Chapter 185: Delicious Meal

Ashlock watched in horror as his well-thought-out plan that utilized everything at his disposal to keep Lucius away from the sun was triumphed by nothing other than overwhelming power.

Lucius had turned himself into what could only be described as a walking light bomb, instantly obliterating a large portion of the White Stone Palace and sending everyone still fighting flying out into the demonic tree forest alongside a wave of superheated ash.

Without Larry's ash absorbing much of the attack, even with their Star Core Realm bodies and soul fire, they likely would have perished in the Blazing Radiance. Thankfully, they all escaped with their lives, which just so happened to include Nox, who recovered faster than the rest.

The bulky woman hissed in pain as she staggered to her feet while everyone else remained on the jagged stone among the tree roots.

"Is that bastard crazy?" Nox's trembling hand emerged from the folds of her cloak—it was severely burned, with the skin a bright red and cracking. Her face had followed a similar fate, but it was mostly hidden under a hood. She coughed up blackened blood in her hand and wiped her face, "ugh, this poison."

She looked around the clearing as molten ash fell like rain. Ashlock followed her gaze, which landed on Stella. A crooked grin appeared as Nox summoned a dagger to her hand, "All of this is your fault. I don't even care about the artifact anymore. Only your death will satisfy me for making me waste a Dimension Locker and months of cultivation."

Even though she was injured, Nox was still a peak Star Core cultivator adept at assassination that could instantly decapitate Stella, so Ashlock didn't hesitate in casting {Progeny Dominion} on the tree Stella was resting against. He had been saving his S-grade skill for a moment like this.

[Progeny selected: Initiating soul transfer...]

[Soul fragmented: Damage to soul mitigated]

A tidal wave of power passed over the entire mountain range as a fractured piece of Ashlock's soul traversed the root network to the glee of his children and united with his offspring, turning the unassuming demonic tree into an extension of himself, much like Lucius had done for his sun god.

[Connection complete: Time till sundown 0:10]

The tree's branches and leaves blazed with lilac soul fire as Ashlock unleashed everything on Nox through his progeny.

Nox stumbled back in shock as Ashlock cast {Abyssal Whispers}. His presence bloomed within her mind as a withering mass of enraged eyes and a thousand voices screamed, "Die."

As the woman stood there bewildered, the ground before her exploded as many thorn-covered vines emerged and tried to entangle her, but they were blocked by a shadow clone that materialized at the last second, absorbing the attack and allowing her to use Shadow Step to vanish into the darkness.

Stella didn't react to everything happening as she was completely passed out. Lucius's light blast had burned off half her hair, and her body hadn't fared much better. Her sleeping face was twisted in pain, and her breathing was erratic.

"I don't care if you're the descendant of a sword goddess or some kind of demon in human skin like Diana," Nox whispered as she climbed out of Stella's shadow and raised her sword, "But I'm never one to leave loose ends."

"No!" Ashlock roared in Nox's mind as he cast {Consuming Abyss}. A lake of void Qi flowed out from the tree's roots, and from the void shot out hundreds of tendrils.

Nox's eyes widened as she blocked the onslaught with her sword coated in flames of darkness, but the void tendrils cared not for her puny attempts to stop them as they devoured the sword and even her hand for good measure. Howling in pain, Nox stumbled back and almost tripped over another tree root as the ground exploded and more black vines covered in thorns rushed her.

"Shadow! Cover me," Nox said while coughing up more blood and turning to flee into the forest.

Ashlock watched in surprise as Nox's shadow actually detached itself from her and stood up as if it were a real person. The shadow was clearly far stronger at a glance than the other shadow clones she had conjured previously, as it quickly grabbed his vines and ripped them apart.

"Let's see what's stronger," Ashlock spoke into the mind of the fleeing Nox, "My void or your shadow..."

Nox didn't even look over her shoulder as her shadow was dragged down by void tendrils and devoured in the lake.

[+427 SC]

Ashlock was surprised by the notification.

"Does that mean a part of her soul was in that shadow?" Ashlock quickly checked on his system.

Idletree Daily Sign-In System

Day: 3541

"Blast him now!" Ashlock shouted to Zeus, and the marble statue Ent brought down his finger like a Roman emperor executing someone at the Colosseum. The darkened storm system spread across the sky until the horizon lit up as the most violent lightning bolt Ashlock had ever witnessed lashed out and stuck Lucius in the back, knocking the man to his knees.

