novelraw Chapter 573: A Divine Tree Personally Endorsed by the Lord of Taishang Dao and Virtue!
Chapter 573: A Divine Tree Personally Endorsed by the Lord of Taishang Dao and Virtue!
It was too late to brake now, and with its massive body, suddenly trying to stop wasn't really possible anyway.
It could only brace itself and unleash the frozen malevolence it had condensed, which gathered frost from across the heavens.
A bitter wind howled, freezing the world.
Lu Ding raised the stone tablet to block, swinging it forward to intercept all the icy force before him, then slammed it back to send the attack flying away.
Ice and cold energy scattered like fireworks bursting, landing and sprouting patches of frost wherever they touched.
The stone tablet was swung with tremendous force, carrying a terrifyingly pure suppression power that specialized in crushing all defiance, and it smashed heavily into Taogu's body.
Instantly.
Cracks spread across his form.
The impact sent him reeling backward.
Pain arrived simultaneously with the cold, hard sensation of the stone tablet, giving Taogu a face-full experience of just how terrifying its suppression power truly was!!!The real deal!!
This was the genuine article!!
Taogu collapsed powerless to the ground, filled with bitter resentment!!!
"How could you possibly have a real Stone Dang!!!"
When Lu Ding first drew the stone tablet, he had already been frightened.
After all, everyone knew the Stone Dang subdued demons and protected homes—this was no joking matter.
But there were many counterfeits and impure versions.
Taogu had assumed the stone tablet Lu Ding pulled out was also fake.
Who had ever seen a Stone Dang carved with fish patterns underneath?
Yet when he actually took the hit, he realized his mistake—a ridiculously huge one!!!
This thing was more authentic than the real deal!
But hadn't the Stone Dang vanished from the world?
How did he get one?
Facing its confusion, Lu Ding had no obligation to enlighten his enemy.
With Stone Dang in hand, he swung it upward. The Monk's Demon-Subduing Technique spun the tablet, gathering power as suppression force overflowed from the Black Prison of Death's Body, shining like the rising sun to illuminate heaven and earth!!!
The scene was indescribably eerie and terrifying.
A young man with a ferocious grin and black smoke billowing skyward was spinning a tablet—and not just any tablet, but the great righteous deity, Stone Dang!!!
What the hell...
Shouldn't Stone Dang be suppressing him instead!!!
"Daydreaming, spacing out, losing focus in battle, gasping in shock at your enemy—you shallow, spiritless trash, just die already!!!"
Fighting him was nothing but one shock after another, constant questioning—where did all these issues come from?
He'd never seen the world, always asking this and that—Lu Ding was sick of it!
Holding the stone tablet high, he leaped upward, then came crashing down from above, aiming straight for Taogu—who seemed frozen in a knockdown state—and delivered a devastating overhead smash!!!!
Lu Ding's figure kept expanding in its vision.
Until the disdain and contempt in the young man's eyes were permanently etched into Taogu's sight!!!
It wanted to rise, it wanted to fight back!!!
But after taking that direct, full-force hit from the Stone Dang, it genuinely couldn't muster much strength.
How powerful the real thing was—didn't you, as the user, have any damn idea?!!
"You bully people too muc—"
SMASH!!!!
CRACK CRACK..........
His tree-trunk body shattered apart, sap mixing with blood as it splattered everywhere.
Lu Ding didn't give him any chance to finish.
His cultivation realm violently surged upward from that brutal smash.
He broke through!!!
The aura of Two Restrictions Late Stage instantly erupted, stirring fierce winds that made his scholar-warrior sleeves flap loudly.
The Taogu tree demon, who had been clinging stubbornly to its last breath.
Upon sensing that Lu Ding actually broke through by fighting him...
That defiantly raised arm weakly dropped.
He couldn't even beat Lu Ding at Two Restrictions Middle Stage, and now at Two Restrictions Late Stage...
Forget it...
