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Sorry for the late updates the past few days, i adjusted the timing for next 2 month chapters so there will be no delay in updating.

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As Yino revealed the truth, the atmosphere in the dimly lit treehouse grew increasingly delicate.

After a brief moment of surprise, Liuli let out a light, cold laugh of acceptance.

She gave Yino a meaningful look. "What you say is correct."

"But even with the barrier suppressing me, killing you would still be effortless."

"The only difference is that, compared to wasting trump cards to kill a Mother Goddess believer, my cultivation obviously has more important matters to attend to."

As she finished speaking, Liuli lowered her gaze, her expression growing noticeably more subdued.

She was a pragmatic antagonist.

Her initial combat with Yino was due to overwhelming power advantage. Later, Jinyue's intervention led to negotiations. Now, after seeing the limitless potential in Xumo, Liuli naturally adjusted her strategy, attempting to recruit Yino as an ally.

At least, she and Yino were both believers of the Mother Goddess. There was no deep blood feud between them. Compared to Xumo, whose identity was mysterious and who clearly had a powerful mentor in the background, Yino seemed far more trustworthy!

"Isn't that right?"

"If we fight to the death now, like the clam and snipe quarreling, only that righteous cultivator Xumo would benefit like the fisherman."

Leaving these words behind, Liuli continued walking deeper into the treehouse without looking back.

Liuli's blood-red evening gown actually had a backless design. It hadn't seemed revealing before only because she wore bandages. Now that she had removed them, when she turned to leave, large expanses of fair skin were exposed to Yino's gaze. This gesture of completely trusting Yino with her back seemed more like a gesture of reconciliation.

Yino remained silent and quietly followed.

The interior of this thousand-year-old tree twisted and turned like a tunnel, and indeed, at the base of the ancient tree lay an old and secret underground temple.

In his previous life while playing the game, Yino had explored this place.

The exploration process was similar to exploring the Mountain Temple - first passing through several trials and solving puzzles. Finally, the story protagonist, along with Jinyue and other righteous cultivators, would discover a massive underground temple at the end of the treehouse.

Entering the temple, they would battle two awakened beast statues.

After defeating the statues and proceeding deeper, they would find a tree spirit maiden bound by several blood-colored chains suspended in mid-air.

As an eerie blood formation took shape, the tree spirit maiden would emit agonized wails.

Following this, behind the player and righteous cultivators, the Full Moon Cult's Holy Maiden Liuli would make her formal appearance as the second volume's boss, revealing her health bar.

Yino remembered the boss battle scene quite clearly. Though Liuli's health bar wasn't thick, she had incredible regeneration speed. Poor gameplay could result in fighting endlessly only to find her health fully restored.

In his previous life, Yino was stuck on the Liuli battle for quite a while.

After players exhausted tremendous effort to empty Liuli's health bar, she would first kneel wounded on the ground, then give a self-mocking cold laugh while speaking some villainous cryptic lines.

At the final moment, Liuli would suddenly use vines to activate the formation she had long plotted, a blood formation conducted through the chains to corrupt the suspended tree spirit maiden into a demon, thereby triggering a beast revolt throughout the Azure Forest...

In short, Yino had plenty of restarts in the second volume in his previous life.

However, now with the villainess boss personally guiding the way, at least the treehouse exploration would be much easier for Yino.

"Yino, haven't you ever wondered how the countless secret realms in this world came to be?"

"Tell me, did these bizarre secret realms already exist after Pangu separated heaven and earth?"

Walking ahead in the tunnel, Liuli continued their earlier topic.

Following behind her, Yino inadvertently stepped on a trap mechanism, but at the crucial moment, Liuli extended her hand to summon two blood-colored vines that easily rescued him.

"Doesn't it seem strange that inside the Azure Forest's landmark, this thousand-year-old tree, there are man-made tunnels and traps?"

Liuli glanced back at him, not seeking thanks, but continuing her questions.

