The entire sect is obsessed with love, but I'm the only one who's truly insane.

Lin Du guessed that the tree's root system beneath the sand must be extremely extensive, but he didn't know it was this extensive.

She was at least three zhang away from the tree trunk, and the roots could obviously extend further.

Lin Du didn't want to be used as fertilizer. A direct confrontation would be especially disadvantageous for someone like her who specialized in formations, but she had already come to this point and had no way to avoid it.

The young man in blue raised his hand, channeling all the spiritual energy he had been frantically circulating into his right hand, and then threw a heavy punch.

With a bang, the dark, foul-smelling liquid splattered out, and as soon as it hit the air, it quickly froze into frost flowers.

A bone-chilling cold air spread rapidly from the air; it was the aftershock of Lin Du's spiritual energy.

Having just escaped, Ni Si felt her breath catch in her throat from the oppressive cold air, and the breath she exhaled quickly turned into white mist in the air.

Lin Du landed on the ground, followed by the shattered pieces of red ice, which clattered and fell to the ground.

Before the water mirror, Elder Juyuan, who had been on tenterhooks, let out a long breath, followed by a chorus of exhalations.

Lin Du had never learned physical skills and knew nothing about swordsmanship or knife techniques. No one knew why that punch had such great power; they could only attribute it to his extraordinary talent.

Only the person in question was looking thoughtfully at her fist, and because of the barrier of the abundant spiritual energy, her hand was not stained with any flesh or blood.

Yes, flesh and blood.

These demonized red willow branches had long since become flesh and blood.

Lin Du thought of what Yan Ye had said that day: "One move is enough."

Below the clouds, no one could withstand his ice-breaking punch.

She seemed to understand something, and finally grasped Yan Ye's meaning.

Cutting melons and chopping vegetables with your hands is simple and crude, but it's effective enough.

I just hope that this one-punch man of the cultivation world will at least grow some hair.

Lin Du turned her head and glanced at the person who was trembling under the pressure of her spiritual power, then lifted her foot to leave this place of trouble.

Ni Si shuddered again at that condescending, cold gaze. No one knew better than her what it meant to be number one on the Qingyun Ranking.

The spiritual energy was chillingly cold, and it seeped into her skin through her pores. Even when she tried to circulate her spiritual energy to resist the coldness, it receded the moment it came into contact with her.

Demons possess spirits. As long as they are not provoked into madness and loss of reason, they will naturally not take the initiative to attack when they encounter something stronger than themselves. This little cultivator with the talisman is not easy to deal with, and that cultivator who can smash it with one punch is even more difficult to deal with.

After showing off, Lin Du maintained his arrogant gaze and turned to leave. Just then, without paying attention, he stepped on something.

She staggered, the hem of her cloak sweeping across the sand, then squatted down as if she had only been gathering her strength.

What tripped her was a skull.

The skull was embedded deep in the sand, with only a small part of the skull showing.

Lin Du crouched down and tapped the culprit that had tripped her with her knuckles, trying to gently awaken its sleeping soul.

But clearly, the soul is long gone.

Based on the miscellaneous books he had read, Lin Du judged that the skeleton had been dead for at least a hundred years.

That was exactly the time this little world was opened for the last time.

She frowned. The mortality rate in this small world was very low. She had done her homework before coming. Last time, out of 321 cultivators, 301 came out and only 20 died. Even if all the red willows were eaten, the demonic energy would not be strong enough to turn a spiritual plant into flesh and blood.

Lin Du took out an iron shovel from his storage ring and, under the complicated gazes of the two people, skillfully began to dig. He stuck the iron shovel into the sand, stepped on it for leverage, and then flipped it over, just like he was used to doing it every day.

"What is Lin Du trying to do?"

"That thing is... a metal shovel?"

Ju Yuan raised his hand to his forehead, "It's Tie Zhai."

After reaching the Foundation Establishment stage, disciples of their Supreme Sect are often forced to learn the arts of cultivating spiritual plants and raising spiritual beasts, ostensibly to learn how to be self-reliant.

