Reborn as a Demonic Tree

The cool mountain breeze did little to calm Stella's racing heart as she rushed to Diana's side.

The darkness of dusk had masked Diana's condition, but now that Stella kneeled by her side, with her purple flames illuminating Diana's face—she could see black lines like a spider web under her pale skin crawling up her neck.

Diana's eyes were wide open, and her breathing was erratic, as if she was being strangled and gasping for air.

"Diana? Hey?" Stella gently shook Diana and waved a hand over her eyes, but Diana's pupils didn't follow the movement—they just stared straight ahead. So Stella examined closer and saw the black lines creeping across Diana's eyes as well.

'What is happening? Is she poisoned?' Stella wondered as she carefully touched Diana's neck to check her pulse. It was weak, and Diana's skin was stone cold.

Stella tried to run through what could be wrong. Diana had been relatively quiet ever since a few hours ago. The chance she had been poisoned from the fight earlier was unlikely. She would have spoken up sooner.

So what could it be? "Hey, Diana! Can you hear me?" Stella shook her a little harder, but she had that same emotionless and dead gaze that looked past her at the night sky.

Then Diana suddenly began screaming and trashing around. Stella almost jolted from surprise and tried to hold her down. "Stop squirming around so much! Tell me what's wrong."

Diana ignored her and kept gnashing her teeth and trying to claw at her face. By now, her eyes had turned black, like one big, soulless pupil, and she was snarling like a dog.

Stella then found herself being overpowered and pushed off.

"Run." Diana managed to hiss through clenched teeth as she summoned a sword from her spatial ring, "Run far away!"

She then slashed at her own legs and fell on her face with a groan. Her sword clattered and slid from her grip along the stone. Her eyes dulled before closing, and she muttered before passing out, "Beast cores..."

Suddenly everything made sense. Diana had pushed herself till Qi's exhaustion during the fight earlier and had succumbed to her heart demons.

Stella's heart thumped in her chest, and her hands felt clammy as she looked down at Diana lying on the ground. Was she about to lose another person in her life? Panic set in.

Her eyes darted around the central courtyard while trying to derive a way to save Diana. An obvious solution was to feed her a beast core.

Stella brought her golden spatial ring up to her mouth and whispered, "Please... please, can there be one stashed away in here—" It flashed with power, and she mentally scanned the mountain of junk stowed inside, but there were no beast cores or even pills. Just a lot of clothes, bird meat, fruit from Ash, and monster parts.

Leaving the pocket space, Stella looked back at Diana. The golden ring around Diana's finger glinted in the light of her soul fire. Stella reached forward but paused. Diana was in a similar realm, so it would take too long to break the seal on her ring...

But something inside her whispered that it was possible. That the normal rules no longer applied. Ever since taking that pill from Senior Lee, she had felt different—superior. She had punched the heavens lightning without breaking a sweat. So what could a spatial ring seal mean to her?

Scrambling forward and ignoring the cold stone on her shins, Stella pulled the golden ring free from Diana's limp finger and began to work on breaking the seal—done. "Huh?" Stella stood for a moment in disbelief, blinking at the unsealed ring.

Without a moment to waste, her mind entered the space. There was a lot more to sort through. Piles of clothes they had bought from Slymere. Cultivation pills and ingredients and other personal items like swords.

But no beast cores.

Stella looked at the ingredients and thought about the weird new thing Ashlock had grown that could apparently help with alchemy, but she knew nothing about alchemy. "Something to learn in the future for sure," Stella muttered under her breath as she put the ring back on Diana's finger.

Now what? Stella looked around the desolate courtyard. She ran between the bloodied shreds of cloth that hadn't been devoured but couldn't locate any spatial rings.

She returned to Diana, "Excuse me for this." Stella said as she searched her pockets. Sure enough, she soon found all of the spatial rings from the cultivators and even one with a Star Core realm lock.

Stella found it odd that Diana had pocketed so many spatial rings and not said anything, but for now, she just focused on breaking their seals and searching through them.

"Ha!" Stella shouted, finding a single beast core in the third one she searched. Diana had told her that beast cores were expensive and usually bought and consumed on the spot, so there was little reason to carry them around, so she hadn't been optimistic about finding any.

