DSE Chapter 109: Lucious vs Origin Realm Expert! (Patreon)

Lucious shot through the sky like an arrow loosed from a bow, the wind whipping at his face. He had to put some distance between himself and that cursed village before whoever it was that was monitoring him caught up.

As a newly minted Nascent Soul cultivator, flight came as naturally to him as breathing. No clumsy swords or artifacts needed - his own power was more than sufficient to propel him through the air at breakneck speeds.

A smug grin tugged at his lips. Even outside this backwater realm, his cultivation would make him an elder in any top sect, a leader in any of the weaker ones.

But his self-congratulatory musings were cut short as a familiar prickle ran down his spine - the unmistakable aura of a Nascent Soul cultivator, hot on his trail. Lucious frowned. How had they caught up to him so quickly? He'd assumed he would have more of a head start.

Gritting his teeth, he poured more energy into his flight, determined to shake off his tail. He had no doubt he could handle a single Nascent Soul expert in a fight...but if he got bogged down now, it would only give the others time to catch up. And if an Origin Realm powerhouse entered the fray, even he would be hard-pressed to emerge unscathed.

No, better to run now and fight on his own terms later. Lucious pushed himself to fly even faster, the landscape blurring beneath him into a sea of white.

But no matter how much distance he put between them, that nagging sense of being watched never quite faded. If anything, it only seemed to grow stronger with each passing moment.

Lucious extended his spiritual sense, probing his surroundings for any signs of-

There! To the left, right, front and back, four blazing auras flared to life, locking onto him like a pack of wolves cornering a wounded deer. How was this possible? They had him completely surrounded!

A wave of confusion washed over Lucious, tinged with the first inklings of feeling he had not experienced in a long time - fear. He knew the people of this realm weren't exactly fond of outsiders...but to coordinate such a sophisticated ambush in so short a time spoke of something more than simple xenophobia.

Just what in the nine hells was going on here?

Lucious shook himself. It was clear now that escape was off the table - these bastards had him well and truly boxed in. His only choice was to stand his ground and fight.

Gritting his teeth, Lucious angled himself into a steep dive, arrowing down towards a barren plateau that seemed as good a place as any to make his last stand. He could only pray that the Origin Realm expert he knew was coming would be delayed long enough for him to deal with these small fry.

The moment his feet touched the ground, four figures emerged from the blizzard. Three men and one woman, all radiating the power of Early Nascent Soul - except the leader, a man with a long mustache. He was a step above, at the Mid Nascent Soul stage.

"Well, well, well. I have to say, I'm impressed," Lucious called out, his voice cutting through the howling wind. "Didn't think you lot would be able to track me down so quickly. Care to share your secret?"

The four cultivators looked at each other, then back at Lucious. Their expressions were cold, tinged with disdain and something else...disgust? They regarded him as one might regard a cockroach scuttling across a temple floor.

The leader spoke, his voice flat and hard. "We have nothing to say to you, Outsider. Your kind are a plague upon our realm, and it is our duty to expunge you."

Lucious felt his eye twitch. This was the first time that anyone had dared to look down on him.

"Fine then,” he spat. “If you won't talk...then I'll just have to make you scream."

He reached into his robes and brought out a fistful of blood-red seeds, throwing them to the ground at his feet. The seeds had been nourished with his demonic energy, they sprang to life as a tangle of writhing, thorn-covered vines.

The legacy technique of the Black Rose Sect was as versatile as it was horrifying. Illusions to cloud the mind, lashing tendrils to tear flesh from bone, even snapping jaws to devour victims whole - the vines of the Black Rose could do it all. And Lucious, as a Legacy Disciple, was a true master of their power.

Lucious thrust out his hand, sending the vines surging towards the woman. The flowers bloomed in a dizzying kaleidoscope of colours before bursting, enveloping her in a cloud of pollen.

The woman reeled back, coughing and clawing at her face as the hallucinogenic spores took hold. She screamed and began to claw at her face. Lucious did not want to know what she was seeing.

The moustache expert reacted instantly, sending a hail of razor-sharp icicles slicing through the air towards Lucious. But Lucious was already in motion, a wall of crimson vines erupted from the ground, intercepting the frozen projectiles.

Rolling out from behind his leafy barrier, Lucious summoned a swarm of thorny rose pellets with silent gesture. With a sharp thrust of his arm, he sent the deadly spheres hurtling towards his enemies in a high-speed barrage.

The other two cultivators managed to put up their defences in time - one a crackling shield of electricity, the other a wall of solid stone. The rose pellets that struck these barriers shattered into clouds of needling thorns. But those that found flesh burrowed deep, the wounds instantly beginning to fester with vicious poison.

Lucious allowed himself a cold smile as he heard their shouts of pain. He had never been one to play fair.

His satisfaction was short-lived. A massive claw of ice exploded from a nearby snowdrift, nearly taking his head as he threw himself to the side. The moustache expert had used the chaos of the melee to manoeuvre behind him.

Lucious hit the ground rolling and slammed his palms to the dirt. A dense web of vines burst from the earth, forming a living barrier.

The ice claw ripped into the mass of vegetation, shredding the vines but failing to break through to Lucious. Seizing the chance, Lucious pushed more energy into his technique, commanding the vines to lash out and ensnare the frozen limb.

In seconds, the icy construct was immobilized, trapped in a strangling cocoon of vegetation. But Lucious wasn't finished.

"Bind!" he snarled. At his command, the vines contracted with crushing force, reducing the ice claw to glittering powder.

