Dan Heng vaguely remembered falling asleep in his room.
He had been plagued by nightmares for a long time and had no desire to return to his old home on the Xianzhou. But things rarely go according to plan.
The High Elder just wanted a good night's sleep. What crime had he committed?
"It really is the High Elder. He's so handsome even when he's sleeping."
"Dan Heng didn't lock his door. Is it okay for us to just barge in like this? Shouldn't we knock first?"
"We're already inside. What's the point of knocking now?"
"We don't have time for that! Whatever trouble this causes, the Xianzhou will compensate for it later! Where's the stretcher?"
Dan Heng vaguely felt himself being lifted onto something.
He groggily opened his eyes to find himself lying on a stretcher.
The scenery around him was flying by at high speed. If he didn't know any better, he'd think he was riding on Alibaba's magic carpet.
"What's going on? Wasn't I sleeping?"
Dan Heng instinctively reached for his spear, ready to mutter some incantation like "In this Delve's illusion, a long dream I awaken from."
"Here!" March 7th tossed Dan Heng's clothes and spear into his hands.
It seemed they had left in such a hurry that they hadn't even had time to get him dressed. It showed just how anxious the General was.
"Whoa, March, don't add any more weight to the stretcher! Don't I have to worry about how much I'm carrying?"
The person running behind, carrying the stretcher, saw Dan Heng's sleepy eyes. He dazedly clutched his clothes and spear, the plain white bedsheet flapping in the wind.
His unkempt hair was messily askew.
"What are you doing? Where are you taking me?!"
Dan Heng was clearly having trouble grasping the situation. He felt as if his Express comrades had sold him out.
"We've run into some trouble. Don't worry, I've already amended the laws of the Luofu. The High Elder is hereby reinstated!"
Jing Yuan couldn't be bothered with rules and regulations at this point. The main thing was to placate Dan Heng first.
"What? What rules? What High Elder? What does that have to do with me?"
Dan Heng still had a dazed, not-quite-awake look on his face.
Jing Yuan was struggling to keep a straight face. He ran at the front, carrying the stretcher, so fast that the Cloud Knights behind him couldn't keep up and were left far behind.
"Don't worry about all that! Everyone's waiting for you to clear the path and save the Xianzhou! If I'd known this would happen, I would never have let the Vidyadhara guard that stupid seal."
Jing Yuan was genuinely emotional. He never expected the Vidyadhara who had stayed behind to be even less reliable than the one they had exiled.
The phrase "save the Xianzhou" completely baffled Dan Heng.
Hold on, didn't Mr. Yang already go down to handle the mission of saving the Xianzhou?
Don't tell me they still haven't resolved the so-called Stellaron crisis? Your Xianzhou was supposedly kicking ass all over the universe, and now you need me, an exile, to come back and clean up your mess?
The two of them were actually having a conversation while running with the stretcher.
It was a good thing Stelle was super strong and had a Stellaron in her body providing a continuous stream of energy like Iron Man's arc reactor. Otherwise, she would have been dragged to exhaustion by the Emanator General in front of her.
"Fyxestroll Garden?"
The mention of a seal reminded Dan Heng of why he had left the Xianzhou in the first place.
Dan Heng said instinctively, "This has nothing to do with me. Weren't you the ones who decided to exile me? What if I agreed to break the seal for you? You'd just kill me anyway."
The color drained from Jing Yuan's face. He quickly said, "I wouldn't dare, I wouldn't dare! Whatever the High Elder wants, I'll deliver it to you with my own two hands. Even if it's the head of one of the Six Charioteers, I'll twist it off for you to kick around like a ball!"
No one knew what Dan Shu had done to the Ambrosial Arbor inside the seal.
Just hearing Fu Xuan's description was terrifying enough.
The root system of the Arbor extended deep beneath the entire Scalegorge Waterscape. This meant that to destroy the Arbor, you'd have to destroy the entire Scalegorge Waterscape in one go.
And now the Arbor was revived, with a Stellaron inside it to boot.
The combination of these two things should have caused a massive reaction. While it might not turn the entire Luofu into a dead zone, it could easily kill off more than half of the Xianzhou's population.
You could basically write off the Luofu's chances of survival.
But this immense energy had been completely fused deep within the seal, with no sign of it leaking out. This absolutely terrified Jing Yuan.
He couldn't imagine what Dan Shu planned to do with such a massive amount of compressed power.
In the shortest time possible, Jing Yuan explained what Dan Shu was trying to do.
He was particularly clear about the connection between the Scalegorge Waterscape and the Ambrosial Arbor, emphasizing that there were still many Vidyadhara eggs in the Waterscape.
Dan Heng was well aware of this, even without Jing Yuan telling him.
Though he didn't feel much of a connection to the Xianzhou, and even harbored a fair amount of resentment, he still felt a prickle of fear at the back of his neck upon hearing about such a grave crisis.
Dan Shu wanted to destroy the entire Ambrosial Arbor, and its root system extended throughout the Delves where the Vidyadhara lived.
If all the Vidyadhara were still alive, it wouldn't be a big deal. They could just run.
But not all Vidyadhara were 'alive.' In fact, many were still in their egg state.
This was terrifying.
It meant that many of Dan Heng's clansmen couldn't even leave.
"This is indeed a rather troublesome matter..." Dan Heng sighed. "So, why not just pry up the floor and take those clansmen away? All they need is the temperature and humidity of the Scalegorge Waterscape. They can be moved to another environment. The Xianzhou could totally order a batch of mobile, self-powered incubation equipment from the Herta Space Station, couldn't they?"
Stelle was flabbergasted. "Holy crap! There's a solution like that?!"
Everyone had been trapped by their limited thinking. This only made Jing Yuan break out in a cold sweat.
He never would have imagined that after being exiled, Dan Feng's IQ would shoot up like this. To avoid helping the Xianzhou, he had even come up with such a brilliant idea.
Damn it!
Those Vidyadhara were clearly inexperienced. No wonder that woman Dan Shu had been able to use them.
It really was the land outside the Xianzhou that educated people. With one sentence, he had completely dismantled the General's reasoning.
"I'm begging you. We can deal with the Xianzhou's problems and mistakes later. Can't you just consider clearing a path for us first? At least let us see Dan Shu and find out what she's doing?"
Jing Yuan no longer cared about his dignity as a General. Right now, he just wanted to know what Dan Shu was up to.