Life had been busy over the last few days on Red Vine Peak for Ashlock and his sect. Douglas had spent three days tirelessly working on Kaida's Bastion. At first, the Lindwyrm hadn't seemed so sure about what he wanted as he still lacked imagination, having only evolved from a small grass snake within the last few months.
So Ashlock had guided Kaida with a few ideas, all of which he loved, and then relayed to Douglas through a rather shabby drawing. Douglas thankfully had the skills to interpret the snake's diagrams and soon got to work.
Since they had to wait for the Demonic tree to acquire the ink affinity before Ashlock could use the {Skyborne Bastion} skill to propel the tree to the Star Core Realm, the Bastion would remain on the ground for now.
Douglas carved out a large piece of rock from the mountain like an iceberg similar in size to Willow's Bastion. So, to an outsider, it appeared like any normal part of the mountain. But Douglas had left a small gap around the future ship and kept it in place with a few stone pillar supports that could be removed when it was time to let it fly.
The demonic tree and ink lake were no longer visible from the surface. All that could be seen was a hole that led down into a sizeable hollowed-out area that contained the tree. Its canopy served as a sort of roof that blocked up the hole, only letting streaks of sunlight into the rest of the space.
Within the hollowed-out room, similar to a cavern, was the ink lake where the tree grew, a dry shoreline around the edge, and indentations in the stone walls that were perfect for storing books. This space would be Kaida's library and cultivation space. Although not visible from the surface, under the ink lake was a massive Qi-gathering formation that directed ambient and ink Qi toward the demonic tree to speed up its development.
Beyond the rounded, hollowed-out room was the ship's bow, which consisted of a meeting area. Since this Bastion would remain defensive and always around Red Vine Peak like a floating island, Ashlock designed it with administration in mind. Other sect members could work or wait to sign a heavenly contract with Kaida in this meeting area.
Even with the ship hidden underground, Ashlock left the Ents he had assigned as security and gave Kaida all the books, scrolls, and technique manuals he had in storage. The more knowledge the ink snake acquired, the stronger he would be in the future, so it was best to leave him alone and let him read for now.
With the ink Bastion completed a day ago, Douglas had returned to Red Vine Peak to oversee the Mudcloaks, who were making good progress on the Citadel. Since the mountain was 8,000 meters tall, comparable to Mount Everest back on Earth, the tunnel through the mountain's middle, like an apple core, was naturally just as long. Which said a lot about how giant that worm had been, considering it had formed this tunnel within minutes.
Despite the fact there were over a thousand Mudcloaks that had been brought back, it would still take a long time to build the staircase all the way to the top and also extend the obelisk that went through the center. Despite this world's miraculous construction methods due to earth affinity and the combined effort of all the Mudcloaks, Ashlock expected the Citadel to be completed after winter.
The staircase Douglas had made previously was replaced with a ramp that went all the way up due to the Mudcloaks' short legs. The Starlight Lotuses had also been moved, as their roots had made the water taste bad for the Mudcloaks. So now the obelisk was covered in the moss they had brought from their home. The moss did glow slightly, providing some light, but Ashlock also decided to grow some luminescent mushrooms, as there wasn't much sunlight that reached 8,000 meters down.
Ashlock was absentmindedly watching the Mudcloaks hard at work through his roots when he felt something tap his trunk on the surface. His vision blurred, and he saw Stella waiting patiently in the morning sun.
"Good morning, Tree," Stella said with a smile. "There's something I want to talk to you about."
"Stella, are you avoiding your new apprentice?" Ashlock chuckled.
After some convincing on his part, Stella did end up taking Kane Azurecrest as an apprentice. The two actually got on surprisingly well over the last few days, all things considered.
Stella had spent a few hours teaching him the Mind Fortress Pill recipe and had him practice it a hundred times. Ashlock suspected Stella was so happy with her new apprentice because it meant she didn't have to make the pills herself and could offload all the tedious work to him.
However, Stella still refused to let Kane come and see her alchemy lab in the cavern below Red Vine Peak and would only head over to the White Stone Place when she needed to teach Kane a new recipe.
Stella pouted, "You're the one who forced me to take him on as an apprentice. So it's not my fault if I don't want to teach him anything." She then gazed out to the east. "I don't want to sit here making pills. I'd rather train my swordsmanship and improve my cultivation."
"Fair enough," Ashlock replied. "So, what do you need from me?"
"I can feel Nox's presence out there in the wilderness," Stella caressed her Maple Leaf earring between her fingers. "I can tell she is far away from here but hasn't moved in weeks."
"Oh?" Ashlock hummed. That was interesting. Why would Nox not have moved in weeks? "I wonder if the curse finally got her, and she turned into a tree."
