The materials for the ritual were, in fact, the corpse left behind by the Demon Emperor. Under Yala's guidance, Su Zhou peeled twenty-four dark green wooden beads from the Demon Emperor's spine, which had already transformed into a dragon bone. Each bead contained incredibly dense wood energy and toxicity, making them rare and precious wood-type spiritual materials, even among those at the Xiantian realm.

Only twelve beads were needed to perform the ritual, and the remaining twelve could be kept for future use. As for now, Su Zhou wasn't too concerned since he knew these wooden beads couldn't be eaten and smelled terrible. He directly arranged them into a regular dodecagon, each bead corresponding to a vertex, and inscribed runes within it using the Demon Emperor's blood.

Immediately afterward, Su Zhou dripped his own blood into the center of this simple ritual formation, at the top of the Banyan Undying Tree, and closed his eyes to recite the sacred verses.

"Holy is He! Foundation of the Heavens, Source of the Earth, Root of all things!"

In an instant, as the sacred words were uttered, the aura from the distant, ancient other side was drawn in, causing the stars in the sky to turn and illusions to manifest.

"Wisdom is the source, Life is the root!"

"Time is the crown, the World is the leaf!"

"The Great Dao revolves, eternally unchanging!"

"Praise the Divine Tree, the cause of all fruits!"

--One could faintly see a phantom of a divine tree, rooted in the myriad realms of the heavens, vaguely appearing at the end of the spirit realm.

The perfect regular dodecagonal ritual formation began to slowly sublimate, transforming into azure mist, enveloping Su Zhou's body.

And at this moment, a holy and faint, all-encompassing light of life projected from the distant other side of eternity, reflecting in the depths of his soul.

In the space of his soul, Su Zhou opened his eyes, his cyan-purple dragon eyes looking straight ahead, somewhat blankly at the luminous tree shadow that was projected, as if originating from countless worlds.

"Alright, you communicate and form a contract with the spirit of this Banyan Undying Tree, and I'll go chat with an old friend, lest He gets angry and causes trouble."

At this time, Yala patted Su Zhou's hair with its tail, reminding him not to be dazed, while it chuckled and disappeared into the luminous tree shadow: "Ah, long time no see, how have you been lately? Ah ha ha ha~"

Su Zhou could vaguely hear its tone, as if seeing an old classmate from childhood who had a bad relationship and was now living a miserable life many years later... Seriously, at this moment, he really understood why Yala was sealed.

And isn't this just blatant provocation?

But now was clearly not the time to think about such things. Shaking his head, clearing his mind a little, Su Zhou raised his head and stared at the tree shadow, which had dimmed a lot, thoughtfully: "So the 'Great Will' and the 'Banyan Undying Tree' are separate... That's right, if we compare the relationship between the Banyan Undying Tree and the Great Will to my relationship with Yala, it's not surprising."

"Hello?"

He tried to greet it, not expecting to receive any response, but unexpectedly, Su Zhou received a message back soon after he said hello.

"Shasha~"

Like the swaying of branches and the rustling of leaves, like the sound of the tide, a hazy will gently touched Su Zhou's soul, transmitting some information.

It was a greeting, and an inquiry as to why Su Zhou wanted to communicate with it.

And Su Zhou bluntly said: "I want to become the new God Tree King... To be precise, I want to ask you not to share any power with anyone in this world."

"Sha~ Shasha?"

The Banyan Undying Tree's will was still very hazy, like a child, its thoughts jumping and strange. It first agreed with Su Zhou's idea indifferently, as if it was nothing at all—thinking about it carefully, if no one asked, why would the God Tree share its power with others? But then, it strangely asked why he wanted to do this, unlike all the coquettish... humans it had seen before.

"Because your power will affect the original life of this world... If your power is implemented indiscriminately, it will destroy the order of this world."

And Su Zhou bluntly spoke his thoughts, but after saying it, he blinked: "Wait, this sounds a bit familiar?"

At this time, Su Zhou realized that this sentence was surprisingly similar to what Yala had said before they traveled through the God Tree World.

[As a powerful existence, sometimes just existing is a 'disturbance' and a 'threat' to other minds]

The Tree of the Great Dao and the World Tree... Were they sealed because of this? Just existing is a threat to other lives?

Then, is the act of sealing them good or evil?

Burying the doubt in his heart, Su Zhou steadied his mind and continued to communicate with the Banyan Undying Tree.

And the Banyan Undying Tree also simply responded to his thoughts and gave a lot of information back.

Soon, Su Zhou understood everything that happened in the God Tree World.

The Banyan Undying Tree, in itself... is not dangerous at all.

Because it is just a tree. That's all.

How should I put it?

The will of the Banyan Undying Tree is essentially opened by the countless dead souls around it. It has no good or evil, and does not understand human life and death. The Demon Emperor's behavior of killing countless living beings to worship it is like a beast throwing its corpse next to a tree. It's good to have it, but it grows the same without it.

Without those dead souls, it would still be able to awaken its self-will in a few hundred years, and gradually break away from its infancy in three thousand years, possess the power to travel through the world, and create a gate of time and space. The Demon Emperor advanced this stage and obtained power from the God Tree's nascent will.

