Chapter 454: Family

"Zephyrine..."

"Janus..."

"...and my dear Stella. Please save me."

"Zephyrine..."

"Janus..."

"...and my dear Stella. Please save me."

"Zephyrine..."

"Janus..."

"...and my dear Stella. Please save me."

"Zephyrine..."

"Janus..."

"...and my dear Stella. Please save me."

At first, Ashlock thought the World Tree happened to be calling out to those three right as he tuned in. But the Qi in the World Tree's roots flowed in immense pulses, like the beating of a heart. And with each heartbeat, the call for help was repeated.

It was like a spiritual recording playing on a loop.

"Zephyrine..."

"Janus..."

"...and my dear Stella. Please save me."

"Zephyrine..."

"Janus..."

"...and my dear Stella. Please save me."

"Zephyrine..."

"Janus..."

"...and my dear Stella. Please save me."

"Zephyrine..."

"Janus..."

"...and my dear Stella. Please save me."

"Make it stop," Stella said through clenched teeth as she clutched her head with both hands. "I want to speak to her, not listen to this over and over. This isn't her—it's just a ghostly cry for help."

Ashlock agreed. Via his connection to the World Tree and utilizing his new {Language of the Eldertree [A]} skill, he called out in every language he could think of.

"World Tree! Hello! Can you hear me? Are you there?" When that didn't stir a response, he risked it and mentioned, "I have your daughter Stella and know where Janus is..."

Still nothing. Just the same call for help over and over. It was incredibly eerie hearing what sounded like a recording accompanied by soul-wracking cries of rage and pain that were alternating, meaning her suffering wasn't a recording. It was her current situation.

"I can't get a hold of her," Ashlock admitted to Stella. "I think she has tuned out the world, much like I have, to try and hold onto a sliver of sanity. Her body sprawls out across the entire 9th layer of creation, so to hear my voice would be like picking up on the buzzing of a single insect thousands of miles away."

"It just means you need to stand out more," Stella suggested as she cradled her head. "Forget trying to call out to her. What nonverbal thing would you or the World Tree pick up on regardless of distance?"

Ashlock pondered for a moment. What would make him stand out compared to any other tree? While impressive for a spirit tree, his cultivation realm wouldn't significantly impact a peak Monarch Realm being. At best, it would feel like a bug bite that, if itchy enough, might earn some attention. His Cursebloom Sap also wouldn't do much—she was already a tree. Desolation Qi could work, but again, compared to how large her body was and the thick layer of Qi radiating off her roots that served as the leyline, it would take an enormous amount of Qi to even make a dent.

Glancing at his system for inspiration, something dawned on him...

[Demonic Demi-Divine Tree (Age: 10)]

[Nascent Soul Realm: 5th Stage]

[Soul Type: Nine Moons(Desolation)]

He had something that had been destined for the World Tree. An item that was bound to attract attention.

{??? Divine Fragment 1/9}

The question was whether this was a good idea. Senior Lee had made it clear—the only thing preventing the World Tree's ascension was the missing Divine Fragment. And Ashlock doubted the World Tree would accept the excuse that the fragment was already fused with his soul as a reason not to kill him.

"But can she even kill me?" Ashlock mused. "If she was so powerful, wouldn't she be able to fend off those from the Celestial Empire and save herself from the suffering? I have experienced many dreams from past World Trees, with one common theme—helplessness."

Ashlock knew the safe play was to not poke the hornet's nest. But the beast tide would arrive before he got a chance to send an envoy all the way to the Celestial Empire, and somewhere within that storm was Zephyrine. The Wyvern had mentioned that the monster stood above the Primal Overlords, likely meaning Zephyrine was the Monarch Realm monster leading the beast tide. Yet, the World Tree called out to that monster alongside Stella and Janus.

If they were related somehow, or the World Tree had control over Zephyrine, he had to ask her to have the beast tide cease to save himself.

It was worth the risk.

"System, I'm going to need your help."

[How can I be of assistance?]

"Inject divine energy into the World Tree's root alongside a repeated recording similar to what the World Tree is doing."

[I can do that. What's the message?]

"I have the Divine Fragment and Stella. I want to talk."

[Understood. Re-routing divine energy alongside that message into the World Tree's root]

Checking on his Inner World, Ashlock saw divine energy gather around the Divine Flesh Tree inhabited by the system. Then, like a heart, it drew in divine energy and pumped it down into the earth below, alongside his message.

Now, all he had to do was wait. Returning to Moros, he saw Stella frowning.

"Are you doing something, Tree?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm calling out to the World Tree. Not as any old spirit tree but as the entity she would want to kill most. It's the only way I could think of to get her attention."