Stella's eyes widened. "If that's the case, we should retrieve my other earring before someone else gets it."
Ashlock would love to, but that was far outside his root range, and he was not prepared to send anyone that deep into the wilderness without his supervision. He also couldn't send his Ents because they were busy guarding Kaida...
"Stella, it's too far. We have no way to chase her safely." Asklock said dismissivly.
"Tree, have you got wood for brains?" Stella pointed at the Bastion that was floating beside the mountain peak. "Did you forget you have floating islands now?"
"I didn't forget," Ashlock replied. He had totally forgotten that exploration was now a possibility. He had spent nearly a decade as an immobile tree where anything more than a mountain range away was impossible for him to reach.
But Stella was right; now he had options. Of course, he wouldn't admit that to Stella, so he came up with a reasonable excuse. "The Bastion travels incredibly slow beyond my roots. And if other cultivators saw a giant floating island through the sky, it might draw more attention to us."
Stella squinted her eyes. "Who are you so afraid of? The Voidmind Family? The Skyrends? Hell, even the Patriarch won't be our match soon. And besides, can't you just teleport the Bastion to the edge of your root range? That way, no one can trace where it came from and where it's going, assuming someone does see it."
That was fair. "Fine. You make a good point," Ashlock conceded. "Go find Douglas for me. I want him to make some changes to the Bastion before we set off."
Stella grinned, and with a snap of her fingers, a portal manifested, and she reached through, pulling a perplexed Douglas through with two Mudcloaks clinging to his legs.
"Yes?" Douglas asked Stella with slight irritation. "Do you need my help with something?"
"Sorry to bother you, Douglas. I know you are terribly busy," Ashlock said through {Abyssal Whispers}. "But I'm about to send the Bastion after Nox. So I need you to make some changes to it."
Douglas's attitude immediately changed, and he turned to look toward the giant demonic tree that dominated Red Vine Peak. "Absolutely, Patriarch. What do you want me to do?"
Stella seemed slightly annoyed at his sudden respectful attitude, but Douglas pretended to ignore it.
"Hollow out the inside of the Bastion with a Qi gathering formation. Since the Bastion will travel rather slowly, this will give Stella a place to cultivate while we travel." Ashlock instructed, "Oh, I was also going to ask you to install an illusion array like the one surrounding the mountain peak."
"Sure thing. I can have both of those things done within a few hours. But are you sure about the illusion array?" Douglas rubbed his chin as he looked at the Bastion. "For an array that size, I doubt Willow could sustain it after what you mentioned previously about its limitations."
"That is true," Ashlock mused. "But I still want it installed. So that if I take over control of the Bastion, I can power the illusion array myself."
"Alrighty then." Douglas grabbed the two Mudcloaks clinging to his legs by the tuft of their cloaks and picked them up into the air. Making them wave their little legs. "You two are going to help me," Douglas said as he marched over to the Bastion, and the two Mudcloaks went limp in his hands and made a sad noise.
"I'll help with the array," Stella joined in a step behind Douglas.
The two Mudcloaks waved their limbs and cheered, "Stella! Help!"
***
A few hours later, Stella sat on a comfortable cushion within a small cavern of black stone.
The cavern walls were covered in silvery runic lines, which made up the Qi gathering array that Stella had assisted Douglas in installing. A staircase led up to the surface of the Bastion on the far side, and a large amethyst crystal embedded into the ceiling was the Bastion core that powered the whole ship. Stella could put her hands on the core and transfer spatial Qi from her Star Core to Willow if needed.
"Are you ready, Stella? I'm about to teleport you to the edge of my roots," many voices echoed within Stella's mind.
"Sure, I'm ready when you are."
All of the silver runic lines of the Qi Gathering Formation, throughout not just the cavern but the entire Bastion, lit up as a wave of spatial Qi enveloped the ship.
Since the silvery lines spread throughout the Bastion connected everything, Stella could tap in and cast her spiritual sense beyond the cavern's walls and see what surrounded the ship.
A truly enormous portal, rivaling the biggest Stella had ever seen, manifested nearby, sending ripples of spatial Qi for miles. The Bastion then began to rotate, likely under the command of Willow, until the bow of the ship was facing the portal.
In the few hours it had taken to outfit the Bastion with the formations, including the illusion formation, Stella had gone to the White Stone Palace and enlisted the help of three Redclaw elders.
The Grand Elder of the Redclaw family stood proudly at the front, while Elder Margret, who had freshly entered the Star Core Realm, and Elder Brent stood at his sides. Elder Mo had returned to his forge and had been left behind to manage the Redclaw family in their absence.
