Chapter 414: A Promise

Stella hopped down from the wall onto an exposed tree root that was like a bridge through the swamp that had formed due to the intense rain. Balancing herself by stretching her arms out to either side, she walked past pools of mud from which Ents were emerging. Purple wood twisted up from half-decayed corpses that were face down in the muck, consuming the bodies and blood-stained mud in the process.

The Ents weren't large, only around a head taller than Stella. They had four legs, but unlike the wyvern they resembled, they had curved spines and stood tall like humans on their hind legs. They eyed her as she passed, likely verifying she wasn't a monster before losing interest.

"Whatchu looking at," Stella sized one up that ruptured from the mud beside her. It stared at her with the intelligence of a pile of rocks before looking to the sky like all the others before it. Spreading out its black wings, it leaped into the air, sending a wall of mud Stella's way.

"Can't you see I'm walking here?!" Stella clicked her tongue and vanished into the aether. A moment later, she stepped out onto one of the branches of the Tree Ashlock was inhabiting and looked at the root she had been standing on a moment now caked in mud.

While phasing through the aether was as easy as breathing for her, Ashlock's words regarding conserving her Qi had got her thinking. I could fight like that for days, maybe even a week or two. But I would eventually run out of Qi, and that's when the Nascent Soul Realm and possibly even a Monarch Realm monster would appear. While I might be able to fight one if I get lucky at my maximum strength, I won't stand a chance if I'm weakened. If only walking wasn't so tiresome and annoying. How did I even survive when I had to walk everywhere?

"Stella, you can just drop all the spirit stones on this tree's roots."

"Oh... sure," Stella said as she remembered why she had jumped down from the wall in the first place. Extending her hand over the branch, her spatial rings flashed with light, and spirit stones rained down like hail, landing with a squelch around the tree as they got embedded in the mud.

Ethereal roots arose from the mud and coiled around the offering like hungering vipers. The pile of high-grade spirit stones she had bought from the Eternal Pursuit Pavilion, which glowed with a vibrant silver hue, began to dull, but Stella could feel it. The Qi stored in the stones was being taken in by Ashlock and redistributed to the nearby trees.

It was as if life was being breathed into the already lush forest as an almost mythical aura spread out like a wave, with the offspring Ashlock was inhabiting as the focal point.

Stella phased through the aether and arrived on the branch of another nearby tree. With a smile, she crouched down and gently placed her fingers on its bark. "Sorry about this, little bro," she said, pushing her spiritual senses into the tree's bark. Instead of resisting, the tree welcomed her in.

What fascinating beings spirit trees are, yet somehow, their structure feels so familiar. Stella mused as she felt vague happy pulses of emotions from the tree flow into her. A spirit tree's capability to communicate and overall intelligence would increase alongside its cultivation, similar to monsters. Yet they are still so different from monsters and humans. First, their soul cores spread throughout their trunk, giving them immense Qi pools. So it's a little hard to estimate, but I think this tree is somewhere in the middle stages of the Soul Fire Realm.

"Hey bro, you were cultivating light affinity?" Stella saw motes of light Qi floating from the tree's leaves down through the rest of the tree's body. It was such a sparse amount of Qi compared to the raging rivers of aether Qi that flowed through Stella's spirit roots, but a whole realm of power did separate them. Feeling a flash of acknowledgment from the tree, Stella patted the tree approvingly, "Light affinity is a good choice for a tree. Do you mind if I dig a little deeper?"

Feeling no disapproval, Stella pushed her spiritual senses toward the tree's roots. Ah, here we go. If the light Qi being captured by the leaves is like a constant drip, the untamed Qi surging up through the roots from the spirit stones is like a burst dam. Hold on, is that desolation Qi as well?

Stella focused on a black mist seemingly invading the tree's body. However, the tree didn't seem bothered by it, and she couldn't see any signs of the desolation harming it. If anything, the desolation Qi seemed suppressed by a strange type of Qi Stella had never seen before.

A calmness that cut out all external noise and distractions blanketed her mind, and before she knew it, her bloodline had activated. The seemingly infinite celestial library manifested overhead, and a single book floated toward her. It had a terribly worn-out cover and looked as old as time itself as it flicked open to show yellowed pages. Information flowed off the pages and straight into her mind.

Usually, she had to work hard for her ancestors to bless her with information like this. So, for it to come so easily could only mean one thing.

