Chapter 1489: You Will Be Punished by Heaven

After this sermon, Qin Mu persistently attempted to refine the World Tree. His cultivation had significantly increased, and his magical power was immense, allowing him to envelop the World Tree within his domain. However, refining it proved to be extremely challenging.

Two days later, the World Tree once again pierced a large hole through his Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure domain.

Qin Mu was stunned. Everyone else secretly looked on, but no one spoke.

Qin Mu dispersed his domain and turned to leave.

"Heavenly Venerable Mu must be despairing," people murmured.

Soon after, Qin Mu found Tai Yi, who was repairing the Black Mountain. This particular Tai Yi was elderly and frail, carrying a bucket with trembling hands.

Qin Mu bowed, took Tai Yi's bucket, and offered to help him repair the Black Mountain, which had been cracked the previous night.

Tai Yi was happy to be idle, supervising his work from the side.

After thoroughly repairing the cracked Black Mountain, Qin Mu put down the bucket and looked at Tai Yi with a fawning smile.

Tai Yi took his bucket and was about to leave when Qin Mu quickly stopped him, saying with a conciliatory smile, "Brother Dao, I noticed your great axe; it seems quite remarkable. How was it forged?"

"That is my Dao weapon, a supreme treasure born with me from chaos," Tai Yi replied.

Tai Yi continued unhurriedly, "When I was born, I used this very treasure to sever the World Tree. Any other treasure would have been powerless against this sacred tree."

Qin Mu opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Tai Yi's beard twitched, and he firmly stated, "This treasure cannot be given to you."

Qin Mu quickly said, "I don't want to keep it; I only wish to borrow it. I'll return it to you after I use it."

The elderly Tai Yi looked him up and down suspiciously. "What do you intend to do with it?" he asked.

Qin Mu remained silent.

"Lending it to you for a short while wouldn't be an issue," Tai Yi conceded.

Tai Yi produced an axe. It was minuscule in his hand, but when it appeared before Qin Mu, it seemed immeasurably vast. "You may use it for only half a day," he stated. "After half a day, this axe will fly back to me."

Qin Mu quickly expressed his gratitude and dragged the massive axe away. Initially, the axe wasn't too heavy, but the further he walked, the heavier it became. Eventually, even Qin Mu was panting and had to stop to rest.

"This axe is too heavy," he thought. "Half a day might pass before I even reach the edge of the World Tree."

Wiping sweat from his brow, he thought, "Did Tai Yi say half a day just to amuse me? Can't it be lighter?"

Just as he thought this, the axe lightened. Qin Mu was overjoyed. He hoisted the great axe and leaped like a bird, heading straight for the World Tree, thinking, "The moment I thought 'lighter,' it became lighter. Could this also be a wish-granting treasure?"

As he pondered, the great axe indeed became even lighter.

Qin Mu was both surprised and delighted. He held the axe upright in front of him and thought, "What if it were a long blade..."

The great axe didn't change at all. Tai Yi's voice echoed from within the axe: "Stop thinking. It's an axe, not a wish-granting item. I'm merely helping you reduce its weight."

Qin Mu felt disheartened.

Xu Shenghua, Lan Yutian, Ming Huang, and others were still meditating beneath the World Tree, sharing their insights. Then they saw Qin Mu approaching like a meteor, dragging the great axe straight towards the World Tree.

Everyone quickly stood up, watching as Qin Mu dragged the axe to the tree. His physical body rapidly expanded, growing segment by segment, muscles bulging menacingly. With a roar, he struck the tree with the axe!

The onlookers stared in a daze. They watched as the giant raised and brought down the axe repeatedly, severing nearly half of the World Tree's trunk with dozens of blows.

Granny Si cried out tremblingly, "Mu'er, stop chopping! You'll be struck by divine lightning!"

Hua Xuanxiu mumbled beside her, "Old Cult Master, if you chop down this tree, you'll face divine retribution!"

The others were also terrified, their faces pale and bewildered.

Qin Mu continued to swing the great axe, chopping relentlessly. With a deafening crack, he chopped the World Tree sapling clean in half!

The massive trunk toppled from the clouds, taking a long time to finally crash into the Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains, causing an earth-shattering commotion.

Fortunately, the citizens of Eternal Peace who had migrated to the ancestral court lived on the outskirts of the sacred mountains and were not hit by the falling World Tree. However, the immense winds stirred up by the falling sapling still swept through their settlements, roaring for a full day and night before finally subsiding.

Next to the World Tree, Qin Mu dropped the great axe and immediately cast his Creation divine art on the stump, attempting to make it sprout and grow a new World Tree through the Dao of Creation.

However, no matter how he activated his Creation divine art, the stump did not sprout new shoots.

Qin Mu stood rooted to the spot, motionless for a long time.

The others also remained motionless for a long time. The last person to chop down the World Tree was Tai Yi, who had felled it with his Chaos Axe, severing the path for beings from the previous cosmic epoch to enter this universe.

The World Tree had revived due to the unsealing of Jade Capital City in the ancestral court. Tai Yi was about to come and chop it down again, but Qin Mu had dissuaded him. Unexpectedly, Qin Mu, frustrated by his inability to refine the World Tree, became enraged and borrowed Tai Yi's Chaos Axe to chop it down himself!

"I didn't mean to chop down the tree," Qin Mu blurted out.

Qin Mu suddenly came to his senses, stammering an explanation to the crowd behind him: "I wasn't enraged. I just intended to cut this tree to plant it in my ancestral court divine treasure. I originally thought this tree could regenerate; that cutting it would certainly allow another one to grow..."

