Ashlock had lived in this crazy new world for almost a decade—yet he had witnessed little of it as he could not travel or explore due to being a tree.
However, he could picture the world beyond his root's borders through Stella and Diana's stories. Because of them, he learned that there were nine cities of various sizes under the rule of the Blood Lotus Sect's noble families, with Slymere being the closest as it was a short airship ride away.
With his roots now sprawling out for a hundred miles in all directions, Ashlock could experience these sights for himself, and from one look with {Eye of the Tree God}, it was obvious from afar that Slymere was nothing like Darklight City.
Ashlock naturally knew Darklight City well as he had lived next to it for a decade and had done his best alongside his offspring and the Redclaws to improve the quality of life there. It was a sprawling metropolis reminiscent of a mega city in a developing country with its wooden housing, questionable infrastructure, poor hygiene, weak industries, and riddled slums that surrounded small condensed centers of wealth.
In comparison, Slymere was a thousand times smaller and reminded Ashlock of a Swiss ski resort in the way that the city was built up the side of a mountain. However, it had gothic architecture rather than wooden cabins; Slymere was a city of black stone with spires reaching for the skies.
An industrial center lay at the mountain's base. Large factory-style buildings with chimneys emitting smoke dominated this area. As one went up the mountain, the buildings became more grandiose, with some even having gardens built on platforms jutting out the cliff face, casting a shadow on the houses below.
Meanwhile, at the very peak of the mountain, much like the White Stone Palace that the Redclaws resided in, was a palace of the same black stone the rest of the city was constructed from, but it also had enormous windows and spires that went up for hundreds of meters. It looked like a strange mixture of a Gothic European castle, a church, and a university.
It was clear from this brief overview where Slymere's wealth was concentrated, and that disparity was further heightened by the destruction Ashlock was witnessing.
As hundreds of lightning bolts rained down and struck the city—any that went toward the spires of the black stone palace were consumed by bubbles of void that appeared out of nowhere. The few stray bolts that bypassed the void bubbles hit runically enhanced stone that could absorb the impact.
In comparison, the rest of the city was a sea of destruction. The wrathful storm overhead mercilessly struck the city without pause, obliterating the stone spires and sending a landslide of rock that tumbled down the mountain and crushed the houses below. The industrial area, which had more wooden buildings, was ablaze, and a thick cloud of smoke surged up the mountainside, blanketing the whole city in darkness.
"I know that Qi magically empowers everything in this world. Plants grow ridiculously fast. A casual breeze can turn into a hurricane at a moment's notice. Storms are more fierce and can even turn into Dao Storms with a level of sentience." Ashlock mused as he looked up at the wrathful storm above Slymere, "But this storm is on another level to anything that could occur naturally, even in this crazy world, so it is likely man-made."
Ashlock only knew two things that could create a destructive storm on this scale. When the Grand Elder of the Skyrend family, Demetrios Skyrend, was heading over to Darklight City, the storm he was traveling within was on this scale. The only other time Ashlock had seen a storm this violent was during a tribulation when someone was ascending to a higher realm.
"So either the Skyrend family is attacking Slymere, or someone is ascending," Ashlock concluded.
Since Slymere was relatively close by, either option warranted an investigation. If the Skyrend family had begun the war, he needed to deploy countermeasures and maybe even pick a side to support from the shadows. Whereas if someone were ascending, he wanted to know who and if it was worth trying to stop them.
"The lightning doesn't seem to be striking anywhere in particular, which is uncommon for an ascension." Ashlock noticed as he surveyed the widespread destruction. From his experience, at least half, if not all, of the lightning bolts should be focused on trying to obliterate a person's Star Core if it were an ascension rather than senseless destruction. "So an attack is far more likely, so where could the Skyrends be hiding?"
The distance from his body and the insane amount of lightning Qi that filled the air made tracking anything down amid the chaos a nightmare. Checking the skies led to no results. No flying ships or crazy lightning cultivators were floating above and hurling down bolts as if they were Zeus, so perhaps they were down in the city?
Ashlock had roots near the city, so he could use {Eye of the Tree God} to peer through the layer of smoke blanketing the mountain city. As he searched the streets for any white-robed cultivators that looked like marble statues and were far too tall and arrogant, he became distracted by screams filling the air and watching mortal humans run helplessly down the winding streets only to be crushed to death by falling boulders.
