Although Shaya stopped struggling, he didn't trust Saul.
"You? Treat ? Do you know what happened to ? Do you think that by claiming to treat and temporarily helping suppress the pollution, you can make work for you?"
Having stayed in place too long, the streetlights in front of and behind Saul dimd again.
The shadows made Saul's expression unclear.
But his voice was exceptionally clear.
"You might not know that in the years after leaving Caugust, I've been working part-ti as a doctor. I'm quite capable when it cos to treating pollution."
Saul's voice was very natural and confident.
"Besides, even if I don't know what happened to you, you can tell , can't you? Even the most powerful doctor needs to learn about the cause and symptoms from the patient before treatnt. If you want to escape your current predicant, cooperate obediently with my treatnt!"
The suddenly harsh tone combined with ntal pressure made both the moon in front and the orange cat behind shrink back.
Startled by Saul's suddenly intensified pressure, Shaya trembled as he spoke, "You really were hiding your strength. What level are you now? What exactly are you plotting?"
Trading with Shaya was really troubleso!
He always treated Saul like a crooked rchant, suspecting his motives.
Though Saul was indeed a crooked rchant.
Now, the "crooked rchant's" patience was exhausted. He pressed the moon to the ground and rubbed it, "Cut the nonsense. I'm just asking you—treat or not treat?"
"Treat! Treat!" Shaya's survival instinct finally overca his paranoia as he said repeatedly.
"Treat! Treat! ow!" Even Kate behind them chanically repeated.
Hearing the cat cry, Saul looked back to see Kate was already twenty ters away.
"Don't run around."
"Yes, yes!" The orange cat quickly moved his short legs and ran to Saul's side, behaving extrely obediently.
Saul looked back at Shaya, who had also beco well-behaved, took a deep breath, and let go.
He thought, Is my way of dealing with people too gentle? Is it because I advanced too quickly and don't interact with other factions, so I haven't been able to change my original mindset?
Seeing Saul finally let go, Shaya quickly caught his breath and said, "It's not safe here. Let's go sowhere else to start."
After speaking, the moon Shaya had transford into suddenly brightened, white light enveloping Saul and Kate's figures.
When the white light disappeared, the three had arrived in a house.
Saul looked around and imdiately rembered—this was the villa where Shaya had lived during his lifeti.
He still rembered that the villa's basent hid a spatial transmission formation.
"How did you do that?" Kate rubbed the ground with his cat paws, feeling real tactile feedback from his paw pads.
"If you could live here for over a year, you could do it too."
Facing the orange cat, Shaya couldn't help but use a mocking tone.
But when he turned to see Saul, his montum disappeared.
The moon-like outer light shell slowly cracked open, revealing the wizard inside.
In this villa, Shaya had returned to human form.
But this appearance wasn't completely the sa as his original self.
The Shaya before them was bare-chested, with tender green branches sprouting from his forehead, cheeks, neck, and arms.
As if a seed had taken root in his body and cruelly broken through his organs and skin to sprout.
He looked down at the branches on his body and sighed, "You're right. If no one helps escape this predicant, I'll be assimilated by this environnt and beco Beth's puppet completely."
"Beth?" Saul wasn't surprised to hear this na.
"Yes, Beth. To understand the cause of the pollution on , you must know about Beth, know about the Inverted Tree."
"Actually, the real controller of Bayton Academy isn't the dean but Wizard Beth who seems to be only first-rank. She's actually the previous dean of Bayton Academy—the forr third-rank wizard of Bayton Academy!"
"Crack!" The orange cat's jaw dislocated.
Saul frowned but didn't interrupt Shaya.
Then, Shaya retold what happened at Bayton Academy from his perspective.
Beth had once been the powerful third-rank wizard who led Bayton Academy to defeat the Kema Empire's army.
But she was actually also a failure.
Being forced to leave the Borderland with the academy was actually because she failed to compete with Clark for territory and was driven out.
At the sa ti, due to serious injuries from fighting Clark, after Beth barely managed to establish a foothold for Bayton Academy by moving mountains and burying people to create the Hanging Hands Valley massacre, she died from her severe injuries.
However, as a third-rank wizard, Beth had already prepared for resurrection.
She used her corpse to nourish the Inverted Tree and gradually cultivated it into a massive demonic creature capable of covering an entire city.
Beth then used the Inverted Tree's branches and resin, mixed with her blood, to create a vessel that allowed her to live like a human.
She harbored her soul in the Inverted Tree's inverted space, using the souls and special energy absorbed by the Inverted Tree to maintain her soul's daily consumption and ensure her soul wouldn't be easily polluted.
Through this, Beth had indirectly completed the task of resurrection.
But resurrection was, after all, an advanced topic for third-rank wizards.
Beth, who possessed a new body and was preparing to quickly recover her strength, soon noticed sothing amiss.
The increasingly powerful Inverted Tree had actually begun competing with Beth for "nutrition."
What troubled Beth most was that she couldn't really compete with the Inverted Tree.
If she lost the competition, without replenishnt she would either disappear or beco polluted due to excessive weakness.
If she won, the Inverted Tree would starve to death, and as a soul dependent on it, she would naturally lose her habitat.
After deliberating for a day and night, Beth finally decided: since there wasn't enough nutrition, they should eat more.
From that day on, Bayton Academy, which hadn't yet established a firm foothold, began desperately expanding enrollnt.
As long as incoming students had magical aptitude, regardless of their talent level, they accepted everyone.
But wizard apprentices were limited in number, so Bayton Academy began changing strategy, mainly recruiting ordinary people to settle in Caugust City.
Using quantity to ensure quality.
The Inverted Tree would hide underground, enjoying the soul fragnts collectively provided by everyone above ground.
Despite so many people sharing the burden, so still collapsed and died under the Inverted Tree's day-after-day exploitation.
Their souls, having been mostly absorbed already, could only beco ash-like existences after death.
Not even qualifying as spirits.
As Caugust City grew larger and residential buildings grew taller, even dozens or hundreds of deaths here wouldn't be conspicuous.
But things weren't perfectly resolved.
As the Inverted Tree grew stronger, its appetite also grew larger.
If Beth wanted to maintain her spirit's stability, she had to continue feeding the Inverted Tree, then helplessly watch it continue growing stronger.
Everything would fall into a vicious cycle.
Before things developed to an unsolvable point, Beth made another decision.
She would abandon her original earth-attribute locator choice and transform the Inverted Tree into her new locator, rging the two so she'd never again worry about competing for nutrition, while better controlling the Inverted Tree.
For this decision, Beth would sacrifice everyone in the entire city!
(End of Chapter)
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