The leaf was not fresh; it seemed to have been growing for some time on a horizontal branch high up. Because it grew upward, one corner of its maple-like blade was submerged in the grey fog. It appeared that the World Tree's recent growth spurt had finally pushed it past that threshold.
Theoretically, given the World Tree's form and its slowing growth rate, it shouldn't have touched the world's restrictions—the sea level had dropped so far that its roots were nearly exposed, suggesting the tree was meant to be exactly the size of this world. However, the nutrients from the God-Corpse had apparently fueled a height that defied the laws of this realm, leading to this first contact with the fog.
With a thought, Wei Huan released a swarm of Facehuggers from "Dot Mom's" abdominal cavity. To the naked eye, the leaf looked human-sized, but as the Facehuggers drew near, they appeared like tiny ants against its vast surface.
They crawled upward, followed closely by a Magic Eye Lord sent by Wei Huan to provide a visual link. When they reached the world barrier, the Facehuggers suddenly ground to a halt. Unlike the World Tree, they were restricted by the barrier and could not leave this world.
Wei Huan ordered the Magic Eye Lord to stop. He had tested the strength of this barrier many times before—even after Dot Mom reached the Pseudo-God grade—and knew that without sufficient power, there was no breaking it through brute force.
"Can't go up?" Mu Zhong watched intently. "It seems the barrier truly only permits the World Tree. Even though the tree has pierced it, the restriction remains for us."
Wei Huan remained silent. After a moment of thought, he issued a command. The Facehuggers abandoned their assault on the barrier and began to burrow into the leaf itself. The World Tree was incredibly durable, but with enough time and persistence, it could be damaged. The Facehuggers carved a large pit and continued to tunnel deeper toward the tip.
Mu Zhong understood his intent. "You're trying to go through the inside?"
"I want to try," Wei Huan nodded. "Be careful; we don't know what's in that fog."
Wei Huan didn't want to take unnecessary risks, so he ordered Dot Mom to back away slightly while the undead continued their excavation. The interior of the leaf was even tougher than the outer cuticle; a Facehugger's forelegs would often shatter after digging less than ten centimeters, forcing them to return to the Great Tomb to recover. But Wei Huan had an endless supply of these tireless "laborers." Speed didn't matter, as long as they were moving forward.
While they waited, Mu Zhong received a work report and stepped aside to process it on a virtual screen. The others, not wanting to hover, busied themselves nearby. The sudden silence made Dou Lin nervous again; seeing the smile vanish from Wei Huan's face, he scurried over to Mu Zhong's side and asked for a pen and paper to do his "homework."
Wei Huan focused entirely on the excavation. He had tried Magic Eye magical attacks and sent Shura Horses and Twin-Headed Hidden Demons, but the Facehuggers were the most efficient. Magic was faster but had a cooldown and caused too much cellular damage to the tree. He valued every leaf. The larger undead required too big a tunnel, which also damaged the tree. After a cycle of relentless work, the tunnel finally reached deep into the fog-covered section.
When his vision followed the scouts to that position, Wei Huan was certain: his undead had bypassed the world restriction. As he suspected, traveling 'inside' the World Tree was a viable loophole. Inside the leaf, the environment felt no different from the world below. However, to actually enter the fog, he had to break through the leaf's outer skin again.
He ordered the Facehuggers to dig upward toward the surface. The progress slowed to a crawl—the world barrier seemed to cling to the leaf's skin like a layer of film. Bypassing it via a "curved path" was harder than imagined.
But as long as they could dig, he would push on. What was out there? The Seventh-Grade world? The "real" world outside the challenge system? Perhaps the truth of this whole existence?
Wei Huan's left eye was now completely synchronized with the Magic Eye Lord. His physical body hadn't moved in a long time. He watched the leaf's membrane grow thinner and thinner, appearing ready to pop at any second, yet stubbornly holding on. Under his intense pressure, the Facehuggers struck with desperation, breaking their golden-tier-hard forelegs in a hundred strikes or less.
Finally, unable to wait any longer, Wei Huan switched his consciousness to a Legendary Hero grade Magic Eye Lord. His perception increased a hundredfold, and he saw that the surface was a mere sliver away from breaking.
He ordered the Magic Eye Lord to gather every ounce of energy. A thick, long beam of black light erupted from the center of its pupil, slamming into the weakest point.
Finally!
