Tristan Evergreen stood rooted in place as the dome of ash swirled around him. Within this cage was the Ashen Devourer, a monster of unknown strength and origins that had evaded and slaughtered cultivators with the strength and tactics of an apex predator.

And now, Tristan was alone, in a one-on-one with the monster. His Star Core flared to life, and Qi flooded every fiber of his body, which was intoxicating. He noticed the weight of his sword had lessened, and his body felt light and full of power.

This was the cultivation realm he had worked so hard and sacrificed so much for. Seeing the monster's shadow loom through the darkness of the ashen dome, Tristan couldn't hold back a sneer as he raised his sword and pointed it at where he thought the monster lurked.

Shaking off self-doubt and fear of the monster, he steeled his resolve and decided to face it head-on.

"You think I'm trapped in here with you?" His Star Core roared to life, and green flames burst out, filling the entire dome with its sickly light. His sword turned into pure flames, and he cut a slit in the dome with a horizontal slash. Faint sunlight poured in, and Tristan could see the chaotic sky through the crack.

The ash dome quickly repaired itself, 'But the spider should stay within the dome if I also stay inside.' Tristan smiled. His greatest annoyance when hunting this monster in the forests had been its ability to run away.

He refused to believe it would be as good at fighting in a duel compared to its hit-and-run tactics.

So it was right where he wanted ittrapped in a cage of its own design.

With his Star Core producing enough flames to illuminate the space a few meters around him, Tristan felt confident he could react in time to a sneak attack

He dogged to the left as a limb blurred past where his head had just been.

He looked over his shoulder and met many curious red eyes. He was so close he could smell the scent of iron due to the blood dripping from the monster's fangs. "Vile beast!" Tristan yelled as he spun around and sliced at one of the spider's limbs.

He had half been expecting the spider to dodge or have a defensive ability, but instead, he was sprayed with purple blood and a shrill scream from the spider.

Tristan mobilized his Qi to protect his ears and resisted covering them. Was this some kind of sound attack, or was it actually that injured?

The spider stumbled back, clearly struggling to get used to missing a leg.

Purple blood spewed from the severed limb like a punctured barrel. After a moment, it stopped screaming and glared at him with hatred. Gone was its curiosity.

Only primal rage remained in those blood-red eyes. It bared its fangs with a hiss, and instead of fading back into the darkness, it charged at him like a raging bull.

Tristan tried to slash back at it with his sword, but a surge of ash blasted him and took the brunt of his swing, meaning that as the sword hit the spider, much of its momentum was lost, and it only cut an inch deep into the spiders tough fur, which only seemed to anger it more.

Digging his heels into the stone below, Tristan tried to push back the spider, but even with his sword half embedded into it, the Ashen Devour refused to relent and continued barreling down on him, forcing his back into the dome of ash.

Tristan furrowed his brows. Never had he expected the spider to be this ferocious and strong.

It was hard to estimate its exact realm, as monsters worked on a slightly different system than humans, and the Dao of ash was a rare one that was more support based and lacked fighting power.

But if Tristan had to guess, it was weaker than him. 'Peak Soul Fire realm, perhaps?' Tristan thought as he summoned a dagger to his free hand from his spatial ring, shrouded it in Qi, and rammed it into the spider's face causing it to reel back and scream again.

"Can't use your hunting tactics in here." Tristan sneered, "Now stay back."

Tristan decided it was time to use a technique to keep the monster locked down.

Connecting with the heavens will, it acknowledged his deep comprehension of nature Dao and understood his intentions to entrap the monster.

Before the spider even knew what was happening, as it was so focused on its pain, Tristan had mentally connected to the hundreds of red vines that grew along the pavilion's walls.

Tristan raised his hand, and as if directing a musical performance, he directed hundreds of vines to shoot through the dome of ash and latch onto the spider's seven remaining limbs, head, and abdomen.

It unleashed another cry as its limbs were pulled to the side and fell to the ground. Tristan twirled the dagger as he approached the behemoth mummified in red vines.

"How does it feel to be the one caught in the trap for a change?" He asked with a sly smile, "Not so fun to be on the receiving end, is it?"

