Reborn as a Demonic Tree
Chapter 444: Domain Expansion

Stella returned to the safety of her house in Ash's Inner World and laid Elysia down on her bed.

"You're going to be okay, Elysia. You hear me? Hey, don't you dare die on me," Stella said with anger, "It's going to be fine—everything always is."

Elysia's mouth barely moved in response. Her face was contorted in an expression of pain. Her black cloak was dampened with blood, and all of her limbs were going off in the wrong direction.

Stella was frankly shaken by the sight. Elysia was the insane vice cult leader of the All-Seeing Eye, a person who was broken down to her soul. Nothing seemed to faze her; she was almost invincible in Stella's eyes. Yet the heavens had reduced her to this state in mere seconds.

What if it had been me holding that formation together? Elysia is in the Nascent Soul Realm, so her body is tougher than mine. Would I have died just like that? Pulverized to a pulp by heaven's wrath? Unable to revive as I don't even have an infant soul yet? She clenched her fists. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. How could the heavens, who were immaterial, wield such might? What chance did they have to face it?

The door to her bedroom opened, and the dark interior was illuminated.

"Good, you're here," Stella said as Sol, the towering light Ent at the ninth stage of the Star Core realm, stepped into the room. "Heal her."

Sol had to duck beneath the doorway to enter the cluttered chamber, his radiant form casting shifting shadows across the walls. Kneeling calmly beside Elysia's bed, the Ent wordlessly raised one of his eight arms. With delicate precision, Sol reached into the glowing orb of light that served as his head. He plucked forth a wisp of shimmering light essence and, without hesitation, pressed it gently against Elysia's forehead. The light passed into her skin like morning sun through mist.

Please be enough. Stella silently prayed. All of her jealousy toward Elysia for beating her to the Nascent Soul Realm was long gone. All she wanted was for her to be okay.

The healing light enveloped Elysia's body in a warm hue. A grotesque crackling filled the room as her broken bones began to shift and knit back together, each snap reverberating like shattered wood. Her limbs jerked unnaturally as they were pulled into place, her body contorting beneath the glow. She writhed, caught between agony and relief, until at last, the tension eased—and the pain etched on her face gave way to calm.

"S-Stella," Elysia said in such a faint voice Stella almost missed it.

"Yes?" Stella asked as she leaned in. To her surprise, Elysia raised her freshly healed arm, seeking her hand.

Stella held the offered hand and stood there in silence for a moment.

Elysia eventually slowly opened her eyes, and upon seeing Stella leaning over her, she faintly smiled. "Thank you for saving me."

"It was nothing really," Stella shrugged it off, "You're an important member of the sect and the cult, so it was only natural—"

"You're a good person," Elysia said before her arm went limp. She slowly closed her eyes and fell back asleep.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Stella muttered, but she smiled as she carefully lowered Elysia's arm and uncoupled their hands. After placing her fingers on her neck and checking her vitals, Stella let out a sigh of relief, knowing Elysia would live.

As much as Stella would love to rest after everything that had happened recently, she needed to return to the funeral. There was no doubt that Ash needed her help.

All it took was glancing out the window of her house at the sky of the Inner World to see the intensity of whatever Ash was doing on the outside. The usual gray sky was aflame with divine energy, and the nine moons overhead glowed with unrestrained power.

She had lost control seeing Elysia injured earlier, so she demanded that Ash not let the heavens bully them. But that was easier said than done.

"Is he really going to fight the heavens?" Stella wondered to herself as she left the room in Sol's care. "He should be fated to lose, but what if he won? Would that make him a true god?"

Stella shook her head to dismiss the thoughts. All that mattered was surviving whatever came next. They had triumphed over too many adversities to fail now.

Leaving Ash's Inner World through the aether, she returned to Red Vine Peak. An unbelievable soul pressure, like the weight of an entire world, slammed down on her, punching the air right out of her lungs.

"Ugh."

Stumbling forward, her Star Core flared as she wrapped herself in white soul flames and fought off the crushing presence. Gritting her teeth, she managed to stand and look around. Nobody was here except for Ash, who loomed over the entire peak. Divine energy coiled around his trunk, and she saw reality bending and decaying around him as he unleashed his full strength.

Weirdly, his attention seemed to be elsewhere. What could he possibly be looking at?

"Ash!" Stella shouted through gritted teeth, "Elysia is safe. What's the situation?"

Not receiving an answer, she stepped through the aether to the edge of the mountain peak to get a better view. Despite it taking place so far away, she could feel the wrath of the heavens as she saw a giant hand made up of thousands of souls slowly squeezing the spiritually enlarged version of Mytherion.

She could feel the Qi pumping through the ethereal roots below her feet toward the distant battle with the heavens. This battle... it was beyond her. Perhaps seeing Elysia's condition had shaken her, or maybe gazing into the cycle of reincarnation ignited a fear of death she didn't possess before.

