The darkness enveloping Diana shifted from an empty void to a dreamscape—a world that seemed real but fell apart under scrutiny. The verdant meadow of lush grass lay still as if painted, and the horizon blurred, making the sky appear to be melting.
Diana tried to steady her mind and recall her father's advice on handling Nocturnes, rare but dangerous threats that sometimes appeared when dealing with demonic sect scions.
Nocturnes, also known as dream eaters, were abominations that shadowed their hosts like haunting spirits, doing anything to keep them alive and preserve their food source.
"Selena, was it?" Diana called into the dreamworld, catching a glimpse of movement in this motionless landscape. She spun around to find the shadowy figure of a young girl.
Diana knew the real body lay on the ground, where an eerie specter of a girl with similar features to Venik floated where a normal shadow should be.
"You were his sister, weren't you?" Diana said solemnly. She had never met a Nocturne, but knowing their origin made the scene before her horrifying.
To create a Nocturne, a sacrificial ritual was needed to bind a relative's soul to one's own, allowing them to consume the relative, often a sibling, for a surge in cultivation.
This dark, secretive demonic practice also granted the added benefit of transforming the relative into a Nocturne, like Selena for Venik, that would protect the host from the shadows.
But there were severe consequences. Apart from brutally murdering a sibling, Nocturnes had to be fed, consuming their host's dreams and sanity for sustenance. And if the host ever reached the Nascent Soul Realm, the Nocturne could take over the infant soul and be reborn.
This fierce urge to keep their host alive for sustenance and the chance at a new life made Nocturnes exceptionally loyal protectors.
Diana now understood why Venik acted tough in front of Douglas, despite being a wind affinity user two Soul Fire stages below him. A guardian always lurked in the shadows, watching.
A moment of silence passed as the shadow figure refused to answer, but the ghostly form trembling with grief betrayed understanding.
"I need to kill Venik," Diana declared, and the Nocturne howled. A chilling wail filled with anguish echoed as though pierced by countless needles. The dreamscape quivered, and hundreds of shadow tendrils shot forth, but Diana swatted them away with ease. It was weak.
The Nocturne faced a hopeless situation. If Diana killed Venik, the creature would perish without its food source. On the other hand, if they fought until sunrise, the dreamscape would shatter, and the Nocturne would burn under the sun's glare.
As Diana deflected more tendrils, she pondered Venik's motivation for subjecting his sister to such a fate. Had his parents arranged it, or had he performed the ritual himself? When Diana was involved with other noble scions, she hadn't heard of a wind affinity Azurecrest child named Venik.
If Venik had done it himself, the ritual would have been done out of desperation for the benefits, as his rate of cultivation would decrease drastically since the Nocturne siphoned Qi. And he would also be unable to sleep or meditate without feeling haunted, which would deeply affect his state of mind.
Also, if Venik ever reached the Nascent Soul Realm, the Nocturne would devour his new infant soul, denying him the semi-immortality of being a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator.
All of that for a reliable bodyguard no stronger than the host suggested Venik couldn't leave his back to anyone other than his own sister's ghost.
Venik must have been either insane or desperate for protection, either from family members vying for power or from numerous enemies he had made.
Neither option sounded good. Venik was a tumor that needed to be culled, especially since, with the death of his Nocturne, he would soon become consumed by heart demons, just like how Diana had been before Ashlock saved her with those truffles.
Diana continued slashing at the tendrils with her Qi-covered blade while gradually filling the dreamscape with her haunted mist technique. She could shatter the dreamscape with her cultivation, but the Nocturne would escape. She aimed to kill it first and then pursue Venik.
Although the dreamscape looked like it stretched for many miles, it was only around the size of a large courtyard. Soon enough, she could lock down the location of the Nocturne that was running around while its wails filled the entire space with her mist.
"There you are," Diana muttered as she dashed through the mist.
Diana tore through the shadowy figure a moment later as if it were smoke and seized the Nocturne's throat. She was about to tighten her Qi-coated grip and kill the spectral abomination when she hesitated. The wailing ceased, and the young girl, no older than ten, gazed at Diana with eyes full of innocence.