A pulse of green fire went through the vines and set the spider's fur ablaze. It shrieked, and the smell of burning flesh tickled Tristan's nose. It was glorious. The Ashen Devourer had made a fool out of his incompetent family for months. And sure enough, he was the only one capable of killing this foe.

He had to jump up to stand on the spider's head. It struggled against its restraints, but he could tell it had no way to escape. He raised his foot and slammed it down on the spider's head, clamping its mouth shut to stop its ear-piercing screams.

It silently seethed, its many eyes glaring up at him.

Tristan relished in the moment of triumph. This was the power he had sought for so long. He deserved this position atop an opponent's crown, where they could do nothing but look up and marvel at him.

As Tristan was feeling on top of the world, he heard a snap and saw a red vine fly in the corner of his eye. Followed by another, and then another. He blinked, finding it hard to believe what he was seeing.

The spider's leg snapped his vines, which were empowered by his Star Core realm Qi. Without wasting another second, Tristan raised his sword in an executioner style and prepared to decapitate the monster before it could fight back.

"Die"

Black vines coated in lilac Qi shot through the dome of ash and slammed into him, sending his sword flying from his hand. Tristan tumbled off the spider's head and rolled to the floor, where the vines kept up their pursuit and wrapped around his waist.

Tristan looked down at the vines coiling around his waist as they shredded and singed his clothes with the thousands of thorns coated in lilac flames.

'Stella Crestfallen is a dual-core?' Tristan wondered.

He couldn't believe it. Not only did Stella Crestfallen have such pure spatial Qi, but she had even better control over vines than him? A nature Star Core cultivator? Just how talented could one person be?

Tristan gritted his teeth, grabbed the black vines, and tore them off his body with raw strength. His clothes were partially torn, but there was no blood as he suffered no injuries due to his thick skin.

With the vines off him, Tristan straightened his back, but then he noticed a new issue.

The dome was rapidly closing in.

***

As a tree, Ashlock may not be able to pursue attackers or run away, but he did have an enormous advantage over people of similar strength who found trouble on his home turf.

Even with most of his Qi being sucked up by his forming Star Core, Ashlock had found a workaround. He used Bob, the giant slime in the mine, as a battery. He had recently shoved a lot of Qi into the slime, so he decided to take it back out to fuel his fight.

After the door exploded into pieces, many items were thrown into the mist. Which confused Ashlock at first, but then he saw a dozen cultivators rush in and tunnel vision onto the discarded items.

Naturally, Diana and Stella didn't wait for the invader's permission, and the pair practically teleported through the mist and began to slaughter the cultivators.

A few put up a good fight, but none stood a chance, with the mist confusing them and Ashlock assisting with {Devour}. It went exactly as Stella had predicted. Easy.

These cultivators ranged from the lower to mid-stage of the Soul Fire realm, so Ashlock impaled them with black vines coated in 9th-stage Soul Fire realm Qi.

While they were busy fighting off the vines, Stella or Diana would dash past and decapitate them.

Clearly, the dozen or so cultivators that entered were not a fan of teamwork, and they were all half-focused on collecting the items discarded on the ground.

Whereas Stella and Diana were a ruthlessly efficient duo and knew each other's strengths well, likely due to their time spent training together.

Three cultivators did slip past Stella and Diana, aiming straight for Ashlock and assumably the forming Star Core rather than being slowed down for the rewards scattered on the floor. However, before they could reach him, he mobilized his zombie and had it confront them.

"What the hell is that thing!" A buff man with green hair shouted as the zombie with lilac flames pouring from its ears, eyes, and mouth emerged from the mist and charged at them with a creepy jitteriness.

"Just stab it!" Another shouted, "It's so slow" The zombie lept at the guy and fell just short of him before exploding, dispersing the mist and sending that guy flying back with a wave of lilac Qi.

With the mist gone, the remaining three could see the many corpses and two girls approaching them with blood-coated blades.

"Wait!" A white-haired women called out, but it was too late. Vines erupted from the ground, which she barely managed to slap awaythen Diana appeared before hersliced at her legs.

