A trap? How?

Ashlock quickly cast his sights to the ground below and saw a thin black line beside the tree surrounded by piles of dulled beast cores. Khaos emerged from the tear in the void, and the apex predator wasted no time trying to slaughter its target upon Ashlock's orders by silently raising its void-coated claws and ruthlessly slashing down.

The Ent's claws effortlessly tore through the tree like a hot knife through butter and shredded a humanoid under its shade. As the tree began to topple and through the shower of splinters, Ashlock knew it was a trick when no blood was drawn, and the humanoid dissipated. It had been a decoy made of shadows all along.

Khaos glanced around in confusion, clearly noticing its master's orders hadn't been fulfilled. Suddenly, hundreds of shadow hands emerged from the ground and grappled at the Ent's limbs. That wasn't all. Ashlock hadn't noticed earlier, but no monster corpses were near or around the tree.

Instead, many feral monsters emerged from the thicket of the forest, wreathed in shadows. They snarled as they encircled the snared Ent, and a moment later, they pounced on Khaos. The void Ent let out a silent scream as she enveloped itself in soul flames and cleaved through the monsters and shadows attempting to tie her down with ease.

Thankfully, Khaos seemed fine, and it was bone-chilling how silently the Ent could slaughter so many monsters in a flurry of attacks. But that wasn't the problem. Nox clearly hadn't turned into a tree and had even recovered enough to fight back and lay traps.

Ashlock didn't waste a second, knowing of Nox's capabilities as an assassin. He activated {Progeny Dominion}.

[Progeny selected: Initiating soul transfer...]

Back home on Red Vine Peak, his soul was torn apart, and a fragment of his soul traveled across space through the ethereal root network.

[Soul fragmented: Damage to soul mitigated]

[Connection complete: Time till sundown 8:30]

Ashlock took control of the Bastion, flooding it with his overwhelming Qi, causing Willow to become a column of spatial flames, sending a shockwave of spatial Qi into the surroundings. Ashlock felt like he was splitting his brain as he activated the spatial shields and flower artillery. He also made sure to power up the illusion array so if Nox was trying to attack them, she would have a hard time aiming or using Shadow Step.

He also created a portal next to Willow and instructed Sol to step through. The ninth stage Star Core Realm Ent immediately illuminated the entire Bastion as he emerged with his floating orb of light for a head.

A brief moment passed, and other than everyone on the Bastion suffering from a brief flash bang due to Sol's arrival, there was no sign of Nox, and everyone was alive. Nobody had lost their head, and there was no insane merchant aboard the ship.

Letting out a sigh of relief, as Nox hadn't seemed to go on the offensive, Ashlock asked Stella, "How did you know it was a trap?"

"Simple," Stella replied, pointing into the distance. "The moment Khaos left the ship to attack Nox, I felt her position shift a mile that way."

"Huh? How did she manage that?" Ashlock asked. Khaos had crossed the void to appear instantly beside the tree, and the void Qi coating the apex predator's body should have made the Ent undetectable with spiritual sense.

Stella squinted her eyes at Khaos as the Ent finished decapitating the last of the monsters, "Likely some form of Shadow Step?" She absentmindedly suggested as her gaze traced the direction Nox fled, "Or maybe she left the earring under the tree and then pulled it to her somehow?"

That was a good point. It wasn't Nox they were tracking, but rather the earring. Granted, it was the earring Ashlock cared most about retrieving. But silencing Nox and stopping her from escaping with the pills and knowledge of their existence would also be ideal.

Taking one last look at the felled tree that Nox had laid her trap under, Ashlock sighed again. "Well, clearly, the curse hasn't fully consumed her yet, or maybe it didn't even activate at all," Ashlock said. "But the fact that Nox would rather flee than fight is suspicious. She must still be recovering her cultivation despite all these corpses, or perhaps she is still poisoned."

The Grand Elder offered his opinion since Ashlock had been speaking to everyone present simultaneously through {Abyssal Whispers}. "I don't believe that is fully the case. Nox is a merchant, and they have a different view on life. Usually, cultivators will fight to the death to protect the pride and reputation of their family or sect. Nobody will be happy delegating cultivation resources to a coward who flees at the first sign of trouble. But since merchants are not tied to any family or sect and roam the lands, they have much more freedom and will often choose survival over confrontation, if possible."

