Chapter 58: (Interlude) The Ashen Devourer

Tristan Evergreen rushed up the side of Red Vine peak with viscous green flames enveloping his form. Ever since the scions of Evergreen and Winterwrath betrothal one another, his life had been flipped upside down.

With their combined strength and a beast tide on the way, the Grand Elders of the two families mutually agreed to team up on the Ravenborne family, which had seen a sharp decline in recent years.

They wanted to secure more spirit stones and advance their youth's cultivation in anticipation of the move. After what happened last time, the Evergreen and Winterwrath families refused to be reduced to second-rate families.

So why not eliminate one of their competitors while also boosting their youth? It was a win-win scenario.

Furthermore, there had also been rumors circulating that the Grand Elder of house Ravenborne was on the cusp of ascension to Nascent Soul, which worried the Patriarch as he didn't want his position of power contested as the only Narscent Soul in the sect.

So to avoid outrage among the families for executing a competitor, the Patriarch gave his blessing for the war behind closed doors. That way, the Patriarch got rid of a potential rival, removed a declining house from power, and furthered his support with two upcoming families.

Politics.

Tristan Evergreen felt like rolling his eyes. There was nothing he hated more than people. In fact, he hated everyone. Ever since butchering his cousin Wayne Evergreen, the previous scion of his house, he had set his eyes on eliminating his deceased cousin's sister. He wanted the whole main bloodline in the Evergreen family dead. Period.

Years of mistreatment and being deprived of resources by the main bloodline had only fueled his hatred.

It was only due to his new position as a first-stage Star Core, by consuming the Ravenborne Grand Elder's wandering soul after the supernova, that he had been clued in on this information by the other chatty Grand Elders and that they took him seriously.

As his mind wandered, he kept his eyes glued to the prize floating overhead. The pulsing lilac star of Qi was about to be the source of his second-biggest increase in cultivation. All he needed to do was get close enough to siphon some of that dense Qi.

Tristan gritted his teeth as he had to keep low to the ground to avoid the violent waves of Qi pulsing off the titanic lilac star overhead. How a single girl managed to store so much Qi inside her body was beyond Tristan, but he cared little. As a newly formed Star Core cultivator, he needed a lot of Qi to forcefully expand it and climb the stages to Nascent soul.

Only at the Nascent Soul would he unlock true immortality, as he could transfer his soul from his dying body to another vessel every few thousand years.

That enormous floating Star Core out in the open was a guiding light to a free lunch for all the cultivators for many miles. He would go up a whole stage if he could absorb even one-tenth of the Qi in that Star Core!

"Brother." Someone called out to him, and he looked over his shoulder at a plained-faced man he despised. "Is the Grand Elder really not coming?"

Tristan snorted, was his brother really this stupid?

Of course, he was. They all were stupid. To be referred to as brother by such an incompetent fool was the peak of insults.

Turning back to look where he was going, Tristan shouted over the roaring storm. "Do you see how stupidly big that forming Star Core is? Do you think a newbie girl can handle forming such a monstrous Star Core? It's at least a hundred times the size of mine!"

A hint of anger showed on the man's plain face running behind. "Isn't that all the more reason they should head over like you? Don't they want to absorb the Qi for themselves?"

"Fool." Tristan spat to the side, "When forming a Star Core, there are only two outcomes. In my case, I condensed the Star Core to the size of a fist and managed to anchor it inside my body."

Tristan then pointed up at the lilac star, almost the size of the peak that blocked out the entire sky above them. "Do you think Stella Crestfallen can condense that and fit it inside her body?"

"No." The man admitted flatly. "But—"

Tristan cut him off, "Exactly, so the most likely outcome is that the Star Core explodes, and there is another supernova. Which will kill everyone nearby, even Star Core experts such as the Grand Elder."

"What if she succeeds?" The man asked skeptically, "I mean, if she is doing her ascension so openly, I think she can do it."

Tristan rolled his eyes, "If she succeeds, the Grand Elders will rush in and either try to secure the girl to give to the Patriarch or take her forcefully and shove her into the center of a formation and use her Star Core to power it. There is no way for her to fight against multiple mid-stage Star Core experts. She is doomed either way."