The crowd remained silent.

"I truly wasn't enraged," he insisted. "You know about cuttings, right? You cut a branch and stick it in the ground, and a new tree can grow. I was planning to divide the World Tree in two..."

Qin Mu looked expectantly at Granny Si. Granny Si coughed and said, "Mu'er, there's no need to force an explanation. We all understand."

Qin Mu's face fell as he looked at the Cripple. The Cripple stroked his goatee, looked away, and coldly snorted, "Even a thief has principles, but you can't get angry because you can't have something and then just chop down the tree by force."

Qin Mu remained silent. He turned and walked towards the fallen World Tree sapling. Without its roots, its branches and leaves had begun to wither.

He placed the sapling into his divine treasure domain, attempting to plant it in the ancestral court. However, even though he dug a large pit and surrounded the sapling with four major mineral veins, the tree did not revive; its branches and leaves remained parched.

Suddenly, the Chaos Axe whistled into the air. It spun half a circle, cleaving through layers of void, then flew into the deepest reaches of space and vanished without a trace.

Evidently, time was up, and Tai Yi had recalled his axe.

The crowd gathered around the World Tree's stump. They saw the marks left by the great axe on the immensely thick stump. This sacred tree, which once resonated with profound Dao charm and lingering Dao sounds, was now utterly silent.

Qin Mu took out the tree trunk and crown and placed them on the stump, attempting to restore the sacred tree with his Unchanging divine art. However, the Unchanging divine art was completely ineffective.

The Unchanging divine art was not omnipotent; it had its limitations.

With the large tree lying beside him, Qin Mu sat on the stump, chin in hand, lost in thought.

"Disperse! All of you, disperse!"

The Blind Man shooed the crowd away, saying, "Go do what you need to do. Don't keep gathering here."

He knew Qin Mu was heartbroken after felling the sacred tree, so he sent everyone away to give Qin Mu some time alone to calm down.

Soon, the sky gradually darkened.

Around the Great Black Wood, terrifying vibrations resumed, a scene of cosmic destruction. It was the roars and struggles of the previous universe as it perished.

Qin Mu sat on the World Tree stump, muttering, "Tai Yi burned it, but I didn't burn it... so how did it die?"

As he sat there, he could vaguely see outside the Great Black Wood, where enlightened beings from the previous cosmic epoch roared incessantly, striving to climb the World Tree.

Facing the great calamity of cosmic destruction, these enlightened beings were like ants, struggling to climb the tree, attempting to escape the Great Calamity. However, with the World Tree severed, they could not cross over from the previous cosmic epoch.

Qin Mu watched them gesticulate wildly, cursing endlessly, reviling the scoundrel who felled the World Tree, using their own Dao practices as curses against the tree-chopper.

"Hmph, only the weak curse others," Qin Mu muttered.

Qin Mu shrank his neck and mumbled again, "I didn't do it on purpose, and Tai Yi cut the tree first. If Tai Yi can do it, why can't I..."

He sat there, feeling as if he were on pins and needles, until dawn gradually broke and the terrifying spectacle outside the Great Black Wood vanished.

Just then, the familiar tremors resonated from deep within the Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains—a rumbling sound, as if countless demonic beings underground were stretching their limbs at daybreak!

Qin Mu's heart stirred. Suddenly, the stump beneath him cracked with a pop-pop sound, and two huge, tender green leaves instantly lifted him with a whoosh, carrying him into the air!

He remained with his chin in hand, curiously looking down. He saw himself rising higher and higher, and beneath the two large leaves was a tender green sapling stem!

Qin Mu looked up and blinked.

A hum—

His divine treasure domain spread out, and his primordial spirit became as hard as steel. Within each Heavenly Palace, his primordial spirits immediately began to refine this newly sprouted World Tree sapling!

By the time others arrived after hearing the commotion, they saw him controlling his Spirit Embryo, attempting to merge it into the newly born sapling!

"Mu'er, stop your divine art!" Granny Si, the Mute, and others urged loudly from beneath the tree.

Qin Mu paid them no mind and continued to forcefully refine the sapling. However, the sapling remained impervious, completely resistant to his imprint.

After another ten-plus days, the World Tree sapling had grown to the point where it forcibly broke through his Spirit Embryo Divine Treasure, extending beyond the heavens.

Only then did Qin Mu jump down from the tree. As people watched him leave dejectedly, they couldn't help but feel a chill down their spines: "Is Heavenly Venerable Mu going to find Tai Yi to borrow the axe again? He still hasn't given up..."

Qin Mu found Tai Yi, who was currently a child-like figure with two pigtails sticking up, snot dripping from his nose, busy repairing a mountain.

"Brother Dao!"

Qin Mu snatched the bucket and assiduously helped him repair the cracked Black Mountain. The pigtail-headed child forcibly sniffed, drawing the two streams of snot back into his nostrils, only for them to flow out again.

Qin Mu, with a face full of smiles, worked diligently while coaxing, "Brother Dao, the water in your bucket can repair the cracked Black Mountain, and the Black Mountain is the charred World Tree, isn't it?"

The child sniffed forcefully again, drawing the snot that had reached his mouth back in, and then said with a precocious air, "What do you want?"

Qin Mu stopped repairing the Black Mountain, gazing at the water in the bucket, which reflected his face. "So, if it were a World Tree without roots, would the water in your bucket be able to revive it? In my divine treasure domain, there's a World Tree just like that, without roots..."