Episode 85

“Why is it this guy again?!” Chu Yi was shocked to see the prince here.

“Let me out!!” Just when Chu Yi was staring at the prince, the prince suddenly opened his eyes and yelled so loudly that Chu Yi got a fright. Chu Yi took several steps back and even felt all his hair stand on end.

“What the fuck was that?! I’ll send you straight to hell someday, I swear!” Chu Yi yelled back angrily from his shock.

Su Jin pulled the agitated Chu Yi aside and told him to calm down, then said to the prince, “Why are you here?”

“Humph! That’s none of your business, you mere mortal! You are not qualified to speak to me. Only the fellow who possessed your body is qualified.” The prince was behaved arrogantly because mortals like Su Jin were as good as worms in the ground to a demigod like himself.

“The fellow who possessed your body?” Chu Yi was confused.

Su Jin immediately replied, “If you want us to help you get out of there, then you have to answer my question honestly. I asked you, why are you here?”

The prince hesitated for a moment but eventually decided to cooperate with Su Jin. He had been trapped here by the Tree of Life, so unless the Tree decided to let go of him, he could only break free with the help of someone else.

“I came here to look for a chance to ascend to godhood,” grumbled the prince.

“Ascend to godhood?!” Su Jin had no idea that the Demon Lord had previously spoken to the prince, and also didn’t know about how the Demon Lord had lied to the prince.

“A mortal like you wouldn’t understand! I’ve got to swallow the Tree of Life! That’s the only way I can become a god!” snapped the prince in an arrogant voice.

Su Jin more or less figured out what was going on. The prince had tried to fight the Tree of Life in order to become a god.

This gave Su Jin an idea. As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If the Tree of Life was going to guard its fruit like that, then Su Jin needed someone powerful to distract the Tree.

“Why are the two of you here? Oh I know! Both of you want to swallow the Tree as well! You foolish humans! You’re so weak and you have such lofty dreams? What a joke!” The prince was already a little off his rocker to begin with and now, he seemed to trust his own guesses more than anybody else.

Su Jin scoffed and said, “I’m not interested in the Tree of Life. I’m here on an unexpected mission. I can help you to get out of there, but…you have to agree to one request I have!”

“Mere mortals are not qualified to negotiate with gods! Get me out now, otherwise I’ll hack you into a million pieces once I’m out of here!” the prince threatened the two of them.

Su Jin and Chu Yi almost burst out laughing. This prince was pretty formidable in terms of his skill and power, but his brain was certainly not worthy of the title ‘demigod’.

“Brother Su, let’s move on. Let’s just leave this demigod prince to have fun on his own. We don’t have to get him out of there, it’s no loss to us,” Chu Yi deliberately provoked the prince as he pulled at Su Jin and pretended like he wanted to leave right now.

“Wait!” The prince was stubborn in speech, but he did need Su Jin and Chu Yi’s help very badly, so he finally chose to humble himself. “Fine, you little mortals! If you help me out of here, I’ll agree to one condition of yours!”

“That’s great!” Su Jin gave the prince a pleased smile. “It’s very simple. I want you to defeat the Tree of Life!”

The prince was stunned for a moment before a crazed grin took over his face. “Haha! If that’s all you want, then that’s not a problem! Even if you didn’t ask me to do that, I would have done it anyway! So, get me out of here right now!”

Su Jin nodded as he took out his Boning Knife and used the Attack of the Demon Lord multiple times. The tree bark finally gave way under the continuous attack. But the moment the bark split open, Su Jin and Chu Yi suddenly realized that they couldn’t move.

“You stupid mortals! Did you think you could really negotiate terms with a demigod?” The prince suspended a clenched fist in the air as he stared at them with a sinister look on his face.

Su Jin was convulsing because using this Spirit Power that didn’t belong to him continued to cause him pain and suffering even though the Demon Lord’s Eye had taken the place of his actual heart and he didn’t need to worry about it being eaten away by the Demon Lord anymore. Yet at the same time, the pain he was going through would help to increase his Psychokinetic Spirit Power levels.

“Are you…are you really going to kill me?” Su Jin trembled as one of his eyes suddenly turned completely black. “Do you want him to come here instead?”

The prince froze for a moment. He remembered that eye. The owner of that eye was the one who had told him the way to become a god. The prince hesitated for a moment, then put his clenched fist down, and both Su Jin and Chu Yi could move again.

“Fine! I’m grateful to that fellow for telling me his secret, so I’m just repaying the favor this way!” snapped the prince frostily before turning to take large strides in the opposite direction.

The prince was more afraid of the Demon Lord than grateful to him. The Tree of Life was already tough enough to deal with. After his first battle with the Tree of Life, he had ended up getting trapped in the tree bark. If he caused a god to come here because he had killed Su Jin, then the prince might end up dying.

Su Jin fell to the ground as he gasped for air. His body was still trembling slightly. His eye had reverted to its normal state again as well. His eye hadn’t turned black because the Demon Lord had possessed him. He had just used the Demon Lord Spirit Power within him to recreate this illusion, and this was the best he could do. Demon Lord Spirit Power wasn’t his own Spirit Power after all. Thankfully, the ruse worked.