"Don't give him a second to recover," Ashlock sent all eight of his vines that were wielding swords at Lucius and even utilized his spatial Qi to compress the distance, making his swords seem like nothing but a blur as they skewered Lucius.

Lucius let out a gargled scream as his body tried to heal, but Ashlock kept the swords firmly in place and even pushed them deeper. Yet even with all this, the man simply refused to die. With the sun yet to set below the distant mountains, Lucius could pull on a limitless source of Qi to remain alive.

The problem was Ashlock needed to kill Lucius before the sunset, as the moment that sun vanished, his {Progeny Dominion} skill would cancel out, and his fractured soul would return to his main body. He would then feel sleepy as Lucius wasn't the only one who relied on sunlight for power.

Lucius yelled out as he stood and tried to pull the swords out one by one. But vines erupted from the ground and coiled around his arms, legs, chest, and neck. Honestly, the fact he was still alive was a testament to light Qi's overwhelming healing capabilities.

The sound of muffled screams and breaking bones came from Lucius as the vines tightened, and Titus brought down his remaining hand. However, this time, instead of trying to squash the puny human, Titus formed a cage out of his fingers that blocked the sunlight. Spatial Qi swirled around within the cage and compressed the space, increasing the cage's gravity a hundredfold, forcing Lucius's forehead to kiss the stone.

Ashlock felt the blinding light within Lucius's consciousness begin to dim, allowing him to further invade his mind.

"You brought this upon yourself," Ashlock said, letting his rage engulf the man's mind. A storm of pure chaos and wrath manifested around the blinding light, suffocating it like a forewarning for this fool's inevitable death.

"Just humor me one question," the light of Lucius' consciousness asked Ashlock, "Who is truly behind the Ashfallen Trading Company."

"You're looking at him."

Lucius raised his head from the stone and locked eyes with the tree blazing with lilac flames directly in front of him.

"Ridiculous," Lucius muttered as his body, skewered by eight swords and half crushed to death, began to break apart and dim, "You claim I will depart from this world not at the tip of an immortal's sword or in the mouth of a great beast but to a spirit tree of all things... I can't accept it."

"Who said I would let you depart from this world?" Ashlock's haunted laughter filled Lucius's mind, "The afterlife is too good for the likes of you. Instead, you will serve me for eternity in a new body of my design like these other Ents to repay what you have done."

Lucius's eyes widened, "These cursed creatures of wood were once your enemies?" Ashlock could feel the fear festering in his mind. The light of his soul began to glow as he regained his will to resist and tried to struggle against the many restraints keeping him down, but it was useless. The void lake was now within strike range.

"Lucius, this is goodbye... for now," Ashlock said calmly as he mentally ordered hundreds of tendrils to shoot out of the void lake and carry out his execution.

"No, wait!" Lucius cried out as the void lake surrounding his cage lurched at him, "I just want to see the sunset one last time—"

The headless body slumped forward but was kept partially propped up by the eight swords and vines still wrapped around his limbs. Lucius was dead cold and would never see another sunset.

Ashlock created a portal to Red Vine Peak under Lucius's corpse and unceremoniously dropped him through. He needed to turn Lucius into an Ent before nightfall to save Diana and heal everyone else injured during this fight, but he wasn't foolish enough to rush the process. If creating Khaos had taught him anything, creating a high-ranking Ent without enough Qi stored up was a recipe for disaster.

Thankfully, Ashlock had a freshly butchered spatial cultivator to consume and a forest of Soul Fire offspring to call upon. Using a mixture of telekinesis and his vines to gather Hammond's remains, he dumped them through a portal beside his main body as the sun fell behind the distant mountain range.

The moment dusk turned to night, Ashlock felt an intense pull on his fractured soul, ripping it from his progeny and returning it to his body. With sleepiness beginning to rear its ugly head, he wasted no time devouring Hammond's remains.

[+1870]

After just minutes, Hammond's delicious corpse had been consumed, and Ashlock felt an ungodly rush of power throughout his entire trunk and roots as his Star Core expanded in size, and he went up a stage.

"System!" Ashlock shouted.

[Demonic Demi-Divine Tree (Age: 9)]

[Star Core: 5th Stage]

[Soul Type: Amethyst (Spatial)]

He was now in the 5th stage of the Star Core Realm and had 2,694 sacrificial credits to spend, but more importantly, his Star Core was filled to the brim with Qi, meaning now was the perfect time to turn Lucius into an Ent.