[Tree] Chapter 339: Sin of Gluttony (Patreon)

"Misery loves company, and so does death, apparently," Ashlock mused as he watched another Shadow Leviathan's corpse melt into a gloop against the Bastion's shield as it was devoured by his void tendrils and vines.

These monsters weren't weak by any stretch of the imagination, but the swirling abyss of shadow law around them was a double-edged sword. It trapped them here. Ashlock and Nox couldn't gaze into the abyss to see the enemies coming. However, the same was true for the Shadow Leviathans. All these monsters knew was that there was a glowing blob of shadow Qi waiting to be absorbed, so they moved toward it, unaware of what awaited them: a swift and brutal death to the void.

[+ 287]

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"The number of them appearing has greatly slowed down, and the latest seems to be in the Star Core Realm," Ashlock muttered as he looked at his sign-in menu, "Did I really already kill all of the Nascent Soul Realm ones? I still need over 2500 credits to reach the 9000 I need for the Bastion to merge with the Dark Throne. At this rate..."

Ashlock paused as he suddenly felt an immense pull on his soul as golden words flashed into existence in his vision, interrupting his seafood feast.

[Time until sundown 0:00]

"No, wait—" But his plea fell on deaf ears. His time had run out—the sun had set, and it was time for his soul to return.

His soul fragment detached from Nox and was pulled back to Red Vine Peak through his ethereal roots. As his soul fragment slotted in and fused with the rest of his soul, he had to go through the uncomfortable experience of once again feeling 'whole.' Despite being apart, he still shared memories with his soul fragment; otherwise, when using the {Progeny Dominion [S]} skill, a very different and confused version of him would fuse with his offspring.

However, the experiences through his soul fragment felt very detached, almost like watching a movie. It wasn't until the soul fragment merged with his soul that those memories became real to him. If Nox had died with his soul shard inside the realm, he would have lost those memories he had inside, and they would seem like a fading dream at best, almost like the visions he had of the past world tree.

The moment his soul fragment fully returned and 'clicked' into place, once again making him whole, golden words appeared over the Divine Flesh Tree.

[Brace for soul expansion]

[Attempting to convert and absorb [%%%] units of shadow Qi from soul fragment]

"What?"

A mere few seconds ago, he had been engaged in a battle to the death against a wave of leviathans in the eye of a shadow Qi law storm while trying to seize control over a pocket dimension from a group called the Shadow Sovereigns. Now, he was back in his soul, gazing down at his Inner World. It seemed so peaceful here compared to the insanity of the shadow pocket realm. There were no monsters here, just endless meadows of grass that swayed in the soft wind of his wind dao.

For a moment, Ashlock took in the serenity of the place and let his consciousness relax. He didn't realize how stressful that last few hours in the pocket realm had been.

However, the peace didn't last long. The system hadn't been joking when it told him to brace for a 'soul expansion' as his entire soul began to tremble as if it were experiencing a dimensional earthquake.

"System, what the hell is happening?" Ashlock yelled as he saw thin cracks appearing along the surface of his Inner World, and a flood of shadow Qi poured out the gaps as if there were burst water pipes.

[Inner World absorption rate deemed too low to safely absorb all [%%%] units of Qi at once without risk of triggering a supernova... searching for solutions]

"Uhm, could you hurry up the search for solutions a little?" Ashlock pleaded as his Inner World continued to quake and fracture under the immense amount of Qi pouring out of the soul fragment from everything he devoured in the Mystic Realm. He had gone up multiple stages before, and the system had never had a problem; just how much Qi had he absorbed while in that shadow realm? He squinted at the message in search of answers, but the units of measurement the system was using didn't seem to make sense to him, as they appeared to be jumbled symbols.

Ashlock had once believed the system to be all-powerful, but over time, he had learned it was far from that. The sacrificial credits he gained from devouring things were like tokens he could exchange with the system for rewards. The system would then use the energy from the souls he devoured to perform the miracles he saw as gacha pulls. Now that they had a more transactional relationship, he understood the system's limits.

It couldn't outright break the rules of heaven. There was a reason cultivation was usually a slow process; like training a muscle, expanding one's soul to reach the next stage took a long time and consistent effort. But he often skipped stages by relying on his system to expand his soul safely and rapidly.

"System?" Ashlock asked but got no response. He could see the system was hard at work, trying to keep his Inner World together and wielding divine energy to block the shadow Qi from the giant forest of flesh trees that encircled the Divine Flesh Tree and represented all of the SC he had worked so hard to get in the shadow realm.

