Xiang Shaoyun was still unaware of what was happening outside. Although the blood heart looked near, it was actually still quite far from him. Furthermore, there were many obstructions. He had to go through a lot of effort before he was able to reach the blood heart.
Looking at the blood heart that was the size of a regular stone, he noted that it was surrounded by numerous roots that looked more like the meridians of a human body. The red blood heart throbbed every now and then, and its immediate surroundings were filled with life force. It gave rise to an urge within Xiang Shaoyun to immediately refine it.
With a burning look in his eyes, Xiang Shaoyun exclaimed, “The Soul Foundation Realm does not seem that far away anymore.”
By obtaining the blood heart, he could rely on it to easily enter the Soul Foundation Realm upon reaching peak Emperor Realm. He was now a seventh-stage Dragon Ascension Realm cultivator, and his soul had grown to an unimaginable level. If it wasn’t for the fact that his flesh was lagging behind, he could have already started forming his soul foundation.
Now was not the time to consider all that. Swinging the saint sword around, he cut off the vines around the blood heart before finally aiming at the roots. The moment he harvested the blood heart, the blood devil vine would die.
The blood devil vine knew this very well. It had already formed a low-level sentience and had the desire to survive. When it felt threatened, it started pulling back all its vines. At the same time, a massive amount of poisonous gas swept inward, not giving Xiang Shaoyun any chance to kill it.
The people at the outer perimeter were greatly puzzled when they saw that the vines were withdrawing instead of attacking them. As for Han Chenfei, the massive amount of retreating poisonous gas and vines forced her to retreat.
An unsightly expression covered her face as she muttered, “The devil vine is going to use its full power against the overlord.”
She erupted with her full strength and started attacking the retreating vines. At the same time, she yelled to the others, “What are you waiting for? Work together and slay this devil vine!”
The crowd seemed to show her a great deal of respect and started attacking the vines en masse. Their motivation for doing so was for the sake of earning more points by cutting off more vines. That way, they would look better with a better ranking upon leaving the battleground.
However, with all the vines gathered together, their defensive prowess increased greatly. All the attacks were blocked, and the disciples failed to harm the vines no matter what they did. Only attacks at the Sovereign level could damage the vines.
However, the elite disciples with the combat prowess of a Sovereign weren’t interested in getting involved. Some of the disciples were also distracted by the immortal dead tree as someone had leaked the rumor that one would obtain an energy called the immortal energy if one refined the tree’s dead trunk. This proved fatally attractive, especially to the wood cultivators.
As the rumor spread, more and more disciples targeted the immortal dead tree, leaving Han Chenfei with no choice but to seek help from the Overlord Legion members.
Prior to this, Tang Longfei, Xuan Yuantian, and the others were brought into the gorge by Xiang Shaoyun. However, they were unable to resist the Devil Sovereign puppets and had long withdrawn from the gorge. Some of them were forced to leave the battleground during their struggle with the vines, but fortunately, a decent number of them still remained. They came together and started attacking the vines.
Rumble! Rumble!
Attack after attack landed on the blood devil vine’s defensive barrier, the barrage reaching a level beyond the barrier’s endurance. More importantly, Xiang Shaoyun was right beside its blood heart and had severed many of its roots. It relied on its roots to live, and their destruction played a part in the weakening of its defensive barrier.
Of course, Xiang Shaoyun was constantly attacked by the vines and poisonous gas, and he had several close calls with death. He was eventually forced to wear the halo he had received from the angels, protecting himself from the numerous vines’ sneak attacks.
With the halo, he finally no longer needed to watch his back. He utilized the Dazzling Sky Sword Technique and cut through a large number of roots. With the Overlord Legion members attacking at the same time from the outside, the barrier started shrinking.
Finally, the blood heart was within Xiang Shaoyun’s reach. He cleaned the roots around it before plucking the heart and putting it into his astral cosmos sea. The instant the heart was plucked, the plant rapidly lost strength. Its many vines weakened and could no longer deal much damage.
Xiang Shaoyun then swiftly harvested even more of the roots around him before spreading his senses outward. When he noticed the Overlord Legion members madly attacking, he cried out, “Brothers and sisters, stop. I’m coming out!”
The Overlord Legion members hurriedly stopped attacking, giving Xiang Shaoyun a chance to blast a path out. By the time Xiang Shaoyun reappeared outside, the blood devil vine had died.
After all, the essence of its life was concentrated in the blood heart. It could still survive without the heart, but with its roots cut off as well, it had no hope of surviving. Perhaps a new blood devil vine would grow here again after an extended period of time.
However, Xiang Shaoyun did not intend to give the blood devil vine a second chance at life. He commanded the Overlord Legion members, “There are still a lot of roots down there. Go harvest them all, but watch out for the poison.”
The Overlord Legion members were overjoyed, and they started splitting the blood devil vine. The few remaining roots were also shared among them, and not a single vine was left behind. After all, the vines were also precious materials. It would be a waste to leave them behind.
Just like that, the pitiful blood devil vine was cleanly harvested, leaving nothing behind.
Xiang Shaoyun wanted to go take a look at the immortal dead tree as well, but he found that the tree was also under assault by numerous disciples. The essence of the tree, the dead trunk, had also been harvested by none other than Ye Linshan the Green Youth. After obtaining the trunk, he quickly vanished from everyone’s vision.
At this time, a loud rumble sounded from the cave under the gorge. It turned out that the intense battle inside had actually destroyed the entire cave. Before the shockwaves had even dispersed, a terrifying concentration of lightning bolts started raining down from the sky.
At first, Xiang Shaoyun thought they were lightning bolts summoned by Lei Bao. But he soon found that they were actually silver lightning bolts. Only then did he recall that Money was still inside the cave. He was probably attempting a breakthrough.
“Damnable snake. You’re actually breaking through now? I’ll kill you!” roared Zhan Wushuang, who was furious after his battle was interrupted. He then launched a punch at Money, who was in the midst of a breakthrough.
The powerful fist rumbled forward like a torrent of pure unstoppable power. As Money was in the midst of a breakthrough, he had no way of stopping the punch. He was heavily struck and was sent flying away.
“Bastard! You dare harm my brother? Die!” Xiang Shaoyun roared in fury.