Terrifying combat power, monstrous talent, breaking through mid-battle—this was a celestial being......
Recalling his own mediocre life.
Rooted atop a snowy mountain for thousands of years before gaining sentience, then another thousand years barely managing to assume human form, afterward wandering the mortal world without understanding good or evil, drifting for a century until meeting a benefactor and joining the Yellow Heaven Sect.
Because of his extraordinary foundation, he received immediate attention upon joining, with constant training and resources, even promoted without merit straight to envoy, tempted with promises of spells.
Yet...
He thought himself a heaven-sent prodigy, a rising star, but now he was being brutally crushed by someone at a lower level...
Such is fate, such is destiny—there's always someone better.
He was tired...
Cultivation... what was it all for anyway...
That final breath completely dissipated—truly dying with his cultivation heart shattered at the very end.
[Contained Monster: Proud Snow Defying Frost Tree (Yujing Mountain Peach Tree Cold Fruit Branch)]
[Containment Reward: Proud Snow Defying Frost Tree (Extraordinary Phenomenon)]
[Proud Snow Defying Frost Tree: Defying frost, proud in snow, freezing three feet deep, towering proudly above the world's peak—who dares challenge its supremacy?]
It's here!!!
Long ago, back when he was fighting Corpse Mage in the Third Circle, Lu Ding had wanted its ice and frost power.
He never expected it wouldn't drop frost-based abilities back then.
Instead, it dropped [Devouring Qi Death Beam].
Later encounters didn't yield it either.
Lu Ding had basically forgotten about it, without any expectations left.
Turns out they were saving a big one for him.
When it comes to famous trees, widely known ones include the World Tree, the Heaven-Reaching Jianmu, the Fusang Tree, the Bodhi Tree, the Ginseng Fruit Tree, the Pan Tao Tree, and so on...
But the ancient texts contain many more powerful, mystical trees beyond these.
The [Yujing Mountain Peach Tree] is one such rarely known divine tree.
In his previous life, after rewatching Journey to the West, Lu Ding felt puzzled.
Could the Monkey King really eat that many peaches alone?
These peaches were hyped so incredibly—ripening every three thousand years, every six thousand years—yet something so precious was left under the Monkey King's sole watch.
He kept that doubt in mind.
Later, while researching and flipping through the [Supreme Cavern Abyss Divine Curse Scripture], Lu Ding found a peach tree even more incredible than the Pan Tao Tree.
That was the [Yujing Mountain Peach Tree].
It said [The Supreme leads eighty million billion celestial maidens... passing by Yujing, where upon Yujing Mountain there is a peach tree, three hundred and ninety billion miles tall, its eastern branches covering the East... southern branches shading the Southern Kingdom... western branches... northern branches... blooming once every four hundred and ninety million years...]
[...bearing one fruit every eight hundred million years... the fruit when ripe large as a carriage wheel... ghosts seeing this peach tree will die of themselves... celestials each holding this peach wood, descend to kill plague ghosts, all demons perish...]
Incredible, right?
Lu Ding was stunned when he read it.
Good heavens, three hundred and ninety billion miles—what kind of concept is that?
The distance from Earth to the Moon is only several hundred thousand kilometers.
And it blooms once every four hundred and ninety million years, bearing fruit every eight hundred million years.
This completely outclasses the Pan Tao Tree!!!!
The Pan Tao Tree's three-thousand-year, six-thousand-year cycles are like grass compared to this—just blinking from a nap would see dozens of Pan Tao Tree generations pass by.
This was where Lu Ding gained this knowledge.
So those people who claim peach wood swords kill demons and ghosts originate from the Pan Tao Tree are wrong.
The 'peach' in peach wood swords refers to the [Yujing Mountain Peach Tree]'s peach, not the Pan Tao Tree's peach.
This was personally certified by the Supreme Pure Lord of the Way and its Virtue.
The gold standard couldn't be any higher!