The Shining Star Above The Heaven-Chapter 581: Surprise!

The large group of devils moved toward the south. From the scale of their movement, it was clear they numbered in the tens of thousands. All of them were mobilized in an orderly manner, forming lines that stretched for tens of kilometres.

Leading these troops was a high emperor-stage devil, clad in a body armor.

He was a black-haired middle-aged man with sharp eyes. At that moment, his gaze was fixed on the movement of the giant tree heading in his direction. With how enormous the tree was, there was no way he, or anyone else could have failed to notice it earlier. Even now, the ground was still trembling slightly, and the rumbling continued as the tree drew closer.

He narrowed his eyes when he saw thousands of beasts following the giant tree, forming a spectacle that could intimidate anyone who saw it. Yet he showed no sign of concern and turned his attention back to his troops.

"Move to your positions! Prepare for battle! The enemy has come!" he shouted.

The devils behind him did not waste any time. All of them moved swiftly into position, forming a battle formation ready to face the incoming army or in this case, the approaching giant tree.

The devil troops also seemed to have something hidden up their sleeves. Behind their front lines, a separate group of devils began forming a large-scale formation. They worked quickly and with precision, ensuring that there was nothing wrong with the formation.

The leader from earlier then approached this formation. Reaching into his storage ring, he take out a red crystal the size of his thumb. Despite its small size, it emitted an otherworldly aura that made him and any devil nearby feel a deep reverence and an overwhelming urge to prostrate before it.

"Our lord only has a few of these. Most were used in the ritual for the Devil God, and one is actually being wasted on this formation. That alone shows how serious the threat of that tree is, enough that even our lord would use one just to accelerate this summoning and call forth a more powerful being," the devil commander thought.

He then placed the crystal at the center of the formation and stepped out. With a signal, the summoning process began. The formation suddenly lit up with an ominous red glow. The aura it released was terrifying, even causing some of the devils activating it to break into goosebumps.

The commander nodded in satisfaction as he observed it. They still had time before the tree reached their position. According to their plan, the summoned being would face the tree, clearly the strongest being among the approaching army.

As for the thousands of beasts, those could be dealt with later. Their main target was the World Tree.

He then returned to the front line to observe the incoming tree, but what he saw left him confused. The large group advancing with the World Tree had suddenly stopped moving. He narrowed his eyes, and shortly after, he noticed something rapidly approaching his direction.

It was the silhouette of a man, teleporting forward in bursts, each time reappearing a quite distance ahead, until he was dangerously close to their line. The devil commander narrowed his eyes again, and at last, from this distance, he could clearly see the man’s face.

The man’s eyes were closed, but the commander didn’t care about that. He was in shock, he never expected to see that man here. This man was the one his lord had warned him about. The most dangerous figure on the continent. The only person capable of interfering with their plan.

"That’s Aldrian! Damn it, he’s with the tree?!"

This wasn’t part of their plan. There was no scenario prepared for Aldrian appearing alongside the World Tree.

"Shit, the summoning still takes time! Then there’s only one thing left to do," he thought before shouting to his entire army.

"All troops, attac—"

BOOM!

Rumble!

His words were cut off mid-sentence as the giant tree suddenly appeared right in front of him, tearing through the land and throwing everything into chaos. The battle lines collapsed instantly, the troops couldn’t even stay on their feet. The violent tremor caused by the tree’s abrupt arrival triggered a catastrophic earthquake across the area.

The commander, who was floating above the ground, wasn’t affected by the collapsing land, but he was blasted back by the violent wind stirred up by the tree’s sudden appearance. He didn’t even have time to be shocked, it was as if the tree had teleported from a distance and appeared right there in an instant.

Worst of all, many beasts had appeared as well, making the situation even more incomprehensible.

Only after a few seconds did he finally show his shock, as the giant tree’s roots began their rampage, blasting apart everything in the vicinity.

"Everyone!—"

Whack!

Before he could even give his order, a massive root struck him with full force, instantly destroying his head in a single blow. He had no chance to react, the roots moved too fast, and they were already too close.

What followed was pure carnage. The devil troops were helpless against the sudden onslaught. The summoning process was still incomplete when the roots reached the formation and tore it apart. The roots, moving like whips and serpents, destroyed everything they touched.

The beasts that most of them at king stage, with many at emperor stage, also began their rampage the moment they appeared, slaughtering the devil troops who were caught off guard by the sudden teleportation. There was no way these devils, most of whom had cultivation levels below king stage, could defend themselves against such powerful enemies.

With the added element of surprise, the devils had no chance to retaliate. They were butchered without mercy.

Aldrian, the figure who had made this entire attack possible, looked toward a certain direction behind the devil troops’ line and clicked his tongue.

"I’m sure I sensed him there a moment ago. He must have escaped the instant he snapped out of his shock," he thought, a regretful expression on his face.

"Truly decisive. No hesitation at all."

Earlier, there was a presence he recognized from the memories of devils he had seen in the past, which made him familiar with it.

One of the Seven Deadly Sins—Wrath.

He hadn’t expected the Wrath Devil to be part of this devil army. From the looks of it, this force had been assembled specifically to confront the appearance of the World Tree.

However, he smiled at the thought that these devils believed their plan would unfold as intended.

When he saw the large devil troops approaching in the distance, he knew they had already spotted the World Tree from afar. They must have prepared something for it, judging by the size of the army and the way the Devil Lord’s mind worked.

Aldrian was certain the Devil Lord would never leave an existence like Vireline out of his calculations. This massive army was likely one of his methods to deal with the World Tree.

But would he let the Devil Lord’s plans succeed?

Of course not.

What he had in mind was a surprise attack that would end the battle before the devil army even realized what had happened.

Did this army intend to stop the World Tree? Then he would bring the World Tree directly in front of them.

Earlier, he had ordered Vireline and the beasts to stop, then explained that he would teleport the World Tree along with a few hundred beasts right in front of the devil troops. The beasts, having already seen the enemy lines and eager to fight, quickly agreed to Aldrian’s plan. This way, they could start the battle immediately.

He had then created his domain in place. After that, he teleported forward to approach the devil troops and built another domain here. Using his domain ability, he teleported every being within the earlier domain, including the World Tree and the beasts into the new one, placing them right in front of the devil army.

This was also the first time he had teleported something as large as the World Tree using his domain ability. With this, he confirmed that he could teleport something as massive as the World Tree through his domain.

The battle did not last long. Their surprise attack was a complete success, and shortly after the teleportation, the tens of thousands of devil troops were completely wiped out. There were not even any casualties among the beasts, which was not surprising, given the advantage of surprise and the difference in power.

Aldrian nodded in satisfaction. The power of the World Tree was truly terrifying. Nothing could withstand the might of a peak emperor stage World Tree. Each strike of her roots was enough to kill even high emperor stage devils in a single blow. Each of her roots was capable of wiping out hundreds of devils in one sweep.

These devils never stood a chance from the beginning.

His gaze shifted to the shattered ground where the summoning formation had been. He had sensed a powerful aura when the devils attempted to summon something earlier, and now he could feel a lingering presence beneath the rubble, one that stirred deep anger within him.

He teleported to the spot where he sensed the disturbance, then cleared away part of the broken ground until he uncovered the object that ignited his fury.

He picked up a red crystal radiating a strong aura, and as he focused on it, his frown deepened.

"This..."

The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l