Ashlock grumbled to himself, guiding yet another tree through a rift and situating it a thousand miles north. Here, he was constructing a colossal wall of demonic trees. This wall was to serve as an early warning system against incoming threats, such as another dao storm, beast tide, or perhaps wandering cultivators like the merchants.
Ever since the crack of dawn, Ashlock had tirelessly relocated trees across Darklight City. His quick thinking the previous night had eased the residents' anger toward the demonic trees. Their newfound beauty and the edible mushrooms they bore were a welcome surprise. Most of Darklight City's inhabitants were poor, so a sudden source of free food sprouting in their backyards or atop their houses was appreciated.
He had also commanded all the demonic trees through his roots to stop producing digestive fluids and poisonous berries.
Despite the residents' newfound acceptance of the trees, those obstructing the roads had to be removed. Transporting ore, food, and people from the mountains and farms through the city to the city's airship station was paramount to the citizens' livelihoods.
Over twenty hired earth Qi affinity cultivators, including Douglas, were hard at work uprooting trees, and he needed to attend to each one.
Every tree was precious to him, and he didn't want any of them to perish by being transported via mortal means, so he was happy to handle their transport himself.
The only unhappy aspect of the arrangement was his Star Core. In the morning, it had been as dim as when he'd nearly died, but by mid-morning, it had recovered just enough for him to utilize telekinesis and open rifts. He couldn't keep up this level of usage forever.
Ashlock was beginning to comprehend why cultivators chose to avoid conflict, seeking solitude in caves or quiet places for meditation. Not only was it to avoid interruptions like Stella once experienced, but also to accelerate their cultivation by not wasting Qi on pointless conflict.
To progress to the 3rd stage of the Star Core realm, Ashlock had to accumulate so much Qi that his Star Core literally couldn't contain anymore, forcing it to expand. He would never attain that level of Star Core capacity if he continued to deplete his Qi on flowers, mushrooms, and levitating trees through rifts.
"Maybe I should consider hibernating for a few years," Ashlock muttered to himself, meticulously situating the tree he'd moved through the portal a dozen meters from the last one in the tree wall. He was careful to space them adequately to avoid impeding their growth.
Despite the current tranquility, Senior Lee's words still resonated in his mind. He possessed something a Monarch-level threat desired. His only solace was that his formidable adversary, another tree thousands of miles south, remained unaware of him.
Yet cultivation was a process that couldn't be rushed. He didn't want to face a day when an irate world tree sent an army of mighty celestial cultivators after him, forcing him to hasten his cultivation to the Monarch Realm before he met his end.
After carefully positioning the demonic tree amongst its siblings, Ashlock's vision blurred as he covered a thousand miles in a second, reappearing on the street above Douglas.
"Do you work with someone called Stella or maybe Diana?"
Ashlock paused at the sound of a familiar voice from the previous night. Glancing down, he spotted Douglas being approached by Sebastian, who had Ryker in his company.
"And if I do?" Douglas retorted, prompting Ashlock to prepare for opening a rift next to Douglas, ready to pull him through with {Devour}. Revealing information to a potential enemy would undoubtedly breach his oath of loyalty.
"Well, hypothetically speaking, if you did know them, I was hoping to ask for your opinion about them. We're considering partnering with them for a business venture, but I have some reservations I'd like to address." Sebastian responded courteously, with Ryker nodding in agreement.
Douglas snorted behind his black mask, "Ask such questions, and you may find an eight-legged demon visiting you at night."
Sebastian frowned, clearly confused. Ashlock was also a bit baffled by Douglas's answer as he had half expected the oaf to spill the beans, but he had stayed surprisingly tight-lipped.
Douglas turned to leave and perform his duties, but Sebastian chuckled and asked an unusual question, "Fellow Daoist, forgive my earlier misguided question. I was hoping you could recommend us a good restaurant around here?"
"This is the industrial sector," Douglas replied, "Not much gourmet fare around here for someone like you. I suggest heading deeper into the city center where the wealthy mortals reside."
Sebastian shook his head, "We're exactly where we want to be. If we plan to conduct business here, we should familiarize ourselves with the locals, wouldn't you agree?"
Douglas shrugged and sauntered off, leaving behind a final, dismissive remark, "I'd rather eat dirt than anything around here."
Ashlock would have liked to observe the two Silverspires' actions further, but he needed to guide Douglas to the next tree for removal by floating a pebble in front of him.
