Diana was taking a much-needed break on the bow of Willow after a few days of battling the beast tide. In her hand were a few beast cores from which she was siphoning demonic Qi. Not to refill her Qi reserves—her 9th-stage Star Core passively produced the Qi she needed to endlessly fight these weak monsters—but to progress her cultivation to the Nascent Soul Realm.
“I might reach the Nascent Soul Realm before the next Mystic Realm cycle at this rate,” Diana said.
“Really?” Stella replied.
Diana turned to look at Stella. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed. Despite her peaceful appearance, if one looked below Willow, they would see a swarm of swords wreathed in aether Qi tearing cleanly through the rotting monsters.
“Yeah, I think so,” Diana continued. “What about you?”
“Mhm, I feel closer than before. I overcame a mental hurdle I was facing and discovered a new application of aether Qi before we went hunting for Astralis. Now I just need to gather enough Qi,” she tilted her head, looking at her with one eye open. “But unlike you, I can’t absorb Qi from the beast cores, so I’m actually losing Qi right now, killing these monsters.”
Diana raised her brow in surprise. “Your Star Core’s regeneration can’t keep up?”
Stella snorted. “Of course not. Do you see what I’m doing to these beasts? This isn’t some low-effort application of aether Qi, you know? It takes some real concentration and way too much Qi to telekinetically control and teleport around a hundred swords.”
“That’s fair,” Diana said, nodding. “But if that’s the case, why don’t you just control twenty swords, or ten? Why a hundred?”
Stella closed her eyes once more and tilted her head away. “You wouldn’t get it.”
“Oh, I think I do. Aren’t you trying to prove yourself useful by gathering as many corpses as possible for Ashlock? I respect the effort, but this is a marathon, not a sprint,” Diana said, looking at the dulling beast cores in her hand. “It’s already been days, and there are still so many monsters coming.”
“You’re wrong. This is a good time to practice my control over my Qi and bloodline while also gathering lots of corpses for Ashlock… okay fine, you are kinda right,” Stella said, huffing the hair out of her eyes. “I just want to be useful to the sect, you know? Be seen as part of the team.”
“Relax, Stella, nobody looks down on you. Ashlock is just understandably protective of you, so unless you are stronger than the opponents, he will be more inclined to hold you back.”
“Exactly,” Stella said, pursing her lips. “That’s why I need to get stronger. The Qi around here is too weak for cultivating, especially with Ashlock’s desolation Qi everywhere. So I’ll await the Mystic Realm to advance to the Nascent Soul Realm,” she quickly shot a glance at her and stuck out her tongue, “I won’t let you overshadow me, Diana.”
“You’re so childish sometimes,” Diana chuckled.
Stella ignored her, focusing on controlling the swords below.
Diana spent an hour watching the purple-tinted horizon through Willow’s spatial Qi shield. Occasionally, she would see corpses being telekinetically lifted and deposited through portals by Willow as the Bastion slowly inched further into the beast tide. Sometimes, desolation rifts would tear open on the battlefield below, and a few Ents made from the corpses that had been deposited moments earlier would fall out and join the slaughter.
It was a slow, methodical, but utterly unstoppable conquest of the beast tide. Diana wondered if such a feat would be possible by anyone other than Ashlock. “Probably not, he is one of a kind,” Diana muttered. Having drained all of the beast cores she had collected, she stood up and spread her wings.
“I’m thinking of heading out.”
Stella lazily raised her arm in response. “Have fun.”
Diana scanned the land below. “How long do you think this will go on for?”
“Maybe a week or two more,” Stella said, yawning. “If we had to kill all of the monsters, it would take months, but we just need to kill the ones in the middle so they get the message and divert around our lands.”
Diana nodded and agreed with Stella’s assessment. Two weeks more of this sounded like a lot, but without Ashlock covering the land in desolation Qi and weakening the monsters, even that would be optimistic. Thankfully, since the beasts were so weak, they had to expend far less effort wiping them out. While Ashlock’s own horde of Ents was helping, he had requested that they focus more on gathering corpses than making more Ents, so their numbers slowly diminished each day.
