Zhang Dong dodged to the side while evading a sharp object from the left. Right after he was greeted by multiple projectiles that looked like seeds from the other side. His body twirled around and turned into multiple blurs as he attempted to confuse the thing that was shooting at him.

After arriving at this place he didn’t think that he would be fighting a sentient tree but here he was. This strange tree started producing fruits that quickly landed on the ground and turned into strange monstrosities. If this wasn’t enough it continued to fire off various projectiles from its many branches. They looked like seeds and when they collided with something they started to quickly germinate into small spider-like beings.

‘If I get hit by one of those things, would it burst from inside my body or something?’

The strange creatures reminded him of an old horror movie involving monsters and he was not willing to test out his theory. Luckily with his white and gold armor on, he wasn’t afraid of taking some hits. Also with his current skills, none of the attacks were able to really land on his body, instead, the area was becoming more and more covered in many strange-looking creatures.

“You know Empress, this isn’t really fair, I left my Bahamut at home and you're just summoning more and more of your own pets…”

“...bEcOmE oooNNNNeeee…”

“I see, great talk…”

He gave out a sigh as the Cerulean Empress had turned into a mindless monster. There was no way of reasoning with her and the longer he spent trying the more people would die outside. Even though his wife and Huo Qiang were turning up the heat they would probably not be able to defeat that monster outside. It was his fault for bringing his forces into an area that was meant for a solo battle and the faster he finished this, the sooner all of them would go home.

‘After I kill this thing, some way will probably become open but I can’t really feel a connection to the outside yet… Bob, did you finish your analysis?’

‘76% Done…77%...’

One of the reasons that he was taking his time was the nature of this battle. If this was supposed to be an encounter that he was to face alone, what would happen after he won? They were inside a strange fish that had multiple pocket dimensions inside of it. Would this creature collapse onto itself after the Cerulean Empress was defeated?

It wasn’t strange to believe that something in this main pocket dimension was controlling the angler fish outside. There was a possibility that the Empress was this control feature and after she was defeated the whole place would become unstable. If this was the case then he would need to get back to his people and quickly evacuate.

This is why he was dodging and weaving in all directions to evade the smaller cloned monsters here while gathering more data. The only problem with this approach was that there was no end to these beings. The more time was wasted the more of them appeared even if he killed one, two new ones appeared in its place.

After slicing one of the humanoid tree beings its body would turn into some type of gelatinous mass. It would then quickly seep into the ground and then roots that were spread everywhere. He followed the pathways this goop followed and it was clear that it ended up in those fruits once more. This coupled with the Empress tree also generated its own resources it only increased the mobs that he needed to clear out.

‘I need to start attacking it soon or I’ll be overrun… Hm, maybe I can use that to clear out a wave…’

When looking back he remembered the tunnel in which the original body of the Empress was previously in. This part of the chamber was not sealed out yet. Some of those large roots were quickly creeping to shut off but for now, he had enough space to wiggle through. Just as he expected the small army of creatures chased were quick to chase after him.

‘At least they aren’t too intelligent, their elements are wood and water…’

Zhang Dong smirked as he had just the Dao that would work on this combination. His holy element wouldn’t do much but it didn’t matter, lightning energy was enough to destroy these monsters. Thus after arriving at the end he gathered his heavenly lightning energy into both his arms and then quickly slammed his palms together to generate an orb of lightning.

This orb started increasing in the side before being shot forward. Its size encompassed the entire tunnel and the small space that it didn’t was covered in massive amounts of lightning energy. Crackling noises of this sphere of electricity echoed through the entire place and were combined with the strange wails of these monstrous creatures.

Electricity traveled through water quite well and began charring the monsters from the inside. There was enough juice in there to quickly evaporate all of the water that they were composed of and even the wooden parts. The sphere of concentrated lightning energy made short work of the creatures that were mindlessly pouring into the tunnel.

It was to the point of Zhang Dong needing to change his technique into a beam. The ball of light was beginning to get pushed back by the blue gelatinous mass on the other end. Even when the creatures were defeated they bound to each other to form some type of slime monster that just didn’t want to let up on the push. However, it just wasn’t powerful enough to fight against the energy beam that he was producing.