In other words, it needs three thousand years to truly threaten the 'Great Gate's' seal... Three thousand years is not long for the God Tree's mind, but if Su Zhou has not become a strong man who can save the world in such a long time, he would have committed suicide, and he can't afford to lose this person!

The existence of human beings, in the God Tree's mind, is like the insects and small beasts living on its body. It is a part of its own cycle, and the Demon Emperor was the first human it came into contact with, so it gave the other party the power of the head of the dependents.

There is no complicated dog-blood story. Things are that simple. The Banyan Undying Tree has been quietly rooted, absorbing power, and growing itself all these years. It has not paid attention to the world on the ground, nor has it paid attention to the grievances and hatreds of human beings.

The complicated, evil, has never been the God Tree, but the human heart.

That's it.

"Shasha~"

After being silent for a while, Su Zhou asked it not to give its power to human beings in this world, and the Undying Tree simply agreed. Its hazy will even complained—those messages were very fragmented when understood according to human logic. Su Zhou reluctantly summarized it, roughly as a rather unhappy complaint like 'They always cut my aerial roots and don't protect me, they just want to get my power for free.'

It seems that the Demon Emperor's behavior of cutting the God Tree's aerial roots is not welcomed by the Banyan Undying Tree... Thinking about it, who would like such a head of the dependents? The reason why it didn't replace it immediately is probably because of the God Tree's slow reaction.

At this moment, the azure mist transformed from the Demon Emperor's wooden beads gradually dissipated, and Su Zhou's consciousness gradually separated from the Banyan Undying Tree. He could vaguely sense the other party's thoughts.

Generally speaking, it plans to close the channel for communication with the outside world, strengthen its defense, and sleep until it breaks away from its seedling stage.

Regarding Su Zhou's act of killing the Demon Emperor, the Undying Tree was a little happy and a little regretful. Although the other party was not a very good dependent, it was indeed the first human it had seen—but that was all. Compared to Su Zhou, who brought it a familiar and close aura, it was nothing.

To put it simply, Su Zhou's charm value is much higher than the Demon Emperor's, and it likes him very much.

[Person who cultivates the Tree of Wisdom +200]

And Yala came back at this time, returning from the distant starlight of myriad realms, with a smug look on its face.

"I brought benefits back for you!"

One could see that this snake spirit had a comfortable expression on its face, as if 'showing off its four-hundred-square-meter house to a frustrated old classmate', and its whole temperament was like 'a cellmate who went out first and ran back to see his loser friend, showing off how cool the outside world is, you have to reform well inside~' so annoying.

In short, it returned to Su Zhou's soul space and spewed out a mouthful of cyan energy at the sapling of the Tree of Wisdom.

Immediately, the sapling of the Tree of Wisdom shone brightly, surrounded by a holy cloud of smoke, and a sacred sound rang out!

"This!?" Su Zhou widened his eyes, and he also felt that many ancient and mysterious runes had appeared on the spirit of the Tree of Wisdom in his soul space, like the condensation of the Great Dao.

And the spirit of the Tree of Wisdom itself also suddenly grew a lot, and its growth was quite gratifying!

"I feel that the next Wisdom Fruit will be much better than the first time..."

In this murmur, Su Zhou completely broke away from the connection with the Banyan Undying Tree, his mind left the soul space, left the spirit world, and returned to the real world.

At this moment, exactly twelve seconds had passed, and the twelve Demon Emperor wooden beads had also turned into smoke and dissipated.

One could see that the spiritual light of the entire Banyan Undying Tree was gradually dimming—the cyan-green light was like the gradually falling sunset, gradually sinking, dissipating little by little, and finally submerged into the ground, transferred to the endless spreading roots.

The God Tree's autumn of falling leaves is coming.

And Su Zhou silently stood up. In just these twelve seconds, the power of the Banyan Undying Tree surged in, mixed with the power of the Demon Emperor's evil soul, directly restoring his broken left eye to perfection, and the right hand that was torn apart by the Demon Emperor was also regenerated. Not only was there no trace of injury on his whole body, but he was even stronger than before.

"Sect Master Su, are you alright?!"

Soon after, with the sound of light work breaking through the air, the Hundred Schools of Righteousness Army arrived at this withered Heavenly Palace. Zhou Buyi's tense voice appeared in Su Zhou's ears: "We heard your voice, you..."

The voice stopped abruptly, because the people who came to the Heavenly Palace saw this tragic battlefield.

And, the figure standing in front of the Demon Emperor's shattered remains.

Under the bright starlight, Su Zhou turned his head, his cyan-purple eyes flickering with complex light, and he showed a somewhat reluctant smile to the stunned crowd.

But soon, as if he had figured something out, the smile became cheerful, without any gloom.

"It's over, but it's not completely over."

Su Zhou said this, and then smiled and walked towards the crowd, his tone steady: "Let's go, let's go down."

"The road to true peace is still long."

==

The story of the God Tree World has come to an end, fifteen updates are complete, please give me a monthly ticket!