The trunk was massive, wider than a cottage, but it had been cleaved straight down the centre. The wound was so clean that it could have only been done in one strike. The exposed heartwood had long since blackened, yet faint streaks of dark red still pulsed through the grain.
The bark was the weirdest part. What should have been rough and uneven was instead smooth as old skin, sagging slightly in places, patched with tight whorls that resembled knuckles or the ridges of a spine.
Though it has been thirty years since the cultivators attacked the Yao who took the tree from its home, the tree still radiated a heaviness, a kind of pressure that made the back of Yuze's neck prickle a little. Even its roots were like twisted limbs as they curled out of the earth.
Gu Yuze's spiritual sense spread through the tree, increasing its circumference with each passing second, but there was no malicious energy or even Yin Energy around it.