Just thinking of how many monster corpses were being gathered hurt Diana’s brain. The sheer scale of this massacre was unprecedented.
“Every time Ashlock gets his roots on a load of corpses, he does something ridiculous or powers up,” Diana muttered to herself. “I wonder what he will do this time?”
Spreading her wings further, she leaped off the side and glided over the ruined land in search of a group of monsters worthy of her attention. Stella’s sword swarm had this area mostly under control, so she headed westward as pillars of fire from the Redclaw Grand Elder could be seen to the east.
In the distance, she saw a Bastion that seemed to be engaged in some serious aerial combat with a group of wyverns, so she decided to head over to offer her assistance.
***
Ashlock awoke with a start. Power pulsed through him, making the entire mountain tremble. He had felt this incredible sensation many times before, yet it felt like forever since the last time.
His cultivation had advanced to the next stage.
[Demonic Demi-Divine Tree (Age: 10)]
[Nascent Soul Realm: 6th Stage]
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
[Soul Type: Nine Moons (Desolation)]
“Ahhh, finally the 6th stage. It was only a matter of time after all the Qi I absorbed from these corpses,” Ashlock said, as he glanced around. It was morning, the early rays of sunshine casting their glow on the horrors of Red Vine Peak. All around him were ten-story-high piles of half-consumed rotting corpses. In fact, there were so many that he had started dumping them in the citadel, filling up the hole. A few portals spanning between his branches were permanently open, and corpses endlessly tumbled through them, rolling down the piles and into his waiting roots and thorn-covered vines.
At this point, he was almost buried in corpses, with the pile directly around his trunk nearly reaching his canopy.
It was grotesque, and the scent of death hung strongly in the air along with the buzz of flies. Vultures circled greedily overhead, with many daring to dive down and join the piles after failing to fly away under his soul pressure.
Ashlock felt like he should be disgusted by what surrounded him, but he wasn’t. Instead, it all looked so delicious. For the first time in what felt like forever, he was living the life of a demonic tree he had dreamed of. For the last week, all he had done was spend his days eating, and come nightfall, he would peacefully slumber under the nine moons while ignoring Astralis’s deranged rantings.
Sure, he had some things to deal with—a lot, actually. He was managing multiple Bastions, moving corpses around through portals and micromanaging his Ent army. But all of that was worth it for the reward.
“It took far longer than a day, like I thought, but I should be reaching the fabled ten thousand credits today,” Ashlock mused as he looked around at the corpses. Although the quantity was impressive, the quality had fallen short of his expectations. His desolation Qi, while effective at weakening the monsters, also degraded the value of their corpses. So by the time they reached him, they were hardly worth a handful of credits.
But if there was one thing the beast tide had a lot of, it was monsters. Even if each of them gave him only a single credit, it was inevitable that he would save up enough. He had several skills he wanted to upgrade, so he decided to take a look.
“System, show me my credits.”
Idletree Daily Sign-In System
Day: 3693
Daily Credit: 13 ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by NoveIꜰire.net
Sacrifice Credit: 10271
[Sign in?]
There it was, over ten thousand credits. It was around the limit of what Ashlock’s sacrificial credit forest in his Inner World could handle, so he had to get to spending.
“This feels like Christmas,” he chuckled, swiftly navigating his system menu and bringing up a skill that he had been intending to upgrade as soon as his life wasn’t in immediate danger.
[Directly upgrading the skill {Mystic Realm [S]} will consume 8127 credits]
This was hopefully going to be the first of many skills he would upgrade from devouring the monsters from the beast tide. As the days went by, the efficiency of his army in harvesting corpses increased, and the monsters’ cultivation levels also rose the deeper they went.
[Do you want to upgrade the skill {Mystic Realm [S]} now?]
