Watching An Jiaye's departing figure leave the Sacred Land, the members of the three great Sacred Lands all felt a complicated mixture of emotions. Those from the Eternal Sacred Land, in particular, harbored deeply ambivalent feelings toward An Jiaye.
Back then, An Jiaye had brought the Four Great Divine Servants of Wind, Snow, and Moon to the Eternal Divine Kingdom and annihilated the entire Yan family. That incident had been an enormous provocation against the Eternal Sacred Land.
Although the subsequent investigation revealed that An Jiaye had acted because his daughter and son-in-law had been bullied by the Yan family — and that destroying the Yan clan was nothing more than settling an old grudge — the Eternal Sacred Land was still unhappy about it. This was their territory, after all. Wiping out the Yan family was a slap in the face of the Eternal Sacred Land.
Unfortunately, the Divine Ancestors of the Eternal Sacred Land were no match in cultivation for Divine Ancestor Jiaye. And although Jiang Chen himself could have intervened, it was impossible for him to fall out with Divine Ancestor Jiaye outright. After all, Jiaye was nominally Yan Qinghuang's grandfather, while Jiang Chen was Yan Qinghuang's Dao companion. How could he possibly turn against her grandfather?
As a result, the Eternal Sacred Land had initially viewed Divine Ancestor Jiaye with considerable hostility.
Later, when the main forces of the ten great Sacred Lands had gathered on Pingsha Island, it was An Jiaye who had rushed back to help them fend off the first wave of attacks when Elder Guangdu had sent forces to assault the Eternal Sacred Land. Afterward, when they had joined hands to deal with Elder Guangdu, the relationship between Divine Ancestor Jiaye and the Eternal Sacred Land had gradually eased. This time, Jiaye had come bearing the antidote on Jiang Chen's orders, greatly alleviating the pressure on the Eternal Sacred Land.
Now, at this life-or-death juncture, Divine Ancestor Jiaye had once again stepped forward with righteous conviction, and this had made them realize that his character might be far greater than his outward appearance suggested. At the very least, when it came to matters of the greater good, Divine Ancestor Jiaye had done everything in his power.
But would his departure be enough to destroy the roots of the Wood Demon plants? No one dared to be optimistic. As far as they knew, any one of the demon race's Divine Ancestors was an incredibly formidable existence. Divine Ancestor Jiaye possessed fourth-level Divine Dao cultivation, but compared to the ancestors of the Wood Demon lineage, his strength was not necessarily superior.
…
An Jiaye walked alone through the desolate wilderness.
In the past, this stretch of wilderness had been similarly barren, but it had never possessed the eerie atmosphere it carried now.
Across the endless expanse of wasteland, almost no trace of the original landscape could be discerned. In its place was an overwhelming sea of plants that blotted out the sky and the sun.
These plants were interconnected, packed so tightly together that they were virtually entangled into one another, leaving hardly any place for a person to set foot. Vine after vine stretched on in unbroken succession, as if weaving an inescapable net across heaven and earth, seeking to seize absolute dominion over this realm.
An Jiaye moved among them with the ease of a bird in flight.
After breaking through to the fourth level of Divine Dao, An Jiaye was quite satisfied with the improvement in his cultivation. He did not believe he could defeat the ancestor of the Wood Demon lineage, but he was confident he had the ability to hold his own for a time.
There was a reason he was traversing this wilderness now. He needed to observe these Wood Demon plants, to locate the core root that controlled them.
There had to be a central nexus governing their growth. If he could find that core root and destroy it, the crisis of the Wood Demon plants might vanish entirely.
Of course, An Jiaye knew full well that none of this would be easy.
Truthfully, if Jiang Chen had not given him the Great Glazed Talisman, An Jiaye was not sure he would have had the courage to venture this deep. Though he had not yet used the Glazed Divine Talisman, every time he sensed it with his spiritual consciousness, he could feel the magnificent power of that ancient era emanating from within. It was a power that he, An Jiaye, could only look up to in reverence.