"Okay Ashlock, think. If you were the system, what would you do?" Ashlock recalled sci-fi shows where an engineer would have to reroute power through a ship to power shields or something during a battle. It was weird to think of himself as a spaceship, but weirdly, his biology wasn't that far off.

"If the immense amount of shadow Qi is too much to convert and process all at once, I need to find somewhere to store it so I can spread out the process over a longer period." Ashlock looked at his Inner World, which looked on the verge of fracturing as the shadow Qi tried to escape the confines and spread into the rest of his soul. "What could possibly store this much Qi? Maybe my offspring?"

Ashlock did have many vast forests of offspring spread across the land that he often pulled on in times of need to supplement his Qi reserves, but passing Qi back to them was a whole different story. Forcing Nascent Soul Realm level shadow Qi onto his children sounded like a great way to overwhelm their souls and kill them. Especially the ones that already had Star Cores of different affinities.

"My offspring can't handle this. What about the mountain? No, that doesn't even make any sense. If it was an entire mountain of empty spirit stones, I could use it as a sort of battery, but that isn't the case. The mountain is mostly rock held together with earth Qi, divine energy, and my roots..." Ashlock paused, "If I could find a way to convert it all into spatial Qi, I could temporarily store it in my roots. But that won't work if it stays as shadow Qi, as my roots can only handle spatial Qi. What a joke! There's no way I can convert all of this Qi before my Inner World explodes. Shit, what can I do?"

A dome of divine energy began to surround the Divine Flesh Tree as what could only be described as a tsunami of shadow slammed into it, washing up the dome and almost cresting the top.

[Ashlock, help me!]

"Give me a second! I'm thinking..." Ashlock hadn't ever expected the day would come when the system that seemed like a godly existence would rely on him. This wasn't how it was supposed to go! He had always believed that rewards and power would come as long as he devoured all who stood in his way.

If Stella was the sin of pride, had he become the sin of gluttony? This was the first time he had encountered the repercussions of being a glutton, and it was hard for him to think straight, with his soul breaking apart before his eyes.

"Fucking hell, surely there is something I can do," Ashlock tried to bring up his status menu, but with his system fighting to keep his Nascent Soul alive, nothing appeared. Weirdly, he felt he could still use all of his 'system-granted' skills, mutations, and more despite being unable to see them as a list. "Nice to know those skills and whatnot are considered mine rather than being borrowed power... wait that's not important right now. There's gotta be some cultivator bullshit I can do."

Worst case, he could dispel the Qi into the surroundings or even hand it off to the World Tree, but then he wouldn't benefit from the leap in cultivation. There had to be something he could do. Glancing around his soul, he searched for somewhere to offload the Qi when he had a sudden idea.

"Hold on, when I ascended to Nascent Soul Realm, didn't my soul type change from Amethyst to the Nine Moons? Hey, system, you never really said what the benefit of that was besides the fact I could unlock other affinities in the future with divine fragments." Ashlock knew he was grasping at straws at this point, but he was desperate, "Is there anything we can do with the moons?"

The Divine Flesh Tree suddenly lit up like a beacon of raw power, drawing in the rampaging shadow Qi flooding the surface of his Inner World toward itself. The divine shield barely held off the surge. Just what was his system doing?

[That could work!] His system said before it switched to its more formal way of speaking, [Activating Soul Type: Nine Moons and distributing excess Qi to the nine moons]

The dreamscape appeared as if a curtain had been lifted to reveal a distorted cosmic show, and the nine moons took center stage from the horizon until his soul's zenith. The eight blank moons began to glow with pale light that kept intensifying as if someone was turning up the brightness until it got so intense that they shot down concentrated beams of light as if they were circular mirrors redirecting the sun to incinerate ants. Rampaging shadow Qi was sucked from the surface of his Inner World by these light beams in streams, and within minutes, the quaking stopped, and he felt relief.

The eight moons now had storms of darkness rampaging across their surface and the usual soft healing glow he was used to was gone.

"Phew that was close. Good job, system," Ashlock praised his partner in crime for coming in clutch and saving him from a self-inflicted supernova with his vague idea.

Looking down at his Inner World it was still a mess and in serious need of repair. The fissures along the surface ran deep, and the careful balance of daos that kept the Inner World functioning was out of balance. Fire tornados clashed with torrential hail from immense storms that swept the once serene meadows that now resembled hell.

