Cultivating Disciples to Breakthrough

Whoosh~

”Don’t let your attention waver when that spiritual tree is about to appear, our main objective is to deal with that spiritual tree. Not try and catch someone like that unless the opportunity presented itself!”

”I know!” Frowning visibly as he casually readied his spear, the man who had almost ended up hitting Xuan Hao with the spear in question earlier, glanced towards the newcomer who was now hovering a few hundred meters away from him. Making it clear that he wasn’t the slightest bit trusting of him even though they had decided to join forces to deal with the spiritual tree.

Whoosh!

Whoosh!

And as two more figures materialized, it became clear that nobody here trusted each other, as all four leaders of the strongest major powers in the Eastern Central Region were now silently gazing in the general location where Xuan Hao had been standing only a few seconds earlier. Understanding that the spiritual tree would soon show up chasing after him.

This kind of opportunity to ambush the spiritual tree before it had emerged was difficult to come by and presented them with a very real opportunity to deal a significant amount of damage to the spiritual tree. Potentially even killing it, something all four of them wanted to do considering just how much damage the spiritual tree had caused to their factions over the past few days while taking out its anger of not being able to catch up to Xuan Hao.

Of course, they had already tried to catch the spiritual tree several times since their temporary alliance had been established a day earlier, but it proved incredibly difficult for them to track down the spiritual tree as it wouldn’t stay in one location for long.

The best they could do was try and predict where Xuan Hao would emerge and try to rush over before the spiritual tree could emerge behind him.

As for catching the one who had been eluding the spiritual tree so far? None of them felt confident in doing that, as they understood full well by now that the other party was someone who had at least reached the Perfection Realm in the Dao of Space. Making them close to impossible to catch without specialized artifacts or the help of someone equally skilled in the Dao of Space, both of which were incredibly difficult to come by... And even if they had something that might be useful, they would rather not waste it knowing that they might not even succeed.

In the end, they had successfully managed to find Xuan Hao before the spiritual tree showed up behind him. Allowing them to rapidly gather in that location and lay in wait for the spiritual tree to show up. Giving them an absolute advantage in the upcoming battle, as there was no way in their eyes for the spiritual tree to survive a direct ambush by four Land Creation Realm cultivators. Even if its cultivation realm was slightly superior to theirs...

Rumble~

And so, as the four them got ready and laid down a few simple formations to assist in their upcoming battle with the spiritual tree, it finally appeared, a small thin branch stretching out from a small trembling crack in space before rapidly enlarging the crack as the small branch rapidly became dozens of meters thick and grew to a length of thousands of meters, as the rest of the spiritual tree’s body soon followed behind. Landing on the ground just in time to realize that four powerful attacks were heading directly towards it at a terrifying speed that made it impossible to dodge...

Rustle~

But even with this, the spiritual tree still managed to shake a few leaves off its majestic crown in response to the ambush. Soon enough manipulating the leaves to link together in a majestic formation that pushed forward to meet with the incoming attacks without the slightest hint of hesitation-

BOOOOM-!

And soon enough, the leaf formation created by the spiritual tree met the first attack, causing a terrifying shockwave of energy to sweep through the surroundings as the two collided, as the very earth broke apart underneath. Killing any cultivator or spiritual beasts that were unfortunate enough to be within a thousand kilometers of the clash to get swept up and killed by the confrontation. Only a few lucky ones who were strong enough or deep enough underground managing to survive, though... That was only for now, as they would still have to endure another three such attacks and had to do their utmost to get as far away as possible if they wanted to survive any follow up attacks after that...

Crack~

However, even faced with such a powerful attack, the formation that had been rapidly established by the spiritual tree to defend against the ambush had managed to hold strong. The only real sign of damage being the faint and almost invisible cracks that ran along the leaves that had been used to set up the defensive formation-

Rumble-! BOOOM!

But this was far from the only attack, as the second attack came shortly after the first. Aiming to directly break through the already weakened formation of the spiritual tree.

Unfortuantely, it also ended up falling short, as the formation managed to hold on-

CRACK! BANG!

Only with the third attack was the leaf defensive formation successfully broken. Allowing the fourth and final attack to directly go for the spiritual tree itself!

”DIE YOU DAMNED TREE!”

Knowing that this was the best chance they had when it came to killing the spiritual tree, the middle-aged man who was none other than the one that had barely missed Xuan Hao earlier, charged forward with his spear filled with killing intent. Not just to avenge the fallen Celestial Immortal Realm cultivator from his side, but also because he understood that if he killed the spiritual tree, he would have the best chance of getting his hands on its treasures before the other three had a chance to join in.

His confidence in dealing with the spiritual tree came from the fact that it was now essentially defenseless. Only able to rely on its powerful physical body to resist his attack... And even though a spiritual tree was well known to be difficult to break, he was a genuine Land Creation Realm cultivator that focused on the Dao of the Spear and felt fully confident in his ability to pierce through the defense of the spiritual tree.

In fact, when it came to piercing through a tough defense, there was no one greater than someone skilled in the Dao of the Spear. Even the Dao of the Sword, that was well known for its offensive capabilities, was inferior in this regard when compared to the Dao of the Spear that had a far easier time focusing all one’s power into a single point and piercing forward.

This was also the reason why they had decided on him being the one to go last for their layered ambush, as he would be the one capable of doing the greatest damage to the spiritual tree if it was left defenseless.

Given that all four of them had been fighting with each other for years, they were well aware of each other’s abilities and strengths. Different from other regions that might rarely see competition between the strongest among the different major powers, the Eastern Central Region was different, as the four on top often fought with each other.

In turn, this had also allowed all four of them to become significantly stronger than their peers when it came to combat, as they were simply far more experienced compared to a normal Land Creation Realm cultivator.

RUUUMBLE-!

Because of all this, as the spear tip collided with the trunk of the spiritual tree, he almost instantaneously sensed that he wouldn’t be able to do any significant damage to the spiritual tree. The strength of the bark that protected the trunk of the spiritual tree was simply far too tough and even though he did have the strength to break through it, the damage he would inflict as a result would be limited.

Whoosh-!

And so, knowing that continuing like planned wouldn’t work, he instead decided to rapidly withdraw his attack before locking onto a less protected spot where his spear could easily cause some significant damage-

SWISH-! CRACK~

The spot in question being the less protected branches near the crown of the spiritual tree, where his spear managed to easily pierce through those branches.

Swish~

While at the same time, he also took the opportunity to grab himself the five remaining spiritual fruits that he had spotted in the process. Understanding from a glance how useful these spiritual fruits were.

Rustle~

Unfortunately, this single act of his stopped the spiritual tree just as it was about to leave to chase after Xuan Hao again, as it now instead turned its full attention towards the one that had dared to steal the last five of its spiritual fruits...