It had rained not long ago.
The sky over the Northern Plains stretched a deep, crystalline blue, utterly clear.
A Gu Immortal flew low, hovering only a few zhang above the ground, his gaze sweeping rapidly across the terrain below as though searching for something.
He was bare-chested, his physique well-proportioned and his muscles firm. His features were unremarkable — a straight nose, lips pressed tightly together — giving him an air of steely determination.
The ground he surveyed was covered in lush grass, a vast expanse of vivid green. But upon closer inspection, the earth hidden beneath that thick carpet of verdure was fractured everywhere, riddled with suspicious cracks.
The Northern Plains Gu Immortal had only begun his investigation after noticing these telltale signs. By now, he had been searching for over a hundred li.
Suddenly, a dark green shadow flickered past beneath one of the fissures in the ground.
"Found you!" His eyes blazed bright. He dove downward in a burst of grey light, plummeting like a hawk striking its prey — fierce, decisive, radiating the unshakable resolve of certainty.
Boom!
The Gu Immortal crashed straight into the earth. The ground erupted instantly, sending soil and rock flying, grass and mud swirling through the air.
The strike landed true!
"Hm?" The next instant, his pupils contracted.
The ground split apart, revealing a colossal form buried in the shallow depths below — like an enormous yellow dragon.
But a closer look revealed it was no dragon. It was the main root of a gigantic ginseng.
The ginseng root was a withered yellow, covered in deep wrinkles, and radiated a sense of raw, inexorable power.
Struck without warning, the root immediately erupted with terrifying force, as though a great dragon were rolling over in fury.
Boom, boom, boom — the surrounding ground was ravaged once more. Grass and mud sprayed in every direction, and the Northern Plains Gu Immortal was flung backward by the shockwave.
He rose into midair, and only then did he see the ginseng in its full glory. Across a hundred li of territory, withered yellow root tendrils jutted from the earth everywhere, as if a forest of them had sprung up overnight.
Hundreds of root tendrils, each one like a yellow flood dragon, lashed wildly toward the Gu Immortal.
He drew a deep breath, and grey light shimmered into being around his entire body.
Shrouded in that grey glow, his form grew blurry — flickering, insubstantial, caught between real and illusory.
The root tendrils struck him, but it was as though they passed straight through a phantom. They achieved nothing.
He was like the moon's reflection on water — no matter how the surface rippled, the moonlight remained unblemished.
Having stabilized his position, the Gu Immortal began to prepare his offensive.
He activated a killing move, unleashing a barrage of greenish-grey wooden spikes, each one as thick as an ancient tree trunk. They hammered into the root tendrils one after another, pinning them firmly to the ground.
He pressed his assault relentlessly, and the tendrils besieging him grew fewer and fewer.
"What a treasure!" The Northern Plains Gu Immortal's surname was Wu, his given name Guang — a Seventh Transformation Wood Path Gu Immortal, known as the Wood Image Lord.
The longer he studied the root tendrils, the more fervently his eyes burned.
This withered ginseng was a variety he had never seen before. Even as a cultivator who specialized exclusively in the Wood Path, Wu Guang could not identify it.
Then again, this sort of thing had become fairly common of late. The Five Regions had merged, ley lines churned, qi tides swept across the land, and vast quantities of cultivation resources were surfacing — among them all manner of strange and wondrous oddities.
This ancient desolate plant was one such find.
By sheer coincidence, the Wood Image Lord Wu Guang had stumbled upon it.
This colossal ginseng was extraordinarily valuable.
If Wu Guang could successfully tame it, the profits would be immense — a lucrative long-term venture. But subduing a wild ancient desolate plant was no easy matter, nothing like raising one from a seedling.
Taming an ancient desolate plant involved Slave Path techniques, which was not Wu Guang's forte.
For now, he didn't dare ask for too much. His immediate goal was simply to kill this enormous ginseng and harvest its precious immortal materials.
The longer he linger, the greater the risk. This territory belonged to the Golden Bloodline — if their Gu Immortals discovered him, Wu Guang as an independent cultivator would be in serious trouble.
Immortal Killing Move — Withered Wood, Dead Ash!
Once the tendrils besieging him had thinned to a critical point, Wu Guang thrust both palms forward with a thunderous boom. A grey pillar of light tore through the sky and struck the main ginseng root dead center.
The impact punched a massive hole clean through the root.
The tendrils still attacking Wu Guang seemed to have all their strength vacuumed away in an instant. They collapsed to the ground like limp, soft worms, no longer radiating any of their former ferocity.
"It's over." Wu Guang allowed himself a faint smile — but his expression twisted violently the next moment!
Boom, boom, boom.
The earth shook, the sky flipped. Over a thousand root tendrils burst into view simultaneously, rearing high into the air. Each one was at least ten zhang long, blotting out the sky and earth, their shadows engulfing Wu Guang entirely.
With creeping horror, he realized that the ginseng root he had confirmed as the main trunk was not the true body at all — it was merely one of several larger branches.
"This ancient desolate plant — it must be over ten thousand years old. It's on the verge of the Eighth Transformation, standing at the absolute pinnacle of ancient desolate plants!" Wu Guang's heart shuddered violently.
Countless root tendrils hammered down from above.
Wu Guang scrambled to dodge.
But in that very instant, a wild Gu worm parasitizing some part of the ginseng activated, causing his speed to plummet.
Root tendril after root tendril slammed into him.
At the critical moment, the grey light reappeared!
Over a thousand tendrils whipped through the air like massive, maddened flails, tearing through the atmosphere, generating rolling shockwaves that would not cease.
Wu Guang's form swayed unsteadily. His immortal essence was draining at a terrifying rate.
"This is bad." Wu Guang could smell death bearing down on him. At this rate, his immortal essence reserves wouldn't last much longer.
His defensive technique had kept him alive so far.
But this defensive killing move carried an enormous drawback: once activated, the Gu Immortal could not move a single step. He was forced to remain rooted in place.