Everything was bathed in a deep blue hue of his lightning beam that shot forward. The roots that were blocking some of the path on the other side were blasted away. His attack traveled far and wide to finally collide with the Empress tree inside the initial chamber he escaped from. Right on cue he heard Bob’s monotonous voice call out to him to give him more info about his enemy.

‘Analisiz complete, sending data to the user.’

‘Took you long enough, let me see…So that’s how it is, good that I waited.’

A part of his theory was confirmed after he read through the log that Bob gave him. It would have not been the wisest move to just destroy this massive tree without making the right preparations. Now that he knew what would happen afterward he could safely make the calculations.

‘This is going to be close… I need to tell them not to spread out too much…’

Now that he knew about what would happen he contacted his wife to send forward his order. Luckily the system’s audio options were in working order and he was only being kept from teleporting outside of this boss room and not from talking.

“You wish for me to retreat to the Golden Dong Palace?”

“Yes, make sure that everyone is in range of the outer shields, I’m going to end this and we won’t have much time afterward, evacuate the people from the large ships into the palace if you have to.”

“Are you going to be fine?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t vanish this time.”

“I won’t you forgive if you don’t not this time…”

“I’ll keep that in mind…”

Zhang Dong cut off the feed to his wife and left the rest up to her. He was not planning on getting blown away into another world again. Perhaps he was lucky that only five years passed that time around. It was possible that if the same thing happened that he would arrive at an era where his kids were already grown-ups or had already died.

The sludge that was created after his attack wasn’t recovering as fast as before. During the large attack, he made sure to bathe his enemies in his heavenly lightning Qi. With the spiritual energy infused into this gelatinous mass, it was having a hard time reforming itself. This time could of course be used to launch a counterattack at the Empress inside.

He shot forward while surrounding his whole body with lightning energy. This torrent of blue light took the form of a dragon and flew forward while roaring. The puddle of goop that was trying to reform itself was electrocuted once more. The energy dragon that he surrounded himself with bulldozed through the roots that were trying to close off the entrance and when back inside the chamber it exploded.

The whole area was covered in his energy that spread in all directions. The Empress that had taken the form of a tree tried to fight against his might but there was a difference between their battle prowess. It was clear that his cultivation had become something slightly above the limitations of this world. He did not really need to find the weak point as an area of effect technique was enough to win this battle.

“wHaT aRe yOu? hhhhOOOwwww…”

To no surprise, his opponent could not figure out why they were losing. They were in their own territory where they should have been invincible. Yet with all this electrical Qi flying around everywhere, she just couldn’t regenerate all of the damage that was being produced.

‘I see you…’

Within the torrent of lightning energy that was electrifying everything his form emerged. He shot forward at a lone little vine that was trying to make its escape. This was the true core of the being that he was fighting. It looked like some type of hideous worm with tiny tendrils and a toothy mouth at the end.

It was some type of tiny parasite that probably attached itself to the clone mermaids in an attempt to prolong its life. The soul energy it was carrying around was easy to spot by someone like him. Without much thought behind it, his sword was utilized to sever this strange thing's life. Along with its true body, the soul was also dispersed in one quick move.

A tiny shriek escaped from this thing as it perished. Perhaps if he failed to learn any soul arts then he would have been able to escape. The moment the thing perished the large tree behind him that was trying to resist the electricity started to wither. The fruits all turned to dust and the goop that was the clones evaporated.

Where he sliced the strange small parasite an item appeared. It was a pink shell that contained two Daos. The Dao of wood and the Dao of water was clearly radiating from this time that he quickly stored into his spatial ring.

‘Good… now I need to make it back…’

The moment he grasped the shell to put it away he could feel the whole space rumbling. This shell that was created was collapsing but this wasn’t all. The whole pocket dimension and all the others connected to them were crumbling just like this tree. He needed to get out of here now, if he didn’t then becoming trapped between these dimensions was a possibility.