"If I display my power, that might indeed prove something, but what good would that do? My strength ultimately belongs to me, not to them."
"And if I simply destroy this volcano, I'll be cutting off their shortcut to advancing their cultivation. So they'll still hate me,"
"Hate you? Then beat some sense into them," the Queen said.
Her words were laced with resentment.
How could she not be angry?
Chu Feng had returned to visit them and had been thinking of their well-being, yet they had treated him like that.
The Queen couldn't care less whether they had lost their rationality or not — as long as they treated Chu Feng poorly, she would show no mercy.
"Beating them won't work. It'll only make them hate me more. Besides, they're my brothers and family. I've worked hard at cultivating in order to protect them, not to hurt them," Chu Feng said.
"Sigh, you really are too good for them. So what do you plan to do?" the Queen asked.
"It's actually quite simple. They want evidence? Then I'll give them evidence."
As he spoke, Chu Feng had already arrived at the deepest reaches of the volcano.
This place was filled with that strange, eerie aura.
This was a place that even
And now, Chu Feng could see what others could not — at the very bottom of the volcano, there was magma continuously surging upward, but that magma was far more complicated than anyone had imagined.
For within the magma, there was a creature — an object resembling a maggot.
But it was enormous, fully a thousand meters long, its entire body a fiery red. It writhed and squirmed, releasing that strange power — the very power that had become the aura, the aura that had strengthened Zhang Tianyi and the others' cultivation.
"So the Queen figured it out — you want to awaken this creature. Only once it wakes up and reveals its true form will Zhang Tianyi and the others believe what you've told them. At that point, they won't hate you anymore," the Queen said.
"It's the only way. After all, the one who tied the knot must be the one to untie it."
"Though the one who can untangle the knot in
"Then get started. The sooner this is resolved, the sooner you can put this worry behind you," the Queen said.
"Mm."
Chu Feng nodded, then looked down at the monster deep within the magma below and said in his heart:
"Little thing, let me get a good sense of exactly what it is you need."
With that, Chu Feng closed his eyes and released his Mental Power, beginning to sense.
A moment later, Chu Feng opened his eyes.
"So that's what it needs. No wonder everyone became more and more unfriendly the more they cultivated — their hostility grew heavier and heavier."
Chu Feng had finally uncovered the reason.
This creature wasn't increasing Zhang Tianyi and the others' hostility.
It was simply draining the friendly emotions from them.
And once their friendliness had been siphoned away to a certain degree, their hostility naturally grew stronger and stronger.
Not only that, they had become increasingly distrustful of those they once believed in wholeheartedly — growing suspicious and conceited.
That explained why Zhang Tianyi had become the way he was now. This creature truly was the root of the problem.
Chu Feng was, after all, a Raiment-level Spirit World Master, so something like this was no challenge at all.
Chu Feng secretly set up a formation — one that was invisible, completely hidden from the monster below.
But this invisible formation could emit a friendly aura for the monster to feed on.
Once the formation was complete, the aura began to emanate outward, and sure enough, the maggot-like creature below started writhing faster.
It was as though a gluttonous worm had found its favorite food and was frantically devouring it.