Was this some kind of trick to make her hesitate? Her father had only briefly mentioned this threat and simply said to kill the Nocturne to escape. Was there really no other way?
"Don't hurt Venik," the girl said in a distorted, eerie voice. "He was my brother, and I still love him."
Diana hadn't known Nocturnes could speak.
"Why?" Diana frowned. "He killed you and turned you into an abomination. How can you still love him?"
Was it some kind of mind magic that made the abomination loyal?
The Nocturne's eyes grew dull as if recalling a painful memory. "Venik had no choice. Our father forced this upon us."
"Father? Who's your father?"
"Grand Elder of the Azurecrest family. He received an order from the Patriarch..." The girl hesitated.
"Which was?" Diana pressed, knowing that the Patriarch rarely gave direct orders. But as a true demonic cultivator with little regard for human life, anything he meddled in was bound to be twisted.
"He wanted more airships and, therefore, more pilots. Our family is the main provider of these pilots. But he wanted them within a year."
That was enough for Diana to piece together the rest. Noble families were often vast, sometimes consisting of dozens of branch families and thousands of members in total. But not all family members were created equal. Out of those thousands, only a few hundred would reach the Soul Fire realm, and only a tiny handful of those had the potential to reach the Star Core realm.
As the largest producer of wind affinity cultivators, the Azurecrest family was invaluable to the sect's continued existence, operating airships that enabled trade between cities and mass evacuations during inevitable beast tides.
With every Azurecrest family member in the Soul Fire realm already employed in the airship industry, if the Patriarch demanded a new batch of pilots to appear overnight, the Azurecrest Grand Elder likely resorted to something truly horrific to meet the quota.
"Your father forced everyone in the family to kill their siblings to turn them into Nocturnes in order to increase their cultivation, didn't he?" Diana asked, and the little girl's eyes widened before she nodded.
"So please don't kill Venik. I was the weaker of the two, and he promised to make me a new body in the future."
Diana could barely stand the innocent belief in her eyes. Venik, a middle-aged man, had only reached the 1st stage of the Soul Fire realm with the ritual's boost. His chances of reaching the Nascent Soul Realm before his lifespan ended were nonexistent. The girl was being deceived.
Diana suspected that Venik was aware of his slim chances and had resigned himself to his fate, abandoning the path of cultivation. His negligence was the reason he remained stagnant at the first stage in the realm for such a long time.
"Why did Venik charge Douglas such high interest? Do you know?" Diana questioned the Nocturne, and the ghostly girl shuddered.
"He couldn't stand me," the girl replied. "He spent all the money on alcohol, drugs, and women to drown me out. I kept urging him to cultivate, but he claimed he couldn't."
Diana suspected that he was simply lazy and unwilling to cultivate, but there was a genuine possibility that he couldn't. Possessing a Nocturne made cultivation significantly more challenging, as it was nearly impossible to enter a state of deep cultivation.
Diana tightened her grip around the ghost, and the girl cried out, "Why!? Why kill me? Let me go back to my brother..."
"Then let me out of the dreamscape," Diana retorted, "Maybe I can save you both." But the girl adamantly shook her head.
"I can see it in your eyes," the girl sobbed. "The eyes of a killer. You will kill my brother if I let you go. I just know it."
Diana had killed many people, including her own cousin, in front of Ashlock before her family was wiped out. Reflecting on it, that had been the last time she felt anything for taking a life. Since then, she had slain cultivators en masse without any qualms.
Had something broken inside her? Her father had used her as nothing but a tool, even threatening her life if she didn't go and kill Stella Crestfallen. But the situation was different this time. Ashlock had requested she followed Douglas; everything after that was her own decision.
Now, with her hand around the neck of a technically innocent person she wasn't compelled or ordered to kill, a disquieting sensation welled up in her chest. This was unlike the other lives she had extinguished over the years; this was a mercy killing. The girl believed she had a chance at life, but Diana knew that she would forever remain a Nocturne, feeding off her brother's dreams and sanity while watching him squander his cultivation.
Diana was fast, but Venik was still an air cultivator. Diana knew he would soon escape the maximum range of her spiritual sight and vanish forever into the darkness of Darklight City, never to be seen again.
