Since it was a genuine Heavenly Dao Incense, Tu Liao’s words were likely true: this incense could indeed summon the Cosmic Tree Spirit.
Lan Xiaobu examined the Heavenly Dao Incense. If Tu Liao intended for him to offer his Great Dao and willpower to be enslaved by the Cosmic Tree Spirit, it meant the incense would only work in the chaos zone.
However, he couldn’t light it himself, nor in his own rule space. Lan Xiaobu wasn’t foolish enough to craft a puppet to do it for him. Any method tied to his Great Dao principles to ignite the incense could trap him. This wasn’t because he couldn’t control the incense’s Heavenly Dao rules, but because this was the Great Universe, where many heaven-and-earth rules were influenced by the Cosmic Tree. The Tree Spirit could manipulate a significant portion of the Great Universe’s rules. In such conditions, lighting the incense would almost certainly ensnare him.
But this was Tianmeng Clan territory, so he could capture one of their members.
The Central World was vast, and Tianmeng Clan cultivators rarely ventured out. Trying to catch one outside Anluo Heavenly City would be like waiting for a rabbit to hit a tree, the odds were too slim. Lan Xiaobu shapeshifted into a Tianmeng Clan cultivator and openly entered Anluo Heavenly City.
Once a bustling holy land for human cultivators, Anluo Heavenly City was now a paradise for the Tianmeng Clan. Though Lan Xiaobu harboured no racial bias, seeing beast-faced Tianmeng Clan cultivators moving about made him feel uneasy.
After an incense stick’s time, Lan Xiaobu followed a fifth-step Great Dao Tianmeng Clan cultivator leaving the city.
To create a rule world in the chaos zone, one needed at least fifth-step Great Dao cultivation. The Withered Life Chaos Zone, a deathly chaos area, demanded even higher strength.
In Anluo Heavenly City, sixth-step Great Dao Tianmeng cultivators were rare. Even if he encountered one, they wouldn’t leave the city, and abducting them would be difficult. Besides, every sixth-step Tianmeng cultivator here held some official position.
This fifth-step cultivator seemed to be heading toward the Great Universe Valley, a place renowned not only in the Central World but across the entire Great Universe. Lan Xiaobu himself had cultivated there.
Just outside Anluo Heavenly City’s surveillance array, Lan Xiaobu intercepted the cultivator.
“You’re a human…” The Tianmeng cultivator only got a few words out before Lan Xiaobu’s vital energy hand seal grabbed his neck, whisking him away.
Half a month later, outside the Withered Life Chaos Zone, Lan Xiaobu looked at the subdued Tianmeng cultivator and asked, “Er Kuang, have you mastered what I taught you?”
Lan Xiaobu didn’t know the cultivator’s name, so he called him Er Kuang, as only those with wealth or strong backing in the Tianmeng Clan could cultivate in the Great Universe Valley. Either way, it had nothing to do with Lan Xiaobu, so he gave him the nickname.
Er Kuang nodded eagerly, “Senior, I understand. After entering the Withered Life Chaos Zone, I’ll go as far in as possible, create my own rule space, light the golden incense you gave me, and then I’m free to leave. Of course, if I die in the chaos zone, it’s not your fault.”
“Very good, you have potential. I have high hopes for you. Go, enter the Withered Life Chaos Zone,” Lan Xiaobu nodded approvingly.
“Alright,” Er Kuang, eager to escape Lan Xiaobu’s control, rushed into the chaos zone at top speed.
The Tianmeng Clan’s affinity for chaos zones was indeed greater than that of human cultivators. A fifth-step human cultivator, without external aid, had less than a ten percent chance of entering the Withered Life Chaos Zone and surviving.
Following Er Kuang, Lan Xiaobu felt that, though time was meaningless in the chaos zone, Er Kuang had been moving for nearly five days by external time standards.
Feeling he’d gone far enough, Er Kuang expanded his created space, took out an altar as Lan Xiaobu instructed, reverently placed the golden Heavenly Dao Incense on it, and lit it with his heart flame.
After finishing, Er Kuang turned to leave. Realising Lan Xiaobu wasn’t stopping him, he was overjoyed and vanished into the chaos in an instant.