"Mhm, there aren't any here," Ashlock hummed as his gaze passed over the death and destruction without finding anyone from the Skyrend family. "Though the screaming mortals are rather distracting and make searching for the Skyrend family difficult, I should go higher up."
Ashlock made his way up the mountain and was now near what could be considered the noble district with large gothic mansions. Not much caught his attention, though he was drawn to a beautiful, lonely cherry blossom on the edge of a garden platform that was sheltering a family.
"That has to be the first tree I have seen in this dreary city of black stone," Ashlock mulled as he saw its pink petals float away in the smoke down into the city filled with death and misery.
Ashlock wondered why the family was standing under the tree when he noticed their house had been reduced to a pile of rubble, and the road that led down was blocked. They were trapped with nowhere to go other than hurling themselves off the platform, but it was at least a hundred-meter drop to the next house.
"It's going to be okay, honey," a middle-aged woman said, ruffling her daughter's hair and hugging her tightly. "Mother's got you. It's going to be okay. Just hold on tight."
"Mommy, will the cultivators save us?" The little girl asked innocently with eyes filled with hope as she buried her head into her mother's shoulder. "They will, right? You told me they will protect us."
The mother looked up at what Ashlock assumed was her husband with concern. The man with a neat beard and wearing well-tailored clothes who had been looking up at the Voidmind castle looked down to meet his wife's gaze and sadly shook his head. "They have abandoned us. The defensive arrays down here remain dormant."
"No... that can't be," The mother hugged her daughter tighter and seemed in despair as she began to quietly sob in her daughter's hair. "We paid them almost everything we had, worked ourselves to the bone to carve a life here and save up for the ticket on the airship to escape the beast tide, but it was all for nothing? What about our daughter? Can't they at least save her?"
"Catherine, you are too kind-hearted and naive," The husband knelt under the tree and lovingly wiped away her tears with a handkerchief as the world continued to explode around them, "We are mortals, and they are cultivators. They defy the heavens while we cower below its wrath and beg for mercy." He rubbed her cheek and smiled sadly, "They are walking gods to us; to them, we are nothing but cattle."
"But what about humanity—" She protested, but the man just shook his head.
"When I did business with them, I could tell from their outlook on life and mannerisms that they were different from us below that human facade. They viewed life on a scale of time we simply can't comprehend. A lifetime to us filled with misery and joy, they will pass alone in a cave without another thought to increase their power."
The man stood up and once again gazed up at the Voidmind palace that effortlessly defended itself from the wrath of the heavens while everything below suffered. He raised his hand up to the sky as if trying to grasp it with a distant look in his eyes, "I always wondered what it would be like to be born with the potential for cultivation, to reach for the heavens rather than fear them. To stand alongside walking gods and wield real power—"
He never finished his sentence as lightning tore through the smoke and struck the cherry blossom tree they cowered below, sending a wave of splinters in all directions and destroying a large section of the garden. What remained of the once beautiful cherry blossom trunk immediately ignited into a swirling blaze.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Due to the force, Catherine was sent tumbling, and on instinct, Ashlock noticed how she twisted her body to take the brunt of the impact away from her daughter's head. Despite being thrown a few meters and likely breaking a bone upon landing, the woman desperately got to her feet and screamed once she saw her husband desperately clinging onto the opposite edge of the hole with his legs having been blown off by the lightning.
"Julian! Hang on. Please don't let go!" Catherine collapsed to her knees beside the hole in their garden that separated them with a clear view of the now-destroyed house a hundred meters below. Pieces of rubble kept raining as the garden platform became less stable due to Julian's struggle.
Ashlock watched the rather dramatic scene and felt... nothing. All he felt was regret that such a beautiful cherry blossom had suffered such a fate. He had seen hundreds, if not thousands, of people dying as he scoured the city for the source of the storm and hadn't stopped to think about saving the people.
"Was that wrong?" Ashlock wondered as he watched this mortal man attempt to claw his way back up to the point his fingers bled while his wife and child screamed his name and sobbed. Digging deep, Ashlock found a slither of pity.
