By the time the fourth shockwave arrived, the city already lay in a broken rubble. The citizens fled frantically, most of them already out of the ruins. The distant struggle continued unchecked. It raged for several minutes, then seemed to die down. The world was suddenly split in half by a crescent of light. Like an inviolable law of nature, it blazed across the world, obliterating everything in its path. The crescent passed a few hundred meters north of Evergreen, sparing the tree from a direct impact, yet the aftermath was devastating. Half of the tree’s body was instantly disintegrated, bark and wood turning into dust and all of its leaves were reduced too ash. The shockwave was so overwhelming that its mighty roots snapped, one by one, and Evergreen fell heavily to the ground. Only one of its roots remained connected, barely anchoring to the wounded earth.
Panic and desperation filled Evergreen. The essence of its cultivation, the core, now lay exposed. Foreign presences entered its perception area, three immortal cultivators flying at high speed, their auras impossibly powerful.
“It looks like you pulverized him completely, huh?” one of them said.
“That sword attack of yours is on a different scale altogether, brother Bluefire,” replied another with a grudging respect.
Terrified of attracting unwanted attention, Evergreen quickly retracted its divine sense. These incredibly strong cultivators could certainly extinguish its life with barely an effort. But surprisingly, they ignored its existence completely. The big tree was insignificant to their eyes, like an ant to a mortal, not worth acknowledging. After they scanned the area for a few minutes they finally left, vanishing into the horizon.
The once beautiful and fertile surroundings were now laid to waste, with Evergreen mirroring the environment its body now in shambles. Focusing every ounce of its unyielding stubbornness it fought to survive. The first step was to protect the core. With sheer willpower, it began to carefully cover it with new cells. As long as the core remained untouched, there was a chance of recovery. Helplessness gnawed at it, but it refused to give in. Its body lay splintered and broken, and its human friends had abandoned it in haste. Hopefully, Evergreen thought, they managed to survive this calamity.
It had to regenerate its body if it wanted to survive. It was hard to believe the extent of damage just from a missed attack. The tree could only consider itself lucky the light crescent didn’t impact it directly. It expected the regeneration process was going to take very long since it had no access to most of its roots. Qi was still available of course, but the surrounding energy felt disrupted and chaotic. Without leaves, it could not feed off the sun. Evergreen was now so fragile, it felt more like a young sapling than the mighty tree it had become. Determined to endure, it slowly focused on healing.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Time passed at a painfully slow pace as new cells grew over its exposed core. A year later Evergreen made enough progress to shift its focus on its shattered branches and severed roots. The past year revealed great changes in the environment. Everything turned into an arid desert, plants slowly withering and winter never coming. The natural cycle of nature was completely disrupted, the power wielded by the immortals being so great, that the remnants of their fight altered the very climate.
Evergreen was beginning to feel more and more concerned. The lack of rain was impeding its regeneration even more. But regenerate it did at a crawling pace, refusing to surrender to the bleak, parched world that was now its home.
Another decade went by, and still, nothing except the wind moved in the barren landscape. Only a broken tree, struggling to reconnect to mother earth, lived in this wasteland. Fortunately, its severed roots still in the ground, tempered by many years of cultivation, did not rot and decay like the rest of the dying plants. In the last decade Evergreen managed to reestablish links to its vast network of roots, by growing new cells fueled with pure qi.
Going through this slow process came with an unexpected benefit—— enlightenment. As it healed with each methodical step, the tree’s mind gradually opened up to the profound insights about the Dao of Life. It was as if each moment stretched time, allowing it to ponder deeply on the balance of nature, and the subtle laws that governed the world. These revelations were not merely fleeting thoughts, but deep understandings that began to reshape Evergreen’s perspective on Life. An entire new dimension of knowledge lay hidden beneath the surface of reality. The true laws of the world once understood could be wielded. Enlightenment, Evergreen now understood, was what differentiated strong cultivators from weak ones. Through trial and error, it started applying its understanding of the Dao of life into healing, improving the process noticeably.
Now that it had reconnected to its vas roots, Evergreen began the arduous process of raising its body back up from the ground. Weeks turned into months, as the large tree’s body shifted and creaked, painfully realigning itself. It was 254 years old when it finished setting itself back up. Evergreen was now taller and felt incredible strength coursing through its body. Not only did it survive, it thrived and grew stronger in face of calamity.
The world around was still in turmoil though, a simple fight between immortals left long lasting scars on the environment. Evergreen lamented the carelessness of their kind. They moved freely from one place to another, never concerned about the impact of their terrible power. But for Evergreen, it was stuck here, forced to adapt to the desolate land. Not much changed for many of the following years until the storms arrived. It welcomed the torrents of rain, drinking hungrily from the life-giving water. Unfortunately the periods of rain were brief, followed by long dry spells. Evergreen watched helplessly as nature flourished around it only to wither and die in an endless cycle. It endured, adjusting to the new pattern and slowly gaining strength.
