Nox awoke to the chirping of birds and the feeling of sunlight on her arm.

"Ugh," she spat out leaves and soil that had strangely invaded her mouth and groaned as she pushed herself up. Even with her vision being blurred and her entire body wracked with pain, she managed to sluggishly remove the twigs that had intertwined with her hair and threw them into the human-shaped ditch she had likely made by face-planting.

Spitting to the side a glob of saliva, blood, and dirt, she lethargically collapsed against the tree she found herself under in a daze.

"What the hell happened to me?" Nox muttered as she gazed up at the leafy green canopy overhead that was strangely distorted by a defensive barrier. Wait, a defensive barrier? She didn't remember deploying one. Her eyes widened as her brain kicked into gear, and the grogginess was pushed aside.

Why did my expensive defensive barrier artifact activate? That should only happen if I lose consciousness involuntarily. Did something fucking knock me out? That shit cost me far too much to waste like this!

Confused and angry, Nox dug through her muddled memories. I visited the Redclaws, ate some pills, got poisoned, attacked them, and then fled when I felt a powerful spatial array or cultivator inside the neighboring mountain.

She remembered Shadow Walking throughout the night while suppressing the potent poison overwhelming her body. There was also that strange feeling that I was within someone's range of influence. So I kept running until I didn't feel it anymore. But then I suddenly blacked out after detoxifying the poison.

Which was strange. Nox had never had trouble dealing with poison before. Closing her eyes, she tried to get comfortable against the tree's cold bark and looked within herself.

What the fu

Her flesh was rotting from within due to the poison. There were also traces of a neurotoxic that she knew assassins from the Tainted Cloud Sect used to induce sleep. But there was no way someone from her homeland would make the trip this far out just to let her live. They were far too brutal for that. So it had to be something else.

Tapping the defensive barrier, it rippled with full strength, meaning there had been no attempts to kill her during her sleep. It must have been the poison, then. But why would it be laced with a neurotoxin? Nox wondered. Having secured her surroundings somewhat and tested the barrier, she dug through her spatial ring in search of pills to cleanse her body, which was currently rotting and in terrible pain.

Nox ignored the pills Stella, who had been acting as a woman called Roselyn, gave her as she didn't trust the antidote to actually work. Instead, she located her personal supply buried among piles of clothes. The silver ring flashed, and her trembling hands manifested three standard ten-pill porcelain bottles.

Popping open the corks of all three, she poured the few remaining pills from each into her palm. The small collection of floral-scented pills was her last, and she would need to restock. So, with great regret, she began downing fistfuls of Spirit Tier pills.

Almost choking herself to death, she barely managed to gulp them down, and while breathing heavily, she leaned against the tree.

Cycling the concoction of drugs through her system, she frowned when the poison continued to fester even after an hour had passed. There's no way I need Profound Tier pills to deal with this... right? How could Stella even get her hands on such a corrosive poison? Nox debated using the antidote Stella had provided for a moment but refrained. If she took in more of that neurotoxin and got knocked out again, she wouldn't wake up. Her body would become rotten fertilizer for this tree.

Letting out a long sigh, she summoned a single Profound Tier pill that had cost the same as the fistful of Spirit Tier pills she had just gobbled down.

"The markup those greedy alchemists charge is ridiculous," Nox muttered. Opening her mouth, she threw the small red pill that had cost many Golden Crowns inside and enjoyed the floral taste before gulping it down. The effect was immediate as a wave of purification spread throughout her body and calmed her mind.

It was a shame that she had been reduced to such a state where she had to waste such a pill as not only was the cost high, but the supply was also low. It could be months before she could find an alchemist selling another batch of Spirit Tier purification pills, as the ingredients were rare, and most alchemists had contracts with prominent families to supply them first. As a wandering merchant, she only had access to the leftovers for an extortionate price.

"Or I could rob a weaker merchant for their supply," Nox grumbled as she rotated her arm to check for pain and was surprised at how quickly the purification pill had worked. "Was that a high-quality pill? The ones I took in the past didn't work that fast."

Looking within, she saw the wave of purification travel through her spirit roots without being as affected by the impurities there as before. It took a second for Nox to deduce the reason, but then she remembered that Stella had given her a pill that had permanently improved her spirit root.

Feeling much better with the poison purified, Nox stood up and used Darkness Absorption to pull in the nearby shadows under the tree to heal herself.

"Wish Lucius was here..." Nox grumbled. Her healing was inferior to light Qi. Instead of taking a minute to heal the rotting flesh, it would take all day. "I should get out of here. That powerful spatial cultivator could appear before me at any moment, so I need to reform my soul shadow as soon as possible."

Nox had been at the zenith of the Star Core Realm and had been growing an infant soul within her own shadow that, once formed, she planned to turn into a Nascent Soul and ascend to the next realm.

