"Evil... the Evil Tree is dead? How did it die?" The Ancient Man Snake was baffled, its first reaction was to wonder who killed it. Surely, the Evil Tree's power was far inferior to its own, but it wasn't something that could be killed easily. Who was so formidable?

Finic awkwardly scratched his head, "It was the Star Skeleton that impersonated our Lord. It said it was called the Undead King."

"You found him? What was the outcome?" Ancient Man Snake quickly asked, feeling a bit curious why Finic was so awkward. What was there to be awkward about?

"We found him, but... we couldn't defeat him. Our Lord fled, the opponent pursued, and we couldn't shake him off. So our Lord lured him to the Evil Tree's territory and finally got rid of him," Finic said awkwardly.

The situation remained the same, only the timeline was different. Anthony recounted past events as if they happened now; even if the Ancient Man Snake and the Deceit Tree were confronted face-to-face later, it would probably be hard to detect any problems, as their timelines were different.

Though the Ancient Man Snake had no blood, it felt an irresistible urge to vomit blood; now it understood why Finic wore such an awkward expression—this was the reason.

Suppressing its urge to flip out, Ancient Man Snake asked, "Did your Lord see the Evil Tree get killed?"

Finic shook his head, "No, but when we went back to investigate later, we saw broken thorn pieces all over the ground. The Evil Tree is as good as dead to us, even if it's still alive, it's unlikely to bother with our King anymore."

That made sense—regardless of whether the Evil Tree was alive, they wouldn't be able to get dyes from Emperor Fei Lie's side. What to do?

The Ancient Man Snake regretted killing all the Star Descendants; now it had no one to patrol except itself and the Old Vine.

It distributed a dozen Puppet Snakes around the Tree of Ten Thousand Realms. If there was any movement in a direction, it projected itself onto the Puppet Snake in that direction.

Even so, it still felt very strained. For one, the Puppet Snakes didn't have the ability to Star Shift like the Star Descendants, and for another, the Star Flame Giants had become much more cunning than before; it felt as if they had suddenly become smarter after suffering a setback, as if they had become entirely different.

Suddenly, bubbles started gurgling from the Molten Fire in the distance. The Ancient Man Snake immediately projected itself onto the nearest Puppet Snake, controlling it to approach and even extending its roots to probe where the bubbles rose.

After probing for a while—boom—a loud noise came from another direction, and a main root was smashed in the west while the sound attack occurred in the east.

The Ancient Man Snake quickly projected itself over, only to see a Star Flame Giant had submerged into the Molten Fire.

The Ancient Man Snake stabbed furiously at the landing point, venting out its frustration. After it had calmed down, the Star Flame Giant emerged again, not far from where it had submerged, and went on a rampage, breaking half of another main root.

Apparently, the Star Flame Giant hadn't left the submersion point at all. What made the Ancient Man Snake even more distressed was that it only broke half of a main root.

What did this mean? It meant the Star Flame Giant was more cautious than before. Even if it couldn't completely destroy its target, it would stop immediately when needed, never dragging things out.

Before the Ancient Man Snake could arrive, the Star Flame Giant submerged back into the Molten Fire, infuriating the Ancient Man Snake as it stabbed wildly about, and swelled out some stems to create chaos.

The Ancient Man Snake had to do this for fear that the Star Flame Giant would hide again in the submersion point and emerge later. Each time it launched a chaotic stabbing, its energy consumption increased dramatically.

Now it truly regretted having eliminated all the Star Descendants, without them to stall, it had to stay constantly vigilant and energetically drain itself pointlessly.

Seeing Little Angel playing the Ancient Man Snake for a fool, Negris felt both happy and anxious, "Is it okay for her to keep playing like this? What if the Ancient Man Snake's main body detaches again and hits her? That would be trouble."

Ange shook his head.

Anthony added, "Don't worry, Little Tree Man is on our side. If it detaches again, Little Tree Man will inform us."

Indeed, it's all my people; how can you fight me?

Little Tree Man happened to pop up and started babbling.

Ange tilted his head, "Forbidden Little Fireman, search."

Forbidden Little Fireman search?

Inside the tree burls, Little Tree Man came in like clockwork, as if their routine was nature itself. Unless there was a drastic climate change, they would not alter their routine.

But this time, it found the Forbidden Little Fireman wasn't playing games, but was waiting for it instead. As soon as it entered, it eagerly asked, "What's happening outside?"

The Ancient Man Snake's main body detached from the Tree of Ten Thousand Realms, and the shock felt as if it was going to flip; that it could definitely sense.

Little Tree Man tried hard to explain clearly, then thought for a moment and requested, "Find the King, I want to speak with him."

"What does it want to say?" Negris asked.

Little Tree Man bent over in silence; it was delivering the message.

After a while, Little Tree Man stood upright, "Yaya—"

Ange translated, "It wants me to rescue it."

"Uh..." Anthony and Negris exchanged glances; this seemed like an opportunity, but...

"Should we rescue it?" Negris directly asked in the Soul Network. Words like this weren't good for discussion in front of Little Tree Man and Little Fireman, who had no awareness in this regard.

"No rescue, what would rescuing it achieve? Competing with Little Fireman for the God Star? This guy isn't as simple as Little Fireman, not easily deceived," Anthony said.

After reaching a consensus, Anthony told Little Tree Man, "Tell it we can't rescue it. Ancient Man Snake is on high alert, we can't make a move."

"I pledge allegiance to you as king," the Forbidden Little Fireman conveyed through Little Tree Man, along with a consciousness imprint.

Negris said, "How does it know that?"

"I wrote about it in the knight novel, but did it really learn from it? It's a God Star consciousness," Anthony replied, somewhat surprised.

The Forbidden Little Fireman was indeed a God Star consciousness, and a very mature one, unlike Little Fireman or Little Tree Man who were easier to fool.

True, there was a guiding purpose in Anthony's knight novels, but more as an afterthought by Anthony, a habit of hitting both sides with a pole if unsure, not believing it was going to work.

Unexpectedly, the Forbidden Little Fireman truly turned its allegiance?

Half-believing, half-doubting, he accepted the consciousness imprint, checked it over, and confirmed there was nothing else before Ange absorbed it.

In an instant, Ange established a consciousness-level connection with the Forbidden Little Fireman inside the burl and heard a weak voice, "King...?"

Ange nodded, "It's me."

"Rescue me," the Forbidden Little Fireman pleaded.

"Wait," Ange replied.

The brief conversation ended like that, such a protagonist couldn't even make three episodes in a knight novel.

After breaking off the conversation, Ange began pondering how to rescue the Forbidden Little Fireman, but it wasn't an easy task.

First, it was imprisoned within the burl of the Tree of Ten Thousand Realms; any tree's burl was the most robust part, often secreting special resins that made its hardness extremely high, easily damaging axes.

The Tree of Ten Thousand Realms' burl was no exception; it was nearly the most robust part besides the tree core, and there were some secretions that Ange couldn't understand. Breaking it open wasn't easily achievable.

Secondly, the Forbidden Little Fireman had prohibitions on it. Killing it was easier than rescuing it intact.

After thinking it over, Ange said, "Killing the Ancient Man Snake would be easier."

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