I am the Clone of a Death Row Inmate-Chapter 54: Dug Through

The Spirit Root Tree’s roots spread throughout the entire mountain. In theory, no movement within the mountain should escape its senses.

It might tolerate some beasts digging holes or building nests near its roots, as they pose no threat. But for a Saint-level expert to follow one of its roots toward its trunk... the Spirit Root Tree should have taken action long ago.

But the reality was that as Feng Bqing’s tunnel grew deeper and deeper, the Spirit Root Tree remained completely still.

Su Ze instinctively felt something was wrong. Either the Spirit Root Tree was in a weakened state, or it was preparing a devastating attack.

To be on the safe side, he stopped following Feng Bqing into the tunnel. In any case, Feng Bqing still had a long way to dig to reach the trunk, so he decided to wait and see.

Su Ze retreated to where he’d started. With nothing else to do, he felt his pockets and was surprised to find his phone still on him.

He tried to contact Liou Wenxin and Mrs. Yun, but the signal underground was terrible. He couldn’t even send a single text.

He then opened his live-streaming app, only for it to display "No Network."

After refreshing countless times, the titles of a few streams finally loaded, though not a single frame of video would appear. Still, the titles confirmed that the streamer, Mr. Ya, was still broadcasting from the Black Rock Mountain Range.

Since he couldn’t do anything, Su Ze simply put his phone away. He took out the Strengthening Elixirs he carried, popped two of them, and began practicing the Swan Dance right there in the underground cavern... ’No one can see me anyway.’

’Use every available moment to increase your strength. That’s the mindset every proper evolver should have.’

He lost track of how long he danced. By the time Su Ze had taken six Strengthening Elixirs and his hips were sore and numb, there was still no sound from Feng Bqing’s direction. It seemed he hadn’t started fighting the Spirit Root Tree yet.

’I wonder what’s going on with Feng Bqing.’

Su Ze rested for a moment. After some thought, he crawled back into the tunnel Feng Bqing had dug.

He held his phone in one hand for light as he moved forward quickly. Along the way, he watched as the Spirit Root Tree’s root running through the tunnel grew progressively thicker—from the width of a finger, to an arm, and then to a thigh...

Su Ze was starting to feel mesmerized by the seemingly endless tunnel when he finally spotted Feng Bqing up ahead. The man’s hands were a blur as he dug with feverish intensity.

’I remember we were pretty far from the main trunk when we started,’ Su Ze thought, ’but we must have covered enough distance to reach it by now, right?’

The moment that thought crossed his mind, Feng Bqing drove his hand forward like a shovel, breaking through into a cavity.

A faint sliver of light filtered in.

’He’s through!’

Su Ze’s first impulse wasn’t to see what lay on the other side, but to retreat.

’Right now, I wish I had two more legs. Why did I even crawl in here?’

’What else could be on the other side? It has to be the Spirit Root Tree!’

Su Ze scrambled backward, but before he had taken two steps, he saw Feng Bqing shove aside the final layer of dirt, completely breaking through the earthen wall. Green light spilled into the tunnel.

Feng Bqing leaped through the opening.

The very next second, the Spirit Root Tree’s root inside the tunnel suddenly stirred, pulling back out of the opening.

Su Ze was nearly dragged out along with it. He quickly flattened himself against the side of the tunnel to give the massive root enough space to pass.

From outside came the CRACK of whips, the WHOOSH of something slicing through the air, and all sorts of other massive, unidentifiable sounds.

The very earth trembled!

Su Ze brushed himself off, dislodging a shower of dust and dirt.

He continued to back away, terrified the tunnel would suddenly collapse. ’I’m no Great Saint,’ he thought grimly. ’I can’t survive being crushed by a Five Finger Mountain.’

But he had only made it halfway back when, with a deafening RUMBLE, a few rocks and clods of earth rained down on him.

He shone his phone’s light back the way he came, and his expression turned grim. The tunnel behind him had actually collapsed!

He was lucky. A few more steps and he would have been buried.

What Su Ze didn’t know was that the Spirit Root Tree hadn’t just retracted that one root. It had pulled back all of its roots from within the entire mountain to defend itself, which was what had caused such a massive disturbance.

The ground was still trembling, and his escape route was cut off. Su Ze was now left with two choices: stay put or move forward.

Staying put would be a pure gamble on his luck; the next cave-in could easily crush him to death.

Moving forward, he could only pray he wouldn’t be killed by the shockwaves of a Saint-level battle.

After a moment’s thought, Su Ze chose to press on. He decided to crawl to the end of the tunnel first to assess the situation.

When Su Ze reached the end of the passage, he was utterly stunned by the sight before him.

Before him was a vast, spherical, enclosed space. The walls were made of countless thick, densely packed roots. He was inside a massive sphere woven from the tree’s root system.

A colossal trunk, like a pillar holding up the heavens, stood in the very center of the sphere!

Su Ze had seen the Spirit Root Tree before on Mr. Ya’s stream. It pierced vertically through the entire mountain, its top nearly level with the summit, but its lowest depths had been impossible to see.

But now, Su Ze was looking at its base, right here inside this massive sphere.

Su Ze thought back. Feng Bqing had led him all the way through the mountain, and even after they’d reached its base, he hadn’t stopped, but had continued to dig deeper into the earth. This meant his current position was far beneath the surface.

The Black Rock Mountain Range was above his head.

So the Spirit Root Tree was, as expected, rooted deep in the earth beneath the mountain.

At that moment, the base of the Spirit Root Tree was radiating a dazzling green light of evolution, and its countless roots were lashing out at Feng Bqing from every conceivable angle, leaving no blind spots.

Feng Bqing did his best to dodge, but there were simply too many roots; it was impossible to evade them all. His only recourse was to use Shadow Transformation to phase through them.

But whenever he transformed into a shadow, the roots would coil around him like tentacles lined with suction cups. Using a strange suction, they were actually able to pull and tug at the shadow form of Feng Bqing.

As a result, each time Feng Bqing used his Shadow Transformation, he could only maintain it for a few seconds at most before being forced to turn back and take several solid lashes from the roots.

Feng Bqing howled in pain as the roots lashed him, yet he remained undeterred. Without retreating, he continued to press forward toward the trunk, step by step, as if drawn by something inside it.

Seeing that his hiding spot at the mouth of the tunnel was relatively safe, Su Ze breathed a sigh of relief. The Spirit Root Tree was completely focused on dealing with Feng Bqing and couldn’t seem to be bothered with a small fry like him.

’To the Spirit Root Tree, I’m probably no different from those beasts that dig holes and build nests beside its roots.’ 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

His gaze swept across the spherical chamber, and he quickly noticed that the floor below was littered with bones.

Su Ze recalled Liou Wenxin explaining to him that the Spirit Root Tree was a carnivorous Spiritual Plant that preyed on both beasts and humans. Among the bones below, some were human, but most belonged to beasts.

Most of the bones looked ancient, but a few of the Beast Bones still emitted a faint, green, fluorescent glow.

’The skeletons of Tier 4 beasts!’

These beasts had been incredibly powerful in life, their skeletons nearly indestructible. Even after so many years, residual evolutionary power still emanated from within the bones.

’No wonder a Tier 4 beast has never been seen in the Black Rock Mountain Range for all these years.’

Su Ze guessed that any Tier 4 beast born here was likely devoured by the Spirit Root Tree almost immediately.

Having devoured so many Tier 4 beasts, it made sense that the Spirit Root Tree had evolved to a level approaching Tier 5.

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