“Yes, let’s do it,” Ashlock said, waiting in anticipation. While not a direct combat skill, the Mystic Realm skill was what allowed his sect members to keep up with his rapid jump in cultivation. It was an imperative part of the sect’s strength, so he was eager to see how the system would upgrade it.
[Sign in successful, 8127 credits consumed…]
[Upgraded {Mystic Realm [S]} -> {Eternal Realm [SS]}]
Ashlock felt something shift in the beyond. He looked to the sky—it appeared normal like always, a blue expanse decorated by lazy clouds passing by. Yet he could sense something happening beyond that façade. It was hard to describe; it was an odd feeling, as if something greater had taken notice of him.
His unsettled thoughts were interrupted by his system informing him of the changes to his Mystic Realm skill.
[{Eternal Realm [SS]} Gone are the time limits—the Mystic Realm can now remain eternally open. Time dilation is now directly proportional to the number of people present in the Eternal Realm. If a single person is inside, time flows thirty times faster, meaning for every day that passes outside, a month passes inside. This time dilation is divided by the number of people inside, capping out at a 1:1 time dilation for thirty people. Permission to enter the Eternal Realm has to be granted by you, and you can forcefully pull people out. Furthermore, upon exiting, a portion of the Qi cultivated and any dao insights users of the Eternal Realm gained will be mirrored to you]
That was a lot of text. Ashlock read over it a few more times and decided he was pleased with the changes. The removal of the time limit meant his life wasn’t bound to an eternal monthly cycle where he had to say goodbye to most of his sect members for a week.
“It’s a change for sure. If I’m reading this right, then if I were to send in a single person for a month, they would experience 900 days inside—almost three years. However, if I send in three people for a month, the time dilation is reduced to only 300 days, or almost a year. While that eclipses what the old Mystic Realm was capable of, as it only sped up time by four times, the penalty for sending in many people at once is something to note,” Ashlock paused. “However, since it’s open all the time, I could cycle people in and out almost daily if I needed to train many people at once. After all, a single day in there is a month if I only send in one person.”
That aside, there was more. Ashlock could now pick and choose who went in, pull people out on a whim, and best of all, a portion of the Qi they cultivated and any dao insights they gained would be mirrored to him. That implied that he would benefit greatly without having to ever enter the Eternal Realm himself.
“I’ve been wondering how I could improve my dao insights to further the strength of my desolation Qi against multiple Qi types, and here comes the system offering me a lazy but greatly appreciated solution.”
As a tree, if there was one thing he didn’t like doing, it was studying. Hell, he also disliked the act of cultivating. Instead, he preferred to absorb Qi from monster corpses and siphon Qi from the World Tree. He then spent his nights sleeping under the nine moons. It was a slothful and oddly effective existence. If not for him having to use so much Qi to taint the land with desolation, he might have risen many stages and be touching on the Monarch Realm by now.
“No use complaining. If not for the beast tide, I wouldn’t have this many corpses to snack on for credits. Actually, speaking of credits, I have around two thousand left. Mhm, all the skills I want to focus on upgrading are S grade or higher, so I’ll keep them in the divine stock market for now.”
It was actually insane how much value he was getting from it. Apparently, fending off the beast tide warranted him enough respect and awe from the monsters and cultivators alike, and it was only growing with time.
“Now, about this Eternal Realm, where should I put it?” Ashlock glanced around. There was literally nowhere on Red Vine Peak where he could place it, as the area was covered in rotting flesh wrapped up in his vines and roots. In fact, he didn’t even want any of his sect members returning and seeing this gluttonous side of himself. While he didn’t find it grotesque, he doubted his more sane human cultivators would agree.
“Putting it in my Inner World is probably safer anyway, even though I can pick and choose who enters.”
Retreating into his soul, he looked at his Inner World from afar. It had notably grown bigger with his advancement to the sixth stage of the Nascent Soul Realm.
“Now, where would be good?” Ashlock mulled over the options. Unfortunately, around half of his Inner World was corrupted with desolation, making it hard to build anything on and deeply uncomfortable for anyone visiting. “This place could work,” he said after finding a large cave deep in the mountain range that bordered the desolate half of his Inner World.
