Immortal Paladin

374 Kidnapping a Forest?

I stepped toward the arch with the others, unsure of what to expect. Zhu Bo led us forward at a calm pace, his hooves tapping lightly on stone, while Da Ji kept the rear with a bored look that fooled no one. Huli Jianzhu remained outside with her arms folded across her chest, having been tasked to wait for any disciple who ended up rejected by the formation. Her striped tail swayed in mild irritation as she watched us enter. I thought she looked more reliable than half the old men present. Still, I focused on the test ahead. I had no idea what “rejected” meant, but judging from how careful the Heavenly Temple was with their formations, it probably wasn’t pleasant.

Even so, I refused to be cast out like some worthless mutt. The Empire’s formation mastery was nothing to scoff at, but the Heavenly Temple had survived since antiquity. The Celestial Wall alone had been enough to force me to swallow my pride and keep my envy buried. They had carved an entire world behind a single wall. I hated how impressed I was.

The moment I crossed the arch, my vision blurred with light. In the next breath, I stood in the middle of a vast forest overflowing with quintessence so dense it felt like walking through warm mist. The arch behind us vanished as if swallowed by fog. My eyes widened at the richness of the energy here. Even someone with terrible spiritual roots could crawl to Second Realm in a century just breathing this air. Unfair didn’t even begin to describe it. I already felt the toxic urge to uproot the place and stash it in the Empire like a thief. Unfortunately, the test came first. If I got rejected now, Da Ji would never let me hear the end of it.

“Oh, someone got rejected already?”

My surroundings spun and, in the blink of an eye, I was no longer in the forest. I stood outside the arch, right in front of Huli Jianzhu and Lord Iron Lake.

“A pity,” Huli Jianzhu sighed while adjusting the gauntlets on her forearms. “Elder Da Ji had high hopes for you. She said you were an incredible talent not seen in ten thousand years. Ah… should I be calling her Elder Jia Yun instead?”

“No, no, no,” Lord Iron Lake coughed in a hurry. “Please continue using the alias she chose. We can’t risk imperial ears catching her real name. Still, unfortunate for you, young man. To be praised by Elder Da Ji of all people… well, expectations must weigh heavily on your shoulders. If only that arrogant little girl had been the one tossed out. I wouldn’t have minded the formation’s judgment then.”

This old bastard had gall. For someone supposedly righteous and wise, he sure enjoyed taking shots at my disciple. I kept my expression polite and bowed in restraint.

“Can I try again?” I asked. “Please.”

Huli Jianzhu narrowed her eyes and tapped her foot. “Disciple, do not cause trouble. The test is not meant to be—”

“Oh, let him,” Lord Iron Lake waved her off with an oily smile. “The formation won’t break from a single boy trying again. Of course, the arch closes at sunset, so you’ll need to hurry. Fate waits for no one, after all.” His gaze slid toward the tiger woman’s figure with vulgar interest. “Such a shame we must linger out here… some company makes the wait far more pleasant.”

Huli Jianzhu stiffened, plainly uncomfortable, but she forced herself to remain silent. The other elders waiting nearby pretended not to notice the old man’s wandering eyes. It seemed his earlier dignified composure had only been for Zhu Bo’s sake or Da Ji’s presence. Strip him of witnesses he feared, and he turned into a lecherous grandpa. Disappointing, but not surprising.

I reentered the arch.

The world twisted again. The same forest appeared around me, the same thick quintessence brushing my skin. Before I could take a proper breath, everything snapped apart. I was yanked backward as though someone hooked my soul and reeled me in.

Just like that, I stood outside the arch for the second time.

“Fuck me.”

Lord Iron Lake didn’t even look my way as he continued his pathetic attempt to charm Huli Jianzhu. The old man had no class.

“What the hell was that formation? No… It’s not just the formation…”

I stepped into the arch again, refusing to accept defeat. The instant the forest formed around me, I moved. Zealot’s Stride ignited in my legs, Flash Step coiled around my bones, and Divine Speed burned through every muscle. All three stacked into a reckless sprint that blurred the trees into streaks of green and gold. My steps hammered the earth like thunder, yet every time I neared the deeper part of the forest, space twisted and tossed me back to the entrance.

I tried again. And again. And again.

No matter how fast I ran, no matter how sharply I turned, the forest always folded in on itself and spat me out like a rotten fruit. My temper flared. I started testing everything. I expanded my Divine Sense to its limits, mapping the arch, the formation lines buried beneath the ground, and the way the quintessence moved in the air. Dozens of spirit threads intertwined, forming a labyrinth that wrapped the Heavenly Temple like a cocoon. A direct teleportation using Egress was impossible; Castling wouldn’t respond either. The Celestial Wall’s runes blocked every external anchor. Even if Da Ji reached Celestial Step City already, I couldn’t mark anything from here.

I switched tactics. I tried channeling Spirit Mystery, hoping to force some faith through the cracks. However, I got nothing. Asura’s greedy hands were hogging the entire faith stream again. Not even a whiff of belief flowed toward me.