The moustache expert leapt back with a curse, barely avoiding the vines that lunged after him. Pure hatred burned in the man's eyes, but he kept his distance, one little mistake could bring the battle to an end.

The strength of these Northern Realms masters is laughable, Lucious smirked. Even this mighty expert of the Mid Nascent Soul stage was hesitant to engage him directly.

Lucious' vines swarmed the battlefield in an unending tide, keeping the four experts off-balance and on the defensive, unable to mount a coordinated counterattack.

Minutes dragged by in furious struggle, but the conclusion was inevitable. The woman and one of the men were the first to fall, succumbing to the venom and madness wracking their bodies.

The earth-wielding cultivator tried to tunnel to safety. It was a fatal mistake. He had barely descended a handful of meters before vines speared through the ground above him and dragged him back to the surface in bloody pieces.

The moustache expert lasted the longest, weaving walls of slicing ice and frigid wind to keep the tide of plants at bay. But it was a losing battle. For every vine he cut down or froze, dozens more took their place.

Steadily, inexorably, the vines closed in, hemming the expert in on all sides. Cornered and desperate, he roared the words of an ultimate technique: "Frozen Lotus Entombment!"

A massive lotus of purest ice bloomed around him, sealing him completely in a hardened cocoon. For a second, there was silence.

Then a 100 feet vine reared up and pierced through the icy shell like a spear through rotten wood. It punched out the opposite side in a spray of crystalline shrapnel and bloody mist. The frozen flower collapsed, revealing the broken, skewered corpse within.

"Im...possible..." the expert choked out with his dying breath. "An Outsider...this powerful...it cannot...be..."

And just like that, it was done. Lucious stood alone amidst a circle of Nascent Soul corpses. He was barely even winded.

"Pathetic," Lucious muttered, petting one of the vines. Was this truly the limit of Sealed Realm Nascent Soul cultivators? He'd hoped for better from opponents of this level.

Movement caught his eye - the woman, somehow still clinging to a faint spark of life.

Well, that could be rectified easily enough...but first, perhaps this fool might have some information to share.

Lucious knelt over the dying cultivator, pressing his palm to the woman’s forehead. "Soul Scour Surge," he whispered.

His spiritual sense plunged into the cultivator’s mind like a spike, ripping and tearing, searching for useful knowledge. Soul-searching techniques were difficult to master, and Lucious's Mortal-grade version was far from perfect, but even fragments might prove valuable.

An image flashed behind Lucious's eyes: a sprawling complex of majestic palaces and temples, all carved from flawless white jade that glowed under the moon's silver light. At the heart of it all stood a tower, it was a magnificent tower, its peak appeared to pierce the very heavens.

Then another vision: a figure sat on a throne, his ageless face both beautiful and terrifying. Power rolled off him in suffocating waves as he gazed down at the ranks of kneeling disciples.

A name drifted through the chaotic whirl of stolen thoughts: Moon God Sect. And then another name...the Moon God King.

Pain. Fear. A desperate urge to fight, to flee, to live. The expert’s mind was collapsing. Lucious tore his hand away with a frustrated hiss as the light left the woman’s eyes, her soul burning to ash.

Barely anything. Just a sparse handful of hints and fragments, useless without-

A crushing pressure descended, nearly driving Lucious to his knees. He swore viciously even as a knot of dread coiled in his gut - he knew that sensation all too well. The sheer crushing weight of an Origin Realm aura...

Lucious looked up as a figure flew down from the heavens to touch down lightly on the far side of the plateau. At first glance, he appeared to be little more than a young boy, his youthful features set in an arrogant smirk.

But the overwhelming pressure radiating from his sleight frame told a different story. This was no mere child...but a monster wearing human skin.

The boy cocked his head, studying Lucious with a kind of detached amusement. "Well now, isn't this a pleasant surprise?" he drawled. "I was hoping for something to take my mind off...recent disappointments. And here you are, a new chew toy dropped right into my lap. It's like the Heavens want me to work out my frustrations!"

The boy - no, the Origin Realm expert - raised his arm in a clawing motion. Lucious barely had time to curse before a wind scythe, sharp enough to split a mountain, came screaming towards him.

A circular barrier of crimson light snapped into place before him, just in time for the wind blade to crash against it with a sound like breaking glass. The barrier held...then shattered, a spider web of cracks radiating from the point of impact as it drained the killing force from the attack.

One of Lucious' life-saving treasures, burnt out in a single use. He fought down a surge of relief and frustration - of course he was happy to be alive, but to expend such a rare treasure so early in the fight...!

The arrogant child clicked his tongue, "Of course. You Outsiders always have such interesting trinkets. But I wonder...how many of those do you have left?"

Lucious gritted his teeth, knowing that despite being able to handle multiple Nascent Soul cultivators, an Origin Realm cultivator was a different beast. He slipped his hand into his robe to grip the pendant hanging against his chest. The absolute last resort, a vessel containing a single strike from a living Ascendant, Lucious' own master.

Once unleashed, that power could crush an Origin Realm expert into a bloody smear...but it would also mean that Lucious would not have any other treasures that could threaten a higher realm cultivator. Not ideal...but better than dying here and now!

But just as he started to channel qi into the treasure, he noticed the expert's eyes lock onto something over his shoulder. Confusion, then shock, then pure hatred flashed across the child cultivator’s face.

"You!?" he spat. "What in the heavens are you doing here!?"

Lucious turned to see a black-cloaked figure standing behind him. A bone-white mask, its surface etched with crimson tattoos, covered their face.

The cloaked man tilted his head, "Now, now, what's with that scary face, Orion? I just stopped by to see my favourite raging midget. Is that so wrong?"