At a closer look, it was an ordinary piece of wood about the size of an adult's palm.
Austin noticed that it had a human face carved on it.
However, he couldn't make out the detailed features since it was just a rough contour of a face.
"Uh...
Are you sure this piece of wood is the sacred item your maternal tree was referring to?" Austin asked,
skeptical.
He thought it was ridiculous that he spent a lot of effort to get here just for a common wood.
"Ahem! Young man, we have no reason to lie to you. According to the maternal tree, this wood is a holy
treasure of our race.
All we need to do is to bring it back," one of the eight governing gods of the wood puppet race
responded.
He, along with the other seven governing gods, looked a bit embarrassed when they saw the dubiety
on Austin's face.
"Ah, wait!"
All of a sudden, Austin realized that something was wrong.
'This piece of wood is by no means ordinary since it can simply lie here unharmed.
Even I have to bear such turbulent pressure here. If it were an ordinary wood, it would have already
been crushed to dust, right?
Hence, this wood must actually be an amazing treasure!'
As he fixed his eyes on the wood, the thought occurred to him like a flash.
"Well, then. You'd better hurry up and grab that wood so we can get out of here.
This place is way too dangerous.
Try to move as quickly as you can.
We might die here if we're not careful enough," Austin urged as he scanned their surroundings.
"Right. On it."
The eight governing gods of the wood puppet race then walked up to the woman with great caution.
However, it didn't go very well.
When they took two steps forward, one of them stopped in his tracks.
"Aaahhh! I can't hold it any longer. This pressure is too much! I feel like both my body and spiritual soul
would explode if I take one more step!"
he said.
Even the other seven governing gods of the wood puppet race had to gather all their strength to walk
forward, but they still couldn't move an inch.
"All right, then. I will escort you there," Austin quickly decided.
He had no other choice but to make his way towards the governing gods of the wood puppet race. He
released all his energy right away and enveloped the governing gods in it to protect them from the
pressure while they carefully sauntered over to the girl.
The closer he got to the woman in white, the more Austin felt the overwhelming pressure.
Due to this, his speed decreased every second.
The eight governing gods of the wood puppet race stayed close to Austin as they moved forward. They
looked as though they were facing a formidable foe.
A moment later, the group got closer to the girl clad in white clothes.
The sweet scent of her body slowly filled their noses and intoxicated them.
However, Austin felt that both his body and spiritual soul were on the verge of exploding.
"Aaahhh!"
With his current strength, beating dozens of governing gods all at once was a piece of cake for him.
Even so, he found himself trying his hardest to endure such tremendous pain as he approached the
woman in white.
'Who the hell is this woman?
Her strength is way too terrifying.
Could she be the legendary god of chaos?'
An idea popped into his mind.
'It's strange, though. She looks so familiar.
Why do I feel like I've seen her somewhere else?'
As he advanced under the crushing pressure, Austin stared at the back of the woman in white.
He was sure he knew her from somewhere.
About four hours later, they finally got closer to their target.
"Hurry up and take that wood.
I can't hold out any longer!" Austin shouted in a hoarse voice.
"Got it!
Just a bit longer, young man. We're taking the sacred treasure!" one of the eight governing gods
assured Austin.
The governing gods crawled on the ground and used all their strength to slowly reach the piece of
wood.
At that very moment, the pressure on Austin had become unimaginable.
He couldn't keep himself from crying out in pain.
It was as though he felt that he had reached his limit.
Austin then took a glance at the woman while he endured this extreme pain. His eyes widened in shock
the moment he recognized her.
"Miss Flora?!
Is it...
Wait. How could it even be possible?!" Austin exclaimed out of the blue.
Apparently, she bore the spitting image of Flora.
Back when he was staying in the Blue Ocean Universe Community of the Sea of Chaos, Austin entered
a big city called the Infinite City.
Although the city was huge, there was only Flora in it.
After some time, Austin took the people of the Blue Ocean Universe Community to her. He hoped that
she could let them enter the city to avoid the army of the beast race, and she agreed.
That was how the Infinite City served as the allied army's headquarters for a while.
Then, Flora followed Austin back to the three thousand big and small universes along with the Infinite
City.
However, the Infinite City later disappeared mysteriously.
Ever since then, Austin had never seen Flora and the Infinite City again in the Sea of Chaos.
Meanwhile, the woman in white right in front of him looked exactly like Flora. Even her spiritual soul
aura was the same as hers.
He couldn't believe what he was seeing, so Austin summoned up all his courage and asked gingerly,
"Miss Flora, is that you?"
The woman before him was young and beautiful. Wearing a long white dress, she looked like a fairy
coming down from the heavens.
The only difference was that the Flora he knew from back then always wore a green dress.
Nonetheless, Austin was almost sure that this woman clad in white was Flora.
"We finally got a hold of the holy treasure!"
The eight governing gods cried with joy as they got their hands on the piece of wood.
"All right!
Now we can finally go back and hand this over to the maternal tree."
The eight members of the wood puppet race felt exhilarated to the core. Words definitely couldn't
describe their ecstasy.
Their race had fought with the face race over this holy item countless times.
However, they couldn't even get the chance to enter the Longevity Valley before, much less get the
holy treasure back.
None of them had expected that things would go so smoothly, so they were totally bewildered to find
themselves in this fortunate situation.
When they calmed down, they then turned to look at Austin with gratitude in their eyes.
"Young man, thank you so much!
Please know that our race owes you a lot," one of them said to Austin with utter sincerity.
Much to their befuddlement, however, they found that Austin was not listening.
He was staring at the woman without even blinking.
'Seriously? How could he be in a mood to admire this woman in this circumstance?
It's true that humans will find her beautiful, but she is way too dangerous.' The governing gods shared
the same thoughts.
Thinking that Austin was attracted to the woman in white, they all secretly shook their heads.
"Young man, we should get going.
It's clearly not safe here,"
they urged the young man.
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