Standing motionlessly beside Willow was Khaos, whom Ashlock had insisted on sending to be Stella's bodyguard.
Everyone else remained behind except the Redclaws, Khaos, and Stella. This was because Ashlock could teleport anyone he needed within a moment's notice.
The Bastion moved forward and rumbled through the portal. Stella felt the air surrounding the Bastion suddenly change. It was no longer as dense with spatial Qi, meaning they were now many miles east, over the wilderness, and far from Ashlock's trunk.
Tugging on her connection with the stolen maple leaf earring, Stella confirmed that they were now much closer to Nox but still had quite a distance to go.
"I can't feel the connection to the earring like you can, Stella," Ashlock said. "So, you will need to direct Willow through the runic formation. Just focus some spatial Qi on an area near the front of the ship, and Willow will direct the ship in that direction."
Stella followed Ashlock's instructions and placed her hand on a nearby silver line, inserting some Qi. She directed it to the left side of the ship. Sure enough, the whole ship began slowly rotating a moment later and heading northeast.
"What a coincidence," Ashlock said. "It seems Nox is in the same direction as the area Elder Brent investigated and found a lot of berserk monsters that seemed to be running from something."
"I suppose Nox causing the disturbance makes more sense than the Beast Tide coming so early," Stella sighed in relief. "Although the fact Nox is raising such a ruckus nearby is still deeply concerning. What is her plan? Why would she drive the monsters out of the wilderness and toward us?"
"I have no idea, but it's a good thing that we have the Bastion to investigate," Ashlock chuckled. "It's just a shame it's so slow and obvious. If Nox is even semi-conscious, she'll see us coming from a mile away."
"Isn't that why we installed the runic illusion array? So that we could sneak up on Nox?"
"Not how the array works, Stella," Ashlock sighed. "It's good at preventing outsiders from seeing what lies beyond the array. But they will still see a giant floating ball of spatial Qi. And perhaps the fact they can't see what is beyond it will terrify them even more. Also, there will only be enough Qi to run the array if I take control of the ship from Willow, which I can do only once a week and during the daytime."
Stella was about to reply, but the ship suddenly lurched forward, and she almost fell off her cushion.
"What the hell happened?" Stella asked.
"You just left the range of my roots," Ashlock replied. "So, the ship can only travel at a tenth of its maximum speed."
Stella knew the Bastion had been slow in the pocket realm, but it wasn't until she experienced it at max speed and then a sudden reduction that she realized how slow it was outside of Ashlock's influence.
"You know what? I've changed my mind," Stella laughed. "The Bastion really does suck at long-range missions. You were right. This is a terrible idea."
***
Ashlock had been concerned that he would lose connection to the Bastion once it left his root range, but that was not the case. The Bastion was connected to him through space, meaning it was like a small piece of his influence that could move around.
The problem, however, was how small the influence really was. Without casting {Progeny Dominion} on Willow, the most he could do through the Bastion was look around, talk to people through {Abyssal Whispers}, and maybe make some small portals. This was because the further something was from his trunk, the weaker his influence, and it seemed to also apply to the Bastion.
Hours passed without anything of interest occurring, and once the sun set, Ashlock fell asleep while the Bastion continued its travels. It wasn't until late the next day that Ashlock saw something of interest—a literal sea of savagely killed corpses spread out for miles through the forest below.
Expanding his spiritual sight and scrutinizing many of the corpses they passed over, he confirmed they all had one thing missing—their beast cores.
"Nox is trying to recover her cultivation," Ashlock concluded almost immediately. Expanding his search, he tried to follow the path of death to see if it would lead to wherever Nox was hiding. Of course, he also debated asking the Elders to jump off and bring him the corpses, but that could wait. Now was not the time for snacks and since these corpses were missing their beast cores, they would provide him far fewer sacrificial credits.
"Look over there," Stella pointed off into the distance. She was standing on the bow of the Bastion alongside the Redclaws and was using her artifact to track Nox's general position.
Ashlock followed her suggestion and soon came across a random tree surrounded by piles of dull beast cores, and he could detect the presence of darkness Qi in the tree.
Nox was there.
"Khaos," Ashlock said to his Ent best suited at assassination. "Go kill her."
The two-meter-tall wendigo wreathed in void flames emerged from the shadow of Willow's canopy. The pristine deer skull and antlers gleamed in the afternoon sunlight, and its hollow eyes surveyed the humans standing before it.
Stella and the Redclaws stepped to the side. Khaos trudged through the gap while dragging its claws along the ground, making a screeching noise. Arriving at the front of the Bastion, it silently vanished into the void.
"No, wait!" Stella's eyes suddenly widened while gripping her earring, "It's a trap! That isn't Nox!"
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