"They are so weak," Ashlock muttered. It was like watching a small animal caught in a mouse trap. Compared to cultivators, watching these mortals perish to a bit of lightning, and falling rocks filled Ashlock with pity for their weakness. If they had been cultivators, a hundred-meter drop would be no problem.
He debated for a moment about helping them, but what was the point? They weren't his people and, therefore, not his responsibility. They were in a city under someone else's rule. Were these mortals even worth him wasting his Qi on? Was there anything in it for him?
No, there wasn't. This family offered nothing the millions of people in Darklight City couldn't provide, and using his Qi here opened him up to problems, so it was best to turn a blind eye. His thought process was entirely logical, so why did it feel so... wrong?
"Dad!" The daughter wailed as she tried to wrestle out of her mother's embrace. "Don't die, Dad. You still haven't told me all your stories!" Tears were streaming down her face as she desperately called out to her father, who was growing paler by the second as two streams of blood poured down from his missing legs.
Julian's desperate struggle to live slowed as his weak mortal body likely began to shut down. Looking over his shoulder, he gave his daughter a strained smile. "Dad loves you. Take care of your mom and be a good girl, okay?"
"No! Don't let go, Dad, keep trying!" The little girl shouted. If the giant hole didn't separate them, perhaps the two could help him.
This scene reminded Ashlock of when Stella had been shouting for him to return to her when he had almost died to that Dao Storm. "The system warned me about losing my humanity, and I had been convinced I could preserve it despite becoming a tree. When exactly did it slip away? Or was it a slow process?"
Either way, this revelation terrified Ashlock. What if one day, he watched on as Stella was dying and crying out to him, and he felt nothing like he did right now and couldn't be bothered to extend a branch to save her? At that point, what separated him from a lifeless husk?
"Dad! No!" The girl's scream brought Ashlock back to reality, and he saw the man's grip slip, causing him to fall as the piece of rubble he had been grasping gave way. As he fell and looked up at his daughter, leaning over the side of the hole and calling to him, Ashlock saw a look of regret on the man's face.
"I know what that feels like, to regret leaving those behind." Ashlock's Star Core pulsed an entire valley away as he decided to wield his immense power over the world and stop holding back. Qi surged down through his roots, causing the air around the mortal man to ripple and tear—a portal appeared below his flailing body and swallowed him whole before he impacted the stone below. He was still screaming as he was dumped beside his wife and daughter back on the garden above.
"Julian!" "Dad!" His family shouted in a mixture of joy, fear, and confusion.
Meanwhile, seeing them reunited made Ashlock feel... happy. He was glad that the father hadn't perished. At least not yet, but he would soon. The mortal's body was ruined, both legs blasted off, and he was covered in burns. He was also suffering from blood loss and would likely pass away any minute now.
"Humans are so weak. They die to the smallest things." Ashlock sighed. He had been struck by enough lightning to start questioning if the heavens had a grudge against him, and he was fine; meanwhile, this clearly influential mortal hadn't even been hit by it yet had nearly died.
"I suppose saving him just to let him bleed out before his family would be in poor taste." Ashlock still struggled to care much if these mortals lived or died, but he felt invested in their survival now that he had dabbled in their fate. The man needed immediate care, and the mother had a broken arm, so she wouldn't be able to carry him through a portal. Not to mention, the lightning still raining down all around them could strike any second now. He needed to act quickly.
"How troublesome," Ashlock's vision blurred as he returned to Red Vine Peak and found Stella.
***
"Wake up, Stella. I need you to help me save the people of Slymere."
"Huh? What the hell did you say?" Stella was startled awake by the sudden voice in her head. She yawned and desperately blinked away the drowsiness. "Save Slymere's people? Why would we do that?"
"There is a lightning storm destroying the city, and the Voidmind family has forsaken their people," Ashlock explained, "Slymere is far smaller than Darklight City. Even if we brought all of them over here, it wouldn't cause many issues."
What was he going on about? "I mean, I guess so; we do have abundant food and space. But I still don't see why?"
"Call it a fellow father's understanding. Now stop grumbling and put on your mask if you don't want them all looking up to you."
"Okay, okay," Stella summoned a white wooden mask and fastened it to her face. I don't know why he is being whimsical and won't just tell me straight, but I have been terribly bored recently to the point I fell asleep, so this should be interesting.
