"Gah! I'm stuffed!" Yu Jin wiped his mouth, which had no residue, and burped.
After chugging the Crimson Tear and Estus Flask, Yu Jin felt like he was about to choke.
"You still have the mood to drink?" Lisa exclaimed in surprise when she saw the bottles and jars at Yu Jin's feet.
Just now, she had said that if the sky fell, someone taller would hold it up, but now, it seemed the 'taller one' was digging a hole?
"What's the fuss? After bleeding, I need to replenish myself, not to mention I'll be bleeding again soon," Yu Jin said with a sigh.
His items were all rare, and each use meant one less. The Crimson Tear was self-explanatory; with the Golden Tree gone, where would Yu Jin collect its blessings?
As for the Estus Flask, it contained the First Flame, which was now inside him. How could he replenish his own blood with it?
So, Yu Jin was using his old stock, and drinking it all at once nearly broke his heart.
"Bleeding again? Didn't you just bleed?" Lanssangx looked at the Golden Tree. Was this big tree that hungry?
Lanssangx felt a pang of fear just looking at the power in Yu Jin's blood. She hadn't expected that even after drinking so much, the Golden Tree still wasn't satisfied.
"That was just to make the Golden Tree grow. Now, it's to make it take root!"
Yu Jin didn't take off his armor this time. The crimson, out of place in the world, reappeared.
They first appeared on the surface of Yu Jin's armguard, then dripped onto the bark of the Golden Tree, seeping into it.
Correspondingly, after Yu Jin's blood merged into the Golden Tree, golden light began to flow beneath the Golden Tree's thick, woody bark.
Deep within the earth, Irminsul's roots connected to a pure white space, storing everything happening on the surface within itself.
In the midst of the pure white, strands of pitch-black were strikingly prominent. These pitch-black strands came from a portion of Irminsul's roots.
They entered the Ley Lines through Irminsul's roots, and then followed the flow of the Ley Lines, corroding the earth.
The pitch-black flowed, constantly trying to spread out and corrode more of the white.
But they could never succeed—a certain consciousness bound them, allowing them to flow only within specific Ley Lines.
Although the pitch-black was bound, the streams they formed still pulsed outwards from time to time, as if they would break free at any moment.
The pitch-black and pure white had been in this standoff for an unknown duration. If there were no changes, this stalemate would likely continue until one side could no longer sustain itself.
However, that was impossible; suddenly, a third color appeared amidst the pitch-black and pure white.
It was the color of gold, a color from above the earth.
A tiny, golden root emerged from the pure white space and entered Irminsul's root system.
Then, the pure white space connected to Irminsul's root system was tinged with a faint golden hue.
Countless Golden Tree roots burst forth from the pure white space. They were crystal clear and entirely golden, growing wantonly within the space originally belonging solely to Irminsul.
The Golden Tree did not hide its arrival, and Irminsul naturally discovered it.
Although under the corrosion of forbidden knowledge, Irminsul instinctively began to fight back.
The calm pure white began to ripple. All information from Teyvat, past and present, now transformed into blades. They might not be sharp, but they could shatter anyone's mind.
Irminsul's reaction was greater than five hundred years ago. Last time, it was its avatar, its consciousness, that was corroded.
This time, it would likely be its entirety.
This was the first time Irminsul had been invaded by an external entity. Five hundred years ago, it was more about its avatar 'bringing in' forbidden knowledge, rather than forbidden knowledge actively rushing into Irminsul.
Feeling the increasingly powerful aura beneath its roots, Irminsul exerted all its strength to eliminate it.
Irminsul's instinct told it—the thing below could replace it!
Countless information currents surged through the Golden Tree's root system. The convergence point of the Ley Lines had now completely transformed into an ocean of information.
The Golden Tree was like a reef in the sea; the waves of information washed over its surface but could not penetrate its core.
However, Irminsul was, after all, the entity that controlled all information in Teyvat. Just that surface layer was enough to overwhelm the newly grown Golden Tree.
"It hurts…" The Golden Tree's never-fading golden glow began to dim.
Massive amounts of information surged through its epidermis into the Golden Tree's body. Human joy, pain; the earth's changes, rivers' flows… countless scenes the Golden Tree had seen or never seen filled its consciousness. It was desperately processing this information according to the instincts in its bloodline.
But it was too young; less than a month had passed from its sprouting to its current growth. Ultimately, it was forced to mature by Yu Jin, not a majestic giant tree that had truly risen from the earth after countless years.
Therefore, Yu Jin naturally had to take responsibility.
"Damn it, you're not following doctor's orders, are you! Xiao Huang, give all this miscellaneous stuff to me! You focus on smashing this rotten tree for me!"
"If your father from The Lands Between knew you were like this, he'd probably mock me endlessly! Don't you dare let it defeat you!"
A familiar voice came, and a warmth instantly enveloped the Golden Tree's entire body.
A black hole seemed to appear in the Golden Tree's consciousness. All those flickering, headache-inducing images were sucked into this black hole, disappearing without a trace.
What remained for it was clarity.
The golden light shone even brighter. This time, it not only broke through the flowing ocean of information but its light also pierced through Irminsul's dense roots, reaching directly to Irminsul's red and white crown!
The aura of its counterpart below was growing stronger and stronger. Irminsul could already feel its roots being tightly entangled by the Golden Tree's roots.
If one were to zoom out, a truly peculiar sight would be seen.
Two symmetrical clusters of massive root systems were constantly intertwining. A golden root network extended from the pure white ocean below, climbing towards Irminsul's root system.
And Irminsul could only continuously agitate the Ley Lines' information, washing over the constantly growing Golden Tree roots.
Unfortunately, those memory shocks, enough to drive gods mad, struck the Golden Tree but could no longer diminish its golden hue in the slightest.
The Golden Tree's roots now seemed to have transformed into a black box; any information striking them failed to create any ripples.
The golden-yellow roots began to intertwine with the pure white roots, and a sense of suffocation started to appear on Irminsul.
It was the feeling one gets when climbed by thick vines. Irminsul was not a tree in the conventional sense, but at this moment, it had the same sensation as an ordinary tree.
That was the suffocating feeling of being strangled to death… In the Sanctuary of Surasthana, on a cradle woven from emerald-green slender vines, a white-haired Damselette lay soundly asleep.
Suddenly, the Damselette's brows furrowed, and her breathing became rapid.
Her fair, delicate hand unconsciously rested on her chest, as if something was clutching her collar.
Nahida opened his eyes.
A pure white tree, a crimson high heaven. This was a place both familiar and strange to him—Irminsul, the thing he oversaw.
Although his duty was to oversee Irminsul, Nahida hadn't been here for a long time.
Ever since his Gnosis was taken by the sages to operate the akasha terminal, his power had become too weak to bear looking at.
Nahida now stood on Irminsul's branches. Beneath the branches was an endless white ocean.
That was one of Teyvat's foundations, an ocean of information formed by the interwoven Ley Lines of the entire continent.
And Irminsul was the pure white tree nourished by this ocean.
Nahida looked down, and then his pupils contracted to pinprick size.
He had once thought the Ley Line ocean was bottomless, devoid of any life other than Irminsul.
But now, Nahida saw a giant golden jungle growing in the Ley Line ocean.
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