Whatever it was, she was getting cold feet.

She instinctively stepped back. Near Ash was safe. Red Vine Peak was her safe haven. If she just stayed here, nothing could hurt her.

Ash's immense Star Core behind her suddenly pulsed, sending a wave of his will into the world.

Reality answered his call.

The sky above the funeral was torn apart by the biggest desolation rift she had seen thus far, and from within its darkness came something unexpected.

Monsters. Thousands of them poured through the rift in the sky all at once and fell toward the funeral like meteors. The air shimmered as Ash radiated spatial Qi to slow their fall and began skewering as many as he could with void tendrils.

What is Ash doing?! Stella screamed in her mind as she watched the scene unfold. Had he gone mad from the fight with the heavens? Did he think Elysia was dead, taking his wrath out on the world by flooding it with monsters?

She calmed herself. When had Ash ever done something irrational?

Okay, maybe a few times. But it usually works out in the end.

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The air once again vacated her lungs as Ash's immense presence returned to Red Vine Peak from wherever he had been focused. If Stella had to guess from the apocalyptic scene unfolding in the distance, he had paid a visit to the beast tide to the north.

"Stella? What are you doing up—"

"Elysia is fine, I returned her to my room for healing." Stella cut him off while gesturing toward the funeral, "Care to tell me what the hell is going on over there?"

"To defeat the heavens, I need to form a Blessed Land around the funeral to save those souls. It's a pocket realm anchored to this world that will be a hundred percent under my control and untouchable by the heavens."

Stella's eyes widened, "That sounds insane. I love it. What do you need to do to make it?"

"Well, first, I need to die."

Stella felt her heartbeat stop in her chest as those words hung in the air.

"D-Die? You have to die?"

"Don't worry, it will just be a fragment of me. Usually, Blessed Lands form where gods die, but I can cheat a little by sacrificing just a fragment of my soul. However, to subsidize the missing soul energy, if you want to call it that, I need to kill a lot of monsters. Hence, I brought the beast tide here."

Stella had heard enough to get the picture. "So, what do you need me to do?"

"What you do best, of course," Ash chuckled, "Slaughter them all for me. But I would advise you first to eat a Void Protection fruit. There's no telling if the heavens will switch targets."

"Way ahead of you," Stella said as she munched on the Void Protection fruit. She felt a large portion of the Qi she had recently gathered in her soul vanish, but in return, a defensive layer of void coated her skin.

A desolation rift appeared before her.

"I'm calling everyone to assist," Ash said, "Other than fighting the monsters, I don't have the spare Qi to evacuate millions of civilians, so they will need to be protected as beasts rain down on their heads."

Stella nodded, withdrawing the sword Ash had gifted her for her birthday from her spatial ring in a flash of silver.

"And Stella."

"Mhm?" Stella paused a step before the rift.

"Be careful. I want to return those souls as much as anyone else, but the last thing I want is to lose you to the cycle of reincarnation."

Stella shuddered at the idea of her soul being burned in the hellfire of the afterlife. "I'll be careful, don't worry," she said, pursing her lips and whispering under her breath, "We both only have one life, so you be careful too."

Ash didn't answer, as his attention had already moved elsewhere.

Shaking her head, Stella wreathed her sword in aether soul flames and stepped through the desolation rift. To her surprise, her feet found ground on the other side, and there were whispers of the aether all around her.

A place dense in aether Qi? Stella glanced around. She was surrounded by a field of aether flowers she remembered plucking from the Mystic Realm, and at the edge of the field, in a ring around her, were aether trees. They were shimmered with power, and if not for Mytherion's enormous ethereal form towering overhead, distorted by what appeared to be an aether Qi shield, she would have thought the desolation rift had led her right back to the Mystic Realm.

But it wasn't the Mystic Realm. She was standing upon the bow of Moros, the flagship of the Ashfallen Sect. And she wasn't alone. Tree hadn't lied when he said he was gathering everyone to assist with the monsters.

Desolation rifts tore themselves into existence, and from the swirling ruin, familiar faces stepped out. Grand Elder Redclaw, along with his Elders. Sebastian and Ryker Silverspire, Diana, Elaine, Douglas, and even members of the other families from the Tainted Cloud Sect, such as the Duskwalker family from which Nox originated. There was also Elysia's family, the Mystshrouds, and finally, the Frostveil family, who hadn't contributed much to the Ashfallen Sect thus far.

"Quite the turnout, ain't it?" Diana said as she came to Stella's side and unfurled her wings. "It's been a while since everyone's been together like this."

"He's still missing, though."

"Who are you talking about..." Diana trailed off as an unmistakable presence blanketed Moros.