“System, place the entrance to the Eternal Realm here,” Ashlock said.
[Opening gateway to the Eternal Realm…]
The air shuddered and twisted as the space slowly filled with the celestial fog he was used to from the Mystic Realm. That same odd feeling from before of something connecting to the beyond crept into the deepest part of his soul, making him feel uncomfortable.
[Eternal Realm established]
[Current occupants: 0]
The feeling thankfully subsided, leaving Ashlock with a choice to make as he stared at the zero current occupants.
“Who should I put in first?”
Stella stood at the mouth of a cave filled with celestial fog, with a confused Diana standing beside her. Ash had told her to come here with Diana, saying he had a surprise to show them.
“Is that the Mystic Realm?” Diana questioned.
Stella slowly nodded. “Yeah, I think so? But wasn’t it closed for another week or so?”
A chuckle reverberated through their minds as Anubis rose from the shadows before them. His eyes were golden flames, signifying he was acting as Ash’s mouthpiece.
“What you two are looking at is the Eternal Realm,” Ash informed them through the shadow lich as he gestured at the fog.
“Eternal Realm?” Stella said, tilting her head in confusion. Why was Ash being so mysterious? Couldn’t he just tell them? As if sensing her growing frustration, he began to explain.
“After devouring so many corpses, I managed to improve the Mystic Realm. As the name suggests, it’s now eternal, meaning it’s always open and never disappears. Furthermore, the time dilation inside has increased significantly so long as there aren’t too many people inside.”
“What do you mean by too many people inside?”
“If only one person were to go inside, a month would equal 900 days.”
Stella’s eyes widened. “What?! 900 days? That’s almost three whole years!” She exchanged a glance with Diana. “What if there are two of us inside?”
“It reduces by half, so a month out here would equal 450 days in there.”
“That’s still insane,” Diana muttered. “I already thought the Mystic Realm was a ridiculous boon for our sect, but this is something else.” She then paused, contemplating something. “Hold on, you said the time dilation halves each time. While this is amazing for boosting one or two people at a time, doesn’t it hinder the rest of the sect’s development?”
“A concern I initially shared as well,” Ash agreed. “However, the reduction stops at thirty people being inside, meaning one day outside is one day inside. It doesn’t decrease below that, meaning we could theoretically put thousands of people in there. There would just be no time dilation.”
“Oh, that’s not too bad,” Diana nodded approvingly. “We could dedicate a month or two a year to powering up the weaker members of the sect. Wait, since it’s always open, how does leaving work now?”
“I can manually pull people out myself, or you could eat a Mystic Realm Warp fruit to leave anytime. Mhm, I like the sound of your suggestion to dedicate a month to supporting the weaker members. I was worried that the Qi and dao insights I’ll gain from it might be lower than sending in elites… but if I were to send in thousands, it might equal more.”
“Qi and daos?” Stella asked, confused about what Ash was talking about.
The shadow lich glanced at her. “Yeah, another advantage of the Eternal Realm is that a small amount of the Qi and dao insights cultivators gain inside is mirrored to me.”
Stella shook her head. “That’s just unfair. You get the benefits of cultivating without doing anything.”
“Quite fitting, isn’t it?” Ash replied with a hint of smugness in his tone.
“I suppose it is,” Stella said with a sigh. It really was a fitting way to cultivate for a slothful demonic tree. “So, did you bring us here to brag about the Eternal Realm?”
“Yes and no. As the two founding members of the sect and both being so close to ascending to the Nascent Soul Realm, I wanted you two to be the first to go inside.”
Stella smiled, feeling warm inside at Ash’s words. However, that happy feeling faded as she glanced at the Eternal Realm. “Errr, I don’t want to go in there for over a year, though.”
The shadow lich’s golden flame eyes flashed with contemplation. “Why not a year? It’s only a month out here.”