That was some eye-opening information. No wonder Nox had fled at the first opportunity during the meeting and had no problems backstabbing her allies.

"This isn't fair," Ashlock grumbled to himself. "How am I supposed to defeat an enemy that knows how to run away?" The Bastion was far too slow to give chase, but if Nox was only a mile away, she was still well within striking distance of the Bastion's artillery. But was chasing Nox even a good idea? Could they win? The memory of her standing there unaffected as he tried to impale her with swords still lingered in his mind.

But this time, everything is different. Since Ashlock had used {Progeny Dominion} on Willow, the SSS grade Bastion was now at full power, and Ashlock could affect the area a lot more with his own Qi as his influence was no longer restricted.

Furthermore, everyone on the ship had also received a massive power-up over the last week due to the Mystic realm. It was also daytime. So unless Nox had ascended to the nascent soul realm somehow, Ashlock couldn't see how they would lose. But he was still somewhat ignorant of the world, so he inquired the Grand Elder's opinion as he had the most combat experience on the ship.

"Grand Elder, assuming Nox has recovered to the strength displayed during your confrontation a few weeks ago, do you think you would be able to chase and kill her?" Ashlock asked.

The Grand Elder rubbed his chin in brief contemplation. "There are no absolutes on the battlefield, and especially if she has had time to lay traps, it could be troublesome. But with the midday sun to our back, and so long as we stay away from the forest, which provides her a sea of shadows under their canopies, I am pretty certain of our absolute victory." The man then glanced between everyone present. "Especially with three fire cultivators, a light affinity Ent at the peak of the Star Core Realm, a murderous void Ent, and, of course, Stella being able to lock onto Nox's general location. With this, the advantages of the shadow affinity are utterly triumphed."

Well, that settled it.

"Stella, grab hold of one of Sol's arms," Ashlock instructed. Stella gave the aflame, demonic tree a strange look but complied. Due to Sol's height of three meters, it was a little awkward, but she managed to grab the elbow of one of Sol's eight arms and drag it down.

Ashlock commanded Sol to shoot out a thin beam of light from the palm of the hand Stella had grabbed.

Sol complied by bending its arm in Stella's grasp to retrieve a wisp of light from his floating Sol's head. The wisp orbited around the palm and then shot into space.

Ashlock chuckled at everyone's confused gazes. "I suppose there's no such thing as a laser pointer to play with cats or guide missiles in this world."

"OK, now what?" Stella asked.

"Stella, you are the only one who knows Nox's general location due to your earring." Ashlock quickly explained, "So you will stay here in the safety of the Bastion's shields and aim this beam of light where you feel Nox is. I will then bombard that area with spatial artillery. Meanwhile, the Redclaws and Khaos will hunt Nox down. So long as the sun is to our backs and everyone keeps a distance from the forest, everything should go fine."

Everyone exchanged a nod. The Redclaw Grand Elder and Elder Margret summoned swords and jumped up on them.

Meanwhile, Stella led Sol to the ship's bow and aimed the light beam a mile to the east. It still held the power of a 9th-stage Star Core Ent, so the light set the distant trees aflame and carved through the foliage.

Unfortunately, Nox had gained a head start due to her decoy distracting them and Ashlock's cautiousness. But as long as Nox held onto the earring, they could always track her down.

Ashlock had no way to revive dead allies, so he would always be cautious over reckless.

"We need to close the gap as quickly as possible before Nox gets out of the Bastion's attack range." Ashlock mused as he thought of a solution to close the gap. Since they were far out of Ashlock's root range and not in a pocket realm filled with spatial Qi, the air was not dense with spatial Qi, so he could not summon portals to help his sect members get there faster. "I just need to blanket the area in spatial Qi somehow."

That was when Ashlock remembered the third function of the Bastion that he hadn't activated yet. The ability to manifest a Qi storm based on the Bastion Core's affinity.

