“She won’t just let me into the throne room without a fight huh?”

Zhang Dong commended while slicing open a strange creature made out of tentacles. One of them was dissolving into black goop after getting sliced in a hundred pieces by his blade. It wasn’t alone though as many more of its kind were quickly running in his direction.

They had a vaguely humanoid shape with tree-like characteristics. Their hands looked like long roots made of some type of black bark. On further examination, this was due to the previous tentacles hardening. This process must have taken place during the creation of the centipede monster's outer shell. These smaller monstrosities were something akin to an immune system response and he was being treated like a virus.

After finding a route to the last boss he started encountering these strange beings. They all were at the level of a weaker nascent soul master which made them not that much of an issue for him. They were more of a nuisance as he was slowly burning through some of his spiritual energy to get through.

There was also the problem of the path being lit exceptionally well. The Empress had clearly decided to counter his shadowy technique after he had started slipping past these monsters previously. All of them had strange glowing veins inside their bodies which made traversing these tunnels a lot harder. Thus he decided to take them out with melee attacks that conserved most of his spiritual energy.

“Are these supposed to be mobs before the last boss?”

Considering that he should have entered from another location to travel to this place, this wasn’t that troublesome. This place was made for one person to go through it and only thanks to all the experience he gained throughout years of training and battling was he able to move at a reasonable pace.

‘They don’t seem to be scaling to my level or I’ve just become too strong for this world…’

When beating up the various monsters and going through the tunnels he thought back to the encounter in the previous world. There when he showed off his nascent soul power that went above the limits of that location, the overseer appeared. It wouldn’t be strange if the same thing happened here, when he reached a new level of power his enemy would probably be there to snuff him out.

‘I need to be ready for that time, the only reason I defeated that other overseer was that he was limited to that world's upper limit.’

In this world of cultivators, the upper limit he was thinking about was much higher. The person he encountered was really powerful, much more than he was as he couldn’t tell. Then there was a problem with the whole time-stopping technique which he first needed to contend with. After all of this was over he needed to examine the special room that he ripped out of this pocket dimension. In there he hoped to find the secrets behind stopping time which would help him counter his next real foe.

‘This should be the place…’

His sword went through a few more monsters that quickly burst into smoke. Their bodies lacked the regenerative capabilities that the tentacles which made clearing waves of them out rather easy. Within fifteen minutes or so he arrived at a large broken gate. It looked like the same one that led into the Empress' Throne room. There was only one particular thing about it, a strange thick white mist was blocking him from peeking inside.

‘It isn’t toxic…This reminds me of one of those games…’

While holding his weapon he decided to traverse through the fog. It felt like he was walking through water and when he was on the other side he saw an area similar to the throne room the Empress had been in. The spot that she previously occupied was still there but now it was devoid of anyone, instead, there was an opening that he could probably go through.

‘Hm… I probably need to go in there but what’s with this fog, it became red and hard.’

The white mist that he went through had changed colors and became quite resistant to any impacts. Even his sword when he applied pressure wasn’t able to pierce through it. This whole place reminded him of certain video games that trapped the players in boss chambers. Unless the enemy within the place was defeated there would not by a way out.

‘A boss room huh? Well, as long as I defeat it, it should be fine.’

Zhang Dong moved forward while frowning. The moment he entered this place his teleportation function had been disabled. It was clear that this place was set up as a challenge for a system holder. Getting out of this place was only possible if he managed to survive which made him have even more questions about the person working in the shadows.

‘I’m not sure if they want the people that have these systems to survive or not…’

While the system would help him or anyone else survive through many hardships, it wasn’t perfect. It wouldn’t give anyone free points to spend or any lives either. When Wang Long died, that was it for him, there were no second chances. If this was a game, even if he lost then his life would not be ended and he would be able to try again. Here, on the other hand, the system was blocking his escape.

‘Could this person want to see me struggle? Would an easy victory not achieve the goal they were aiming for?’