This is something my ancestors wanted me to see.

Visions of lush forests being reduced to ruin, only to rise again from the blackened wastelands flooded her mind while strange voices harshly whispered in her ear over the visions.

Stella Crestfallen, your fate is tied to what you seek to destroy.

The cycle is eternal.

What is brought to ruin will rise again.

When reality crumbles, a new star is born.

Your hatred for the heavens brings only desolation.

To win, harmony must be maintained.

The book snapped shut, and Stella gasped for air while clutching her head with her free hand. Her brain was pounding like a drum as information about harmony dao weaseled its way into every nook and cranny of her consciousness.

"Harmony?" Stella hissed through gritted teeth, "What a load of utter bullshit. How can we win against the heavens with something as worthless as harmony?"

"Stella, did you just say harmony?" Ashlock's voice echoed through her mind.

She nodded while wincing in pain, "Yeah. My ancestors just shoved some information about it into my mind. Though I can't see why it would be useful compared to desolation."

"You shouldn't compare them like that. Two opposing forces shape our reality: destruction and creation. One cannot exist without the other, and the more one tries to triumph over the other, the stronger the other becomes. Desolation Qi allows me to lord over destruction, but the more I try to destroy, the more reality fights back. Like a vacuum, Qi rushes into the lands I lay to waste, and I have to try harder and harder to maintain the desolation. That's what makes my new cultivation technique, Divine Cycle of Creation and Ruin, so powerful. I can remake reality in my image by incorporating harmony and maintaining a balance between ruin and creation."

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Stella's eyes widened. His new cultivation technique... it had cycle in the name. Those strange voices over the visions had warned her that her fate was tied to what she sought to destroy. Senior Lee once said Ash and my fates were now tied after he had saved me because I had foolishly tried to save Ash from a divine tribulation. So if Ash and my fates are tied—he becomes what I seek to destroy, and he has the word cycle in the name of this cultivation technique. Her eyes flickered to the tree ablaze with divine energy, the power of the heavens. Around the tree, new monsters were created from the corpses of the fallen. Beyond the wall was a wasteland where nothing could live, but on the other side was a lush forest of offspring. What stood between destruction and creation was a divine tree.

Stella had a terrible realization. Isn't Ash becoming similar to heaven?

"Tree, that thing that gives you powers that I told you not to tell me about. Did it give you this cultivation technique?"

Ashlock paused for a while before answering as if analyzing her strange reaction. "Yeah, it did. Why?"

Stella slowly stepped away from the tree, thoughts whizzing through her head as every seemingly independent thread started to weave together perfectly. She thought about Ash and her strange origins, how they came together and ended up with tied fates, and most importantly, their end goal, which was to destroy the heavens.

There was only one person who connected it all.

"Tell me, Ash, what did Senior Lee do to you that day you ascended to Star Core Realm?"

She still remembered that day vividly. Senior Lee had shown up out of seemingly nowhere, gave her some foul-tasting pills to improve her foundation, and humored them with some tests and knowledge. He gave off the impression of a powerful old man who enjoyed wandering around and the simpler things in life. However, when he discovered Ash was a talking tree, he placed his hand on his trunk, and that's when their fate changed.

Senior Lee did something that caused Ash to immediately ascend multiple stages and invite a heavy tribulation to the Star Core Realm.

"As you know, he gave me a divine fragment—one of nine. It was intended for the World Tree to initiate the era of ascension, but he gave it to me instead. It turned me into a demi divine being with unlimited cultivation potential, meaning I can reach for the heavens."

"One of nine... what happens if you get the others?"

"I can become a true god."

"A true god? Do they sit above the heavens?"

"I... don't know. Maybe?"

"Mhm," Stella paced up and down the branch while tapping her chin. She felt so close to figuring it all out. "Senior Lee said he was bored with life and that he was entering his final meditation, right? Do you remember exactly what he said?"

"Let me think. I believe Senior Lee said something like, 'What may be an entire lifetime to you is but a passing moment for me. Yet my time is running out. I have but one last eon of meditation left in this fleeting spirit of mine.' Which now that I think about it—"

"Doesn't make sense." Stella finished his sentence. "Anyone past Nascent Soul Realm is basically immortal. For someone as powerful as him, there is no way for him to die."

"Unless he wants to. The words 'fleeting spirit' and how he spoke of boredom make me think he wanted to die."