As the most intensive on his Qi reserves of the three functions, he had refrained, but now wasn't the time to hold back. Back on Red Vine Peak, his 7th stage Star Core hummed and pulsed, sending even more spatial Qi through his ethereal link with the Bastion many miles beyond the range of his roots.

Ashlock felt his influence rapidly expand outward in all directions as a spatial storm ripped through reality.

The Redclaw Grand Elder and Elder Margret had flown as fast as they could through the sky, leaving trails of crimson flames as they headed toward the light beam. But the spatial storm quickly overtook them.

Ashlock created portals before the Redclaws so they could rapidly close the distance to Nox.

Khaos, meanwhile, Void Stepped hundreds of meters at a time through the forest, which was incredibly Qi-intensive. Ashlock was already dreading how long it would take to recharge the Ent.

Meanwhile, back on the Bastion, miniature swirling balls of condensed space formed between the petals of the black flowers sprouting from the side of the Bastion.

A second later, the artillery was fully charged. Upon Ashlock's command, a volley of spatial bombs tore through the spatial storm, past the cultivators, and impacted the ground near the light beam. The following explosion shook the earth and was devastating. It was as if a miniature star had crash-landed.

Ashlock frowned as he felt a third of his total Qi supply vanish despite the massive influx from his Soul Fire offspring.

"Is she dead?" Ashlock asked the only person remaining onboard.

Stella shook her head as she moved the light beam slightly north. "Unless we get away from the trees and into an empty meadow, Nox will always be able to use Shadow Step to avoid the attacks, no matter how fast they are."

"So even during the daytime, she's still so slippery," Ashlock grumbled. "I suppose if I blew up the entire forest, she would have nowhere to hide."

"We could also have the Redclaws burn the whole place to the ground," Stella suggested."But the amount of Qi that would waste would be astronomical."

Ashlock agreed. It was an inefficient hunting method, but what else could they do? He would send Sol after Nox, but the Ent hadn't been designed for combat or really for moving at all. And if he had Sol illuminate the forest, all it would do would cast longer shadows that Nox could use to escape.

"To think the forest would become my enemy," Ashlock chuckled at his predicament as he powered up another volley of spatial bombs. "These are getting expensive... I should regain some of my lost Qi."

Since the spatial storm spread out his influenceat a significant costAshlock could now cast portals around him. The best way for him to recover some of his extreme Qi expenditure was to devour the many corpses littering the forest below, especially the pile of dead monsters Khaos had created, as those still had their beast cores, so they would contain a lot more Qi.

Ashlock used telekinesis to lift the corpses up into the air and to the Bastion. He did this as it was far more Qi efficient than opening hundreds of individual portals.

Stella hardly batted an eye at the sight of hundreds of corpses drifting through the Bastion's shields.

Willow devoured some while the rest were dragged through a large portal that appeared within the safety of the Bastion's shields leading back to Red Vine Peak. This was done because Ashlock didn't want to wait for his soul fragment to return to benefit.

[+11 SC]

[+7 SC]

[+13 SC]

[+24 SC]

[+6 SC]

[+30 SC]

Notifications of sacrificial credits came pouring in, but with Ashlock's increase in cultivation, he noticed he was getting fewer and fewer credits for monsters that would have given him at least a hundred only a few months ago.

"Snacking during a battle," Stella laughed and shook her head, "What a glutton."

"Don't worry about me and my eating habits," Ashlock rebuked, "Just focus on keeping that light beam on target. The next volley of spatial bombs is ready, and the Redclaws have already almost caught up to Nox."

Stella pouted as a volley of spatial bombs ripped through the air and decimated yet another large section of forest.

The Redclaws narrowly managed to pull back to avoid the blast and even raised shields of fire Qi to avoid being blown off their swords from the shockwave that made trees for many miles rustle violently.

"Not dead." Stella said as she lightly moved the light beam further east, "She moved again in the nick of time."

"Maybe so, but she will be soon." Ashlock hoped as he saw how close the Redclaws and Khaos were to the light beam's new location and began to charge up another volley. Causing deforestation on this scale made him feel awful, and he sincerely wished to finish this soon without blowing up the entire wilderness.