From his vantage point high in the sky, through the {Eye of the Tree God}, Ashlock felt like he was playing a game of PacMan, guiding Douglas through the winding streets towards each tree obstructing a road. This elevated perspective allowed him to manipulate multiple trees simultaneously with telekinesis and open rifts for them across the city.
If one ignored the ancient Chinese style architecture and replaced the trees with starships, he would be convinced this was a scene out of a sci-fi movie as the floating trees cast looming shadows on the land below before blinking out of existence through rifts.
The whole operation was a bit too out in the open for his liking, but if he attempted to move each tree individually, it would take months. The number of trees to be relocated was simply too great, and he didn't want the townsfolk to take up their axes once more and harm his precious children, so he had to do them all at once.
Wielding this magnitude of power, something his previous body and smaller Star Core couldn't manage, Ashlock began to grasp the God aspect in his {Eye of the Tree God} skill. It felt as though he was a deity managing some city-builder game, yet each decision he made had very tangible consequences on his continued existence.
One such repercussion was already making itself known as his gaze drifted over Darklight City Academy. Ashlock tuned in to a troubling conversation.
An elderly man with pitch-black eyes and hair as if woven from the void itself stood outside the Academy's library, scrutinizing a demonic tree.
"We must alert the Nightrose family," The man murmured to his nearby assistant, who bore similar void-like characteristics.
Startled, the assistant nearly dropped the equipment in her hand, being used to measure some aspect of the tree that Ashlock couldn't discern. "Elder Voidmind, is that truly necessary? It's merely a tree infestation. We shouldn't trouble them with such minor issues—"
She was cut off and shrunk back as the man shouted at her, "What about this is trivial? Thousands of spirit trees appeared a week ago, bringing the city industry to a halt. That alone I could ignore, but their biology has altered overnight! That's unnatural. There has to be a force controlling these trees, causing them to mutate identically and simultaneously!"
He plucked a mushroom from the tree, waving it in front of his assistant, "When have you ever seen a demonic tree sprout mushrooms? And just last night, there was an acidic scent from the tree, now completely absent!"
"That is...odd," The woman conceded with a weary sigh.
"It's not just odd," The man retorted, "What if these mushrooms release toxic spores? Or if all the trees detonate simultaneously? I turned a blind eye before because demonic trees are well-documented; although bothersome in the short term, they can be felled and removed. But if their biology can adapt overnight, they pose a significant threat."
"They are being dealt with, aren't they?" The woman countered, pointing to the sky as Ashlock moved a demonic tree through a portal a few streets away.
The Elder tracked the tree's movement through the portal, furrowing his brow before rubbing his eyes, "How is it floating like that?"
"Artifacts, I assumed," The woman responded, returning her attention to her apparatus.
"I don't see any artifacts on the tree, just an abundance of spatial Qi." The man's eyes widened, "There shouldn't be a spatial affinity cultivator with enough Qi to lift trees and transport them through rifts in the entire Blood Lotus sect! What is happening?"
Ignoring his assistant's response, the Elder sprinted across the manicured garden. Ashlock watched, surprised, as the old man effortlessly vaulted three stories high to land on a nearby rooftop.
"So, he's a powerful cultivator and apparently an Elder of the Voidmind family; he's undoubtedly a threat," Ashlock muttered, tracing the Elder's path as he hopped across the rooftops, clearly making a beeline for the floating tree and the recently opened rift leading to the wilderness.
"Damn, I see his aim now." Ashlock attempted to hasten the tree through the rift, but the Elder was relentless. His skin became enveloped in black flames that resembled a liquid void, and with a single stride, the air rippled, and he re-emerged from a dark opening atop the trunk.
"He's definitely reached the Star Core realm." Ashlock cursed. The Elder was evidently formidable, his aura causing Ashlock's rift to quiver as he passed through.
Ashlock was surprised it took this long for a powerful cultivator in the city to get suspicious, with three entire families being killed, his ascension to the Star Core realm practically broadcasting his existence, and the heavens opening up multiple times. Had this man been so engrossed in his library books that he had overlooked the turmoil outside?
Whatever the reason, Ashlock was now in trouble. The man was standing upon the tree that had successfully made it through the rift and was now a thousand miles away in the wilderness.
"This is certainly not natural." The Voidmind Elder murmured, surveying the extensive line of demonic trees forming a wall, "The deeper I look, the more alarming the anomalies appear. Why didn't anyone bring this to my attention sooner?"
