The legend begins with becoming a white deer.

In Black Stone Fortress, towering ancient trees are like giant beasts growing wildly from the ground, each one rising up from the earth, their thick trunks spreading out dense canopies, almost swallowing the entire fortress into lush greenery.

The blue brick and stone walls collapsed in sections due to the arching of the tree roots, and rubble and stones rolled all over the ground.

The merchants, bodyguards, and staff who were originally stranded in the fort had already fled in panic.

But none of them left. Instead, they all stood about one or two hundred meters away from Wubao, craning their necks, their faces showing both fear and barely suppressed curiosity.

"Look over there!"

A silk merchant carrying a cloth bag suddenly pointed to a thick branch extending horizontally in the distance, his voice trembling: "What...what's that on that branch?"

Everyone looked in the direction he pointed.

On the gnarled old tree branch, several men in black were tangled up haphazardly; they were the guards of Black Stone Fortress.

They were tightly bound by tree roots, their heads drooping, seemingly oblivious to their fate, like grasshoppers strung on branches.

A low murmur rippled through the crowd.

"This...this is the power of the spirit beast white deer? It killed all these people?"

Someone swallowed hard and muttered under their breath, "But doesn't the 'Chronicles of the Kingdoms' say that the white deer is an auspicious beast sent from heaven? Wherever it goes, all things flourish. How... how can it be so ferocious?"

An old bodyguard with a knife at his side shook his head and said in a deep voice, "You can't believe everything you read in the newspapers. Whether it's auspicious or ominous, it's all up to the writer to write whatever they want. In my opinion, this white deer might actually be a ferocious beast, otherwise where would it get such a bloodthirsty nature?"

No sooner had the words left his mouth than someone at the edge of the crowd exclaimed in alarm, "Wait! Look! Those tree roots intertwined...it looks like there are children there!"

Everyone's heart tightened, and they quickly looked closely.

Countless thick tree roots emerged from beneath the ground inside the fortress, winding and intertwining like a giant green spider web.

And among those supple tree roots, tiny figures could indeed be vaguely seen.

Some were gently supported in mid-air by the tree roots.

Some were nestled in cradles formed by tree roots.

They are all of different sizes, but all have the outline of a child.

The crowd, which had been buzzing with discussion, fell silent instantly. They looked at each other, their eyes filled with disbelief and shock.

... ... ...

On the open ground on the other side of the fortress wall, the battle between the fierce monk and the Five Guards had reached a fever pitch.

The Five Guardians formed a battle formation, their sword flashes coming in waves like a tide, seamlessly blending offense and defense without any openings.

The ruthless monk wielded his iron cudgel with impenetrable speed, each strike carrying immense force.

In a one-on-one fight, none of the five could match him.

But the combined efforts of the five forced him to go all out.

Moreover, as the fight progressed, the fierce monk's moves became increasingly chaotic, and he frequently glanced behind him, his fighting spirit long since vanished.

He was all too familiar with this scene.

The fear of the battle in the Kingdom of Bilin surged up instantly.

The excruciating pain from the massive tree-man and the crashing boulder seemed to return to him once more. Only one thought remained in the fierce monk's mind: "Run! If I don't run, I'll lose my life!"

He let out a sudden roar, swung his iron rod with all his might, forcing the two people in front of him aside, and used the force of the recoil to violently lurch backward.

"Trying to leave?" the Five Guards shouted in unison, immediately giving chase.

The wicked monk completely ignored Duan Chi, who was trapped in a desperate situation behind him, and disregarded any organizational foundation; he desperately tried to escape.

What brotherhood?

What are the benefits of the branch?

In the face of life and death, everything else is as light as a feather.

But just as the wicked monk darted out a few dozen steps, the ground in front of him suddenly exploded with a loud "boom".

A huge, snow-white figure burst from the ground, bringing with it a shower of dirt and rubble, and landed steadily in front of him.

The wicked monk looked up and was met with a pair of golden deer eyes.

Cold and indifferent.

It also carried a condescending and oppressive air, as if looking down at an ant.

"ah--!"

The wicked monk instinctively let out a terrified scream.

He abruptly stopped, his entire body trembling with fat, as if he had encountered a vengeful ghost.

"Huh? This fat monk looks like...?"

Qi Ji blinked and immediately recognized the fierce monk.

This was the fat monk who, when he faced off against countless enemies in the Kingdom of Bilin, had a large number of corpses thrown at him, and was lucky enough to survive a blow from a tree spirit, instead flying out of his Ten Thousand Wood Domain.

Just as Qi Ji was wondering how this fat monk ended up here, his nostrils twitched slightly.

A familiar, yet utterly repulsive, aura of deathly stillness wafted over from the fierce monk.

It's very faint, almost gone.

But Qi Ji still managed to capture it accurately.

"So that's how it is. This monk is in cahoots with those human traffickers."

(`o´)

A chill flashed in Qi Ji's eyes. Without the slightest hesitation, he leaned back and, with immense force, kicked the fierce monk hard in the chest.

"clang--!"

The ruthless monk instinctively blocked with his staff.

The iron rod, made of fine steel and weighing over 100 kilograms, was as fragile as a withered branch in front of Qi Ji's deer hoof.

With a crisp sound, the iron rod snapped in two, the two pieces of scrap metal flying out in a whirl.