The woman tried to fight back, but Stella hurled a lightning bolt at her face and cleanly decapitated her with a sword swing.

The corpse toppled to the ground, and Ashlock felt mid-stage Soul Fire Qi flow through his vines. The other two remaining cultivators suffered a similar fate.

Ashlock couldn't wait for more cultivators to arrive. Weren't they basically like lambs to the slaughter with his home advantage and allies?

He almost felt giddy about how many sacrificial credits he would receive after this fight, but he also needed this darn ascension to the Star Core realm to hurry up. More competent cultivators might arrive soon, and his Qi reserves were quickly being diminished.

With the immediate fight in the central courtyard concluded, Ashlock had seen more cultivators on the way with his {Eye of the Tree God}, so he quickly got to work using {Root Puppet} on a few of the lower-stage corpses as they wouldn't give him that many credits anyway.

Ashlock then felt a feeling of deep pain and terror shoot down the black tether he had with Larry. Immediately he followed the tether and found a storm of ash swirling around on top of a wall.

A sudden wave of green flames caused a slit in the top of the dome, and Ashlock saw the situation inside. He noticed Larry was injured, and an Evergreen cultivator was fighting him.

Ashlock cast {Devour} without hesitation, and his black vines shot out from a flowerbed below the wall and curved over the top. However, due to the far distance, they moved slower than Ashlock wanted.

By then, the line of sight on the Evergreen cultivator had been lost, but like a homing missile, the vines shot through the ash dome and seemed to hit the person inside.

The swirling dome of dense ash began to contract, and Ashlock saw Larry emerge, and he was instantly filled with rage. His summons fur had been burned off, leaving charred dark purple flesh covered in deep lines resembling rope burns. But worse than all that, Larry was missing a leg, and blood spewed from the tip.

Ashlock controlled his silent fury and tried to tell Larry through the link to retreat. But the only emotion he received back was a chaotic primal rage like an intense static noise.

Larry had gone berserk and could only see red. The spider ignored Ashlock's commands and dived back into the storm.

***

'Does that monster think it can trap me here and escape?' Tristan thought as the dome collapsed on top of him.

Tristan reeled back his now free handas his sword had been knocked to the floor somewhereand punched out at the dome. A wave of green flames opened a hole through the wall, and he briefly saw hints of the ongoing fight in the central courtyard.

The mist was gone, and he saw many corpses lying face down on the ground. But then the hole rapidly closed before he could see much else.

"Tsk. Did they lose already? This will be annoying." Tristan muttered. It was a less than ideal situation. Ideally, he wanted the spider to stay in the dome with him so he could fight it face-to-face in an enclosed area, as his nature Dao thrived in close combat.

Whereas the spider relied on sneak attacks and area control.

The dome had contracted to only a few meters in diameter, so Tristan concluded there was no way the spider was still inside, so he reeled back his fist to punch a hole through the ash, but then he felt a sudden burning pain.

Looking over his shoulder, Tristan saw many red eyes and a fang the size of a sword skewering his fist, which gleamed in the light of his green soul fire.

The spider then reared its head, dragging his impaled hand with it. To make things even worse, the dome had collapsed entirely around him, so he couldn't see anythingthe ash filled his lungs and burned his eyes.

Tristan used the dagger in his still-free hand to lash out through the ash storm at the spider's face, causing it to shriek through its clenched mouth around his fist.

"Die, die, die, die!" Tristan cried as the pain became intolerable, and the spider refused to let go of his fist. How the hell had it suddenly become so strong? Had it gone crazy?

Tristan decided this wasn't working, so he burned a large part of his Qi reserves to disperse the ash around him by cranking up the ferocity of his Soul Fire. The flames that had coated his skin roared up to a few meters in height, and Tristan became a column of green hellfire that dispersed all the ash with a wave of his free hand.

With his eyes no longer burning. Tristan blinked and saw his surroundings. The spider was still firmly biting his hand, but now two girls stood on either side with swords drawn and an indescribable fury in their eyes.

But Tristan was confused.

One of the girls was Stella Crestfallen.

So who the hell was ascending to the Star Core realm?