Journey to the West: A clone sacrifices to the heavens, possessing boundless magical power.

Chapter 104 A Blessing in Disguise

"The spiritual root of heaven and earth? I, Sun Wukong, will sever your root today!" Sun Wukong's eyes flashed with ferocity as he reached for his ear with his right hand.

A single embroidery needle swelled in the wind, instantly transforming into a Ruyi Jingu Bang (magic staff) as thick as a bowl and twelve feet long, weighing thirteen thousand five hundred jin (approximately 6,500 kg). With a furious strike, it swung down fiercely!

boom!

Wherever the golden cudgel passed, the tree trunks, as hard as iron, cracked inch by inch, and the violent power traveled down the tree trunks to the ground, overturning the spiritual soil within a radius of a hundred feet.

The giant tree fell, its towering canopy crashing to the ground, crushing countless pavilions and towers. As the fruit tree collapsed, all the remaining ginseng fruits on it were shaken off.

The moment the fruit touched the ground, it instantly burrowed into the soil and disappeared without a trace, leaving not even a trace of its presence.

Even more terrifying was the surge of spiritual energy triggered by the breakage of the spiritual root. This tree suppressed the earth veins of Longevity Mountain, and now that its roots had broken, the accumulated essence of Yi Wood, which had been stored up for countless eons, burst forth violently like a flood.

A visible storm of azure spiritual energy swept outwards from the fruit tree in all directions.

In the main hall of the front courtyard, Qingfeng and Mingyue were arguing fiercely when suddenly a deafening roar, like the sky collapsing and the earth splitting, came from the back courtyard, followed by a violent tremor of the ground beneath their feet.

"Oh no! Something's happened in the back garden!" The two boys, no longer able to curse, hurriedly turned around and rushed towards the back garden.

When they passed through the moon gate and saw the scene before them, the two of them froze on the spot.

The once ethereal and enchanting Spirit Garden is now nothing but ruins.

The ginseng fruit tree was uprooted and lay sprawled in the deep pit, its branches and leaves withered and yellow, its life cut off.

"The tree—the tree has fallen—" Mingyue's legs went weak, and she collapsed directly into the muddy water, her face pale.

Qingfeng was trembling all over, his teeth chattering, and he couldn't even utter a complete sentence.

The master's instructions before his departure still echoed in their ears. Now that their spiritual roots have been destroyed, they are guilty beyond redemption.

The two children were so frightened that they collapsed to the ground, completely terrified.

At the same time, the spiritual energy storm caused by the fallen fruit trees had broken through the restrictions of the back garden and was sweeping towards the outer servants' quarters and the herb garden.

A fierce wind howled, and the azure essence of the Wood element surged forth. The ordinary disciples had never seen such a devastating spectacle before. They screamed in terror, covered their heads, and fled desperately toward the mountain gate.

"Run! The earth has turned over!"

"The formation has been broken! Run for your lives!"

-

Amid the chaos, only one gray figure was running against the flow of people towards the back garden, the very heart of the spiritual energy storm.

It was Shen Feng, the clone!

Just half an incense stick's time ago, he had temporarily placed the two ginseng fruits that had been transferred into the earth vein node of the Earth Spirit Herb Garden, and used an array to conceal their aura.

At this moment, sensing the incredibly dense and terrifying essence of Yi Wood in the air, Fan Yuan's true form outside the mountain gate flashed with a sharp light in his eyes.

"This is the source that overflowed from the broken innate spiritual root!" Fan Yuan immediately gave the order.

As Shen Feng swam upstream, he channeled his inner energy and shouted to the fleeing disciples around him, "Don't panic! Quickly follow me to salvage the spiritual herbs! Protect the temple's property!"

His shouts were righteous and awe-inspiring, but his steps never faltered. He smashed through the ruins along the way, and taking advantage of the rescue of Guanshi, he braved the spiritual energy storm and rushed to a place less than a hundred feet away from the ginseng fruit tree.

Further ahead, the violent spiritual energy was enough to grind a cultivator in the Refining Spirit stage into mincemeat. Shen Feng stopped behind a collapsed artificial hill.

This is the position where the essence of Yi Wood is most concentrated, and where he can barely withstand the extreme pressure.

"Breathe in!" Without the slightest hesitation, Shen Feng sat down cross-legged and began to fully circulate the "Green Wood Nourishing Spirit Technique".

Ordinary cultivators would avoid such violent spiritual energy at all costs, because unrefined essence would burst their meridians.

But Shen Feng wasn't absorbing at all; he was plundering.

He treated this clone's physical body as a vessel devoid of emotion!

boom!

As the cultivation technique was activated, the dense, almost impenetrable azure essence, mixed with a trace of extremely faint fruit tree essence, poured into Shen Feng's body like a funnel.

"Uh—" The moment the essence entered his body, Shen Feng's body stiffened abruptly.

A tearing pain shot through his meridians; that was the primordial power of his innate spiritual root. Even a trace of it was far beyond what a cultivator in the Refining Spirit stage could withstand.

In the blink of an eye, countless bloody cracks appeared on Shen Feng's skin, and the blood was forcibly solidified by the violent wood-elemental spiritual energy as soon as it seeped out.

Dark red blood was flowing from his seven orifices, a shocking sight, and this clone was on the verge of collapse.

"Hold on!" Fan Yuan gritted his teeth, his eyes cold. "As long as we can preserve this trace of the source, it'll be a huge win!"

Under the forceful control of his main body, Shen Feng gritted his teeth and continued to frantically operate the "Azure Wood Nourishing Spirit Technique" despite the continuous collapse of his physical body, forcibly suppressing the violent Yi Wood essence into the depths of his sea of ​​consciousness.

Time seemed to stretch on endlessly at that moment. The chaos at Wuzhuang Temple continued, and the looting behind the artificial hill reached its most critical point.

The wisp of the fruit tree's essence that Shen Feng had finally managed to capture was forcibly pulled into his body and went straight into the depths of his sea of ​​consciousness. In an instant, the blurry phantom that had been formed during his advancement to the Refining God realm finally succumbed to the pressure and reached its limit.

Click!

A crisp cracking sound rang out, but in that instant of destruction, deep within Shen Feng's sea of ​​consciousness, the dormant bluish-gray vortex, the nascent form of the Samadhi Divine Wind, suddenly emerged!

"The wind borrows the power of the wood, and the wood aids the wind's might!" Shen Feng poured all the undigested, violent wood essence within his body, along with a trace of the fruit tree's origin, into this vortex.

Buzz! The cyan cyclone, which was originally only the size of a walnut, expanded rapidly after absorbing this power, like rain after a long drought!

One circle, two circles, the cyclone grew two more circles, becoming the size of a human head.

Its color has also changed from the original bluish-gray to a chilling dark blue.

Inside the cyclone, there were faint, flowing patterns of wood grain. Each wind blade that cut into each other emitted a whistling sound like the howling of ghosts and gods.

"call----"

Shen Feng slowly clenched his fist. He had succeeded!

The swirling azure energy gradually subsided. He looked down at his battered body, and a smile crept onto his blood-stained, cold face.

Qingfeng and Mingyue snapped out of their daze, their ears filled with the screams and cries of the disciples around them.

The two exchanged a glance and immediately decided to split up. Qingfeng went first to treat the wounded and calm the disciples, while Mingyue went straight to where Tang Sanzang and his disciples were to keep those people in check. As long as they kept an eye on the culprit's fellow disciples, they could give their master an explanation when he returned.

As Qingfeng cleared away the ruins of the collapsed building, he suddenly caught sight of a pitiful figure lying among the broken walls.