The Star-Whispering Celestial Tree

Mo Fan felt a massive wave of scorching heat rolling toward him with tremendous force. He spun around and found the Flame Witch hovering hundreds of meters away, suspended amid a grove of Fire Cloud trees.

She was shrieking furiously at the three-headed serpent that had tried to swallow him whole. The aura she released from her blazing form was overwhelming — it sent fire-red leaves spiraling into the sky across the entire grove, filling the air with swirling crimson.

She hovered in midair, the outer flames of her body rising with the dancing leaves like a flowing crimson mantle and an exquisite train, framing her like a queen born from molten fire. The sacred, inviolable majesty radiating from her was enough to make every living creature in the area bow and scatter.

Mo Fan stared at her with wide eyes. Just moments ago, he'd thought of the Flame Witch as a gentle, charitable soul — yet seeing her now, every last trace of her staggering aura unleashed, he was witnessing a side of her that shook him to his core.

The Three-Skulled Serpent was a supremely dangerous creature in its own right — yet under the Flame Witch's furious glare, it didn't dare take a single step closer to Mo Fan.

Terror seemed to strip it of all coordination. The creature wheeled around, its three heads lurching in completely different directions at once, and fled in a stumbling, graceless panic.

Within seconds, the Three-Skulled Serpent had vanished into the depths of the Fire Cloud Forest on the plateau.

Mo Fan had assumed that was the end of it — but then, without warning, flock after flock of Fire Cloud Finches burst from the vast Fire Cloud Forest and scattered in every direction, fleeing in blind panic. Land-dwelling beasts that shared the forest as their home also broke into a stampede, churning away in the opposite direction and kicking up a tremendous commotion.

Mo Fan stood there, stunned.

He had assumed the Flame Witch was simply a particularly unusual humanoid creature — one that had lived long enough to develop the intelligence needed to understand human speech. He never imagined she was something of an entirely different order of existence, carrying the unmistakable bearing of a sovereign over the North Corner of the Blazing Plains.

Neither the Three-Skulled Serpent that had fled in terror nor the countless Fire Cloud Finches scattering in every direction were weak Servant-class creatures.

It was a long time before the Flame Witch's aura of dominance slowly faded. As for the Fire Cloud Forest itself — who could say when it would return to its former quiet.

The Flame Witch drifted slowly back from the distance. By the time she reached Mo Fan, she had already returned to her original warmth — a transformation he found impossible to reconcile.

She was clearly a creature of overwhelming power. So why did she show such kindness toward humans?

Mo Fan was certain her fury had been directed at the Three-Skulled Serpent entirely because it had tried to devour him.

"Th... thank you," Mo Fan managed at last, still shaken as he looked at her. It took him a long moment to push even those words out.

The Flame Witch's face — somewhat indistinct beneath the flames that wreathed it — formed what looked like an apologetic smile, as if asking whether he was hurt.

His hands were fine. It was her released aura that had nearly suffocated him on the spot.

Noticing that she was cradling something precious in both hands with great care, Mo Fan cast about for a change of subject. "What's that you're holding? Is it food?"

The moment those last words left his mouth, the Flame Witch's expression fell flat.

Mo Fan cringed. *Yeah, that came out completely wrong.*

What the Flame Witch held was a luminous, crystalline fruit. Both its radiance and the alluring fragrance it gave off made clear that this was a fruit of a quality surpassing Fire Cloud Fruit by an immeasurable degree.

"Could that possibly be... the Fire Calamity Fruit?" Mo Fan asked, the words slipping out offhandedly.

The Flame Witch hesitated for a moment — and then, of all things, nodded.

Mo Fan's jaw nearly hit the floor.

*Holy hell — that was literally just a throwaway question.*

This... this was actually the Fire Calamity Fruit that Chenying had called priceless?

He'd searched heaven and earth for it, only for the Fire Calamity Fruit to appear right before him because of one offhand question. Mo Fan genuinely didn't know what to say.

The shock, however, quickly curdled into something more exasperated. The Fire Calamity Fruit had been found, yes — but it was clearly the Flame Witch's own treasure. Friendly as she was to humans, there was no chance she would simply hand it over to him.

And given the sovereign-tier power she had just displayed, trying to take the Fire Calamity Fruit from her by force would be harder than climbing to the sky.

"Since you saved my life, I won't waste your time with empty words," Mo Fan said. "That Fire Calamity Fruit in your hands is an incredibly precious treasure by human standards. I'd wager there are already many humans making their way to the Blazing Plains for the sole purpose of finding it. If that thing truly matters to you, you need to keep it safe. I know you're very friendly toward humans — but not every human is as honest and principled as I, Mo Fan, am."

His life had been saved by the Flame Witch, when all was said and done — so he wasn't about to scheme against her. Besides, it was plain to see that she was already carefully guarding the Fire Calamity Fruit.

The Flame Witch nodded, then inquired about his condition.

Mo Fan was moving normally again, though he had no idea how long it would take for his internal injuries to fully heal.

The Flame Witch told him this place was not entirely safe and asked him to follow her.

He had nowhere to go and no real means of defending himself, so following her was his only option.

The Flame Witch led Mo Fan through the dense fire forest. The Fire Cloud Forest was vast, but it grew atop the peak of a single mountain — crossing it from one side to the other didn't take long.

They reached the edge of the Fire Cloud Forest, where a stretch of rocky, elevated ground rose up in a gentle slope, like a hill on open ground. At its very summit stood an enormous tree unlike any of the Fire Cloud trees around it.

The tree bore no leaves whatsoever. Its trunk and branches coiled in serpentine curves, branching endlessly outward — yet even stripped of every leaf, it spread a sweeping canopy that commanded the eye.

The great tree stood alone beneath a sky thick with stars, its trunk stretching upward as though to pierce the celestial canopy itself. Its densely coiling branches reached in every direction — and from where Mo Fan stood gazing upward, the countless stars seemed to nestle among the very tips of the boughs, as though the tree had been draped with thousands of glittering lights. The sight was so achingly beautiful that it felt as if it could cleanse a person's very soul.

There it stood, solitary on the mountain summit of the Blazing Plains. And yet, for all the countless hunters who had ever ventured into the North Corner of the Blazing Plains, not one of them could have imagined a scene like this existed here. A miracle born from the wilderness, if there ever was one.

Mo Fan followed the Flame Witch to the base of the tree. With extraordinary care, she slowly lifted the Fire Calamity Fruit and placed it high among the topmost branches. Already brilliant on its own, the fruit now rested amid a cradle of countless stars — and held in that glittering embrace, it looked even more extraordinary than before.

"Could it be that the Fire Calamity Fruit was born here?" Mo Fan asked, another question slipping out before he thought better of it.