Chapter 506: Worthless Power + A short break until Dec 1st

Stella was glad to finally have a leash around Morrigan. The effectiveness of heavenly oaths on Origins was dubious at best, especially on the Origin of the Void, and ever since they met, Stella hadn't been able to decipher this woman's true intentions.

Was she friend or foe?

However, now that Morrigan was effectively trapped in the Grove of Eternal Rebirth, Stella didn't have to worry. From now on, Morrigan's motives had to align with the Ashfallen Sect's greater interests if she wanted to avoid an undesirable fate.

Stella was even more pleased when Morrigan suggested that she wanted to contribute to the Ashfallen Sect by founding a group called the Covenant. Its members would supposedly consist of the void Ents, including General Khaos. Since they were Ash's creations, their loyalty was undeniable, making them the perfect pawns to lend to Morrigan.

Yet, Stella did feel slightly offended. She had devoted herself to the art of assassination, and her aether Qi gave her a similar skill set to a void user. She had even risen to the heights of the Nascent Soul Realm. So, why hadn't Morrigan asked for her participation?

Stella appraised Morrigan before her. Death had not been kind to the Origin. The façade of a beautiful woman, sharing features with Elaine that Stella had grown accustomed to calling Morrigan, had been peeled away. Underneath was her true face: a wraith-like void creature with a vague humanoid shape, and while they were talking, her form further degraded. It was as if her soul was slowly losing the shape of Morrigan and returning to its void form.

Sensing her stare, Morrigan asked, "Is something the matter?"

"Um—while I'm sure Ash will be willing to lend the void Ents for this new organization, I was wondering why you didn't ask for my participation?" Stella asked, trying not to let her true feelings leak into her tone. "You know, as I'm quite well-versed in the art of assassination."

"Oh, darling, that's what was on your mind? If you feel left out, I think you have missed the entire point of the Covenant."

Stella raised a brow. "I have? Is it not an assassin organization designed to take out the enemies of Ashfallen?"

"That is true, but there's more to it. The Covenant isn't something anyone should want to join unless they are a suicidal maniac or have nothing to lose. The safety of its members will be a secondary concern to the mission."

"Right... what is Elaine's role in the Covenant then?"

"Logistics alongside me, assuming I'm unable to go beyond the grove and into the living world," Morrigan replied while vaguely gesturing to Darklight City in the distance. "You can also participate or even oversee the day-to-day operations, but you're far too important to the sect to participate or even be associated with the Covenant. If the group is successful the way I'm planning, it would paint a massive target on your back if it were known that you were part of it."

Stella crossed her arms and frowned. "Just what are you planning to make here?"

"Something fearsome, where the very whisper of its name strikes fear into those who hear it. To develop such a reputation, the Covenant will have to be more than ruthless." Morrigan narrowed her eyes. "It will have to be unrelenting, foreboding, and have a perfect kill record. Those marked for death by the Covenant must die to strike fear in the souls of those old monsters from the shadows." She floated closer, and despite being a ghost of her former past, Stella could feel the aura of an ancient being radiating from Morrigan. "How about another perspective? What happens when you fear the darkness, Stella?"

"You shine a light at it?"

"Exactly. You shine a light. Trust me, you do not want to be in that spotlight when the time comes, as they will do everything to kill their fear—let me, an immortal bound to this afterlife, take that burden. Stella, while I've mostly watched you from afar, I've met people in the past who resemble you. Your unique personality and qualities make you far more suited to stand in the public's eye than hunt in the shadows to complete someone else's dirty work and gain no recognition."

"But I don't like dealing with people—"

"Yet you go out of your way to show off. Look, Stella, you're driven forward by pride to mask your fragile ego and gain the recognition of others. You want to be praised and respected while acting like you want none of it. Those of the Covenant will enjoy no such glory. All that awaits us is death in the shadows."

Stella could feel the resolve in Morrigan's voice. This wasn't some pet project by a bored immortal done to waste time. The name had sounded cool, and Stella liked hunting people down, but it was as Morrigan claimed: she had missed the point. Morrigan, an entity that had experienced life and death an uncountable number of times, possessed a resolve that couldn't be matched.

If anyone could make this dream a reality, it was Morrigan leading a group of perfectly loyal Ents that were created to serve.

I almost feel bad for suggesting she had left me out now, Stella thought. Perhaps it was her lack of self-confidence, but in retrospect, asking to join felt like she was looking down on the Covenant, as if her joining would make the organization a joke.

Fidgeting with her cloak sleeve, she asked, "Will you let anyone else join besides the void Ents and Elaine?"

"Perhaps," Morrigan turned to Kaida. "Just how intense can you make the oaths?"

"Depends on whether their soul is willing or not," Kaida answered after a moment of contemplation. "There is technically no limit to the restrictions and punishments I can place upon a soul, but they will never be foolproof, and if their ego rejects it, then the oaths will fail."