The unstoppable force did not diminish in the slightest, and the kick landed squarely on the monk's chest.

"Pfft—!"

The fat monk's body looked as if it had been hit head-on by a battering ram, his chest deeply caved in.

His prized, resilient body of fat couldn't even offer the slightest resistance to this overwhelming power.

The terrifying energy penetrated his body, instantly affecting his internal organs.

The wicked monk flew backward like a human flesh ball.

Upon seeing this, the Five Form Guardians' eyes lit up.

The five people gathered their strength at the same time and struck out with one palm.

The five streams of true energy from the same source merged into one and slammed into the back of the vicious monk, successfully stopping him from flying backward.

"what!"

The wicked monk suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood in mid-air, along with fragments of his shattered internal organs.

He fell limply to the ground, blood flowing from his seven orifices, his face as pale as paper, he didn't even have the strength to lift a finger, he could only exhale but not inhale.

Su Yanji walked over quickly with Xu Ling.

She looked at the half-dead, ferocious monk on the ground, then at Qi Ji, her feelings a complex mix.

On one hand, he was secretly complaining that this deer was completely unpredictable, acting on a whim and ruining the perfectly good infiltration plan.

On the other hand, they were also shocked by Qi Ji's strength.

The fierce monk, ranked seventh among the Ten Evils and a top master who had been famous in the martial arts world for many years, couldn't even withstand a single move from Qi Ji.

"Seriously, never mind..."

Su Yanji sighed, and then wanted to say something more, but her gaze was suddenly drawn to the scene in mid-air.

Countless tree roots carried tiny figures as they slowly descended from mid-air and landed steadily around Qi Ji.

"It's a child!"

The spirit's eyes lit up instantly, and she exclaimed with delight, "That's wonderful! Lord White Deer has rescued all the captured children!"

Seeing this, Su Yanji looked at the children, then at her feet, and a look of realization dawned on her face.

No wonder the whole mountain was shaking; it turns out that such a large underground palace had been hollowed out beneath Black Stone Fortress.

Having traveled all over the country for so many years, she had only thought this place was an ordinary business travel hub, never expecting it to be so well hidden.

Qi Ji manipulated the tree roots to place all the children on the ground.

A rough count revealed that over a hundred survived.

The older one is eleven or twelve years old, and the younger one is only three or four years old.

They were all dressed in rags, their faces pale and emaciated.

The petrification symptoms on their bodies had been restored under the nourishment of the power of the [Breath of Life], revealing their original tender skin, but their eyes still held a sense of bewilderment and fear.

But when they saw the white giant deer standing in the middle, they all subconsciously moved slowly towards it.

Some timidly tugged at Qi Ji's mane.

Some held onto his thick deer legs, their small bodies pressed close together.

The warm golden light they had just received saved them and dispelled their excruciating pain.

Children have the keenest instincts; they instinctively know that the beautiful deer in front of them has come to rescue them and that they are safe.

More than a hundred children quietly surrounded Qi Ji, as if they were surrounding a gentle guardian angel.

Seeing this scene, Su Yanji felt inexplicably warmed, but before she could smile, she noticed that along with the tree roots, rows of small stone statues had also been raised and placed over.

There were about two hundred of them, all neatly arranged.

They all looked like children, some standing, some curled up.

Some remained in a position of painful struggle.

Looking at these strange stone sculptures of children, Su Yanji instinctively had a terrible guess.

She looked at Qi Ji, her voice slightly tense: "Lord Bailu... what are these stone carvings?"

Qi Ji remained silent and did not answer immediately.

But suppressed anger surged within his golden deer eyes.

Although he hadn't yet figured out what the human traffickers' experiments were, he basically understood that the children who were captured had all been corrupted by the blood of those spirit beasts that he loathed.

Some of them held on, or were still holding on, when Qi Ji rescued them.

Others, however, could not withstand the test and gradually turned into cold stone statues.

A child who is completely petrified also means death.

Furthermore, because they had been dead for too long, even if Qi Ji activated the [Breath of Life] with all his might, these completely petrified children could not be saved.

Qi Ji brought them up here simply because he didn't want these small bodies to be buried forever in that dirty and dark underground palace.

The scene was deathly silent; even the wind seemed to have slowed its pace.

Just then, a little girl of about eight years old suddenly rushed out from the group of children.

She stumbled to a small stone sculpture of a boy, knelt down on the gravel with a thud, and reached out her trembling little hand to gently stroke the sculpture's cold cheek.

The stone sculpture appeared to be only about four years old, its small mouth slightly open, frozen in the posture of crying and struggling before death. Its entire body was made of cold, stiff, bluish-gray stone, devoid of any warmth of a living person.

"Little brother, little brother, wake up! A god has come to save us..."

The little girl's tiny fingers stroked the stone sculpture's face again and again, as if trying to make the younger brother in the sculpture open his eyes. Her voice carried a faint, unyielding hope.

But the stone sculpture did not react at all.

The little girl refused to give up and continued to call out, but as she called out, tears streamed down her face, and her voice slowly changed from expectant to trembling, finally becoming a broken sob.

"Little brother...please wake up...let's go home together, okay...?"

Su Yanji froze upon hearing the word "little brother," staring in disbelief at the child-shaped stone sculptures...