Stella nodded, "Exactly. But remember how powerful Senior Lee was? He literally froze time when he wanted to speak with you. Not to mention, he could traverse the void between layers of creation, which is supposed to be impossible. I bet you no sword could pierce his skin. When you're a god, the only thing that can kill you is another god. Not only did he give you that divine fragment, but he also brought me back from the brink of death and gave me the strength to punch heaven's lightning. You don't think..."

"He's raising us to kill him?" Ashlock said with a hint of disbelief. "He said he would meet me at the top. I thought we would fight the heavens together, but what if that's not the case?"

"Senior Lee also made everything sound like a coincidence," Stella added while rubbing her chin, "But I think this was planned. He was friends with a member of the Voidmind family focused on research, and he also had friends in the Celestial Empire, where I was supposedly born from an experiment. He then showed up out of nowhere, gifted us this power, and tied our fates together. It's just all too convenient when everything seems to lead back to him for it to be a happy coincidence."

"What does tying our fates together even mean?" Ashlock pondered, "I know if either of us dies, it will greatly affect the future path of the other. But I feel like there's more to it."

Stella's eyes widened as a thought struck her: "Wait. You're onto something there. Let's see. Your fate is to do what the World Tree cannot do, right? To reach the heavens."

"Right."

"Meanwhile, my fate, according to the Elder from the Azure Clan when I was deciphering the aether origin stone, is that the Crestfallen name has reappeared in the annals of history since time immemorial, and it was always mentioned before the fall of the nine realms. If I add us together, you become the bridge to the heavens, and somehow, my involvement leads to the fall of the nine realms?"

"Hold on. If the Crestfallen name always appears during an era when the nine realms fall, this has happened before. Yet the heavens still rule, and the nine realms remain. Either those are fairytales of old, or the realm really did fall and was rebuilt. But by who?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure Senior Lee has the answers." Stella looked to the sky, "If only he wasn't so far away."

Ashlock laughed in her mind, "At the rate, the two of us are progressing? I'm sure we will meet him far earlier than he ever expected. We just have to keep slaughtering, and we will be there soon enough."

"No rest for the wicked, eh?" Stella huffed some hair out of her face as it was blown around by the intense gale.

"Hah, I wish. All of our immediate enemies and the beast tide aside, Morrigan seems convinced that my soul looks like an Origin. If it's true, the heavens and every cultivator out there have a good reason to kill me. But don't worry," Ashlock chuckled, "If I die and really am an Origin, I will just come back again."

"No..." Stella muttered as she realized something. The threads of realization she had experienced during their conversation all led to a single conclusion.

"No?"

She slowly turned to look right at Ash, "No, you won't come back."

"Why not? Is that not what Origins do?"

Stella shook her head adamantly. "Those strange words you use like bingo or nuke. The fact that you lack knowledge in some areas but have extensive knowledge in others that you have never had access to. You definitely had a past life, but one in a different body and world. I think... I know what type of Origin you are—"

"Stop."

Stella clamped her mouth shut. His voice was filled with finality.

"I don't want to know."

"But—"

"My name is Ashlock, and I'm a demonic tree. I have secrets, and now you have yours. Don't you think it's best if we each have a piece of the puzzle?"

Stella furrowed her brows. He wasn't making any sense.

"Look, Stella," his voice dropped to a grave whisper, "This power inside me... it's done nothing but good for me." An ethereal root rose from the mud and patted her head, "But we both know power doesn't come for free. It has a plan for me, a destiny, if you will. I suspect this power may be the Origin, not me, and I'm unsure how an Origin might react to being discovered. Sometimes ignorance is bliss."

Stella gulped. "You want me to keep it a secret to keep myself safe?"

"Yes, you trust me, right? Whatever you figured out, don't worry about it for now. I have no plans of dying and leaving you alone, and we will overthrow the heavens and break this cycle together. Okay? Learning what type of Origin I or the power inside me is will not change anything and is only likely to invite disaster."

Stella nodded.

"Good. One day, when we are at the top of the world, let's exchange secrets. When there is finally nothing that can threaten our lives."

"Promise?" Stella said, holding out her pinky finger to the ethereal root. "I want to learn about who you were before becoming a tree."

"I promise." The root was far too large, but Ash still managed to gently circle the tip slightly around her pinky.