Hate.

Every branch beneath Huang Ying and the others were in a state of utter pandemonium, the roars and shrieks of beasts echoing all the way into the skies. The sweet scent released as the egg cracked open served as the straw that broke the camel's back, everything that followed only served to further increase the chaos. The beasts fought to acquire the egg, resulting in them wounding each other and spilling more blood that then served to further incite all the other beasts. Less than a minute had passed, but the thick stench of blood had already removed the egg from the minds of all the beasts, all that remained was the intense desire to eat up all the other beasts.

Huang Ying and his group stood on the branch that was 145 meters above the ground, peering over it and observing the chaos below them. They knew that simply descending haphazardly was the same as courting death so even though they were rather pressed for time, with the chaos only growing stronger and stronger, they still had to spend a bit of time figuring out which path they should use to descend. The group only needed to spend half a minute peering over the edge before the blue-haired and purple-eyed Xun Zhi pointed at a branch that was about six meters below them.

"That one. The beasts currently fighting on it seem to be either fire or lightning-based, my main element can restrain them a bit to make it easier for us to move past them."

A few streams of clear and icy water started to spin around Xun Zhi as she spoke, accentuating her point. Xun Zhi had a rather slim and delicate frame, but the pressure radiating from her body showed that she too had reached the Nine Stairs of Ascension, she had probably reached the 1st or 2nd step. In fact, as Huang Ying looked at the other members of his group, he didn't even need Li Jun to tell him anything to understand that it was he who had the lowest cultivation among everyone present.

But even with everyone else having reached the Nine Stairs of Ascension, their following descent would still be incredibly dangerous due to most of the beasts here having reached the middle or higher parts of the Nine Stairs of Ascension. Huang Ying and the others exchanged glances before nodding their heads, more fleshy vines extending from Ming Chang's body and coiling around the waists of everyone present.

One of the vines attached itself to the branch they were standing on, the entire group jumping off of the branch and rapidly descending towards the branch they had selected. The vine that remained connected to the branch they had just jumped from made sure that they didn't descend too rapidly and ended up crashing into the branch below them, giving the entire group a second or two to prepare for what was to come.

Xun Zhi was the one who appeared to be the tensest, a few beads of sweat seeping out from her forehead as she looked at the eight Demonic beasts fighting on the branch they were approaching. The beasts were exuding such heat that it blew against Huang Ying and the others like a wall, the streams of water around Xun Zhi flickering slightly. She raised her left arm and held it close to her chest, pointing her palm at the beasts and gathering all the water she could muster around it.

They reached the air directly above the beasts in no time, the beasts covered practically the entire branch so there was no getting around them. The beasts also noticed the group now that they had gotten so close, each of them unleashing a thunderous roar and causing fire and lightning to shoot towards Huang Ying's group.

Xun Zhi pushed out her palm, a nearly 15 meter-tall palm of water appearing in front of her and pushing down at the incoming attacks. The palm clashed with the fire and lightning, the two opposing forces halting for a short moment before the palm of water started to get pushed back, shrinking as it evaporated. Xun Zhi frowned slightly, even more sweat seeping out of her brows, but just as the others were about to assist her with their attacks, Huang Ying sprung into action.

Mud-like tentacles extended from his body and latched onto the other people in the group with the lamprey-like mouths that covered them. Once a tentacle had latched onto every person in the group, everyone but Xun Zhi suddenly felt their energy getting drained slightly. Huang Ying drew the energy into himself and then passed it to Xun Zhi using the tentacle attached to her, the water palm she had unleashed suddenly doubling in size and pushing down the attacks aimed at them, scattering the beasts that had unleashed the attacks.

The others in the group looked at Huang Ying with a fair amount of shock, but he ignored them and pointed at the weakest of the eight beasts beneath them.

"Kill that one, quickly."

Xun Zhi was still immersed in the shock but didn't fail to react properly, her feet kicking off the moment they landed on the branch. Her body shot forward and reached the beast that Huang Ying had pointed out, both her arms shooting forward and slapping the sides of the beast's head. Water gushed forth from her palms the moment she hit the beast, the liquid entering the beast's head through its seven orifices, drowning it and flooding its brain.

The moment the beast died, the tentacle attached to Xun Zhi branched out and started devouring the beast, the energy acquired through the devouring spreading out to the other people in the group and refilling the energy Huang Ying had just devoured. Huang Ying didn't have the strength to be of much use in this current situation, but the uniqueness of his law of devouring still allowed him to be useful in other ways.

By devouring a bit of energy from the others, he could send that energy to the others by using the technique he acquired from Wutong Cang, temporarily increasing their strength. The amount of energy he sent them was greater than what they would get if he transferred devoured energy to them the normal way, but the drawback was that it would only be temporary, it could only be used for a single attack. As such, Huang Ying had to make sure that he could devour new energy to restore what everyone lost, otherwise they would all end up drained for energy sooner or later. The slain beast was quickly devoured and the energy shared with everyone else, the crimson-haired and green-eyed Han De breaking the silence with a boisterous laughter.