The divine energy dome faded, revealing the Divine Flesh Tree that was thankfully unharmed and able to shrug off the daos fighting for dominance.

"Is this how the heavens felt when it needed to get the origins under control?" Ashlock mused as he saw the system flex its might to dispel the chaos around it.

[The damage to the Inner World and your soul is immense. Furthermore, your recovery will be slow while storing Qi on the eight moons lacking an affinity]

"Just how much Qi did I devour to cause this disaster?"

[Enough to cause a supernova that would wipe out everything from here to Slymere faster than someone could blink]

"And that's enough Qi to almost kill me?"

Call him arrogant, but if there was one thing his body had been great at until now, it was wielding an ungodly amount of Qi. Whether it be how large his soul was compared to humans or his ability to pull in Qi from his offspring. He found it hard to believe his main advantage had almost been his downfall.

[The amount of Qi was a problem, but there were other factors that caused me to lose control. Such as your Inner World lacking any shadow Qi dao, so it reacted violently. I also couldn't forcefully convert it all into spatial Qi at once as your soul is at a lower stage than the Qi you absorbed]

Ashlock had believed absorbing higher-level Qi with his weaker soul fragment to be an exploit, and the system would reward him more once his soul fragment remerged with his soul. Such logic would have worked if his system was a godly entity far above him, but that was not the case.

"My greed caused this." Ashlock sighed, "Sorry, system. Is there a way we can fix this?"

[I can fix everything if you enter hibernation with {Nocturnal Genesis} active for five days and nights. While you are asleep, I will convert the Qi from the moons to spatial and then absorb the Qi, freeing them from the darkness blocking their soul-healing light. By the time you wake, you will be healed and more powerful than ever]

"Wait, hold on." Ashlock said, "Five whole days and nights? That will take me to the end of the Mystic Realm! What about Nox? I left her alone in that realm surrounded by leviathans. I also wanted to check on the others. Is there no way we can delay this until after the Mystic Realm is done?"

He also still needed 2500 credits for Nox to learn shadow Qi law. The shadow realm had shown a decline in credit earnings, so he debated venturing into other realms to get the needed credits. The timing would be too tight if he was locked out until the last day.

[With your soul in such a sorry state, performing {Progeny Dominion} is too dangerous, let alone multiple times in a week]

Ashlock sighed. The system was, unfortunately, right. Even he could see from a glance that trying to find an area of his soul that wasn't too damaged to extract a soul fragment for the skill would be impossible.

"Okay, put me to sleep," he said with great reluctance.

[Goodnight]

***

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Ashlock groggily awoke on the last full day of the Mystic Realm. He had experienced the strangest dreams as memories merged together in the wrongest ways, likely because of how fractured his soul had been.

He looked beyond his trunk at the sunrise and enjoyed the feeling of sunlight cresting over the distant mountains, landing on his canopy and warming him this winter morning. Once he felt a little more awake to face reality, he retreated into his soul to check on the situation.

"Woah, when the hell did this happen?" His Inner World had expanded and was easily twice as big as before. The Divine Flesh Tree that had seemed to dominate half the world now seemed more reasonably sized in comparison. "Just how many stages did I go up—"

[Demonic Demi-Divine Tree (Age: 9)]

[Nascent Soul Realm: 4th Stage]

[Soul Type: Nine Moons(Spatial)]

"Oh, here we are... wait, really?" Ashlock had expected to go up a stage or two at least, but three whole stages in one go? It almost seemed worth the whole ordeal he... well, the system went through to convert it all.

Looking up at the nine moons, there were no shadows on their perfect surfaces, and he could feel their soul-healing energies. The Inner World was also devoid of fissures leaking Qi. There appeared to be some surface-level damage to the floating islands he had built for the cult, and one seemed to have crashed during the debacle.

"Nothing Douglas can't fix," Ashlock mumbled as he wrapped the ruins in spatial Qi and floated them back into the sky. He also checked on Stella's home and was surprised to find it intact.

[Don't worry. I protected it from the storms and made sure the land it sat on was unaffected by the Inner Worlds expansion]

"Thank you, and good morning system," Ashlock said, barely holding back a yawn. That had been the most intense sleep he had ever experienced. "I still have a day left for the Mystic Realm, right?"

