and struck the tree!
The crowd stared in shock as the giant raised and lowered the axe, delivering dozens of blows in succession, cutting nearly halfway through the World Tree's trunk!
Grandma Si trembled and cried out, "Mu'er, stop cutting! You'll be struck by heavenly lightning!"
Hua Xuanxiu, standing beside her, shouted, "Old Sect Master, if you cut down this tree, you'll be struck by heavenly lightning!"
The others were pale with fear, at a loss for what to do.
Qin Mu continued swinging the axe relentlessly. With a deafening crack, the sapling of the World Tree was severed at the waist!
The massive trunk toppled from the clouds, crashing into the Ten Thousand Sacred Mountains after a long moment, causing a cataclysmic upheaval!
Fortunately, the people of Eternal Peace who had migrated to the Ancestral Court lived on the outskirts of the Sacred Mountains and weren't hit by the falling World Tree. However, the windstorm stirred up by the falling sapling swept over their settlements, howling for an entire day and night before subsiding.
Beside the World Tree, Qin Mu dropped the axe and immediately began using Creation techniques on the stump, trying to make it sprout anew and grow another World Tree.
But no matter how he channeled his Creation Dao, the stump produced no new shoots.
Qin Mu stood frozen like a wooden statue, not moving for a long time.
The others also stood motionless. The last person to cut down the World Tree was Tai Yi, who had used the Chaos Axe to fell it, severing the path for beings from the previous cosmic era to enter this one.
The World Tree had regrown after the seal on the Jade Capital of the Ancestral Court was broken, and Tai Yi had come to cut it down again. Qin Mu had stopped him then. Now, unable to refine the World Tree, Qin Mu had flown into a rage and borrowed Tai Yi's Chaos Axe to chop it down!
"I didn't mean to cut the tree."
Qin Mu suddenly snapped out of it and turned to the crowd, stammering, "I wasn't angry. I just planned to cut it down and plant it in my Ancestral Court Divine Treasury. I thought the tree could regenerate, and after cutting it, a new one would grow..."
The crowd remained silent.
"I really wasn't angry! You know about cuttings, right? Snip a branch and stick it in the ground, and a new tree grows. I wanted to split the World Tree in two..."
Qin Mu looked pleadingly at Grandma Si. She coughed and said, "Mu'er, you don't need to force an explanation. We understand."
Qin Mu's face fell. He looked at Cripple. Cripple tugged at his goatee, looked away, and snorted, "Even thieves have their code. You can't just chop down a tree out of frustration because you couldn't get what you wanted."
Qin Mu fell silent. He turned and walked toward the fallen World Tree sapling. Without roots, its leaves were already beginning to wither.
He collected the sapling into his Divine Treasury domain, trying to plant it in his Ancestral Court. But even though he dug a large pit and surrounded the sapling with four major mineral veins, the tree didn't revive. Its branches and leaves remained dry and brittle.
Suddenly, the Chaos Axe whistled into the air, spinning midair to split open layers of void before flying into the deepest reaches of the void and disappearing.
The time was up. Tai Yi had reclaimed his axe.
The crowd gathered around the World Tree stump. The massive stump bore the marks of the axe's blows. The tree, once rich with Dao resonance and Dao tones, was now utterly silent.
Qin Mu took out the trunk and canopy, placing them on the stump, and tried to use the Unchanging technique to restore the tree. But the technique had no effect.
The Unchanging technique wasn't omnipotent; it had its limits.
The great tree lay to the side. Qin Mu sat on the stump, chin in hand, staring blankly into space.
"Everyone, disperse!"
Blind Man shooed the crowd away. "Go about your business. Don't keep gathering here."
He knew Qin Mu felt terrible about cutting down the tree, so he sent everyone away to give Qin Mu some time alone.
Soon, dusk fell.
Around the Great Dark Wood, terrifying tremors resumed—a scene of cosmic destruction, the roar and struggle of the previous universe as it collapsed.
Qin Mu sat on the World Tree stump and muttered, "Tai Yi burned it, and I didn't burn it. Why did it die..."
From his seat, he could vaguely see beyond the Great Dark Wood. The enlightened beings of the previous cosmic era were roaring and struggling, desperately climbing toward the World Tree.
Facing the great calamity of cosmic destruction, even these enlightened beings were like ants, frantically climbing the tree to escape the cataclysm. But the World Tree was severed, and they couldn't crawl from the previous era to this one.
Qin Mu saw them pointing at the sky and drawing on the ground, cursing endlessly, cursing the scoundrel who had cut down the tree, using their own Dao as a curse against the one who felled it.
"Hmph, only the weak curse others..."
Qin Mu shrank his neck and muttered again, "And I didn't do it on purpose. Besides, Tai Yi cut it down first. If Tai Yi could do it, why can't I..."
He sat there, feeling as if he were sitting on pins and needles, until dawn gradually broke and the terrifying scene outside the Great Dark Wood vanished.
Then, from deep beneath the Ten Thousand Sacred Mountains, familiar rumbling began—boom, boom, boom—as if countless demons were stretching their bodies at daybreak!
Qin Mu's heart stirred. Suddenly, the stump beneath him split open with a crack, and two enormous, tender green leaves whooshed upward, lifting him into the air!
He still rested his chin on his hand, curiously looking down. As he rose higher, he saw that beneath the two large leaves was a tender green sapling trunk!
Qin Mu looked up and blinked.
Hum—
His Divine Treasury domain spread out, his primordial spirit manifested, and from each heavenly palace, a primordial spirit began to refine this newly sprouted World Tree sapling!
By the time the others rushed over, he was already controlling his Embryonic Spirit, trying to merge it into the newborn sapling!
"Mu'er, stop your divine technique!" Grandma Si, Mute, and others shouted from below.
Qin Mu ignored them, continuing to forcibly refine the sapling. But the sapling was impervious, refusing to accept his imprint.
After more than ten days, the World Tree sapling had grown strong enough to forcibly break through his Embryonic Divine Treasure domain, extending beyond the heavens.
Only then did Qin Mu jump down from the tree. The crowd watched him walk away dejectedly, their scalps tingling. "Celestial Venerable Mu is going to find Tai Yi to borrow the axe again, isn't he? He just won't give up..."
Qin Mu found Tai Yi. This time, Tai Yi was a little girl with two pigtails on her head, a trail of snot at her lips, busy repairing the mountain.
"Brother!"
Qin Mu snatched the small iron bucket from her and diligently helped repair the cracked Black Mountain. The little girl with pigtails sniffled hard, pulling the two snot trails back into her nostrils, only for them to flow out again.
Qin Mu smiled ingratiatingly as he worked, apologizing, "Brother, the water in your bucket can repair the cracked Black Mountain. The Black Mountain is the scorched World Tree, right?"
The little girl sniffled again, sucking the snot that had reached her lips, and said with an air of old wisdom, "What do you want?"
Qin Mu stopped repairing the Black Mountain and stared at the water in the bucket. The water reflected his face. "Then, if there were a World Tree without roots, could the water in your bucket revive it? In my Divine Treasury domain, I have just such a rootless World Tree..."