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Although Yino had heard similar lines in his previous life, he still nodded in agreement, gesturing for Liuli to continue the story.

"The answer is actually simple. When the ancient gods created the world, secret realms didn't exist."

"Only with the recent spiritual energy revival, as cultivation barriers lowered and human cultivation became widespread, the Central Plains Dynasty's existing territory gradually failed to meet humanity's growing spiritual energy demands. Thus, the Great Dragon Dynasty began large-scale expansion, beautifully termed in historical records as 'Opening Wilderness Lands.'"

"The Azure Forest, this primordial forest at the junction of Eastern and Western Regions, is the result of such 'opening.'"

"Initially, only a few human cultivators discovered this forest. When they were gathering herbs and attacked by spirit beasts, a pure and innocent little tree spirit saved them..."

"The little tree spirit healed their wounds, gave them the herbs they needed, and escorted them out, protecting them from the forest's spirit beasts."

"But afterward, as word of Azure Forest's herbs and legends spread among humans, righteous immortal sects and the Great Dragon Dynasty gradually focused on developing Western Region territory."

"Like other secret realm development processes, Azure Forest was first sealed off by massive spiritual barrier formations, then entered by thousands of human armies exploring the secret realm. They didn't stop at gathering herbs - wherever they went, nothing grew. They massacred spirit beasts on a massive scale, and finally even Azure Forest's guardian spirit was suppressed and imprisoned..."

"A century passed. When Azure Forest's spiritual energy grew more and more deplete and the forest became deathly quiet, these insatiable righteous cultivators finally realized their descendants would have no spiritual energy to cultivate."

"Later, they modified the secret realm's barriers, penning in Azure Forest, stipulating once-yearly exploration frequency, and based on the realm's ecology, limiting entering cultivators' realms, beautifully termed as protecting the secret realm's sustainable ecological development."

"How utterly ridiculous..."

Walking ahead, Liuli calmly introduced the world view of Fallen Immortal while casually summoning vines to destroy trap mechanisms on the side.

Her slightly sarcastic words fell as she finally halted before a massive palace entrance.

If Yino remembered correctly, this was the underground ancient palace from the game. At its end hung the thousand-year tree spirit imprisoned by chains and formations.

However, regarding this ancient tree spirit's background story, Yino only knew she was this Azure Forest's guardian deity, similar to the Nine-Colored Deer's position in Snow Village, but he didn't know the detailed background story.

Possibly, the little tree spirit in Liuli's story just now referred to this imprisoned ancient tree spirit...?

"Yino, hearing this far, don't you think the righteous cultivators weren't so bad?"

"At least they knew to protect the secret realm and plan yearly explorations, seemingly making considerable amends to protect Azure Forest's natural ecology?" Liuli placed her hand on the stone door while turning to look at Yino.

Yino nodded somewhat perfunctorily.

Actually, the second volume's main conflict was a very classic "humans versus nature" theme, and as a veteran player of Fallen Immortals, Yino understood too well how shameless these righteous cultivators were. But considering how invested Liuli was in her introduction, Yino didn't want to spoil the atmosphere, so he just nodded to show curiosity.

"Heheh... protecting ecology..."

"Open your eyes wide and see, this is what those righteous immortal sects call protection."

At these words, Liuli gave a cold laugh, then suddenly pushed open the ancient stone door.

Yino looked intently. The environment beyond the door was unchanged from the original game - a spacious and gloomy underground temple, two ancient statues standing guard, and behind the statues, a small figure suspended by black chains in mid-air.

The ancient tree spirit, Azure Forest's original ecological guardian.

Thinking carefully, the guardian spirits in this world generally didn't meet good ends.

Volume one saw the death of a shabby but pitiful Nine-Colored Deer.

Volume two introduced the sealed ancient tree spirit maiden, who ultimately was corrupted by Liuli, triggering Azure Forest's upheaval...

[Meh!]