Under the sheer force of the attack, the final membrane shattered. Time seemed to freeze as a circular hole opened. Wei Huan began to feel a sense of relief, but in the next second, the grey fog surged in. Behind the fog, a flash of white light appeared. It seemed conscious; it reached out like a tentacle, wrapping around the nearby Facehuggers and dragging them into the mist.
Then, the Magic Eye Lord he had just been using was snatched.
If the Facehuggers were just disposable summons, the loss of a Legendary Hero Magic Eye Lord—and the instant severing of his mental link—meant disaster.
"Go!"
He mentally screamed at the Magic Eye Lord to retreat. He wouldn't care if ten thousand Facehuggers were lost, but this hero-grade summon was a massive investment. "Hands of the Undead" erupted from the void—hundreds of transparent, tentacle-like hands tried to pull the Magic Eye back into the Great Tomb. Wei Huan even ordered the creature to fire its beams to repel the white light.
It was useless.
Even with his rapid reaction, the white light swallowed everything. Wei Huan's vision went white. In the chaos, he heard Mu Zhong scream: "Wei Huan!"
Wei Huan sighed in regret. It was too late. Losing that Magic Eye was a massive blow. But in his preoccupation with his summon, he didn't notice the same white light surrounding his own physical body.
The light enveloped him and Dot Mom simultaneously. Everyone on Dot Mom's shell was caught in the glow. Unlike Wei Huan, who had been distracted, the others had seen the grey fog pour in and the white light descend upon them instantly.
Mu Zhong, knowing that any anomaly in the challenge world was a matter of life and death, had shouted immediately. By the time Wei Huan shifted his focus back to his own body, the light was already swirling around them. Before he could react, a violent force—capable of tearing organs and soul alike—pulled from the hole in the leaf.
This is bad!
Seeing Mu Zhong's feet leave Dot Mom's shell, his body being hoisted toward the hole, Wei Huan bit his tongue to stay conscious against the blood-vomiting pressure. He lunged forward, grabbing for Mu Zhong.
"Wei..." Mu Zhong was taking the brunt of the damage; blood flowed from his nose as he reached out with a trembling hand.
Wei Huan didn't care what the light was or that he was being sucked into the hole. He reached out, teeth gritted to the point of shattering. Black flames—the Thought-Parasitic beast—erupted from his body, making his pale, strained face look like that of a corpse.
Finally, their hands locked. Veins bulged as Wei Huan pulled with everything he had. The black flames roared, and he finally yanked Mu Zhong into his arms.
He gasped for air, his racing heart slowing slightly. Then, he looked down at his ankle. Dou Lin had latched onto his leg like a little monkey. Playing cards whirled around the boy in a protective storm of starlight, allowing him to move within the light's restraint. However, the boy was at his limit. Once he saw that Wei Huan had noticed him, Dou Lin tried to give a cheeky smile, but his eyes rolled back and he fainted.
Wei Huan pulled the child into his other arm. Holding the two unconscious people, he stared at the end of the white light, looking like he was facing a mortal enemy. They were being swept away to an unknown destination.
But Wei Huan did not panic. Since learning the tree could break world restrictions, he had prepared for many possibilities. This was one of them. He only hadn't expected the light to find him ten miles away.
As they neared a point of extreme brilliance at the end of the tunnel, Wei Huan pushed the Thought-Parasitic beast to its limit. Black flames dyed half the "sky" as he crashed headlong into the point of white light.
---
BOOM!
A world-shaking explosion erupted from the depths of Demon Prison Mountain, echoing far into the night.
A massive beast—part bull, part lion—leapt from the scorched mountainside, treading on flames as it took to the sky. It was over a hundred meters long, and the air warped around it as if burning. Below its path, everything turned to molten slag. It roared toward the source of the sound and flew off into the clouds.
From another direction, a dragon-like creature tunneled through the earth. It had two horns and five claws but no scales, covered instead in a thick, eel-like slime. It moved through solid rock as if it were air, appearing to flicker between dimensions, swallowing light as it went.
A one-legged monster with a single eye and jagged fangs leapt several kilometers at a time—heavy as a falling meteorite when it landed, but light as a feather when it took off.
Further away, a colossal ape-like creature with long red hair stepped through the landscape, its head lost in the clouds. Every footprint caused rivers to collapse and entire species to be inadvertently extinguished.
Countless strange beings—monsters from human nightmares and myths alike—converged on a single point: Demon Prison Mountain.