The man remained silent for a while as the winds became more fierce the closer they got to the peak. Finally, after a moment, he shouted. "So if it's going to explode. Why are we charging at it exactly?"

A wicked smile appeared on Tristan's face, "You will find out soon enough."

Then before his brother could retort, Tristan sped up. The reason was simple, he wanted him to die. His eyes darted between everyone present. There were more Winterwrath cultivators than Evergreen, and he honestly didn't give a shit if his useless brothers and cousins perished here today.

He cared for nothing now that he was in the Star Core realm. With his new power, only a few other Star Core realm Grand Elders threatened him. If the family stopped wasting resources on these buffoons and instead spent them all on him, he could be a mid-stage Star Core expert within a decade!

Tristan's eyes once again drifted to the lilac star overhead. He couldn't help but lick his lips in glee. Once he absorbed some of that Star Core Qi floating overhead, he would be on par with his Father and be able to take over the family.

Explosions rang out ahead, and Tristan saw the entire mountain light up with golden symbols. 'A defensive formation?' That was highly suspicious. They were costly to deploy and maintain, and last he checked, the Red Vine peak was stripped of everything valuable a long time ago.

Tristan debated slowing down and letting those ahead lead the charge, but his Star Core gave him confidence that nothing could threaten him around here. Only the Patriarch was in the Narcest Soul realm, and he was in closed-door cultivation.

As he reached the pavilion entrance, he saw over ten cultivators in robes huddled around the wooden door. Their fists were aflame, and they all struck at the door in unison with a shout. The golden symbols flashed again, so the cultivators hit one time.

The door flew off its hinges and dispersed in a shower of splinters into a... mist? Tristan furrowed his brows as he slowed to a walk, his hands were clasped behind his back, and he held his head high.

The cultivators noticed his presence and parted ways to allow him to pass.

He had seen this type of mist before. It was one of the secret techniques of the now-deceased Ravenborne clan.

Had abandoning the coffin of stone that supposedly encased Diana Ravenborne come to bite him in the ass? Had she survived the supernova and escaped to Red Vine peak?

Tristan narrowed his eyes, searching the mist with his spiritual senses, but the dense mist and the pulses of Qi emanating from the forming Star Core overhead muddled his senses. Moments passed without anyone willing to move.

Deciding time was of the essence, Tristian flexed his 1st stage Star Core realm cultivation on those around him, making everyone tense up as gravity descended on them. "I think a Winterwrath brother or sister should lead the charge, don't you think?" He had a sinister grin, and everyone gulped.

A Winterwrath girl that Tristan recognized stepped forward with some effort to defy his presence. She had been eyeing him up for a while now. From his recollection, she was the elder sister of the woman his cousin married.

"Tristan, as the strongest here, why don't you lead rather than bully your juniors? Isn't abusing your cultivation in this situation rather uncouth and dishonorable?"

Tristan snorted, "If I tell you to go first, then you go first. How can the words of a Star Core cultivator be dishonorable?" Silently, Tristan seethed. Everyone was just here to grab just some free-floating Star Core Qi. Why did they act so presumptuously?

Since most of the people present were in the Soul Fire realm, they could get a few years of cultivation at most due to their inability to absorb enough in just a few minutes.

But for Tristan, this was a great opportunity, as one of the most significant advantages of a Star Core is its high absorption rate. It was why advancing in the Star Core realm was so difficult.

It required a cultivator to cultivate in only the most expensive runic Qi gathering formations or seek a rare opportunity like the one before him, as the Qi requirements to ascend were stupidly high.

Tristan felt impatience fester within him. What was the chance that something that could threaten him really existed within the mist? If he had to guess, the mist was caused by someone from the Ravenborne family in the middle of the Soul Fire realm.

But something seemed off. The mist was not the only suspicious thing. Why would Stella Crestfallen willingly conduct her Star Core ascension in the open like this?

Tristan ascended to the Star Core realm deep underground within a formation to mask and resist the heavenly lightning. However, the arrogance of Stella Crestfallen could almost be justified by the purity of the spatial Qi and the size of the forming Star Core.