This iron shovel is actually an auxiliary tool. All disciples receive this on their first visit to check the condition of the land and plants.

"You disciples of the Supreme Sect are truly multi-talented," an elder said with a forced smile.

Lin Du's movements became faster and faster, and soon everyone knew why Lin Du was carrying the iron shovel.

The roots of the red willow tree are gnarled and twisted, each as thick as an adult's arm. Exposed to the sunlight, they appear as a blood-red black. When the iron hammer presses down on them without any spiritual power, it cannot budge the roots at all.

Even the most knowledgeable elder couldn't help but gasp.

The willow tree had absorbed countless drops of blood and flesh, which condensed into a sinister, crimson-black branch, intertwined and sprawling, with human bones scattered among it.

The tree roots stretched deep into the ground, imprisoning countless white bones, and a sinister aura permeated the air.

Lin Du lowered his eyes and saw a skull with two tree roots that seemed to have grown out later, passing through two dark eye holes. Only one part was thin, and it grew thicker and thicker as it extended forward, like hellish tendrils nourished by white bones and flesh.

This was already three zhang away from the red willow tree trunk. Lin Du had only dug a small pit, barely big enough for an adult to lie down in, and there were already more than a dozen skulls.

Lin Du looked up at the sky and then spoke, "Small worlds only open once every hundred years on average. Since their discovery, they've only opened seven times. Seven times? How could so many people have died?"

As Yan Ye's apprentice, she naturally knew that the Heavenly Eye was silent, but with such a commotion, someone would inevitably see it.

Some of the elders in the room suddenly stood up and read out Lin Du's mouth.

Jun Qian felt a chill run down his spine. "A total of 157 cultivators died in seven separate incidents."

But many of those 157 cultivators did not die because of the demon willow.

In other words, many people in this small world have died under this demonic willow tree before.

Lin Du glanced at Ni Si and Li Dong, who were already pale with fright, and put away the iron shovel.

The roots of the tamarisk, exposed to the sunlight, soon became restless.

Lin Du took out the Floating Life Fan and, in front of the two people, waved it out, freezing the restless willow branches.

The moment the eerie frost slowly solidified, Li Dong shouted, "It was you!"

Lin Du lifted her eyelids and glanced at the two people who were getting closer and closer to her out of excessive fear. When they saw the frost slowly condensing, they both showed expressions of horror, and then looked at her incredulously.

"Are you deliberately trying to scam me out of my money?"

Lin Du lowered his eyelids again. "No, don't flatter yourself, it was just an accident."

This time, she used her mental powers to bypass Ni Si and Li Dong.

Ni Si stomped her foot angrily, "It's clearly because of you that we were frozen, and you, the culprit, dare to ask us for money?"

Lin Du had already squatted down, without raising his head, and took out a short dagger. He cut off the tree root covered with a thin layer of ice. Just as the tree root was about to burst open, the cut surface was frozen by the spreading frost.

She looked down at the tree roots and twigs that were still twisting in her hand, and fell into deep thought.

No, something's not right. This demonic power is wrong.

It's not just flesh and blood, but also resentment.

The dark resentment resides within the tree roots, while the outer layer is formed from solidified flesh and blood, creating a demonic aura.

In other words, the tree became demonic because of the stimulation of a large amount of resentment.

Lin Du took out a array ruler and a testing array plate, and looked down at the rapidly converging array lines to sense them.

"Lin Du! You have to give us an explanation today!" Ni Si and Li Dong were still arguing.

Lin Du got annoyed and snapped her fingers. The frost climbed onto the feet of the two people on its own, scaring them so much that they hurriedly tried to escape from the range of her Floating Life Magic.

But it was too late; the two of them quickly turned into frozen scum again.

Lin Du ignored the curses from the two men and looked up at Hong Liu. "So that's how it is."

Red willows grow on the site of the former city.

She roughly guessed the extent of the city from the sand, and the red willow was right in the center of the city.

And in the center of this city, there was actually a gathering magic array.

What's gathering is resentment.

The abundant resentment nourished the already yin-natured red willow, causing it to become demonic.

Is the source of that resentment the city beneath the desert?