Ashlock opened a massive portal on Red Vine Peak, and Stella saw Zeus and Sol trudge through it. Stella followed them and was hit with the overwhelming smell of smoke as the portal snapped closed behind her.
Stella surveyed the destruction all around. Thunder roared in her ears, and the clouds overhead unleashed endless bolts of lightning onto the city below.
"Mom, look! A cultivator came to save us!"
Stella turned and locked eyes with a young girl clutched in her mother's arms who was pointing at her. Tears streaked down the girl's face that failed to obscure the look of defiance and hope.
Despite being a weak mortal that wouldn't live a hundred years, it moved Stella's heart a little.
Why do I feel bad for her? Stella wondered as she looked between the daughter, mother, and father.
The two adults stopped staring at the Ents and followed their daughter's finger. The mother immediately stood up and threw herself before Stella, slamming her head onto the stone. "Esteemed cultivator, please, I beg you to save our daughter. I have broken my arm, and my husband is about to pass on. There is no way my daughter will survive alone in this harsh world... so please."
"No," Stella replied. Why would she want to be left with someone's daughter?
The mother raised her head, which was terribly bruised and bloodied, with a look of pure despair, "Please don't be heartless cultivator! You can grind my body into pills. I have money! Take anything you want! You can have it all, just please, save my daughter."
Heartless? It just sounds annoying. Why should I have to take care of your daughter? Stella crouched before the woman and placed a finger under her chin. Forcing her to look at her masked face. "I said no. I will not take care of your daughter."
"Why." She seemed lost in despair.
"Silly woman. Why would I look after her when you can? No child deserves to live alone in this world," Stella said as warmly as she could. "Sol, heal them. Starting with the father."
The eight-armed Ent crouched before the dying mortal man, making the ground tremble, and fished out a wisp of light. At this point, the man was delirious and phasing in and out of consciousness due to blood loss as the light enveloped his body. His legs exploded out as wiggling strands of muscle knit together around a regrowing bone and then became covered in skin. Two hairless legs were regrown in under a minute, and Julian slowly woke up.
"The power of a god," Stella heard the woman mutter in awe as the man pushed himself up and looked down at his legs in total disbelief.
Sol rose back to his full height and walked over to the mother. The poor mortal woman struggled to look up at the blazing ball of light as the Ent dropped to one knee, and one of the arms bent down and pushed a wisp of light into her forehead.
The bruise on her head visibly washed away, and her arm creaked and snapped back into place. She flexed her arm and seemed baffled at how it no longer hurt.
"How can we ever repay you—" The woman began but screwed her eyes closed as the world lit up, and a lightning bolt descended on them. Thunder soon followed, roaring in the ears of everyone present.
"Good catch, Zeus," Stella complimented as the Ent held the lightning bolt a few meters above their heads. The giant marble Ent grinned as he spread out his arms and began to draw in all the lightning bolts that had been hitting the city and gathering them.
"Are you a goddess, miss?" The daughter asked and tugged on Stella's trouser leg.
Why are these mortals always so needy? They should just protect themselves... Stella paused and remembered how weak she had been despite her ability to become a cultivator as a child. If not for Tree, she would be dead by now. What if she had been born a mortal like this girl?
Unless a cultivator watches over them for the rest of their lives, any simple thing could kill them. So weak. If only they could be cultivators, too...
Stella suddenly had an idea. One that would make her look benevolent and make her no longer responsible for this girl that reminded her too much of herself.
"I am nothing so grand as a goddess little girl. I am just a cultivator." Stella answered truthfully as her silver ring flashed, and a truffle appeared, "With this, you can be one too. Split it and share it with your parents. Consider it a gift from me."
The girl seemed unsure what to do with the truffle, so she gave it to her mother.
"Go on, eat it." Stella insisted as the mortals gave her weird looks.
With some hesitation, the little girl's mother split the small truffle into three even-sized pieces. She then distributed them to her daughter, who was now in her lap, and to her husband, who had walked over while keeping a piece for herself. All three swallowed the slice of truffle under Stella's further insistence. After a moment of nothing happening, all three's eyes widened simultaneously.
The truffle was working to turn them into cultivators, and it wasn't a pretty process.