"HAHA, lucky star, you really are our lucky star! Huang Ying, right now you really suit that name, you know that?! Tell you what, I've got a little sister back home, how 'bout you marry her when we get outta here? That way I can make sure that you're always around, you useful little bugger!"

Han De's boisterous laughter was quickly met with a slap to the back of his head by the silver-haired and brown-eyed Lang Zan, who came from the same academy as him. She gave him a slight glare to keep him from speaking more, pointing at the left side of the branch they were on.

"Save that for when we get outta here. That branch down there next, if Little Ling gives me that buff, my law of crushing should be able to deal with those squishy beasts."

The group nodded their heads and jumped down from the side of the branch that she had pointed at, Lang Zan casually speaking out a few more words just as they jumped.

"Oh, and if anyone's gonna marry Little Ling then it's gonna be me or Big Sis, gotta keep the little lucky star around after all."

Huang Ying felt like smiling bitterly as he listened to the others, he had ended up becoming a sought after commodity before he knew it. The group had met at death's doorstep and were now escaping it together, resulting in none of them having the usual reservations that people who just met each other for the first time had.

The group rapidly descended to the next branch, the petite Lang Zan charging downward like a mad bull while clenching her right fist. She didn't even give Huang Ying any warning, forcing him to nearly scramble to devour the energy of the others and transferring it to her.

The four beasts on the branch they were aiming at noticed her as she was above them, but at that time she had practically turned into a living meteor. She slammed into a hawk-shaped beast, its entire chest rupturing open as her fist smashed into it, slamming the beast into the ladybug-like beast right beneath it. The bug beast survived getting hit, but Lang Zan stood up from the bloody chest of the hawk and slammed out with her fist again, crushing the carapace of the bug and splattering light green blood everywhere.

Her entire body was filled with a power she had never felt before so she couldn't help but feel slightly ecstatic as she picked up the crushed corpse of the ladybug. But just as she was about to fling the corpse at the two remaining beasts, who were scrambling to flee, Ming Chang arrived behind her and chopped her on the head.

"Fucking hell, stop already! We need that corpse, otherwise, we'll all end up like dried up mummies before we reach the bottom of this tree!"

Lang Zan quickly stopped her actions, her hands clenching so hard that her fingers pierced into the beast's carapace. She awkwardly put the corpse down, donning an excessively awkward smile as she did her best to softly kick the corpse towards Huang Ying. Huang Ying could only suppress his chuckle and start devouring the two corpses, sharing the energy with everyone else.

Having discovered the great support they could receive from Huang Ying, the group quickened the speed of their descent. They moved from branch to branch, one or two people dealing with the beasts on each branch to open a path to the next branch. Huang Ying kept everyone topped up on energy, his attention nearly fully focused on keeping the law of devouring active and balanced.

He had to make sure that he didn't devour too much energy from the others, he also had to make sure that he didn't devour so much from someone that he left behind a deficiency that couldn't be covered up again with the energy devoured from the beasts they killed during their descent. It was the most precise he had to be with his law of devouring to date so it served as a good exercise for him on how to properly control is laws.

The beasts only got weaker as they got closer to the foot of the intertwined trees, but the pressure descending from above only got worse and worse as time passed, it was clear that the being residing atop these intertwined trees was rapidly getting annoyed with all the noise. The group finally reached the foot of the trees after spending nearly half an hour, the pressure coming from above already having reached a point where it was nearly unbearable. Ming Chang's gaze locked onto the southeastern direction, her expression somewhat strained as she didn't bother wasting even a second.

"This direction will take us to a somewhat safer place faster than the others, quickly!"

The fleshy tentacles extending from her body still coiled around the others as she started to run, making sure that no one got left behind as they fled. But as they moved, Huang Ying spotted something out of the corner of his eye. Lying a few tens of meters away from him was a four-meter tall light brown egg covered in darker spots, several large cracks running across the entire egg. The egg of the Dragonfire Eagle seemed to have just barely survived the fall, and looking at the blood that stained the entire egg, quite a few beasts had ended up badly wounded trying to get their hands on it.

Huang Ying would have gone over to devour the egg, but the pressure from above was only getting worse so he didn't feel like he had the luxury of doing so. But as he looked at the egg, he noticed a deep crimson eye looking at him from within one of the larger cracks, an unsteady voice actually leaking out from within the egg.

"H..He...Ht...Hate...Fight..."

Huang Ying had never heard about any Demonic beast being able to speak the human language right after being born, or even before being born in this case. Even Li Jun was somewhat stumped when Huang Ying asked him so it seemed like this was more than just a rare occurrence. But Huang Ying didn't allow the strange situation to occupy too much of his mind, grinning at the crimson eye and leaving behind a few words before he continued to flee from the area.

"Hate me all you want, I am the one who threw you down here after all! I am Huang Ying and you can find me at the Fierce Flame Academy, I'll fight you whenever you want so just come whenever you please!"