The Chaos Tree

The entire battle had been a grand illusion, born from the depths of the creation path—a phantasmal war conjured to drain the minds and wills of the venerables, tricking them into believing their own demise. From the moment of his rebirth—shortly after Limitless ascended to half-eternity—Li Tian had spun this deception.

He stood silently over the slumbering forms of Star Constellation, Limitless, Giant Sun, and Fang Yuan. His gaze lingered on each for a moment. Then, without a word, he gestured toward Limitless. A tear formed in the space beside him, and Limitless's body slipped silently into the void.

He repeated the process with Fang Yuan, the body twitching lightly before it too was consumed by another spatial rift.

Then, alone amid the silence, Li Tian extended both hands. His soul began to burn—not in agony, but as purpose made manifest. He used it as a brush and the air as his canvas.

A vast circular array unfolded beneath him, not scribed in ink or blood, but in shimmering silver soul-mist. It hissed and whispered like a living thing, each swirl echoing an ancient truth long forgotten.

At the heart of this formation pulsed a swirling, chaotic spiral with no discernible beginning or end. Three interlocked rings revolved around it—each one moving in opposition to the others, representing the trinity of eternal truths: Creation, Destruction, and Entropy. (Note: In physics and philosophy, entropy is the measure of disorder, randomness, or the gradual decline into chaos in a system. In this chaos tree, it decays the organism like decomposing)

From this turbulent core, eleven jagged branches stretched outward like the skeletal limbs of a dying tree. None were uniform. They twisted with madness, some curving back into themselves, others piercing straight through their own fractal structure, breaking all natural symmetry.

Embedded at the end of each branch was a depression, a spatial hollow that pulsed like an open wound. Eleven such voids—each one a cradle for a body of a venerable. The twelfth spot, untouched and at the very base of the spiraling trunk, was reserved for Li Tian himself.

The edge of the formation bloomed with thousands of minor circuits and glyphs, forming an ever-shifting fractal lattice—arcane and unnatural. These pulsed with lightless hues: reds that bled into ultraviolet, violets that shimmered with shadows, and colors not meant for the mortal eye.

And above this spectral array, flickering like a mirage in a broken mirror, the Chaos Tree manifested: a ghostly silhouette with no leaves, its branches constantly forming, unraveling, and reforming in an endless cycle.

This was the Chaos Tree—formed from the energy of chaos siphoned from beyond the Gu World, accessed through the rupture in the Crazed Demon Cave.

Li Tian walked to the lifeless forms of Star Constellation and Giant Sun. With a simple motion, he raised their bodies and carefully placed them into two of the branch nodes. Their presence caused the tree to shimmer faintly, reacting to the ancient Dao marks etched into their very cores.

Then, with a gesture, a new rift opened in the air. Out floated the lingering souls of those long-dead yet never truly gone—Paradise Venerable, Red Lotus, Primordial Origin, Thieving Heaven Demon, Genesis Lotus, Reckless Demon, and Spectral Soul. Each was guided into their respective node.

Limitless was placed as well. In total, eleven venerables—living or dead—rested in the branch nodes.

But one node remained.

From within a pocket of sealed space, Li Tian extracted a single, ancient soul—Verdant Great Sun, the oldest among them and Ren Zu first son. He placed this soul into the final node.

And then came the last piece.

Fang Yuan—body and soul still unified—was lowered into the hollow at the base of the trunk. This was the place where the chaos trees seed is and also the place from which where all would bloom.

As the process finished the Chaos Tree began to breathe.

As Li Tian looked at the formation, an unfamiliar sensation swept over him. It wasn't pain or fear—but a profound stillness, like the eye of a cosmic storm. He had survived countless betrayals, outlived gods, and twisted fate itself into a shape of his own making. And yet, this was the first time he felt something close to peace.

"Maybe," he whispered to himself, his voice low and grainy, "I can finally rest after this."

He turned his gaze to the Chaos Tree, then began to walk forward. Each step seemed to echo through the void, and as he neared the trunk, the memories of his long, harrowing life rose before him—not because he feared death or sensed danger, but because he had come so far. Every moment of agony, every sacrifice, every manipulation... it all surged back, not to haunt him, but to remind him why he stood here now.

This was the final step. The last act. The closing chapter of a journey that had begun long before even his name existed.

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