Lan Xiaobu didn’t enter Er Kuang’s rule space. He felt Er Kuang was trustworthy, and if he could eliminate the Cosmic Tree Spirit, it would indirectly help Er Kuang.
In Er Kuang’s rule space, only the Heavenly Dao Incense burned. With Lan Xiaobu’s strength in this chaos zone, he didn’t need to extend his own space. The chaos wouldn’t fully erode him in just an incense stick’s time. He merely set up a surveillance array outside Er Kuang’s space, using top-grade materials for the array flags to slow the chaos’s erosion, confident it would last that long.
Though he stayed outside, Lan Xiaobu had already deployed his Cosmic Mill, lying in wait alongside him outside Er Kuang’s space.
An incense stick’s time passed quickly, and to Lan Xiaobu’s dismay, no Cosmic Tree Spirit appeared. Had Tu Liao lied? But the Heavenly Dao Incense was undeniably real, Tu Liao wouldn’t use such a precious treasure to deceive him.
As Lan Xiaobu puzzled, his divine sense caught a miniature Cosmic Tree, or rather, a humanoid-like Cosmic Tree with limbs, a mouth, and eyes, clearly the Cosmic Tree Spirit.
The first time Lan Xiaobu saw the Cosmic Tree Spirit was during the Eternal Life Conference, when Di Lan tried to trap and seize it. He and Mo Wuji had intervened, ruining Di Lan’s plan. Back then, the Spirit was barely a foot tall. Now, in such a short time, it had grown to nearly a meter.
Sensing the Heavenly Dao Incense, the Cosmic Tree Spirit didn’t hesitate, stepping directly into Er Kuang’s rule space.
It clearly believed that, having lit the incense, no ambush could threaten it.
The moment the Spirit entered, Lan Xiaobu activated his Cosmic Mill.
Instantly, the space transformed into a Mill World, the chaos aura shattered by the mill, everything laid bare under its killing space.
The Cosmic Tree Spirit jolted awake, frantically trying to escape. But under Lan Xiaobu’s Cosmic Mill, it couldn’t break free.
Though far stronger than before, the Spirit faced Lan Xiaobu, not Di Lan.
Di Lan, cultivating in the Great Universe, was bound by the Cosmic Tree Spirit’s rules and, in its space, had little chance of capturing it. But Lan Xiaobu’s self-derived Great Dao was unbound by the Great Universe’s rules, and the Spirit couldn’t restrain him either.
“Who are you, and why are you trapping me?” the Cosmic Tree Spirit demanded, speaking human words as Lan Xiaobu emerged from the chaos.
Lan Xiaobu intensified the Cosmic Mill’s killing aura, suppressing the Spirit further, and chuckled, “You don’t know who I am?”
“You’re Lan Xiaobu!” The Spirit, a meter tall, shrank back to a foot under the mill’s pressure. If the suppression continued, it might be ground into tree slurry.
“Lan Xiaobu, we have no grudge. Why ambush me here?” the Spirit shouted.
Lan Xiaobu summoned the Myriad Weight Lock, a creation-level treasure from Hui Zhi’s warehouse, which he’d used to seize the Wuxu Arrow in his external killing array.
Now, under the Cosmic Mill’s suppression, the Myriad Weight Lock easily bound the Spirit.
Seeing it locked, Lan Xiaobu relaxed, smirking, “No grudge? When you were nearly refined by Di Lan, who saved you? Your Grandpa Bu saved you, yet you, you double-crosser, tampered with the Great Universe’s rules via the Cosmic Tree, nearly letting the Tianmeng Clan wipe out the human cultivators.”
“Release me, and I swear I won’t do it again,” the Spirit’s green eyes flickered as it spoke.
“Green hat, stop dreaming. I’m craving something light lately, so I’ll take you back for a blanched Cosmic Tree Spirit. Should be tasty,” Lan Xiaobu sneered.
The Spirit shivered, protesting, “I’m not vegetarian, I’m meat!”
Lan Xiaobu nodded, “Meat, huh? Fine, I’ll still make a blanched Cosmic Tree Spirit.”
With that, he ignored the Spirit, waved his hand, and tossed it into his cosmic dimensional model space.