Meanwhile, the prince had already gone quite some distance from them. He suddenly gave an angry shout and leaped into the sky.

“Chu Yi! Prepare to get those fruits!” Su Jin endured the pain he felt and got up. He was hoping that the prince was powerful enough to keep the Tree of Life occupied while they plucked the fruits.

Chu Yi nodded and mustered up all his Spirit Energy. This was their best chance at getting a fruit. If they still couldn’t get a fruit this way, then they were probably doomed to return without any.

It didn’t take long for explosive sounds to resound from above, as if a thousand bombs had just gone off in the sky. They could even feel the Tree shaking.

“HAHA! Just let me swallow you whole! The World of Fairytales haven’t had a god in a long time now, so let me become god and I will reshape this World!” declared the prince in a maniacal voice.

“Are you insane? That’s not how one becomes a god, Prince Charming! You’ve been tricked!” A mighty voice filled the air and clearly belonged to the Tree of Life. But the voice didn’t sound like it was coming from afar. It seemed to boom inside their own heads.

“You’re the one trying to fool me! You’re just afraid to die! If you’re willing to sacrifice yourself, the World of Fairytales can go back to what it once was, so let me swallow you! Isn’t it your dream to reshape this World?” the prince’s maniacal voice shouted back.

“That’s enough! You have been so foolish! If swallowing another power is enough to become god, I would have swallowed the entire World of Fairytales by now! You wouldn’t even get a chance!” The Tree of Life was getting angry now and Su Jin and Chu Yi realized that countless vines were growing upwards towards the sky.

“Now!” yelled Su Jin. This was their chance!

Chu Yi immediately sent all his Spirit Power swirling towards the ripened fruits. The Tree of Life was too busy fighting the prince, so it wasn’t able to give its fruits any attention or energy. Even though the fruits were able to move on their own, they could not overcome Chu Yi’s Spirit Power and Chu Yi was able to stop them from moving away.

“Woohoo!” Su Jin was overjoyed. There were five ripe fruits in total and they were all within Chu Yi’s control now.

Chu Yi had to focus on controlling his Spirit Power, so he couldn’t move from his spot. Su Jin struggled to get up so that he could cut the fruits off their stem. He stumbled over to each one of them and used his hand to pluck the fruits. But Su Jin wasn’t greedy and only took three of them, since the Mad Hatter said that the fruits shriveled up quickly after they had been plucked from the Tree, so he couldn’t keep any for future use.

“We’re done!” Su Jin nodded at Chu Yi and Chu Yi immediately released the other two fruits. By this time, the Tree had also noticed that someone had plucked its fruits without permission, so the vines that had shot up earlier came back down to catch the two thieves.

But at that exact moment, Su Jin and Chu Yi were surrounded by a white light and immediately after that, they appeared before the Mad Hatter.

Su Jin immediately threw one of the fruits at the Mad Hatter, threw another one to Chu Yi, then brought the last one to Kano Mai. He pushed the fruit into her mouth and it instantly turned into a beam of red light that went straight into Kano Mai’s body. The same thing happened to Yang Mo.

Once the red light went into their bodies, color returned to their faces and they started breathing again.

“Send us back now!” Su Jin shouted to the Mad Hatter.

The Mad Hatter didn’t intend to go back on his word. He replied, “Give me the two treasures you are still holding onto.”

Su Jin was in no position to negotiate with the Mad Hatter, so he threw the other two treasures to the Mad Hatter as well. The Mad Hatter caught them both and put them inside his hat like the other items.

“Before leaving, I’d like to leave you with some last words. Their physical bodies will be restored by their Hell Domains, but their souls are temporarily restored by the power of the fruit of the Tree of Life. This power will eventually be used up and they will still die after that,” the Mad Hatter said to Su Jin.

Su Jin glared at him and raised his voice, “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“If I said so, would you have given up getting the fruit to revive them? Since you did such a good job in getting all of this done, let me give you a suggestion. Try to find something that can boost their soul strength. Also, the stronger your physical body is, the faster you will consume your soul strength!” The Mad Hatter ended with a cackle.

Su Jin tried his best to suppress his anger since losing his temper was pointless at this point in time. He said to Ning Meng, “Ning Meng, we’re about to return to our Hell Domains and we might never see each other again. So now, I want to ask if you want to join my team.”

Su Jin was inviting Ning Meng to the team purely because Ning Meng had been able to hold up against the temptation of killing a fellow owner and even warning Chu Yi to be careful. This was a character trait that was hard to come by and Su Jin was sure that nobody would object to having a trustworthy team mate like her.

Ning Meng was very excited and she nodded. “Yes!”

“Good! Put your hand here! Hurry!” Su Jin said to Ning Meng.

Ning Meng placed her hand on his Handbook. Su Jin quickly squeezed a drop of blood out and the demonic hand that appeared turned into the familiar boning knife symbol on Ning Meng’s arm.

At the same time, Su Jin heard Blackie’s voice announce, “Congratulations, your team is now complete! You have unlocked a new area: Hell’s Bar!”