"Stab! Stab hard downwards!"
On a branch of the Golden Tree, Yu Jin passionately directed the Golden Tree on how to take root.
Actually, he was just talking; the specific operations still depended on the Golden Tree itself. After all, Yu Jin had never been a tree, so he didn't know how to grow.
Therefore, he could only cheer on the Golden Tree.
Approximately a thousand meters beneath Yu Jin, the earth, which had not been silent for long, rumbled again.
The enormous Golden Tree roots, which traversed the entire Dragonspine, began to writhe. They were originally exposed on the surface, but now they all burrowed underground.
One after another, bottomless giant pits appeared on the surface of Dragonspine, making people wonder if this ancient mountain range, which had stood for who knows how long, would collapse.
Fortunately, this worry was unnecessary. The Golden Tree only deeply embedded its main roots into the earth, while other smaller roots grew in the shallow layers.
If someone could excavate Dragonspine, they would find that the mountain's interior was now densely packed with tree roots.
The stability of the mountain range was even greater than before! At least, disasters like landslides would not occur on Dragonspine.
What? You said Dragonspine never used to rain and never had landslides? Then never mind.
The rumbling of the earth continued, and the entire snow mountain trembled.
The Frostbearing Tree also sensed the anomaly. In fact, when that incredibly huge 'senior' grew on the mountaintop, it already had a bad feeling.
However, it had no legs and couldn't run even if it wanted to.
Now, the Frostbearing Tree could only secretly pray in its heart, hoping that the giant 'senior' would not grow its roots towards it. The child was still very young and hadn't eaten enough.
Unfortunately, the Frostbearing Tree's hopes were destined to be dashed, as the tremors of the earth showed no signs of diminishing, but rather intensified.
It could even feel as if something was moving beneath the earth.
Then, its roots beneath the earth were touched by something. It wasn't 'as if'; there *was* something beneath the earth!
"You... you are so white." A voice suddenly echoed in the Frostbearing Tree's faintly lingering consciousness, and with the voice came endless golden light.
However, the Frostbearing Tree did not react. After all, it had only just been rescued from the ice by Lumine, and its consciousness was limited, so it couldn't make any movements.
"God... God said, stab... take root, follow... follow your roots, take root." The Golden Tree didn't mind the Frostbearing Tree's silence. Its mind was now filled only with the words Yu Jin had spoken on its branches.
The Frostbearing Tree suddenly felt itself being enveloped. Countless roots gradually wrapped around the Frostbearing Tree's pale roots, growing downwards along its root system.
"So... so full. You... you can also have some, food." The Golden Tree suddenly thought of something, and its roots began to penetrate the Frostbearing Tree's roots.
Accompanying the penetration of the roots, a warm current began to surge from the root system up the Frostbearing Tree's main trunk.
Under this warm current, tiny silver-white specks of light began to emerge on the Frostbearing Tree's sparse branches—those were its new buds.
The Frostbearing Tree had a flash of Khvarena. Its consciousness became more solidified than before, and its thoughts clearer.
It knew what to do.
The Frostbearing Tree's roots also began to grow under the Golden Tree's nourishment. However, unlike the Golden Tree, the Frostbearing Tree's roots did not grow wildly. It guided the Golden Tree's roots, purposefully drilling deeper into the earth.
But limited by the Frostbearing Tree's size and its recent awakening, the pure white fine roots advanced quite difficultly beneath the earth.
The Golden Tree naturally noticed this. It began to drive its main roots forward, towards the Frostbearing Tree.
This time, the rumbling and trembling were not exclusive to the surface. Deep within the earth, these two movements arrived with the Golden Tree's massive roots.
The gigantic roots, like turning earth dragons, crushed everything in their path, whether rock or mineral.
The Frostbearing Tree's pure white and slender roots could finally grow freely deep within the earth.
Thus, the Frostbearing Tree was responsible for guiding the direction, and the Golden Tree was responsible for clearing the path. Two vastly different trees advanced towards the same goal.
As the depth increased, a peculiar change seemed to occur beneath the earth. This change manifested in the Frostbearing Tree as its roots began to become ethereal.
If before its roots were just whiter than ordinary tree roots, now they had completely ceased to resemble 'tree roots'.
Now, the Frostbearing Tree's roots were more like white streams than tree roots.
A white stream with many branches, exceptionally slender, moving forward underground.
The Frostbearing Tree's roots stopped. It was waiting for the Golden Tree to change. The journey ahead could not be reached by tangible objects.
Immutability, or rather stability, was a characteristic of the Golden Tree, a trait personally inscribed by the Greater Will when it created the Golden Tree.
Only eternal stability could allow the Golden Tree to fulfill its duty as an enforcer of the law.
Now, this characteristic seemed to have become an obstacle, an impediment to going deeper.
However, it was different from previous Golden Trees; it had been watered with Yu Jin's blood.
The Golden Tree only changed its form with the law when the law changed. The law was the embodiment of the world's rules, and Yu Jin's blood was a pigment capable of creating worlds.
"Boom!" Beneath the earth, between reality and illusion, a tiny flame suddenly appeared.
Fire brought light and also purified the Golden Tree's form. The flame was small, but it was Burning rapidly.
Wherever it passed, the Golden Tree's solid wood roots, tinged with golden light, dissipated, replaced by pure gold.
The golden-yellow roots now, like this space, were between reality and illusion.
Upon seeing this, the Frostbearing Tree's white stream continued to flow deeper.
The Golden Tree didn't know how long its roots had traveled. The place beneath the earth could no longer be called 'beneath the earth'.
There was no soil here, no darkness. Pale pink light filled this space, like an infinite, independent realm. At the same time, there was no physical resistance to the roots' advancement.
However, moving forward here was even more difficult than before. Because instead of friction, there was some kind of turbulence.
The Golden Tree tasted it through its roots. It seemed to be human memories. It could eat them, but God said not to eat them.
So the Golden Tree spat out these memories. The golden glow on its surface became even more brilliant. Now, those flowing memories could no longer affect it in the slightest.
The Frostbearing Tree's roots dissipated the moment they entered here. Apart from the pale pink, only the Golden Tree's golden light was present.
Not long after continuing deeper, the Golden Tree saw something appear.
It was also a tree, a pure white tree. Perhaps, even larger than it.
The tree's roots were also white. Its roots intertwined and coiled, eventually connecting with the pale pink space the Golden Tree had just passed through.
Strangely, this tree was growing upside down. This caused the Golden Tree's roots and the large tree's roots to meet face to face. A very peculiar sight.
But just as the Golden Tree was curious, it suddenly felt a repulsive aura. The unpleasant things God fed it had this very taste.
It was then that the Golden Tree discovered that beneath the dense roots of the large white tree was a trunk that was black at its center.
Blackness was corroding the trunk, their aura wild and chaotic, as if they wanted to corrode the entire tree.
In fact, they were close to succeeding. Many of the tree's roots had already turned black and red.
As a tree itself, the Golden Tree knew that if the roots rotted, the tree would not be far from death. Fortunately, only a part of this tree had rotted; it should be salvageable.
Those dark auras tried to break free and corrode the Golden Tree. But as soon as they rose, they were suppressed by some presence.
The Golden Tree's roots drew closer, and then it heard a blurred, hazy female voice.
"World..., forget me."
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