Stella looked at the Celestial Ink Dragon and noticed his scales were reforming in real time. The sheer size of the array he had needed to forcefully link Morrigan to the Grove of Eternal Rebirth had taken a lot out of him and served as proof of his words. Simply applying a Soul Anchor to an unwilling soul had been such a battle—it wasn't hard to imagine how a soul would react to an oath of absolute loyalty that would cause instant death at the slightest betrayal. Few people would be crazy enough to accept such conditions.

Morrigan turned to face Stella. "I'd be open to taking some young cultivators into the Covenant, on the condition that they understand what they are getting into and that their souls accept an oath of absolute secrecy and loyalty. With such strict conditions, I'm not holding out hope that many will join, but if they do, I'll make sure to train them well so they can carry out the missions to my standards."

Stella nodded, unable to stomach the thought of how intense the training from a cultivator who had existed since the birth of creation would be. Just how many techniques, skills, and martial arts had she mastered over the eons?

Shuddering, she decided now was a good time to leave.

"Morrigan, I'll try to make you a body and recruit some cultivators. In the meantime, you focus on cultivating yourself," Stella said.

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"Thank you, darling," Morrigan replied, giving a slight bow.

Stella gave Kaida a nod and was on her way. Now that she was in the Nascent Soul Realm, she had no need to hop on a flying sword. She could simply levitate and fly out of the grove. Leaving the Grove of Eternal Rebirth behind, she felt the fresh cold of the late afternoon replace the tinge of lingering death.

"I forgot what having seasons was like after spending a year on a rock stuck in a perpetual spatial storm," Stella mused as she paused high above Darklight City and looked at the sun peeking over a layer of cloud on the horizon. It was so beautiful that she took a moment to enjoy the feeling of the sun's warmth on her face, and the wind playfully rustled her robes. With a satisfied sigh, she rested her arms behind her back like a heavenly senior and observed the world below. While she had been gone for a year, barely a month had passed out here. Everything was as she had left it.

Thousands of tiny houses sprawled out below her, yet with her superior eyesight, she could make out the many mortals going about their daily lives bundled up in warm-looking clothes. Trails of smoke carrying the aroma of cooking lazily rose into the sky, along with distant laughter and chatter.

A smile spread across her lips. Compared to the suffering of the Rift Born she saw in the lower layers of the Tessellate Citadel, the people of Darklight City lived peaceful lives because of Ash's efforts.

When I revisit the Tessellate Citadel, I should bring lots of food with me,

Stella thought. Of course, after seeing the situation, she freely gave out everything edible in her storage rings to the Rift Born. But as a cultivator who didn't really need to eat, she hadn't been carrying as much as she would have liked. The only reason she had kept so much on hand in the first place was in case she ended up stuck in a pocket realm with a weaker cultivator like Jasmine, who still needed to eat. A few years' worth of food for a single person didn't go that far when trying to feed thousands.

She had plans to go back. Despite missing home for a whole year and enjoying this fantastic feeling of being in a place so huge that it stretched out to the horizon, now that she was in the Nascent Soul Realm, she understood the struggles of powerful cultivators.

While cultivating in the Tessellate Citadel, I felt like I was drowning in Qi sometimes. But here, on the ninth layer, it's closer to a Qi desert. Stella mused as she looked at her handand willfully relaxed her spirit roots. A faint wisp of Qi escaped like hissing steam, and she had to expend effort to hold in her own Qi while attempting to pull even the smallest amount of Qi from the surroundings into herself. It's like drinking water by munching on wet sand. I'm more likely to lose moisture from my wasted saliva than what I gain from the water in the sand. Bleh, cultivating feels awful now.

She closed her hand and shook her head. "What a nightmare. How did my sister even reach the Monarch Realm under these circumstances?"

"Wasn't that the whole reason for the spiritual spring?" Diana said as she floated to her side, her great raven wings gently flapping, messing up Stella's hair.

Of course, Stella had noticed Diana's approach a while ago, so she wasn't startled by her presence.

"I suppose that's true. Without an area of dense Qi, I can't see how she can cultivate at all," Stella said and glanced at Diana. "I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but you've changed."

While it was the same old Diana she was used to, she was also a totally different person in her eyes. Two black horns now curled up from her forehead, proudly announcing her true nature as a demon, which she had once been so careful to hide in fear of being hated. Her wings had grown, their size giving more emphasis to Diana's majestic aura. It was crazy to think Diana had once been a short, dull-eyed girl scraping to get by after her family was wiped out.

Diana snorted. "That's what I should be saying. I hardly recognize you."

"Really? I find that hard to believe. Unlike you, I don't have horns growing out of my head! Can a human like me really change that much in a year?" Stella laughed, shaking her head at the ridiculousness of it all. "I doubt it."

