Gao Wu: You have science, and I have magic!

The branches of the World Tree suddenly tightened, and the seven incarnations of chaos shattered like mirrors, with each fragment reflecting the giant starry eye from different angles.

The mechanical female general seized this fleeting opportunity, and her silver-white roots grew rapidly and pierced into the main tower of the Star Hub.

“Database connection completed!”

The data stream in her eyes poured out like a waterfall: "Found the trace of Emperor Qingming! The abandoned place three light years to the southeast..."

But the voice stopped abruptly!

Suddenly, a bone spur pierced through her chest, and black blood dripped along the mechanical joints.

Lin Xian looked back and saw that the Chaos Incarnations that were supposed to have been destroyed were condensing again, and this time, they merged into the appearance of Emperor Ziwei.

"madness."

The Chaos Avatar, who had transformed into Ye Qingzhou's appearance, raised his hand and tapped lightly. The quantum core of the mechanical female general began to collapse irreversibly: "Do you really think you can fight against the Creator?"

Lin Xian wanted to rescue him, but found himself unable to move.

The World Tree sent a strong warning of danger - in a higher dimension, a pair of eyes were watching him through this incarnation of chaos. It felt like an ant suddenly being stared at by a human, and the crushing pressure from the life level made every cell in his body tremble.

"Look! The key."

The Chaos Incarnation pointed at the collapsing mechanical female general.

What's creepy is that a strange tissue that is a fusion of the World Tree and the Demon Seed is growing in her damaged mechanical body.

“That’s the nature of chaos—everything will eventually return to oneness.”

The dying female robot suddenly laughed. She inserted the silver-white root into her heart: "But there are always some variables... that can exceed calculations... and deviate from the established trajectory..."

A dazzling white light burst out, blinding the eyes.

When Lin Xian regained his vision, he saw a pure white seed floating where the mechanical female general had been, with patterns of data and plants flowing on its surface.

The seed automatically flew into his hand, and at the same time a piece of information was directly implanted into his mind: "Emperor Qingming is in the 'Old Era Ruins', there is... the last..."

The seeds suddenly became scalding hot.

Lin Xian instinctively pressed it on the wooden sword. The moment the two merged, silver lines like precise circuits appeared on the sword.

Then, the seven Chaos Incarnations took half a step back at the same time, showing vigilance for the first time.

“So you are the variable.”

The voices of the Chaos Incarnations began to become unstable: "That powerful person from another universe changed your fate. No wonder the World Tree chose..."

The dark gold wooden sword suddenly flew up on its own, and Lin Xian instantly felt some higher-dimensional power taking over his body.

His vision expanded infinitely. He saw Ye Qingzhou confronting the Giant Eye of the Galaxy in the depths of the Demonic Abyss, and the wounded Emperor curled up behind the blood-red barrier at the border of Qingming. He even vaguely glimpsed the truth above the Nine Dimensions.

The current universe is nothing more than a dream of the Chaos Demon, and the World Tree is the only real existence in this dream.

"Life is like a dream, a reflection of time and space? No... this is not... possible..."

Lin Xian's lignification instantly spread to his neck.

Such a huge amount of information is simply beyond the capacity of the human brain to handle.

But just when his consciousness was about to collapse, Ye Qingzhou's clear thoughts came from the wooden sword:
"Remember, truth or falsehood depends on the observer. The ultimate mystery of the Hunyuan Sword Scripture is..."

In an instant, the sword light burst out, illuminating the sky.

This sword penetrated the seven dimensions at the same time, and every incarnation of chaos was forcibly reorganized from the atomic level.

The giant Xingshu Tower collapsed with a loud bang, revealing a bronze door hidden at the bottom - the door was engraved with the same nine-pillar pattern as the Taixu Secret Realm.

Lin Xian fell to his knees, with half of his face covered by wood.

He touched the bronze door with trembling hands, and the World Tree immediately resonated strongly. Dark golden liquid oozed out from the crack of the door, and the moment he touched it, he saw Ye Qingzhou's last memory.

In the scene that seemed like a disturbance in time and space, Emperor Ziwei was seen nailed in the center of nine pillars, with the other ends of the chains connecting emperors of different dynasties.

They were not controlled by the Demon Abyss, but were undergoing some kind of ancient sealing ritual. Emperor Xuanqiong suddenly cut off the chains and said with a grim smile: "Why do you want us to be prisoners for generations?"

Then the scene switched, and Ye Qingzhou's tree transformation degree exceeded the critical point, and his consciousness was completely merging with the World Tree.

But at the last moment, he sealed the core sword intent into the wooden sword and whispered: "Find the original betrayer..."

"Master!"

The shouts of the Lin family's monks brought Lin Xian back to reality.

Only then did he realize that the bronze door was absorbing his chaotic true energy, and the nine-pillar patterns on the door lit up one by one.