"Guess I will need to go searching for monsters to harvest their beast cores," Nox summoned her sword for flight and was about to deactivate the barrier when she paused.

Something felt terribly wrong.

As if something was growing inside her very soul.

Nox's hand went limp, and her sword clattered to the ground. She stumbled back, tripping over a root. In a panic, she checked on her Star Core humming within her chest, and sure enough, there was a small black stem with a single red leaf blooming within.

Nox had lived a long life, and few times in recent centuries had she lost her calm or been completely stumped by sight before her. She had crossed the vast wilderness. Faced all manner of monsters in life-or-death struggles. Delved into rifts far beyond her capabilities and been stabbed in the back more times than she could count. But none of that could compare to the absurdity of a literal sapling sprouting within her Star Core. Her very own soul.

Small thorn-covered roots sprung from the black wood sapling. The feeling of having the roots caressing the edges of her soul reminded Nox of helplessly staring into that enchanting otherworldly eye while being eaten alive.

Nox went into a full-on panic. She had no idea what to do as she had never had something literally grow inside her soul before. She tried contracting her Star Core to crush the roots and the sapling to no effect. In fact, the sapling only seemed to sprout faster the more she tried to suppress it.

"No, no, no," Nox shuddered as the roots spread out, unfazed by her attempts to control them. Her Star Core soon became overwhelmed with the thorn-covered roots invading every inch of her soul. The ball of blazing shadows was then breached as the roots penetrated her Star Core's outer layer and began spreading through the rest of her body.

Nox screamed in pain as her ribcage and organs slowly turned to black wood. She had experienced pain before, but nothing like this. It was almost enough to make her blackout on the spot. Her body instinctually mobilized her shadow Qi to purge the hundreds of roots rapidly protruding from her soul.

To her slight relief, the curse seemed weakened outside of her Star Core so she could force the roots to retreat and stop turning her body into a tree.

"Is this a curse?" Nox said as she ran her trembling hand through her sweat-soaked hair. She was absolutely terrified and was struggling to calm down. Years of experience told her that panicking never helped, but it was hard not to when a literal tree was growing inside her soul.

The sapling's red leaf and black bark reminded her of the demonic tree that had burst into flames behind Stella during the fight. Had the powerful spatial cultivator been the one to place this curse on her, is that why they hadn't bothered to chase her?

Nox knew curses were far more lethal than poisons. If she could not suppress the curse within her own Star Core, that meant the curse was on par or stronger than herself. Therefore, her only hope was to return to the curse's caster and beg them to dispel it or find someone more capable at curses to remove it for her.

Both were terrible options. One would force Nox to return to Stella and beg on her knees, while the other would be very expensive and expose her weakness to the world. Whoever she paid to dispel the curse would realize how weak she was and could kill her and rob her corpse.

"How had Stella known I would betray her?" Nox muttered in disbelief.

Had she slipped up somewhere? Had Hammond leaked the plan? Stella seemed baffled when Hammond attacked her and ripped off that earring artifact. So that seemed unlikely.

The only other option Nox could come up with was that the Ashfallen Trading Company had a cultivator capable of foresight, and if that was the case, she never had a chance in the first place. Her fate was sealed from the beginning, and she played in someone else's palm this whole time.

"This curse is no different from a leash to keep me in check. Assuming I can even survive it," Nox gritted her teeth as she desperately searched her mind for a solution.

She had encountered curses before. But never one as delayed and subtle as this one. When had it entered her soul? When had it taken root? Her gaze drifted down to the ditch before her in the soil where she had woken up only an hour ago. "It was the neurotoxin, wasn't it, that put me to sleep," Nox concluded. "The curse must have begun while I was asleep."

Upon that thought, Nox realized that unless Stella actually planned to kill her with the pill, there must be a way to survive the curse. Looking in her spatial ring, she eyed the antidote Stella had provided her.

Summoning it into her trembling hand, Nox inspected the pill. She was no expert on alchemy, but she knew the floral scent and general appearance of pills she'd bought in the past that were used to dispel poisons, and this looked and smelled very familiar.

She was running out of options and time. Although she could suppress the curse from spreading throughout her body with her Qi, it would take constant effort. And she was alone out here in the wilderness, far from any demonic sects. "Fuck you, Stella, you deceiving bitch," Nox cursed as she downed the antidote.

The cleansing effect spread throughout her body and removed the lingering poison that her Darkness Absorption was working on healing. It was a fantastic antidote for poison, no doubt about that. But a quick check on her Star Core confirmed her worst fear.

Stella had provided the antidote for cleansing the poisonnot the curse.

At this point, the black sapling had completely overtaken her soul. She wondered if she was now more tree than person as Nox felt oddly familiar with the cold bark she was leaning on...

Nox felt her entire body freeze as she slowly turned to look at the tree behind her. She remembered finding it odd when she had arrived at the Redclaw's mountain. It was surrounded by so many demonic trees that didn't let off any scent, and she had never seen any demonic trees capable of growing thousands of meters up a mountain before, let alone an entire forest.