"At your age, absolutely. Not to mention ascending a whole realm and the maturity that comes from living away from home for so long. However," her eyes narrowed, "I also suspect you met someone?"

"Met someone?" Stella tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

"A boy, perhaps?"

"Oh. You mean Kael?"

Diana blinked. "Wait. There's actually someone?"

"Someone? I don't think I'm following. I did meet a boy named Kael, who's watching over the house we bought."

"We?" Diana chuckled. "Oh my, it's progressing faster than I thought."

Stella furrowed her brows. "I'm really not following what you're on about."

"Let's just leave it at that, then," Diana said, smiling playfully, and switched topics. "How are you finding life as a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator?"

"It sucks," Stella answered instantly, making Diana laugh. "Actually, I should clarify, it sucks here specifically. Being able to levitate around and knowing I have the safety of an infant soul now is nice," she curled her fingers into a fist. "The increase in power is nice too... I can feel it crackling through every inch of my body as I move, desperately trying to escape and wreak havoc upon the world."

"Ah... that's because your soul hasn't had time to assimilate with your rapid rise in cultivation. You might not have noticed it as much on a higher layer of creation, as the difference between your soul's Qi density and the outside wasn't so different. But down here, it's dangerous to be so out of control. You need to spend a lot of time strengthening yourself," Diana said seriously. "Otherwise, you will find our Qi-starved reality trying to rip that precious Qi from you, and you will be unable to stop it."

"Yeah... I can feel it tugging at me already," Stella sighed and looked toward Red Vine Peak. Ash was there, taller than ever, lording over the surroundings like the god he was. "I almost feel like I don't belong here."

Is this why cultivators from the higher realms never come down? I wish the era of ascension would begin already, this lack of Qi feels awful...

A clawed hand patted her on the back with enough force to almost knock the wind out of her. "It seems your glumness hasn't changed one bit."

"Ow!" Stella grunted, floating forward a bit. "When did you get so strong?"

"Same time as you—come on, we are in this together. Cheer up, smile!" Diana grinned, showing off her fangs. "This will always be your home, no matter how much reality tries to reject us. If anything, this distance you feel proves how much you have grown in a short time."

Stella sighed as she looked back down at Darklight City, and the two of them fell into a contemplative silence, standing side by side in the air.

It was Stella who broke the silence as she wanted to share an observation. "You know, all these people living their lives. It looks so simple and peaceful. I can't believe that on the higher layers of creation, the Qi is so dense that the concept of mortals hardly exists. There's just weak and strong cultivators, all aiming and fighting over the same goals."

"I know, right?" Diana said, looking to the sky as the late afternoon sunlight danced across her face. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face Stella with a nostalgic but almost sad smile. "You know, when I was a child, I thought the Nascent Soul Realm was the absolute peak one could achieve, and my dad... he finally did it. While I didn't like him as a father, I respected him as a cultivator. Yet now, I can't believe how naive and stupid I was, like a frog at the bottom of a well. Up there... the Nascent Soul Realm is enough to maybe get you an Elder position in a minor sect. Nothing special, just a dime a dozen."

"I get what you're saying," Stella said, "But you're wrong."

"Wrong?"

Stella faced Diana. "The Nascent Soul Realm is special to us. Just because to others far above us it might be deemed worthless doesn't mean it doesn't have value." She clenched her fist and spoke through gritted teeth. "I worked day and night for a whole year to achieve this level, and I have no doubts you put in tremendous effort too. We have fought too many life-and-death battles to get to this point and now..." Stella looked into the distance, "I will soon possess the power to trample on the Celestial Empire and save my mom. How can you call such power meaningless?"

"Sorry."

Stella glanced at Diana, "Sorry? What are you sorry for?"

"I..." Diana looked down at the ground, "I didn't put in tremendous effort like you. After reaching the Nascent Soul Realm and seeing just how much further up the mountain I had left to climb, I got disheartened and left the Eternal Realm earlier than I had planned. I'm sorry," her shoulders sagged, and the ever-confident aura of the demoness was gone. "I failed you and the sect that has given me so much."

All Stella saw in this moment was her first human friend. Rushing forward, she embraced her in a tight hug and sent them both spiraling a few meters through the air. Pulling Diana's head into her shoulder, Stella tightened the hug. "You did nothing wrong," Stella insisted. "I only stayed in the Eternal Realm so long because of selfish reasons."

Diana began softly crying—not that Stella would ever admit to noticing.

"I just can't believe I lost sight of our goals, giving up and getting disheartened while the World Tree is out there suffering—I'm just so sorry. I should have tried harder and put in that tremendous effort you expected of me."

Stella smiled and patted her back.

"You're a good friend, Diana," was all Stella replied, as nothing more needed to be said. All they could do was their best, placing one foot in front of the other to climb the endless mountain of power while not losing sight of themselves in the process.

And there wasn't a friend she would rather have at her side for the climb.