Tristan really didn't want to go first. Every instinct he had honed over the years that had led him to this stage of power screamed at him that a monster lurked in the mist. To enter first would be a death sentence.

"Nichole, I'm not a man of dishonor. If you go first, I'll speak to my Father, and maybe I can help arrange a marriage for you?" Tristan recoiled slightly as he received a death stare from the Winterwrath woman that had stepped forward.

Tristan knew using force here would be less than ideal. He wanted someone to enter willfully.

But, from the impatience in everyone's gaze, he knew they just needed a little push.

So, fishing around in his spatial ring, which he had stolen from Wayne Evergreen's corpse, Tristan searched for something he could give as an incentive.

Honestly, he felt beyond frustrated.

Why couldn't these imbeciles charge in without a second thought? A helpless girl forming a Star Core was just beyond the mist! Why did they only just now grow a head on their shoulders?

Deciding he didn't care about anything in the spatial ring of his deceased cousin compared to the boon he would get from the Star Core, Tristan threw out the entire contents of the spatial ring into the mist.

Swords clattered on the stone, porcelain bottles smashed, causing pills to be scattered, and technique manuals fell with a thud. A herby scent wafted with the roaring wind from the storm overhead.

With immediate rewards being laid out before them, and their desire to siphon off some Qi from the forming Star Core before it went supernova, they all scrambled to be the first through the door with their spatial rings glowing, ready to gather as many of the scattered resources as possible.

Tristan stood back with a sneer. Those items had taken his cousin decades to collect, and he had thrown them away like trash.

But to him, they were junk compared to advancing his cultivation to the 2nd stage of the Star Core realm. So it was worth it if their sacrifice helped ensure the path through the mist was safe.

His eyes went wide as there was a brief scream—through the dense mist, Tristan saw a looming shadow descend from the wall, and before he knew it, two cultivators had vanished, and another two were pulverized into the ground by something heavy.

One had been a Winterwrath, and the other an Evergreen. "I knew it." Tristan cursed under his breath as his Star Core empowered his body.

He had been asked by the Grand Elders to hunt down the spider that had been terrorizing the forests a while back, and he could recognize its hunting style anywhere after witnessing the same thing happening in front of him many times.

However, this time, it was a dense mist instead of the signature ash cloud.

Tristan looked up and debated jumping the wall. If he encountered the spider on the roof, he could catch it mid-snack. Deciding that was a good idea, Tristan gathered some Qi into his feet and lept up. Leaving a dent in the stone and shooting up a few meters.

From the air, Tristan saw the Star Core forming above an enormous tree. 'Stella Crestfallen must be hiding among its branches.' Tristan thought to himself. He couldn't see much else as the entire central courtyard of the pavilion was blanketed in that same dense mist that restricted his spiritual senses.

Looking around, he spotted the spider. He had never actually seen the thing, only heard what it looked like from witnesses that it had let escape.

Its body was a pale, ashen color, with many red eyes the size of a child. Eight limbs jutted from his titanic body, each as thick as a small tree.

Tristan couldn't help but gulp as he landed gracefully on the rooftop and stood mere meters away from the behemoth. It turned to him with an eerie silence that didn't match its gargantuan size. White and green shreds of robes coated in blood dangled from its drooling fangs, and its face twitched as if it was happy to see him.

"You monster." Tristan's ring flashed, and an enchanted blade with an ornate handle appeared in his firm grip. "You think you can evade this young master for eternity?"

The spider's eyes gleamed—its chewing slowed, and a single shoe fell out of its mouth. Then before Tristan knew it, ash began to swirl around them. Lightly at first, hardly noticeable due to the storm, but a literal dome of ash encircled them after a few seconds.

It was challenging him to a duel. But, as the ash blocked out his spiritual sense and the sunlight, Tristan was left in the complete dark with nothing but the sickly green glow of his Soul Fire illuminating an area of one meter around him.

Tristan couldn't help but feel a little intimidated as a shadow loomed within the ash.

It was time to face the Ashen Devourer in a life-and-death duel.