Stella crossed her arms and paused for a moment as she organized her thoughts. “I’ve… ignored the time dilation until now, as the Mystic Realm used to only skip three weeks of real-world time, but the Eternal Realm is on another level. While it’s only a month for you, if I’m in there for over four hundred days, you’ll miss my birthday. That’s not all. When I think about how much I’ve changed in the last year, I dare to imagine how much I’d change if I were in there all alone for over a year.”
“Those are valid concerns,” Ash said, the shadow lich rubbing his chin. He glanced between the Eternal Realm and Stella a few times before posing a question. “But I thought cultivators often spent decades alone in closed-door cultivation. How is this different?”
Diana was the one to answer. “No, most cultivators rarely spend that long in closed-door cultivation. What you’re thinking of are sect Elders or Patriarchs who lock themselves away to cultivate because they have no other choice if they want to maintain their position, get stronger, or chase immortality. Over the years, they temper their patience, so spending a decade in a cave doesn’t become as daunting.”
“Huh. I never thought of that. In my opinion, all cultivators would eagerly seize the opportunity to cultivate for extended periods if it benefited them. But I suppose I wouldn’t want to go in there and cultivate for that long, so why would either of you two?”
Stella nodded, glad Ash was getting their point of view. “Yeah, I’m not even two decades old yet. While my cultivation is way higher than someone my age should possess, I’m not patient enough to spend over a year alone with nothing to do but cultivate,” Stella said, airing out her true thoughts, and then felt the need to apologize as she didn’t want to come across as ungrateful or a brat. “I’m sorry. I feel like I’m turning down such a great gift from you—”
“No need to apologize, Stella. I fully understand your perspective.” The shadow lich glanced at Diana, “Do you have the same thoughts?”
Diana nodded. “Similar. I think I could stay in there for half a year at most before I start to lose it. For me, it helps to know the world won’t have moved on too much while I was gone. But like Stella, my patience hasn’t been tempered over decades like Grand Elder Redclaw, for example. I’m sure he would happily spend years in the Eternal Realm if it meant he could reach the Monarch Realm.”
“Hah, I bet he would love it. Ryker too. That kid loves cultivating,” Stella said.
Diana’s eyes widened. “Phew, I dare to imagine. Ryker is already a monster for his age… what would happen if he were left alone in there?”
“He would become a mighty pillar of the sect. I think that should be our goal moving forward—to raise up the pillars of the Ashfallen Sect via the Eternal Realm. With our eyes set on freeing the World Tree and contending with the Celestial Empire, what we need is a powerful group to contend with their Enforcers and Council members, starting with you two. I’m not asking you to go in there for years, but at least until you reach the Nascent Soul Realm. Is that acceptable?”
Stella nodded. “I’ll stay in there for as long as I can or until you want someone to take my spot. Others in the sect should benefit from this too.”
“How gracious of you,” the shadow lich laughed. “Or are you secretly hoping I pull you out early?”
The author’s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Stella pouted and said nothing. I want to be more useful to Ash and the sect by getting stronger, but why does that mean I have to spend so long away from Ash and the others? I spent a year in the wilderness as a child, and I also spent years feeling abandoned. The last thing I want is to experience that loneliness again.
She just didn’t want to say that out loud—the actual reason she couldn’t spend so long in the Eternal Realm by herself was her inability to deal with loneliness.
“Come on, Stella. The less time we spend standing out here, the faster we can return,” Diana said, taking the lead. The shadow lich stepped aside, gesturing for them to go inside.
Stella checked that she had her spatial rings on her, took a deep breath to calm herself, and strode forward. It’s for power, this isn’t a prison—okay, it feels a bit like I’m walking myself into a prison, but with benefits! Stay positive… The coldness of entering the celestial fog of the Eternal Realm washed over her, and she felt Diana vanish from her spatial senses.
She was alone.
“I hate this already,” she muttered. It didn’t help that her previous trips to the Mystic Realm rarely went smoothly. Crossing her arms, she glanced around at the shards floating by. None were really calling out to her.