"I'm sorry," Diana murmured, and her eyes turned dull as she twisted her Qi-coated hand and felt the Nocturne's neck snap. Her Qi flooded its spectral form, and the ghost wailed like a boiling kettle. The girl's body solidified and then crumbled to dust between Diana's fingers.
The dreamscape shattered, and the bustling noise of the street overloaded her senses. A few passersby gave Diana an odd look as she had likely appeared out of nowhere, but they soon walked on.
Diana observed the dust scattered in the breeze. Mercy killings evoked a distinct sensation that she loathed, but she tried to convince herself it was for the best to end the Nocturne's suffering.
Empowering her legs, Diana leaped onto the roof of a nearby building and expanded her spiritual sight. At its edge, she could sense Venik's presence. She had almost been too late.
Regrettably, the little girl had been right. Diana fully intended to kill Venik tonight. He knew too much about Douglas, and with the death of his Nocturne, which had been holding off the heart demons like a dam, was now gone.
He would lose all sanity by sunrise.
***
Ashlock awoke to the crack of dawn the very moment the golden sun rays hit his leaves. He felt his entire biology slowly speed up under the sunlight's tender care.
The sound of stone cracking accompanied the morning birds, and Ashlock soon located Stella, still laboring to create the enormous runic formation. However, he was delighted to notice a section of the runic formation had already been completed and seemingly activated, as he felt Qi being drawn to the spot, then transferred down through the rock and directly to his roots.
Checking the countdown timer in the corner of his eye until his system was restored, he saw it had decreased significantly to only three days. Seeing that an increase in Qi intake drastically affected his recovery time made Ashlock very thankful for Stella's hard work and gave him an idea.
What if he used {Hibernate} since it increased his cultivation intake? He assumed now that he was fully tree that the experience wouldn't be quite so harrowing. But, even if it was, he could endure a few days if it helped him recover even a few hours faster.
With his mind still awakening, he surveyed the rest of the mountain peak. He wanted to ensure everything was fine before hibernating for a few days to complete his recovery.
As the sunlight bathed the mountaintop, Ashlock saw Douglas emerge from the rock as if stepping up a staircase, shaking off the dust and rubble that clung to his shoulders. He was alone—Diana was nowhere to be seen.
Ashlock was relieved that Douglas appeared to have handled his debts without issue. It made sense if Diana was lagging a bit behind, but even when he used {Eye of the Tree God} and searched the surroundings, he couldn't find her anywhere.
"Oh, you're back?" Stella said as she leaped out of the hole she had been carving ancient runes in and looked around. She was clearly concerned about Diana's absence but didn't want to ask Douglas.
Douglas grumbled as he removed the mask, "Yeah, I'm back. There was a fight, and I ended up taking back the money."
Stella raised a brow, "What happened? Did they try to rob you or something?"
"Kind of." Douglas scratched the back of his neck, "To be fair, it was mostly my fault. In hindsight, I might have insulted that Venik bastard a little too much, but he deserved it."
"Venik?" Stella asked, "Who's that?"
"He pretended to be my friend, loaned me money at my lowest point, and said I didn't have to pay him back until I got back on my feet." Douglas chuckled sadly, "That was a lie. Once I got some work, he said there had been interest the whole time, and if I didn't pay it back, he'd have people smear my reputation, and then nobody would hire me."
Stella nodded. "Just to be clear, I gave you that ring filled with coins without expecting any interest." She then smiled sweetly, "But if you betray Tree, then I will demand your soul as payment."
Douglas chuckled to brush it off, but Ashlock could see the slight fear in his eyes, as he knew Stella was serious. "I will take your words to heart," he mumbled, depositing the mask into his spatial ring.
"So what happened to this Venik fellow? You killed him, right?" Stella then froze when Douglas shook his head.
"He surprised me and got away. As an earth affinity cultivator, there's no way I could catch up to someone from the Azurecrest family. But even then... why would I kill him? He was a bastard, sure, but he did help me in the past..."