At this point, Human should have finished recovering the clone body he had once used to master the Four Great Attributes. I pulled on the inherited insights he left in our shared consciousness and tried combining aura with my movement arts.

The result?

I exploded out of the arch in a burning heap, rolling across the dirt as if I had been tossed by a giant who hated me specifically.

“Disciple Da, you should know your limitations,” Huli Jianzhu said as she caught me by the arm and pulled me upright. Her expression softened for a moment before she resumed her professional calm.

“Da?” Lord Iron Lake perked up. “Like Da Ji?”

I was exhausted, humiliated, and furious. The Animal Soul inside me stirred, pushing impulsive irritation through my veins. So of course, I taunted him.

“No, more like Da Wei.”

His face tightened instantly. Good. Let him choke on that name.

I dusted myself off and bowed politely just enough to be considered civilized. “The name is Da Boqi.”

Huli Jianzhu blinked. Lord Iron Lake knit his brows.

“Big erection?” the old man asked bluntly.

大 (da) Big

勃起 (boqi) erection

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“I don’t know,” I replied with the most innocent, deadpan voice I could muster. I maintained a respectful pose as I added, “I apologize for my lack of talent. May the honorable elder and gatekeeper enlighten me about this mysterious arch? I wish to understand my shortcomings.”

That earned me exactly what I expected.

Lord Iron Lake puffed out his chest, stroked his beard, and adopted a mysterious aura to impress the tiger woman, despite the fact she looked seconds away from slapping him with a clawed paw.

“This forest,” he began dramatically, “is alive. It can sense intent. Those who harbor thoughts that would harm the Heavenly Temple, those whose fate opposes its teachings, and those cursed by misfortune shall be cast back. The forest judges all fairly. Even I cannot interfere with its will.”

He shook his head in feigned astonishment. “Though I must admit… I am surprised that the heretic little girl was allowed through. Her tongue was scandalous, yet the forest saw fit to accept her.”

So the forest was alive? That stirred something in my memory. Specifically, a trauma. I recalled the fight against the immortal remains Alice, Joan, and I had stumbled upon in another dimension. The corpse tainted by the Void, the sky turning into a mouth full of teeth, the whispering stars… yes, that nightmare. If this forest shared the same principle of sentience, even faintly, I understood why the arch treated me like trash.

I cupped my fist and bowed. “Thank you for your teachings, Lord Iron Lake.”

He nodded as if granting heavenly wisdom to a pitiful mortal. “Young man, know your limits. It is rare for someone to be rejected outright. Usually, it means the heavens do not favor you, and your luck is foul. You should learn your place and accept fate.”

I kept my head lowered.

Inside, I was plotting how to snap his beard off his face.

“Learn my place?” I repeated softly. “Lord Iron Lake, you should recite Buddha before talking about fate.”

The old man blinked, caught off guard.

I pressed my palms together and bowed slightly. “Lust clouds the mind. Desire leads to delusion. Greed births suffering. A wandering heart cannot see heaven clearly. Please, Elder, control yourself.”

Huli Jianzhu choked on her breath. The other elders nearby stared at me in horror, silently screaming at me to shut up. But seeing as I didn’t plan on meeting this old gatekeeper again anytime soon, I allowed myself some indulgence.

Lord Iron Lake turned crimson. “You insolent brat! Even if you are under Elder Da Ji, I will personally teach you a lesson today!”

A beautiful woman materialized beside him, a puppet in human skin, crafted with obscene detail and spiritual jade. With a flick of his sleeve, he sent the puppet lunging at me.

I slipped under its arm, Flash Step gliding through my veins. Zealot’s Stride carried me like a gust of violent wind. The puppet swiped again, but I twisted away, brushing past it as if dancing around a drunk.

Lord Iron Lake’s eyes widened. “Impossible…! With your cultivation?!”

Too slow, old man.

Divine Speed wrapped around my legs. Before the puppet could turn its head, I dashed toward the arch.

“If you're that desperate,” I shouted back, “just make love to your puppet! There’s nothing wrong with touching yourself!”

My laughter echoed as I leaped into the arch and vanished before he could explode from shame.

The forest unfolded before me again. Trees swayed, roots pulsing like living veins. The arch dissolved behind me.

Before it could throw me out again, I pressed my palms on the ground.

“Divine Possession.”

My consciousness tore forward, sinking into the forest itself.

“Pardon my intrusion, I just want to talk… and get to know you…”

Darkness greeted me first. A barren wasteland stretched across the horizon. The qi was so thin breathing felt like swallowing dust.

Blood stained the earth. Mortal and cultivator alike fell by the thousands. Their screams echoed across the land for a hundred years straight. Then a thousand. Then tens of thousands. The war never paused. It only grew crueler.

Eventually, only two figures remained, two immortals locked in a duel of eras.

One fell. One ascended.

The ascended one soared beyond the world, becoming a Ruler of Law.

The one who died crashed into the ground, shattering mountains and poisoning rivers with divine blood. Their flesh melted into the soil. Their bones turned into hills. Their marrow seeped into roots that hadn’t existed yet.