I remember that the last time I visited, there were very few pocket realms emitting aether Qi. It’s a rare affinity, after all. She randomly looked up, and her eyes widened. The fog seemed to expand upwards, which hadn’t been the case before.
“Um,” she said, looking around and remembering that Diana was gone. “Is this normal?” she asked the fog, but received no reply, as expected.
Glancing upwards again, she could vaguely sense a stack of rings that seemed to cut through the fog, as if acting as separators. Counting them, she noted there were nine.
“Nine rings, nine layers… are they representing the nine layers of creation?” Stella muttered, looking down to see if she could see hell. However, as with the Mystic Realm, the floor was gone, and she was standing there weightlessly. By simply willing it, she could float upwards through the celestial fog.
Pocket realm shards harmlessly passed her by as she rose. After passing the first separator, she felt a little pressure weighing down on her shoulders.
“I wonder how high I can go?” Stella mused as she kept rising. The pressure seemed to increase almost tenfold with each separator she passed, finally preventing her ascent past the sixth one. While gritting her teeth and straining due to the pressure, it felt like trying to move around under a ton of sand as she looked around.
“These must be pocket realms belonging to the Monarchs of the sixth layer of creation. Wait, I found one!” she said excitedly and began very slowly drifting over to a pocket realm emitting aether Qi. Peering into it, all she saw was a chaotic spatial storm. Not the best option she had seen, but she was curious how a pocket realm belonging to someone from the sixth layer would differ.
But first, precautions.
Bringing out a Mystic Realmwarp and a Void Protection fruit, she prepared herself for a possibly unpleasant experience. Of course, she only dared to reach out and grab the shard after eating the Void Protection fruit. The moment her fingers wrapped around the shard, she was pulled into the pocket realm.
Bracing for the spatial storm, she was confused when she heard voices and smelled… food? Opening her eyes, she found herself standing on the side of a street. Huh? All around her, people in oversized cloaks that seemed to float with them as they moved went about their daily lives. Did I grab the wrong one? No, wait. Overhead, like a dome, she could see the spatial storm she had gotten a glimpse of through the shard. This really was the right pocket realm, so where was the aether Qi?
“Is this a city?” she said, looking around in confusion like a lost child. Her gaze landed on silver rivers snaking through the sky with what appeared to be barges traveling down them. It was a baffling spectacle that she was enjoying until the air was suddenly punched out of her lungs, and her body spun as someone barged past so quickly that their form seemed to blur as they moved.
“Don’t just stand there!” the cultivator, wreathed in spatial Qi, shouted over their shoulder at her with an annoyed expression. “Have some awareness!” they added, before blinking into the distance.
What the fuck? Stella stumbled backwards, wheezing. That hit hadn’t been something trivial. She was a peak Star Core Realm cultivator, so for a knock like that to leave her winded, that man must have been in the Nascent Soul Realm or perhaps even a Monarch. That’s when she noticed that it had consumed her void shield and still almost broke her ribs.
I bet they were above the Monarch Realm then. That realization terrified her. There were only a few known Monarch Realm existences on her layer of creation, yet that had seemed like a random passerby.
“What is this place?” she hissed, nursing her bruised stomach and retreating from the sidewalk. That’s when she saw out of the corner of her eye another blurred person barreling towards her. She tried to get out of the way, but they struck her square on before she could even attempt to aether step out of the way. The impact was brutal. The two of them were sent flying and landed in a crumbled mess against what Stella assumed was a shop entrance, leaving a massive crack in the wall.
Her head was spinning as a blurry figure came into view, standing over her.
“Are you the drop point?”
“I’m sorry—” she began to apologize, but then grew confused. “Drop point?” Her vision cleared as she blinked. A man with wiry black hair and sharp eyes squinted at her. Like everyone else, he wore a robe that was many sizes too big, obscuring everything except his head.
“You’re a mortal? I didn’t know there were any around here.” His face got closer as he leaned in and analyzed her. “Wait, if you are a mortal, how are you alive after that hit?”