It was completely unnatural. Someone had put those trees there and was keeping them alive.

Nox looked down at her trembling hand, and a horrifying thought crossed her mind. Had all those trees been people? Would she become just like them if she returned to the Ashfallen Trading Company, having betrayed them? Nox thought back to that time she had met Stella in Slymere.

Stella's abyssal gaze had been much weaker but had a similar effect to that eye she had gazed upon while being devoured alive by giant black roots, much like her soul was now experiencing. She had clearly messed with the wrong person, and whoever was behind Stella was far beyond her.

If that was the case, Nox concluded that her only salvation would come from the otherworldly pills Stella had tried to sell her. She dived back into her spatial ring and ignored the weaker pills, going straight for the ones stored in small, ornate wooden boxes. Summoning all of the boxes to the real world and scattering them in the mud around her, she cracked each of them open and attempted to remember what they did.

"I think this one dispelled heart demons," Nox remembered and consumed the pill without a second thought. To Nox's terror, a black, wiggly mass formed out of nothing but impurities gathered within her body and tried to claw its way out of her throat.

Nox's screams were muffled as the monstrosity forced its way out. She barely managed to activate her Shadow Armor in time to avoid being devoured by her own impurities as it crawled down her chest. With a grunt, Nox grabbed the sword she had discarded on the ground earlier and disemboweled the creature. It faded like a black mist and was carried away by the breeze.

Despite the horrifying experience, and after spending a few minutes to calm down, Nox confirmed that her body was now completely devoid of any impurities, and the bottleneck she had felt between her and the Nascent Soul Realm had lessened. Yet, despite all that, the curse remained blooming in her Star Core.

"Fuck this. How is this curse so persistent." Nox was at a loss. Other than the poison pill and ointment that supposedly increased beauty and the pill that improved her spirit root, there was nothing else that she could see that would save her.

Deciding to eat another spirit root improvement pill, she proceeded to cultivate until sundown, all the while suppressing the curse to the best of her abilities while thoroughly cleansing, healing, and improving her body to the best state it had ever been, minus the curse.

"At this point, Stella, I don't know whether to curse or praise you," Nox sighed. She greatly regretted her decision to seize the artifact from Stella and, in turn, make an enemy of the Ashfallen Trading Company.

The bottleneck preventing her from reaching the Nascent Soul Realm was gone; her spirit root was permanently improved, and she had even dabbled a little with the beauty ointment, surprised by the results.

Standing up and stretching, she felt both amazing and, well... cursed. The tree within her soul made its presence constantly known as it tried to spread its roots throughout her body, and it had taken a significant amount of shadow Qi to turn two of her bones and half an organ back to normal with Darkness Absorption.

"I think I now hate trees," Nox muttered as she glanced around at the leafy green forest she had woken in. It was now dusk, which meant it was time for her to hunt, as she had devised a plan to suppress the curse during her meditation.

Using Shadow Creation, the shadows all around her rose into fiends. She also used Night Beast Summoning, and the forest became alive with activity as all the monsters within a large radius became wreathed in her shadows and gathered around, awaiting orders.

"My shadows, go forth and hunt all the monsters in the wilderness. Tear them limb from limb and leave none alive. By sundown, you must return with as many beast cores as possible."

The thousands of shadows acknowledged her order and took off in all directions. Meanwhile, Nox remained behind her barrier. Even with night approaching, she felt unsafe venturing out with this darn curse.

***

A few weeks passed in meditation.

Under the tree and protected by the defensive artifact, Nox remained seated as her shadows hunted for her. Piles of dull beast cores surrounded her as she opened her eyes and exchanged a look with her freshly reformed soul shadow.

"I'm sorry," Nox muttered. She had transferred the curse to her soul shadow during its creation. Her Star Core was now free of the black roots that had tormented her for the last few weeks. But it wasn't over. With her soul shadow now harboring the curse, she could not reach Nascent Soul without becoming cursed again.

Therefore, she rose to her feet, stowed away the defensive artifact that had kept her safe, and turned her gaze to the east, where the Tainted Cloud Sect resided.

It was time to return home, gather allies, and research a way to free herself from the curse through any means necessary. There was just one thing bothering her.

"That can't be right." Nox's spiritual sight was picking up an enormous ball of spatial Qi heading her way very slowly. Jumping up through the tree and perching on one of its branches, she peered through its leaves to the west, and sure enough, a floating island of black rock was on the horizon.

What in the nine realms is that? She wondered as she scanned the rock island that was sort of shaped like a ship. Upon its surface, she made out the silhouette of a few cultivators, and her eyes widened when she noticed the demonic tree ablaze with spatial flames exactly like the one she had seen during the fight.

This bizarre floating ship most certainly belonged to the Ashfallen Trading Company, and it was heading straight for her.