Emperor’s Domination

She wondered: “Isn’t it just scribbles then? Maybe it doesn’t have any meaning?”

Li Qiye grinned and replied: “No, at the very least, it shows that the treecorpses are evolving and beginning to gain intelligence. In addition to this text, they also have another method to express themselves. Otherwise, not many corpses would gather here to negotiate.”

She felt puzzled: “Then what method did they use to arrange this meeting?”

He replied: “It must be another type of innate skill that allows them to call the other members to gather. No matter what, they are evolving and showing great improvements outside of their innate skills, such as this type of text. It looks like the stronger ones have a better chance of changing. Hmm, I might have been neglecting them all along.”

“What were they deliberating then? The dead actually discussing something? It must be earth-shattering.” Xiaoxiao was now very interested in the treecorpses as well.

In the last few days of following Li Qiye and watching the withered then the treecorpses, she felt as if she was watching the birth of a race.

“I don’t know, but you are right. If creatures like this have gathered for a meeting, it means that something big has happened in their own world.” Li Qiye gently shook his head.

“Then let’s go and see?” Her curiosity was piqued. This was even more enjoyable to her than finding treasures.

“Yes, they’ll keep gathering. We just need to find more lairs, then we’ll see them again and maybe we can even figure out what they are talking about.” Li Qiye agreed with her idea.

He had other things he wanted to do at the Divine Tree Ridge, but this matter of the treecorpses happened unexpectedly and garnered his attention. Thus, he put everything else to the side and decided to focus on this first.

“How do we find the other lairs?” She was very eager and wanted nothing more than to continue their search.

“With me around, do you think we won’t be able to find them?” Li Qiye smiled and held her tiny hand before disappearing in a flash.

In the next few days, the duo went to several large lairs. They were extremely secretive and well-concealed. The entrances were dangerous so even if one knew about the locations, they wouldn’t necessarily be able to enter.

However, this didn’t trouble Li Qiye. He intruded these places with ease and stealth. He opened his Cryptic Space and hid inside with Ye Xiaoxiao, not allowing any corpses to detect them.

Not to mention these creatures, even a character like a sea god would have problems detecting them. His main purpose was to find what they wanted to do, so stealth was necessary.

After entering the last few lairs, he finally found something. The strongest treecorpses could always be found together in a meeting.

Although they didn’t have a language for communication, they could use their innate instincts to talk to each other. Sometimes, they would draw some signs on the ground. This was the beginning of their own system of writing. All of this contributed to his eventual understanding of their goal.

“What do they want?” Xiaoxiao was also watching, but she didn’t know their intentions.

He finally arrived at a reliable conclusion and slowly replied: “A group of them will relocate.”

“Relocate? To where? And why do they want to move?” This girl was like a curious baby and kept on asking questions.

“You’ll know soon enough.” Li Qiye smiled and left with her.

They went to an extremely deep valley. Not only was the entrance secretive, it was also full of peril. When cultivators came here, seeds would crazily attack and try to drill into their foreheads even before the sight of blood.

They went in deeper and found that a large number of corpses have gathered here. Moreover, these ones were considerably mightier than before. After careful observation, Xiaoxiao noticed that she had seen some of them in the previous meetings.

There was no doubt that the corpses eligible for this meeting were among the strongest of the world of treecorpses.

At this time, these corpses were walking deeper into the valley. She found this scene quite strange.

They were carrying weird items. One had a chair made from two tree trunks, another had branches woven together to barely form a bed, and one more was holding a chiseled rock that resembled a chair… The weirdest part was a cumbersome item carried by more than ten of them. It looked like a small room made from trees put together.

All of these things were simple and rough like the work of some little children. Surely, the treecorpses were the ones who made these items.

“They know how to make items now.” She found this quite amusing. Despite the simplistic and rugged nature of these items, they were still the culmination of the treecorpses’ effort.

“Their transformation is exceedingly slow, but maybe they still have a chance.” Li Qiye spoke with a tinge of emotion after witnessing this scene.

She wondered: “What are they going to do with these things? Will they be using them?”

However, she rejected this notion because they didn’t need these items inside their lairs.

Li Qiye went silent for a moment before slowly answering: “A new life is about to be born.” He was aware of the events that were about to transpire after learning the contents of the previous meetings.

“A new life? What kind of life? Another generation of treecorpses? Can they actually reproduce?” Xiaoxiao was startled.

Everyone knew that the withered could give birth. However, this remained a mystery for the treecorpses since they were only failed products.

“Maybe.” Li Qiye pondered a bit: “This world has too many unimaginable things, even the villainous heavens can’t expect everything. Maybe this is the earth-shattering event that they were alluding to. After all, a new life is about to be born!”

“What kind of life will the next generation of treecorpses be? How does it compare to the withered?” She took a deep breath and murmured: “Didn’t you say the dead can’t reproduce? The withered are already near-dead and can barely produce life. Moreover, their second generations are mostly failures.”

“Even the villainous heavens can miscalculate sometimes. The world is just full of surprises, if the dead can actually reproduce…” Li Qiye turned quiet again.

This whole event reminded him of a particular race with all sorts of unfounded rumors. Even after this much time passed, these tales went on about how this race was produced by the dead! Therefore, if a completely new life can come from the treecorpses, it would be a monumental change and an unfathomable development.

The corpses brought along all kinds of items to the deepest region of the valley where there was nothing other than a cliff.

Strangely enough, they didn’t stop before the cliff and continued forward. Any spectator would think that they were going to collide with the cliff, but in reality, they all disappeared inside.

Xiaoxiao asked: “Where did they go?”

“A different world.” He slowly explained: “A world inside the Divine Tree Ridge unknown to others. In principle, only these moving corpses can enter this particular world.”

“A world where only the dead can enter?” Xiaoxiao was surprised: “Then why don’t they just stay there if there is such a world?”

“It’s not as simple as you think. You can’t just stay there on your whim, it is an inner world.” He shook his head in response.