When the seventh pillar glowed, the dark red star in the distant direction of Qingming suddenly exploded, and the shock wave even shook the dimensional rift.

“It’s too late.”

Lin Xian looked at his half-wooden hand and said, "Someone must go and save Emperor Qingming..."

“We are willing to go!”

Three monks with less serious injuries stepped forward. The chaotic light patterns on their bodies had formed protective scabs. "But you need to interpret the core data of the Star Hub yourself."

Lin Xian nodded and gave them a small portion of the seeds that had transformed into the mechanical female general: "When you meet Emperor Qing Ming, show this to him."

When the three figures disappeared into the sky, Lin Xian turned and faced the bronze door.

The fused wooden sword was inserted into the keyhole, and the ninth pillar on the door glowed slightly. He took a deep breath and pushed open the door to the ultimate truth.

Behind the door, there was only a rotating nebula with a crystal coffin suspended in the center.

Lying in the coffin was a young man who looked 80% like Ye Qingzhou, with nine bone nails inserted in his chest.

The roots of the World Tree are entwined around the coffin, as if blocking something, or as if... feeding something.

The coffin suddenly became transparent for a moment.

Lin Xian was struck by lightning. He saw that the internal organs of the person in the coffin were all made of dark gold wood, and on the beating heart, there was the secret golden text of "Zhou Tian Huan Yu" engraved!

"This is……"

He took a half step back, the information brought by the resonance of the World Tree impacting his reason: "Master..."

“The past.”

A voice came from behind.

Lin Xian turned back suddenly and saw Ye Qingzhou, who was supposed to be in the Demon Abyss, leaning against the door frame. Ninety percent of his body had turned into a tree, and only his left eye retained human features: "The nine great demon gods reversed the long river of time, reversed the cause and effect, reflected my past, and turned me into the first gatekeeper."

As the words fell, the nebula suddenly accelerated its rotation.

The previous host of the World Tree in the coffin opened his eyes. The moment the pair of eyes made entirely of Dao patterns met Lin Xian's gaze, the entire ruins of the Xuanqiong Imperial Capital began to grow in reverse - the broken buildings reassembled, the dead monks resurrected, and even the swallowed Heaven Devouring Demon God recondensed...

"This is the power of chaos."

The tree-like part of Ye Qingzhou began to peel off: "It can..." Before he finished speaking, his figure suddenly became ethereal.

Through the World Tree link, Lin Xian felt that his master was suffering a horrific attack in the depths of the Demon Abyss. The entire nine-dimensional universe was trying to digest Ye Qingzhou, an outlier from another universe.

At this moment, the Giant Eye of the Galaxy finally took action personally, and Ye Qingzhou's tree-like body shattered into pieces under the crushing of the dimension.

"No!"

Lin Xian rushed towards the disappearing Ye Qingzhou, but only grabbed a dark gold leaf.

The panoramic view of the Demonic Abyss was clearly reflected on the leaves - there was no so-called demon there, only a giant black tree that penetrated all dimensions, and Ye Qingzhou was being dragged towards the face made of stars on the trunk.

"remember……"

Ye Qingzhou spoke calmly and firmly: "The World Tree chose you because..."

However, the spiritual connection was suddenly severed. Lin Xian knelt in front of the bronze door, and the leaves in his hand turned into particles of light and dissipated.

At this moment, he finally understood what the mechanical female general meant by "variable" before she died - Ye Qingzhou was not an ordinary host of the World Tree from the beginning, but the only variable in the chaotic cycle.

A dull vibration came from deep within the star hub, and the entire space became extremely unstable.

Lin Xian looked up suddenly and saw that the bronze door was slowly closing, and the previous host in the coffin closed his eyes again.

But just when there was only a slit left in the door, he clearly saw the other person's lips raise a smile that was exactly the same as Ye Qingzhou's...

The moment the bronze door slammed shut in front of Lin Xian, his fingertips still felt the sting from touching the crystal coffin.

The feeling was not like touching cold crystal, but rather like reaching into the internal organs of some living creature - warm, moist, and with regular contractions.

"Master!"

The shouts of the monks behind him seemed to be separated by a thick curtain of water.

Lin Xian's ears were still echoing with the echoes of the memories of the previous World Tree host. Those scenes were so vivid, as if he himself had personally experienced ninety-eight cycles of the universe.

Each reincarnation ends with the host of the World Tree completely turning into a tree.

Each time chaos engulfs the entire universe and starts over.

Only this time, Ye Qingzhou separated the core sword intent at the last moment...

"Qingming...Emperor..."

Lin Xian struggled to organize his words and found that his vocal cords were becoming woody.

He looked down at his right hand. His entire arm had turned into a dark golden branch of the World Tree. The thin roots extending from his fingertips unconsciously penetrated into the ground, absorbing weak energy from the ruins.