Everyone's gazes turned toward the largest of the desolation rifts. It seemed to convulse as if struggling to maintain its structure in the face of the being passing through.

A single silver leg, twice a person's size, pierced through the desolation and made landfall—except it floated just above the ground as if standing on air. Another leg followed, and then the being's enormous head, with eight eyes glowing with divine power, came into full view, followed by the rest of his body.

It was the Monarch Realm guardian beast of the Ashfallen Sect.

Larry looked up to the skies with rage. "It seems the heavens have become too arrogant," his words in the ancient runic language cascaded out of his mouth like a roiling thunder. There was something about his spider body of shifting ash that seemed incredibly dense. Perhaps it was the way the air seemed to bend around him, as if he had his own gravitational pull, or how the ground below him showed signs of cracks despite him never having set foot on it.

"Mistress Stella."

Stella blinked at being called out to. "Yes, Larry?"

The spider's many eyes narrowed at the array high in the sky that heaven was attacking through. "I'll deal with the heavens."

It was said with such confidence that Stella couldn't believe he was referring to the same entity that had almost obliterated Elysia a moment ago.

That's what separates a Monarch Realm from the rest of us. Stella realized. They have absolute confidence that they can achieve anything, even if it's the very heavens they face.

Larry continued, "Your Father has entrusted you to slaughter the monsters, right? I have a different suggestion. I want you to manage the others here due to your ability to fade in and out of the aether. If someone turns into a statue, take them to safety."

Stella tilted her head, "What do you mean?"

"There's not much time for chatter with the monsters coming," Larry said as his halo of ash began to spin faster, "But do you know why you humans call the highest stage of cultivation possible on this layer of creation the Monarch Realm? I'll answer, it's because you create an Inner World and become its ruler."

Stella knew that.

Larry added, "To successfully evolve into the Harbinger of the Eternal Ash, I had to weave my Inner World out of the laws of ash, decay, and rebirth." Larry then looked down from the heavens and straight at Stella, "When you inevitably reach Monarch Realm and form your Inner World, you find that the Inner World takes on an aspect of your personality or worldview. You can project this aspect into our reality as your own power."

Stella listened carefully and processed the information Larry was telling her. It was rare to hear anything regarding the Monarch Realm, especially from someone in that realm who had experienced ascension firsthand.

Connecting the points, Stella thought she understood what Larry was suggesting. "Is this statue thing you mentioned related to this aspect of your power?"

Larry nodded. "While the laws I comprehended would allow me to become an undying apocalyptic force, a being that could level empires on my own, that is not how my aspect manifested. Likely born from my perceived role as the guardian beast of the Ashfallen Sect, my aspect manifested in a defensive domain that can keep my allies alive." The giant ash spider glanced around, "Is this everyone?"

Stella did a quick scan and nodded, "Should be."

"Good, then we can begin." Larry's eyes suddenly blazed with immense power. "I will unleash my domain; do not deny my gift."

Stella nodded in agreement.

"Monarch Realm Domain, The Aspect of Eternal Ash," Larry said in the ancient tongue, each word echoing with the weight befitting his cultivation.

The halo orbiting his head suddenly expanded outward, flying over Stella's head and into the horizon. Narrowing her eyes, she could still see it, rapidly spinning in the distance. The halo began to expand upwards and downwards as if trying to seal the whole area in a giant sphere.

Stella had been so distracted watching the sight that she hadn't noticed the tiny ash spiders crawling along the ground toward her and everyone present until they jumped and landed on her chest.

Yelping in surprise, she almost instinctively squashed the thing, but Diana held her arm in place. "Don't. That's Larry's gift that he told you to accept." The demoness explained, "Let it into your soul."

Stella trusted Larry as Ash's guardian beast, so she did as instructed. The tiny ash spider burrowed through her skin with a burning sensation before settling around her soul as if cradling it with its ashen legs.

"God, that feels weird," Stella shuddered.

"So long as my domain is active and you stay inside, my ashen spider will protect you from soul death," Larry explained, as everyone had mixed expressions after allowing an ashen spider to invade their soul space. "The spider will expand, creating a carbon copy of your body should your vessel be destroyed and protect your soul from dying. However, once turned into a statue of ash, you cannot fight back and won't be restored to normal until the domain ends."

Larry then focused on Stella. "That is why someone able to shift in and out of the aether is so important. You will keep everyone safe."

Stella wanted to retort. She was an excellent fighter, too, and wanted to help with killing the monsters for Tree. But she swallowed back her words. Now wasn't the time for that. Everyone had a job to do, and she had hers.

The world darkened as the sphere of ash enveloped their world.

"Now, you all focus on slaughtering the monsters." Larry said gruffly as he began climbing through the air toward the chaos above. "Meanwhile, it's about time I gave the heavens a piece of my mind and closed that rift they are attacking us through."