The Elder stroked his sorry excuse for a beard while contemplating for a moment. Ashlock wasn't sure what to do. If the man truly tried to contact the Nightrose family, he would have no choice but to intervene with lethal force.
"Please, don't..." Ashlock whispered, but to his dismay, the Elder's spatial ring pulsed with energy, and a communication jade materialized in his open palm.
"Fool, you should have just stayed inside with your books," Ashlock yelled, his trunk splintering open, exposing his {Demonic Eye} to the outside world for the first time since his rebirth. A rift materialized, and Ashlock glared at the Voidmind Elder through the flickering portal.
Ashlock recognized the Voidmind Elder was likely stronger than him, so he opened with his most powerful attack. However, to his surprise, the Voidmind Elder met his gaze with indifference.
And through the demonic eyes gaze, Ashlock confirmed a distressing fact by staring into the man's blackened soul. The Voidmind Grand Elder was at the apex of the Star Core realm.
The rift trembled, and Ashlock panicked as the Voidmind Elder, enshrouded in wrathful void flames, materialized just a meter away from him. His vacant eyes instilled a deep terror in Ashlock.
"So, you're the perpetrator?" The Voidmind Elder scrutinized him, dismissively ignoring his {Demonic Eye} as if it were nonexistent.
Reacting instinctively, Ashlock cast {Devour}. Black vines erupted from the ground, coiling around the Voidmind Elder, but his liquid void flames effortlessly annihilated them on contact. Ashlock's Star Core flared, channeling spatial Qi down the black vines in a futile effort to shield them from the Elder's flames.
Watching his lilac flame-coated vines dismissed with such ease made Ashlock panic as he lacked many other offensive options.
"Stay back!" Ashlock cried, expending every ounce of spatial Qi he possessed in an assault on the Voidmind Elder. Portals blinked open and closed, Qi-infused leaves were ripped off and hurtled towards the man, and the black vines radiated with lilac fire. Yet, everything was reduced to ashes by the void flames.
"Interesting," the Voidmind Elder murmured as he extended a void-crafted claw shrouding his hand, "It's been over a millennium since I've encountered something from beyond this realm."
His hand effortlessly bypassed Ashlock's spatial Qi defenses, shattering them as it penetrated deeper into the open fissure in his trunk. In that moment, as the Elder's void-coated fingers reached to touch his eldritch eye, Ashlock realized he had fucked up.
He knew portals were a two-way street, but his recent arrogance had clouded his judgment. Playing god for the past few days had allowed his pride to grow, blinding him to his vulnerabilities.
He was a nurturer and provider, as all trees were. Not a conqueror or destroyer. That was why his role was to raise his subordinates and pets to accomplish this.
Yet where were his guardians in his time of need?
His eldritch eye swiveled slightly to glance past the Voidmind Elder reaching into his trunk, and he caught sight of Stella and Diana, who had been silently cultivating. Everything had transpired so swiftly, but his exploding portals seemed to have roused them from their meditation.
The expression on Stella's face was devastating. A mixture of disbelief and sheer terror washed over her as she darted glances between him and the intruder, frozen like a deer in headlights and also by the Elder's wrathful gravity.
"H-head librarian?" Stella muttered under her breath.
The Voidmind Elder either didn't notice the girls or deemed them too insignificant to even harm a single whispy hair on his balding head as he gave a mysterious smile, "This eye will make a fine addition to my collection."
Why had he sent Larry away? Why had he asked for a Qi-gathering formation rather than a defensive one? Where the hell was Maple, and why had he been such a fool?
The void-coated fingers grasped his eye and attempted to pull it out but couldn't. Ashlock then realized that the void flames didn't seem to harm him. Shouldn't he be burning alive right now?
[As a Demi Divine tree destined to grow throughout the nine realms, you are completely immune to the void]
That was a relief, but the sensation of an ancient man stroking his eye made him want to recoil and scream, so instinctively, he snapped his eyelid shut.
"Why won't it come out—" The Voidmind Elder blinked as the slit in the tree slammed closed, taking his arm with it.
A brief silence ensued as the Elder gazed at the spot where his arm should have been, then back at the now closed trunk. He then smiled eerily and began to laugh maniacally.
From his shoulder, void Qi began to spew forth, taking the form of a depthless, shadowy arm. It writhed and convulsed as though struggling against the man's control.
Ashlock just stared at it in horror through his spiritual sight. What was he supposed to do now?