The pure white seed of the chaos incarnation of the mechanical woman was slightly hot in his left palm. Lin Xian put it close to his forehead, and the seed immediately released a holographic projection - that was the coordinates she extracted from the core of the star before her death, accurately marking the "Old Era Ruins" where Emperor Qingming was hiding.

“We need to immediately…”

Before Lin Xian finished speaking, he suddenly knelt on one knee. The roots of the World Tree grew out from his woody right arm, outlining a three-dimensional star map in the air.

What horrified him was that the star map clearly showed that cracks in the Demon Abyss had appeared above the three dynasties, and below the largest crack, there was a faint shadow of an upside-down black giant tree.

"Chaos is beginning to consume faster and faster."

A monk stared at his wrist which was also turning wooden. "At this rate..."

"Every second counts." Lin Xian stood up with all his strength, and the pure white seed automatically embedded itself into the gap of the wooden sword. The sword body suddenly lit up with silver-white lines, which intertwined with the dark gold lines to form a strange symbiotic state. "You continue to analyze the star data, and I will go find Emperor Qingming."

He raised the wooden sword and cut open the space in front of him. The improved "Chaos Sword Sutra", with the blessing of the pure white seed, actually opened up a micro-dimensional channel.

Before stepping into the passage, Lin Xian took one last look at the bronze door - the pattern on the ninth pillar on the door had turned into Ye Qingzhou's profile at some point.

The dizziness from dimensional travel is a hundred times stronger than expected.

Lin Xian felt like he was thrown into a drum, with every inch of his skin being torn in different directions. Just as his consciousness was about to fade, the pure white seed suddenly released a cool energy wave, forming a stable bubble around him.

"Warning: About to reach a high-dimensional contaminated area."

The voice of the mechanical female general came from inside the seed, but the tone was more electronic, "The life signal of Emperor Qingming was detected... Abnormal..."

The moment the bubble burst, Lin Xian fell into absolute darkness.

The wooden sword glowed automatically, illuminating an area of ​​ten steps in radius - this seemed to be the interior of an ancient building, and the walls were engraved with nine-pillar patterns similar to the bronze door, but all the patterns were roughly scratched by some sharp weapon.

"who?"

A hoarse female voice came from the depths of darkness.

Lin Xian's whole body was tense.

The imperial classics never mentioned that Emperor Qingming was a woman!
He walked forward cautiously, the light of the wooden sword gradually increased, and finally illuminated the figure curled up in the corner——

She was a woman wearing a tattered imperial robe, her exposed skin covered with scars corresponding to the star map.

The most shocking thing was her right hand, the five fingers of which had become crystallized, holding a dagger that looked like jade but was not. When the light shone on her face, Lin Xian gasped: her left eye was a normal amber color, but her right eye was made entirely of nebula!

"The breath of the world tree..."

The Qingming Emperor in front of him suddenly jumped up, and his crystallized right hand went straight to Lin Xian's throat: "Another Chaos trap?"

Lin Xian instinctively raised his sword to block. The moment the dagger and the wooden sword collided, the pure white seed suddenly projected the dying image of the mechanical female general.

Emperor Qingming's movements came to an abrupt halt, and the data stream in his right eye, which was made of nebula, flashed wildly.

"The core..."

She stumbled back, the dagger clanged to the ground: "Have you seen Ziwei?"

"Emperor Ziwei has already..."

Just as Lin Xian was about to answer, the ground suddenly shook violently.

The darkness above his head was torn apart, revealing the scene of outer space - the blood-red barrier above the Qingming Emperor Dynasty was collapsing, and countless black roots stretched out from the cracks!
"It's too late to explain."
Emperor Ming picked up the dagger and suddenly stabbed it into his heart.

Shockingly, what flowed out was not blood but starlight.

These starlights automatically weaved into a micro teleportation array, and Emperor Qingming immediately spoke: "Put your hands on my shoulders!"

The moment Lin Xian did as he was told, the starlight suddenly increased.

He felt himself being broken down into elementary particles, and then quickly reassembled in another place. When his vision was restored, they were already standing in a spherical space - this was an abandoned observation station floating in the synchronous orbit of the Qingming Dynasty.

Through the transparent dome of the observatory, one can clearly see the tragic situation of the empire below - the seven major cities have become hotbeds for breeding demons, and the twisted flesh and blood buildings are wriggling like tumors.

And above the imperial capital, from a crack that spanned the sky, some huge creature was slowly squeezing out.

"That is the true form of the 'Greedy' demon god Managarm."

The Nebula right eye of Emperor Qing Ming reflects the doomsday scene: "Infinite recursive desires have spread to the nine dimensions through the World Tree. This is the third time." (End of this chapter)