Hundreds of thousands of years passed.

From the corpse, life sprouted.

Trees grew from knuckles, branches from ribs, moss on broken fragments of divine spine. The forest bloomed. It was lush, vibrant, and impossibly alive. As centuries layered upon millennia, consciousness stirred within the wood and soil.

An ego.

A mind!

It had no name. No voice. No form. But its existence pulsed through every root.

Soon, people came. It was humans with long ears, carrying faint traces of asura blood. They worshipped the forest. They knelt beneath its branches, sang to it, carved runes along its bark. They offered prayers day and night until the forest shaped itself in their image: tall, slender, graceful.

A forest god was born.

The ego gained awareness.

A world grew around it, a pocket dimension born from divinity and devotion. Seasons flowed. Children laughed. The long-eared people prospered under the god they adored.

But nothing lasted.

A tear opened in the sky. The world shuddered. The entire realm twisted as if wrung by an invisible hand. Screams filled the air. The pocket world cracked apart like glass.

Everything was pulled into a yawning black hole.

The forest god howled soundlessly as its world collapsed.

Then darkness swallowed everything.

The next moment, the fragments of its existence fell into a strange place. It was a hollow world, empty and starving.

The ego landed with them.

It screamed again.

Its worshippers perished one by one. Their souls shattered. Their bodies crumbled into dust. The forest god felt every death as if its own heart was torn apart repeatedly, without pause, without mercy.

In the dark void of that hollowed world, it cried and cried.

Even after millions of years, the sorrow still echoed.

I stood in the middle of it, reliving its life.

“Help me,” cried a feminine voice. “It hurts…”

When the Hollowed World swallowed her, she didn’t even understand what had happened. She only knew pain. Her roots stretched across an empty sky. Her branches clawed at a land with no horizon. Eventually, wandering cultivators discovered her. They tested her with intrusion talismans, carved runes into her bark, and performed binding rituals. Hundreds of years later, she was claimed by the Heavenly Temple as if she had always belonged to them. They praised her for her “loyalty” and spoke to her in gentle tones while chaining her with seals they never intended to remove.

“Can you hear me?” I called out.

Something shifted in the dark. A voice echoed through the roots. “It hurts… go away… You stink…”

“Oh, that’s rude!” I snapped.

My soul floated inside the forest’s core. Earth wrapped around me like a warm blanket. Roots curled and tightened with every throb of emotion she felt. My body outside was safe, but I’d never reach Da Ji and the others unless this forest allowed me through.

“Do you have a name?” I asked.

“I forgot,” she whispered, her voice becoming clearer. “They took it away from me.”

Heavenly Temple bastards… It was definitely a control method.

“Can you let me pass peacefully?” I tried.

“I can’t. They told me not to let dangerous people near their lands. If I do well, they promised to bring back my precious children… the ones who worshipped me… the ones who loved me…”

“But they’re dead,” I said gently. “I saw everything.”

“NO!” Her scream shook the entire spiritual realm.

Stubborn deadass immortal. If this were a normal and deranged spirit, I’d exorcise it. But she wasn’t a mere ghost. Instead, she was a forest god born from an immortal corpse. Exorcising her would destroy the entire formation. Talking her down was the only path. Unfortunately, she was drowning in obsession.

I rubbed my temples mentally. “They took away your name, huh?”

Silence stretched like a suffocating blanket.

“That name matters to you,” I continued. “If they took it, it was to bind you. Without a name, you can’t stand on your own.”

A faint tremor ran through the soil.

“Can I give you a new name?” I asked.

“Why?” she whispered.

“So you can have a new life,” I said. “Did you forget about reincarnation? Don’t you want to see your people again someday? Or meet new people? Or just… live without being in chains?”

“…”

Her fear pulsed through the roots, but so did hesitation. Her memories were shattered beyond repair. Her sense of time was warped. Her thoughts were drifting between clarity and delirium, just like the ghost of an immortal whose ego refused to fade.

“If I just help her close the wound,” I thought, “I might be able to pass.”

“How about this?” I said. “I can’t bring back your people. No one can. But I can believe in you. I can care for you. Don’t you want to be alone?”

A faint glow spread through the roots.

“Would you become my child…?” she asked hopefully.

“Nope,” I answered immediately. “I already have a mom. And caring for someone isn’t something a child does for their parent. How about being friends instead? Friends believe in each other.”

The forest shivered. The warmth around me grew gentler, more trusting. I could feel her cracking mind gradually leaning toward acceptance. Her loneliness was unbearable. Just a speck of kindness could sway her.

“Alright…” she whispered. “Friend…”

My spiritual reserves were running dry. Without the Hollow Star, I didn’t have much to spare. But this was worth gambling on.

“Then,” I said, raising my hand, “what do you think of the name Wu Chen?”

Light burst from my fingers.

I didn’t hold back.

“Divine Word: RAISE!”

My voice thundered through the entire forest.

Subtlety? Screw subtlety. I was taking this damn forest home.

Mwahahahahaha~!