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Stella opened an eye and side-eyed him. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I'm not sure if it will even work—"

[A Monarch Realm entity has taken notice of you]

Ashlock swallowed his words. "Never mind. It worked."

A familiar system message flashed in his vision. The last time was when he first assimilated his roots with the leyline and started siphoning Qi from the World Tree. Back then, his mental resistance skill had leveled up multiple times, and he ultimately had to tune out the World Tree's suffering as it was going to tear his soul apart.

Whatever was about to happen, it wasn't going to be pretty.

Ashlock said, "Brace for impact."

Stella raised a brow. "What do you mean by brace for impact?"

Ashlock had taken the brunt of the World Tree's howling so far and only passed a filtered version into Stella's mind, as she didn't possess the {Soul Fortress [A]} skill like he did. She had no idea how bad this was about to get.

[WARNING: Hostile intent detected]

[WARNING: Your consciousness is under attack. Activating Soul Fortress]

Ashlock felt a wave of killing intent like no other. It was as if the very land itself resented his existence and threatened to pull him down into the abyss to be killed by a thousand cuts—then it faded into an intense buzzing in the background as his Soul Fortress skill activated.

Stella kneeled over and looked deathly pale. Her eyes were wide open, and she was clutching her chest as she desperately gasped for breath.

"What... was that?!"

"The World Tree's killing intent. I don't think she's too happy with me," Ashlock replied while also feeling shaken. "This is just the beginning; I'd eat a Mind Fortress fruit and anything else you can think of. This is going to be intense."

[WARNING: Mental defenses faltering]

The buzzing in the back of his mind rapidly escalated. His Soul Fortress skill had materialized a protective shell around his consciousness, but the World Tree was like a titan of pure rage pounding on that shell—and cracks were forming.

"System, do my offspring also possess Soul Fortress?"

[Yes] The message seemed distorted, as if his system was struggling to hold itself together. [It's a passive skill, so your offspring inherited it]

"Spread out the World Tree's response across my entire network," Ashlock instructed. With a computer science background, he was all too familiar with how to deal with such a threat, whether it was from a magical tree or a competitor initiating a DDoS attack on his servers—he had to spread the load and fast.

[Understood]

The effect was almost immediate. The buzzing dissipated, but the world around him changed. Everyone on Moros also seemed to notice it as Ryker paused mid-chess move and glanced toward the forest of offspring sprawling along the mountain range between Moros and Red Vine Peak. There was a shift in the atmosphere as if the forest was radiating killing intent.

While it worked, he wasn't sure how long his offspring could endure the World Tree's rage. He had invited the World Tree to his front door, so it was only right for him to uphold his end of the request and talk. Lowering the strength of his Mental Fortress skill, he once again reached out into the madness, and a being took that as an opportunity to make its presence known.

"Who are YOU?!" A voice erupted from the depths of the earth, reverberating through the entire root network with a thunderous force. His consciousness trembled to its core—flocks of birds scattered to the skies in terrified swarms—while leaves were torn from his offspring under the weight of the spiritual shockwave. Even Moros quaked, its spirit trees flaring their Star Cores in instinctive defense as the ship's aether Qi shield flickered under the strain.

Ashlock had expected a response—just not quite one on this scale.

"I'm Ashlock," he replied, using the weight of his Inner World to add some gravitas to his response, "a fellow spirit tree. I come in peace."

"Your words carry a sense of divinity," the World Tree replied, every word hitting his consciousness like a drum and causing his offspring to shed more leaves from the force. "A god recognized by the heavens? If so, you must be felled before growing too tall."

"No, you're wrong. I'm a dark god that seeks the destruction of heaven and to bring ruin to the cycle that we are all trapped in." Ashlock replied firmly. "We are on the same side, World Tree. I want to destroy the heavens just as much, if not more, than you."

There was a long pause, and Ashlock began to wonder if leaning into his dark god persona was the right move. What if dark gods were universally hated, even by the tortured World Tree?

"I don't believe you," the World Tree eventually replied. "The gods are the great defenders of heaven."

"Mother...?" Stella said cautiously, "Please believe him."

Ashlock felt the shift in the World Tree's focus within his consciousness to hone in on the voice of Stella, which he was relaying down his roots.

"Stella? Is that you?" The World Tree's voice softened. "My baby girl?"

"Yes, it's me." Tears welled up in Stella's eyes. "I'm here, Mom."

"That's good. Janus succeeded in his escape then. But seriously, I take my eyes off you for one minute, and now you're hanging out with a self-proclaimed dark god?"