Stella tilted her head but then remembered she was wearing her Phantom Veil Amulet, which disguised her as a mortal.
“I’m not a mortal,” she said cautiously and manifested some aether Qi soul flames. “I can use aether Qi.”
That had apparently been a mistake. Whether it was admitting she wasn’t a mortal or showing off her aether Qi, the man’s reaction was far more than she had expected. He went from suspicious to eyes wide and mouth slack, as if he were staring at a mystical creature.
“You’re one of the white flames,” he said in total disbelief.
“Um…” Stella trailed off, not wanting to admit she had no idea what that meant. This was all very confusing, and she just wanted to get her bearings. Unfortunately, life had other plans. The doorway to the shop they had just crashed into swung open, and an enraged shopkeeper emerged. Dark purple spatial flames roared to life across his oversized cloak, making it flutter around him angrily.
The black-haired man grabbed her wrist and pulled her up. “We’ve got to go.”
That much Stella could figure, but to where? She turned to ask him that question, only to find him gone. She was standing there alone on the street, facing the shopkeeper.
“Was this you?!” he roared, pointing to the crack.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Stella said flatly, giving him a blank stare. Sadly, feigning innocence wasn’t going to fly.
The shopkeeper snorted. “Likely story. You can tell it to the Tessellate Council.”
Stella had no idea who the hell the Tessellate Council was, but she didn’t want to find out. Not wanting to show another person her apparently amazing white flames, she simply began running down the street with all her might. The shopkeeper caught up to her in a flash. It was utterly bizarre, feeling so mundane with her peak Star Core Realm cultivation. The man was about to tackle her to the ground when a blur appeared from an alley and grabbed her.
It was the black haired man from before. He dragged her into the alley, and they kept running. No matter what Stella did, he seemed to blur at her side and move faster. He pulled back and stared at her.
“Why aren’t you using the distance glyphs to speed yourself up?”
“I have no idea what that is,” Stella said. Tired of being confused and hoping for more answers, she admitted, “I’m not from here.”
He came to an abrupt stop.
“What did you just say?”
Stella paused a few steps ahead, looking back at him and ready for a fight. “I said, I’m not from here.”
The man shook his head. “That’s not possible—this place is a spatial prison built by the Tessellate family. Nobody gets in and out.”
Stella shrugged. “Well, I arrived here a minute ago. So either you bring me up to speed,” her spatial ring flashed, and her sword manifested in her hand, “or I’m going to kill you for knowing too much about me already.”
Just to let him know she was serious, she unleashed her killing intent, and his face paled.
Despite it not going her way so far, this place seemed perfect. While chaotic, she would prefer exploring a city filled with people than being trapped for a year, alone in some distorted dimension or spatial storm.
The problem was, she clearly needed a guide. If nobody came in and out of this prison as the man claimed, then they wouldn’t exactly be open to outsiders, and Stella really didn’t want a repeat of the Azure clan incident if she could avoid it.
But if people had to die, she wasn’t one to hold back.
The man gathered himself after the hint of her bloodlust, smiled, and held out his hand. “The name’s Kael. Member of the Rift Born and a part-time courier.”
She took the offered hand and shook it, glad that blood didn’t have to be spilled.
“Stella,” she smiled, offering no other information. However, she grew worried as she saw a shadow quickly gaining on them down the alley. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Kael. But shouldn’t we be running?”
Kael looked over his shoulder and clicked his tongue. “This is going to be annoying.”
The storekeeper had yet to give up.
“Should we kill him?” Stella whispered, shrouding her voice in Qi.
Kael looked at her strangely. “Is that your solution to every problem?”
Stella thought for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Well, that’s not going to fly here. Remember what I said? This place is a prison. If you dare to kill people, it means you don’t fear the Tessellate Council.”
Stella sighed and sheathed her weapon. “Fine, I’ll deal with this another way. If violence won’t work, then fear will have to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just watch,” Stella said, smiling as she activated her earrings and her eyes turned into swirling abysses.