Before long, she had fully exposed the roots of the ancestral Weak Tree. Oddly enough, it didn’t shrink like the others. Even after she lifted it free from the ground, it stayed the same size.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  Edmund slid out from her sleeve in his true form, his scaled body gleaming faintly in the light. He raised his head toward the tree, eyes glowing as circles of inky light rippled outward from his body, enveloping the entire trunk.

  The Weak Tree pulsed once—and then shrank rapidly, vanishing into a single point of light that shot straight between Lauren’s brows.

  Her mind reeled.

  What—?!

  “Calm down,” Edmund’s voice echoed directly within her consciousness. “Open your sea of consciousness and accept the spell I’m giving you. Cooperate, and I’ll merge the Weak Tree with you.”

  Opening one’s sea of consciousness was dangerous—akin to leaving the gates of one’s soul unlocked—but Lauren trusted him. She steadied her breath, closed her eyes, and complied.

  The world around her began to tremble.

  Far away, the three “lumberjacks” froze mid-dig.

  “What the hell was that?” Nash whispered.

  “This space was never stable to begin with,” Westin said, glancing around nervously. “I’m afraid—”

  He didn’t get to finish.

  A violent surge of energy tore through the air. Space itself shuddered, collapsing inward with a deafening roar. The four of them felt an enormous force seize their bodies, pulling them in different directions.

  Then—darkness.

  For a moment, there was nothing.

  When consciousness returned, the heat hit first.

  Nash spat out a mouthful of sand and groaned. “Pfft—ugh, what the hell?!”

  He pushed himself upright and blinked at the endless dunes around him.

  A few meters away, Dante staggered to his feet, brushing sand from his hair. “What happened?”

  Nash squinted against the sun. “Hell if I know. Where are Westin and Ms. Lauren?”

  Dante turned in a slow circle, scanning the horizon. “Westin! Ms. Lauren!”

  Their voices echoed into the desert, carried away by the dry wind.

  No answer came.

  A vine shot out from the sand, snapping through the air like a whip. Dante caught it instantly, braced his stance, and pulled with all his strength.

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  With a heavy thud, two figures were yanked out of the collapsing sand pit—Westin and Lauren, both coughing and covered in dust.

  “You two okay?” Dante asked, scanning their faces.

  They both shook their heads. “No,” they said in unison.

  “What the hell happened?”

  Westin blinked, dazed, still trying to get his bearings. “I… don’t know.”

  Lauren didn’t answer. Her focus was elsewhere—on the strange emptiness inside her. She could no longer sense Edmund.

  Edmund?

  She called for him again and again in her mind, but there was no response. Extending her spiritual sense inward, she found nothing—no trace of him in her core. It was as if he had vanished completely.

  Her stomach dropped. Where did you go?

  Was he buried under the sand? Or had he stayed behind in that shattered space? Or worse—had something gone terribly wrong during the merger with the Weak Tree?

  Panic began to rise in her chest.

  “Ms. Lauren, what are you looking for?” Dante asked.

  “I…” Lauren hesitated, unsure what to say. After a moment, she forced a neutral tone. “I lost the tree I dug up.”

  “Oh, that’s all?” Nash grinned, trying to lighten the mood. “No problem! I dug up over a hundred. I’ll give you a few later.”

  Lauren barely heard him. Her gaze swept the desert, her mind still reaching out fruitlessly for Edmund’s presence.

  Then Nash suddenly froze. “Hey—look!”

  Ahead of them, the sand shifted. The dune trembled slightly, like something alive was stirring beneath it.

  “Is that where it is?” Nash blurted out.

  Before anyone could respond, the mound exploded.

  A bald, white-bearded old man in ragged clothes shot out of the sand, his face weathered and sharp, his eyes gleaming with a feral light.

  Lauren’s heart lurched. Edmund?

  But the instant his gaze locked onto them, she knew it wasn’t him.

  Those weren’t human eyes.

  The old man’s voice cracked like thunder. “You… dug up my trees?”

  Everyone went still.

  “What?” Nash stammered. “Your trees?”

  The old man’s expression twisted, his sunken eyes blazing with fury.

  Lauren’s instincts screamed danger. She focused her divine sense and sent a quick telepathic warning to Dante.

  He’s not human.

  Dante’s Golden Eyes flared open, gleaming like molten gold. In that instant, the illusion shattered, revealing the creature’s true form beneath the ragged disguise.

  His pupils contracted.

  “It’s a lizard monster,” he sent back to the others. “Same species as the one we fought in the Weak Water River—but this one’s already taken human form. A seventh-level beast.”

  The words hit like a slap.

  A seventh-level monster? That was equivalent to a Nascent Soul cultivator—or stronger.

  The three men froze. Nash’s legs started trembling so hard they nearly gave out.

  “Senior,” Nash said quickly, forcing a smile that looked more like a grimace. “We—we dug up some trees by mistake. Totally by mistake! Here, we’ll give them back to you!”

  He scrambled to pull several Weak Trees from his storage bag and tossed them toward the old man.

  The creature glanced at them, nostrils flaring. Then his face contorted with rage. “No. Not those!”

  Nash blinked. “Huh? Not those? Then—then which ones?!”

  The others exchanged a look of alarm. There was no way to know which tree he meant. Each of them had dug up dozens—hundreds even.

  “You thieves!” the old man roared, his voice echoing across the desert. “You dare steal my trees?! I’ll send you all to hell!”

  The air cracked with a deafening boom! as his power surged, whipping the sand into a spiraling storm of spiritual energy.

  Before they even had the chance to speak, the white-bearded old man slammed his palm down.

  The force crashed over them like a tidal wave of spiritual power, pinning all four to the ground. Their legs sank into the sand, and the air itself seemed to turn solid under the pressure.

  “Shit—!”

  They could barely move, barely breathe. All they could do was summon their weapons and throw up what defense they could.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  One by one, their magical weapons shattered under the immense weight of that descending hand. The phantom of the old man’s palm loomed large and heavy, pressing half their bodies into the ground.

  In that instant, Dante made a snap decision. He yanked out a bead from his sleeve—one of Gerald’s.

  A glowing phantom burst from it, taking form midair. Gerald’s spectral image struck back with a roar, meeting the blow head-on.

  The impact cracked the sky.

  The white-bearded old man was sent flying backward, and the bead in Dante’s hand dimmed, its stored power completely spent.

  “Run!” Dante shouted.