This was where a Demon God had fallen eons ago. The Divine Beasts had torn the god's soul apart and sealed it here under layers of restrictions, making it a barren land where neither gods nor demons dared tread. Today, the silence had been shattered.
The Beast Kings living nearby felt a mix of excitement, greed, and awe as they abandoned their territories and raced toward the source.
---
Wei Huan fell from the sky, crashing into a red-and-black valley. The speed of the transit had exceeded the limits of the human body. Feeling the bones of the two people in his arms creak under the pressure, his expression turned feral.
"STAY!" he roared in his mind.
Black flames erupted like a dark sun, scorching the sky. Nether energy sprayed out like a thruster. Finally, the descent slowed.
But before he could celebrate, a flash of golden light appeared in front of him. It was like hitting a solid wall.
"Ugh!" A pained groan escaped his lips as blood surged up his throat. The heavy impact was too much; his vision went black, and he lost consciousness. Yet, even in a blackout, his arms never loosened their grip on Mu Zhong and Dou Lin.
The golden light dissolved into stardust. Wei Huan fell through the shimmering sparks, landing deep in the valley amidst a pile of ancient bones.
CRASH!
Another impact. The agonizing pain jolted him back to consciousness. He vomited a large mouthful of blood. Lying in the ruins of the skeletons, his bones felt shattered, and the blood in his throat made it hard to breathe.
But the moment he regained a sliver of awareness, ten teleportation gates appeared, surrounding him. Countless undead poured out—Ghost Crows circled the sky, Running Wolves fanned out across the terrain, and Great Bears stood guard by his side. Within minutes, the area for miles around was an impenetrable fortress.
Only when Dot Mom let out an anxious "Yi~" did the tension in Wei Huan's mind finally ease. He didn't know where he was, but as long as his Pseudo-God undead was there, he was safe for now.
He turned his head with great effort to check on the two people in his arms. The passage through the white light had been too much for Grade 5 bodies; both had vomited blood and remained unconscious. Fortunately, they still had heartbeats.
He coughed violently, rolling over to spit out the last of the blood clogging his throat. His head cleared, and the ringing in his ears faded. He looked around.
He was in a small basin surrounded by steep, scorched mountains. He was surrounded by massive, weathered skeletons of creatures that had been dead for ages. Here, he felt Nether Power. It was dense and violent—the opposite of the cold, quiet energy he was used to. It felt like air filled with gunpowder, ready to explode.
Wei Huan didn't need to absorb it—his own power was like still water—but this environment significantly boosted his summons. The green flames in the eyes of his undead army flickered with a feral intensity.
"Go further," he ordered the army, pushing the perimeter out. Only then did he feel secure.
He tried to move the three of them onto Dot Mom's shell, but it was impossible. Every movement made him nearly black out. He didn't dare move Mu Zhong or Dou Lin, either; he had absorbed their impact, but the internal damage from the light was severe.
For a while, the three of them simply lay still among the bones. Finally, Wei Huan gathered his resolve and synchronized his vision with a Magic Eye Lord. Dot Mom was here, and so was his Legendary Hero-grade Magic Eye. It seemed the white light acted as a portal; once they were out of range, the link had been severed, but the summons had simply returned to the Great Tomb.
With the Magic Eye's enhanced perception, the truth of the valley was revealed. And Wei Huan knew immediately that he was in deep trouble.
This was not a natural formation. The basin was a crater, as if struck by a titanic object. The surrounding peaks were like a forest of spears, reaching into the clouds—even the shortest was several times higher than Mount Everest.
Within the basin, the ground was scorched. Wei Huan remembered hitting something in mid-air—likely a seal that had kept this valley unchanged for ten thousand years.
Two things stood out:
1. The Skeleton: A thousand-meter-long beast, a bird-like creature that had died in a state of extreme agony. Its wings and claws were scattered across the valley as if it had been torn apart.
2. The Terrain: The basin was marked with concentric circles of black and red, clearly artificial. It felt like a target. Wei Huan could sense the lingering, sky-shattering rage of the beast that died here. Through the Magic Eye, he even saw a spectral image of the bird being dragged down by shadowy tentacles, unable to escape.
It was a ghost—a powerful one, but still an undead. And as an undead, it was subject to his domain.
However, Wei Huan's attention was quickly pulled away. Beyond the peaks, the sky was turning pitch black. Thick, oppressive clouds were rolling in. He looked closer through the Magic Eye.
It wasn't clouds. It was a massive swarm of flying monsters.