Several theories were swirling around in his head but he needed to focus on the task at hand. The throne the woman was laying on was now empty and he could actually walk through it. It was clear that the Empress was several times larger than he was. She had previously been laying down on her belly here and the tunnel was three times his height.

On the sides, he could see many smaller tunnels leading in various directions. Previously he thought that the Empress possessed a fishtail like the other mermaids but now it was clear that she was more similar to the tentacle creature he encountered with his grandfather and Huo Qiang. All those openings were previously filled out by those black tentacles. They went all through the castle and probably connected to everything.

‘Maybe instead of taking out the barrier, I should have just attacked her when I had the chance.’

Considering that he had previously encountered the Cerulean Empress in this room, he had missed his chance. She was babbling on and not ready to take an attack if he actually went through with it. Back then he didn’t want to get attacked by her armies which made him go with the other option. Now that he was here, it was perhaps the wrong decision.

‘That should be the place… it’s huge.’

After walking for a minute he finally reached the end of the main tunnel. The first thing that he noticed was a strange thumping noise that was akin to a heartbeat. There was also a strange blue glow coming from that area that got brighter along with the slow heartbeat.

‘It’s a large tree?’

To his surprise, he came out in a large chamber that was the size of several football fields put together. Right in the middle was something that looked like a tree. It was not made from wood though, instead, it was some type of strange biomass created from those tentacles. They continued to pulsate like veins along to the heartbeat sound coming from within that huge tree.

“It’S yOu.”

The moment he ventured through the threshold he heard the Cerulean Empress’ voice echo through the entirety of it all. At first, he thought that it was coming from the huge pulsating tree but he was wrong. The entire place was covered in those tree-tentacles that were pulsating. It was as if the Empress was this whole room and all of her soul energy was infused into everything here.

“Yes it is me but it’s probably too late to talk this over, right?”

“yOu wIlL dIe aNd bEcOmE oNe wItH mE…”

“I guess not.”

The voices continued to echo from all directions but soon started to focus on one spot which was the huge tree in the middle. When glancing at it he discovered that a somewhat feminine figure was protruding from the bark that resembled the Cerulean Empress he saw before. Her upper torso was there under the dark blue bark and the heartbeat was coming from within her chest.

‘That must be her weak point, perhaps if I pierce it then she will die…’

There were a lot of glowing spots on the tree but the most intense one was coming from that humanoid part within the tree. This strange tree had its roots shoved into the ground and ceiling. His gaze fell on the upper part right after noticing a strange occurrence. From within the many branches that continued to glow something akin to a fruit was taking form. Within those cerulean fruits, he could see various shapes that were reaching the power level of nascent soul masters.

‘Are those cloned soldiers?’

Not much time had passed since he entered here but with the help of his Dao of the Souls, he could feel beings being formed inside of those fruits. They were not like the mindless drones that he was fighting outside. These were more similar to the cloned soldiers that his people were fighting outside. Their strength was also quite superior and around the level of the trident-wielding generals.

“bEcOmE oooNNNNeeee…”

Yet before they could form he decided to act. The Cerulean Empress that had become a tree started to mindlessly repeat the same sentence while creating those cloned beings. Before she would form them he would act. His finger pointed at the humanoid shape on the tree and soon after a beam of condensed light escaped. It traveled with immense speed and aimed at the heart that was beating inside this tree monster.

Suddenly just as this beam of light was about to collide with the glowing parts the humanoid shape twitched. She moved to the side to protect the weak point as the beam drilled inside of the bark. The strange bluish wood started to quickly regenerate while also encasing the weak point in more wood.

“yOu dArE?”

“It was worth a try.”

Zhang Dong shrugged while jumping forward. It wouldn’t be that easy to defeat this new enemy. If he couldn’t hit the weak point from range then he just needed to get in close to stab his blade into this tree woman’s heart. The battle that could potentially end this whole war had finally started and only one of them would be walking out of this alive.