Stella's glare made Douglas shrink back. "Anything, and I mean anything, that could threaten to expose Tree's existence must be eradicated. That lack of bloodlust will come to bite you one day. We are in a demonic sect. Act like it. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes," Douglas answered quickly. "But what should we do then?"
Stella looked at Darklight City in the distance. "I wouldn't worry."
***
By the afternoon, Diana walked up the mountainside with a vacant expression.
"Did you get him?" Stella asked. Diana nodded absentmindedly—her golden ring flashed with power, and a man's severed head appeared in her grasp.
Douglas cheered. "You really killed that bastard."
"You did a good job," Stella said, smiling and patting Diana's shoulder before pausing after seeing her face. "What's wrong?"
Ashlock was also worried. Diana looked like someone who had just done something they deeply regretted.
"I... I don't know. Some circumstances around it don't sit right with me." Diana let out a long sigh. "Ugh, I just can't tell if I did the right thing."
"Trust in yourself some more," Stella reassured her with a smile. "Doubt only leads to festering heart demons. Right?"
"You don't want to know the circumstances?" Diana seemed bewildered.
"Only if you want to tell me." Stella withdrew her hand and turned to jump back down into the hole to continue her work. "I trust in your judgment completely."
Diana stood there for a while, her mouth never quite able to form words. Eventually, she just muttered "Thanks" under her breath, and a thin smile appeared.
"Hey, she may trust you," Douglas spoke from the side, "but I would love to know these circumstances if possible. Venik had been a good friend of mine at one point."
Diana nodded and then explained about the Azurecrest family and the Nocturne that had been feasting off Venik's soul.
Ashlock knew he lived in a demonic sect and had seen their ruthless culture and disregard for life. Still, he hadn't heard of many real demonic techniques or rituals outside the pill furnace that the Patriarch wanted Stella to become.
He could see why Diana had been distraught about the murder, as the siblings had been forced into a rather unfortunate position by their father. Still, Venik did sound like a terrible person, and Ashlock found his care for human life outside the group he cared for to be fleeting.
Did humans care when a forest was chopped down? When trees were burned to death for heat? Those pavilions were made out of the corpses of his fellow trees, and even right now, he could feel the waves of pain and despair through the mycelium network as the demonic trees in Darklight City were chopped down.
But with the mass murder of his fellow demonic trees aside, as he could do little to help them right now, the news of these Nocturnes and the activities of the Azurecrest family were concerning.
Douglas stood silently for a long while, staring at the decapitated head in Diana's hand.
"It all makes sense now," he eventually said. "The sudden change in his personality, his insane desire to hide away from his family, and even his surprising jump in cultivation, which gave him the strength to run his brothel and order around those goons."
A single tear rolled down Douglas's cheek. "I had even met Selena a couple of times in the past. She had been such an adorable little sister to Venik. I can't imagine him doing something so horrible."
Diana shook her head. "Don't put all the blame on Venik. The Patriarch's greed to... save more people from the beast tide..." She paused, clearly conflicted.
Ashlock concluded that this was a very messy situation where nobody was fully in the right. The Patriarch wanted more pilots for airships, which would mean more people could escape certain death. Venik had become a terrible person due to what his father had forced upon him, and Diana had essentially mercy-killed them because they could threaten the Ashfallen sect.
"I'm going to go cultivate and clear my mind," Diana said, shaking her head. "I need to contemplate a few things. Can I use the personal formation, Stella?"
Stella popped her head over the hole's edge. "Of course, all of us can use it. We are a sect now. This isn't just my home."
Diana smiled and nodded in thanks.
Stella then glared at Douglas. "Don't just stand around being useless. Come help me with this formation, and I'll teach you some ancient runes."
With everyone busy and the loose end of Venik seemingly dealt with, Ashlock activated {Hibernate} and set the timer for two days. He hoped the extra Qi intake while he slept and the completion of the runic formation would shave an entire day off his recovery time.
When he woke up, he expected to see his sign-in system back online, and then it would be time to get down to business. Unfortunately, the alchemy tournament would require a lot more work than he had initially anticipated, especially in light of recent events.
Also, he would need to devise a plan to make the people of Darklight City coexist with his new children and maybe even silently eat those that had hurt them.
[Sleep mode activated...]
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