Stella blinked the tears away. "What are you saying, Mom? It's been almost two decades since I last saw you."

That disassociation with time reminded Ash of his earlier days. He was able to be a lot more present and involved with life nowadays, even managing to stay awake through a whole night if needed. Whereas in his infancy, he would sleep seasons away in seconds.

"Two decades, a few minutes, what's the difference?" The World Tree retorted. "Why did Janus allow you to hang out with this... Ashlock?"

Stella's face twisted. "Janus faked his death and abandoned me as a child. I recently found out he's still alive and hiding in the Frozen Star Sect, and we exchanged a brief call. Ashlock raised me in his stead, and I see him more as a father than Janus ever was."

"I see," the World Tree said, and Ashlock could feel her scrutiny. "But Janus isn't your father. If anything, he's your brother."

"B-Brother?! What?" Stella yelled out, drawing everyone's confused gazes. "I have a brother? Wait, if Janus isn't my father, who is?"

"Nobody. You and Janus were the result of an experiment with my golden sap to try and craft the perfect cultivator. You were made Stella, not born. But you share blood with Janus and me, so we are your family."

"Family..." Stella seemed stunned. The news that she was created rather than born didn't seem to faze her as much as the news that she had a family out there. "I have a family... wait, if I have a mother and brother but no biological father," she looked up with reddened eyes toward Red Vine Peak, "that means you can officially be my dad, Ash."

That sentence hit him like a truck. Until now, he had embraced the role of Stella's father to provide her with a steady foundation—someone she could lean on without hesitation. Yet, in the recesses of his mind, he had always braced himself for the moment he would step aside, ready to return her to her "real" father, whom he had always assumed to be Janus. But with that looming shadow now gone and Stella's unwavering acceptance of their bond, the reality felt almost dreamlike.

He had a daughter.

Stella shifted nervously due to the pause. "Only if you want to, of course. I'd understand if you didn't want to be, as I know I'm a handful to deal with and have caused a lot of problems—"

The ground beside her cracked open as an ethereal root emerged at his command. It coiled around her in a hug, and he ruffled her hair. "I'm saddened you would even doubt my answer. Of course, it's a yes. But what am I to do now with such a troublesome... daughter." That last word felt hard yet satisfying to say.

It also didn't feel weird to call her his daughter. While Ashlock had only been a spirit tree for a decade in this world, he had been a human in his twenties back on Earth. He had always wanted a child but had died before he got the chance to have one.

Stella reached up and wiped the tears from her eyes. "I'll try to cause you fewer headaches in the future," she smiled brightly, "Okay?"

"Sounds like a deal," Ashlock replied.

"Looks like you two get along," the World Tree said. "It would seem I judged too early, Ashlock. Thank you for raising Stella while I was asleep."

"It was a pleasure," Ashlock replied.

"Mom, I want to save you! Tell us, what is happening? While you speak, we can still hear your suffering, yet your voice remains calm."

Ashlock was also curious about that.

"That's because you are speaking to a fragment of my soul that I managed to isolate into an avatar of sorts. The Celestial Empire isn't a city. It's a giant formation designed to trap and torture me. The formation is fed with my Qi, so the more I fight against it, the stronger its suppression becomes. The only place I still have any control is within my Inner World, where this soul fragment resides, unable to affect the outside world."

It seemed the World Tree was a living example of Ashlock's fears of being enslaved and forced to grow fruits when he was a sapling.

"Do they harvest your golden sap?" Ashlock asked.

"They take everything from me—not just my golden sap, but my cultivation, my will, my very mind. They enslave and torment me without end. And now, they have turned their cruelty toward my children, Stella and Janus. If Janus hadn't risked his life to take Stella away from here... I dare not think of the lives they would be leading."

"Janus risked his life for me?" Stella asked.

"He did, and you said he faked his death and fled to another sect? That was likely to lose the Celestial Empire's tail or to direct their focus away from where he left you to himself. He's always looked out for his little sister."

Stella balled her hands into fists and was seething with rage. "Those Celestial Empire bastards, all of this is their fault." Her Star Core hummed aggressively in her chest. "Let's go to Argentum right now."

"Are you sure that's wise, Princess?" Sebastian said nervously from the side. Everyone could see her mental state wasn't exactly stable, and they knew what that resulted in.

"Don't worry, I don't give a single shit about the Silverspires anymore." Stella's eyes narrowed. "It's those Celestial Empire enforcers and that council member that dared to steal my gift to Ash and inflict this suffering upon Mom that will receive my wrath—I'm going to kill every last one of them."