Chapter 268: Ying Huo
The final war grew increasingly intense, with Bai Mo adding more and more fuel, allowing the high-intensity combat among these monsters to persist.
To the soldiers guarding the perimeter, over these past few months, aside from the sharp reduction in the apple orchard's area and the mutations undergone by the surviving apple trees, there were no visible signs of battle. The treacherous struggles between the plants occurred on a temporal plane beyond their perception.
The battles among the mutated apple trees were measured in days per round, whereas conflicts among animals usually resolved within a few tens of minutes.
After nearly two months of fierce fighting, accompanied by a ground littered with "withered remains," this gladiatorial arena finally produced its ultimate victor.
Bai Mo named this apple tree, which had survived to the very end, "Ying Huo."
Around Ying Huo, withered branches of the other defeated trees lay scattered, every last shred of nutrient having been squeezed from them and transferred to the survivor.
Whether victor or vanquished, to win this life-and-death struggle, all had grown offensive structures far beyond what they could actually sustain.
Every single one of them had participated in this insane, no-holds-barred arms race.
So, after crushing its last opponent, Ying Huo, which already possessed considerable sentience, quickly allowed these structures to wither and fall off its body, lightening its burden and preventing itself from being dragged down by these now meaningless "armaments."
Bai Mo's avatar had been standing beside Ying Huo, and his main body had also rushed over from the Tianqing experimental site, waiting for it to complete its self-simplification.
Over the past few months, Bai Mo was naturally not the only one observing everything here. The upper echelons of the Huaxia Federation, all those who knew about and participated in this transaction, were closely monitoring the events unfolding in this apple orchard.
Ever since the last apotheosis ceremony, they had harbored a subtle apprehension toward the power Bai Mo displayed, especially Chen Bo, who was most deeply impressed by the phrase that he "wouldn't last ten minutes."
Coupled with later discoveries that the "two suns in the sky" incident in Africa was very likely related to him, Huaxia's upper echelons deepened their apprehension towards this maverick, unstable element. However, all of this was still hidden behind peaceful yet hypocritical smiles.
Nevertheless, friendly cooperation still remained the underlying tone between the two sides. No matter their inner thoughts, necessary transactions had to proceed. They still needed this man, who walked at the forefront, to scout the path, and Bai Mo also needed them to provide him with an endless supply of resources.
Because without a stable government, contribution points, which served as a semi-official currency, would also find it difficult to remain unaffected—and this was clearly not what he wanted to see.
The giant tree before them, still covering over ten hectares after a significant "slimming down," had completely lost the appearance of an apple tree. It was now more like a banyan tree that had become a forest unto itself.
Bai Mo, who had observed the battle almost throughout the past few months, knew that at this point, in the long war of fusion, it had already acquired the devouring ability he had aimed for.
His fundamental purpose in fostering this 'raising of Gu' all along was precisely this devouring ability.
What it could now devour was far more than just its own kind; it even included other creatures like humans. Moreover, after devouring intelligent beings, it was possible for it to acquire a portion of their thoughts.
Ying Huo, this mutated apple tree with its own consciousness, could clearly sense Bai Mo's presence before it.
Instinct told it that once it successfully devoured this creature, its very essence of existence would undergo a leap-forward evolution, no longer needing to be limited by this land.
However, the two clearly had vastly different concepts of time, differing by several orders of magnitude. The giant tree was still accustomed to growth-based combat, unfolding one move per day. For it, time below the hour mark felt as imperceptible as the blink of an eye to humans, even though its upper limit for thought speed was actually much higher than that of ordinary humans.
By the time it was ready to act against Bai Mo, it would probably be the next day.
Bai Mo forbade anyone from entering the apple orchard and even had the army guard the perimeter precisely because of this.
Originally, no matter how much they struggled, they would only develop simple sentience, because in this environment, they couldn't obtain much external information that could promote the growth of sentience.
But if a human were devoured and the information in their brain were analyzed, even Bai Mo, the experiment's designer himself, could not predict what kind of changes this racial collective—whose thoughts were far more terrifying than those of ordinary humans or even most ability users—would undergo.
It was now like an infant with thoughts comparable to the "Myriad Thoughts" level, still curiously learning about this world.
Perhaps if it were left here untouched for decades, a wise ancient tree would have been born from this place.
However, Bai Mo, who already considered it a part of his plan, how could he allow such a thing to happen? He began activating the numerous runes arranged around it, allowing them to coordinate with the additives in the medicinal liquid within Ying Huo's body, acting in concert.
"Is this a life alchemy array?" Liu Zhen and a few others, alerted to unusual activity by the monitors observing the military satellite feed, switched their view to the apple orchard.
To better understand this massive, unidentifiable experiment, they even dedicated a satellite solely to tracking and reporting on it.
"A bit different," Cheng Mu's projection replied from nearby.
After the lessons of the past few years, the old men gradually understood that if they wished to avoid handing over their lifelines to others in this new era, they must, besides resources, also master core knowledge in at least one field.
Otherwise, even things like apotheosis transformations, which concerned their lives and fortunes, would have to be handled by outsiders, and whether hidden tricks were planted would entirely depend on the other party's moral standards.
After a period of research, they all ultimately chose runology. The group who decided to embark on the apotheosis path all believed that transforming runes into divine patterns that could strengthen their divine kingdoms and divine bodies was quite feasible.
And more crucially, this relatively new discipline didn't carry too much historical knowledge baggage. Unlike the Spirit Hub System, which required extensive natural science knowledge as a prerequisite for both the construction of spirit arts and the pioneering of its path.
For this group of people who had long been in ruling positions, they had mostly forgotten natural science decades ago, and relearning it would be exceedingly difficult. It was better to specialize in the relatively independent path of runes. Thus, each of them now had considerable research in runic studies.
As the brightness of the surrounding runes increased, the additives circulating within Ying Huo's body soon began to take effect. The outer branches continuously disintegrated into ash, as if all its essence was being concentrated in the core.
At this point, even the dullest creature could not possibly ignore the current situation. However, under the coordinated action of the rune array and Bai Mo's personal suppression, all resistance was meaningless.
Its body began to turn to ash from the outside, continuously incinerating inwards, as if being thoroughly burned by an invisible great fire.
After a full three hours, this terrifying invisible fire burned Ying Huo, reducing it from a single-tree forest covering over ten hectares to just the core of its true main trunk.
However, this burning was more akin to a refinement; in the process, its essence was almost completely unharmed, with nearly all its vital energies concentrated within this section of tree core.
Once replanted in the ground, it could even regain its tree form within a few days; the alchemy array did not erase Ying Huo's will.
However, to recover to its previous 'single tree forming a forest' level would require at least several decades.
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