[That is correct, and your soul is healed enough to perform {Progeny Dominion} again]

Ashlock hummed in acknowledgment and opened his menus to once again select Nox. It was time to revisit the Shadow Veil Sanctum. Of course, he took a brief second to check Stella's pocket dimension in the menu and was pleased to see she was still alive.

"Okay let's go!"

[Progeny selected: Initiating soul transfer...]

***

"Thank the heavens you are back!" Nox cried tears of darkness as she hugged the tree with her avatar. "I thought I was going to die."

"Not very stoic for a tree," Ashlock chuckled as he looked around, but he could hardly blame her. There was a literal pile of dead Shadow Leviathans so high it left the Bastion's shield, and by their vicious wounds, it was clear each one had been fought to the death in a great battle over a long time.

"How can a tree be stoic when it can't run away from death," Nox retorted as she released her grip and placed her hands on her hips. "I've never felt more helpless in my life. Being a tree is horrifying. Without these Ents and endless Qi, I would have surely died."

Ashlock saw that all three void Ents were running on fumes despite being plugged into the Bastion via black roots. Anubis wasn't much better as he couldn't absorb the shadow Qi law swirling around them, so he was also running on empty.

"Looks like I arrived just in time," Ashlock said as the void lake expanded, and he began devouring the pile of corpses.

Nox nodded vigorously, "Yes, you certainly did."

***

[Connection complete: Time till sundown 1:07]

"Well, this is concerning," Ashlock mused while intently watching the swirling abyss. It was quiet... too quiet. After devouring the pile of corpses and killing a few more, he had gained a little under 2000 credits.

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An amount he would have been happy with in the past, but with the end of the Mystic Realm approaching, he was at a loss. Since he was now in the 4th stage of the Nascent Soul Realm, Star Core Realm monsters barely gave him anything.

"I still need around seven hundred more credits, but there are no more leviathans?! Did I really already eat them all?" Ashlock began to grow frustrated. He couldn't move Nox to another pocket realm in search of monsters, and he couldn't recast {Progeny Dominion} as his soul was already fragmented. There were still the statues in the other room, but they would take too long to devour, and he didn't think they would be worth many credits to him.

So, how the hell was he supposed to get the last credits he needed?

"I could try and go after the Celestial Warden. He is in the mid stages of the Nascent Soul Realm, so he should give enough credits. Vincent Nightrose is also another option..." Ashlock realized that other than himself, he could count the people worth eating on one hand, well, if he had a hand. "Mhm, all of those people are well guarded, and all of my people are still in the Mystic Realm. I am still quite limited in what I can do from range, especially without a Bastion to exert my power through. Darn it."

Ashlock pondered for a while longer as he watched the timer ticking down in the corner of his vision. Would he really have to say goodbye to having Nox inherit the Dark Throne?

"Man... it's hard to be mad considering all the things I gained from this Mystic Realm, but damn it. Ents, Qi, and credits can come anytime. These inheritances are way more important than any of those." Ashlock grumbled as he absentmindedly looked at his Inner World.

The Divine Flesh Tree suddenly flared up with divine energy, catching him off guard.

"System? What's going on?"

[I don't know. There's a massive influx of divine energy from your worshipers. Did you do something?]

Divine energy flowed down the tree in a flood and was absorbed by the sacrificial credit forest. Ashlock watched in awe as the fleshy trees multiplied in real time. The growth was far more than what he had seen after the service he put on for the mortals and showed off. The forest, which consisted of over 8,000 trees, greedily absorbed the divine energy and began to double in size.

It was a divine miracle! Forget the Dark Throne. He could afford skill and mutation upgrades as well!

[WARNING: Voidstorm Aegis triggered and failed to kill the intruder. Requesting intervention.]

Ashlock's joy evaporated. That was an S-grade defensive skill that used void lightning. Anything that could survive that was bad news. His vision shifted, and he spread his spiritual senses to encompass Red Vine Peak.

Who could it be? Had Vincent finally made his appearance?

Instead of Vincent Nightrose or an army of cultivators awaiting him, he saw a single figure standing on his mountain peak, unfazed by the void lightning striking them.

"Who the hell...?"

The weirdest part was the clothes they wore. A black cloak embroidered with a red eye—the uniform of his cult, the All-Seeing Eye. Was this person the cause of the sudden influx of divine energy? Just what did they do...

[Author Note]

Beta readers were all asleep (except Gonvas), and I didn't want to delay the chapter, so if there are any errors, let me know here or in the Discord corrections channel, and I'll fix them! I bet there are many.