Stella placed the beast core in front of Diana's nose.

The girl's eyes snapped open, and like a feral dog, she lunged forward and devoured the core. The darkness in her eyes receded slightly, showing the white around her pupil. "More..." Diana croaked like a person starved of water.

"Hold on a second." Stella broke seal and seal but couldn't find a single beast core in any of the rings. Twelve rings clattered to the ground, and only the one with the Star Core seal was left in her hand. But no matter how hard she tried, the seal wouldn't budge. 'Even with Senior Lee's god-given gift, I can't overcome the difference of realms? Maybe Ash can break it now that he's in the Star Core realm?'

Stella dashed over to Ash and looked up at the majestic tree. Her heart tightened slightly. She had clearly annoyed him earlier, as she had never felt his wrath like that before.

Bending down, Stella placed the golden ring on the top of an exposed root breaking through the purple grass that encircled the tree. "Tree, could you unlock this and save Diana?"

Lilac flames representing Qi far purer than hers flared to life on the root, and Stella watched in wonder as the ring began to float with spatial Qi enveloping it.

Minutes passed. Stella could see some progress on breaking the ring's seal, but there was no guarantee a beast core would even be inside. Her foot began to tap anxiously, and she felt ill with worry. Her eyes kept darting to Diana, who was looking paler by the second and trying to claw her way around the courtyard—dragging her bleeding legs behind her.

Her personality was unrecognizable to Stella. She was like some deranged creature rather than a human. How had she been suppressing such violent heart demons all this time?

Diana coughed up more blood, and it was black as night. Now even her arms were infected with the spreading darkness.

Stella clenched her fist and decided on something that was potentially very stupid. She walked past Diana and across the central courtyard. Every step she took strengthened her resolve.

Passing through the doorway of the pavilion, she could see the steep path that led to the mountain's base. Freezing nightly wind whipped her hair about as she faltered at the top.

Looking down, she could see a sea of green and white. Hundreds of cultivators awaited between the surrounding forest and the mountain. She could even make out the various factions and groups from up here and felt everyone's gaze within seconds.

Thousands of meters may separate them, but a Soul Fire cultivator's sight could travel many miles on this cloudless night.

Stella took a step and then another. She slowly descended one step at a time to face the sea of people. Her plan was simple. Chop off a few arms, steal their rings, and head back.

Within a step, she could see the cultivators below charging up techniques. "You can do this." Stella muttered under her breath as her soul core hummed to life and lightning arced along her legs, "You are speed."

She dashed forward—the world blurred, and the wind roared past her ears. Hundreds of meters were crossed in a second—the rocky path exploded behind her as techniques from the cultivators below arrived a second too late.

But it didn't take long for them to readjust their aim. Stella looked down and saw a spike of ice heading straight for her. She summoned her blade and went to chop it, but then the space in front of her warped and shattered like glass, stopping the ice in its tracks.

Stella traced the source of the Qi and saw a black root poking out of the mountain. "Is that Ash?" She wondered as she saw hundreds of roots emerging down the path and at the mountain's base.

Between two roots a few hundred meters down the path, Stella saw a portal begin to form, and through the distorted rift, she could see trees with red leaves. "I see—it's you and me, Ash. Let's do this."

A wild grin formed on her face as she cycled her Qi and charged right at the portal without worry. It felt like hitting a wall of hot air, making her ears pop as she flew through the portal.

"Where did she go?" A man with white hair asked, his hands engulfed in white flames, as he stood before Stella. His gaze was fixed on a distant mountain path. "Was that a portal—"

"Behind you!" Stella laughed, her sword crackling with lightning as it sliced through the air with unnatural speed. In one swift motion, she decapitated the man, and his lifeless body toppled to the side. A portal opened beneath him, swallowing the corpse.

"A portal? How convenient," Stella mused, surveying the forest around her.

"She's over there!" Someone shouted, but Stella didn't care. She was running out of time and intended to capture a few people before returning.

Dashing through the forest, Stella encountered a young man in the first stage of the Soul Fire realm who had shouted.

"Ah!" The man yelped, fumbling to raise his sword in defense—clearly unprepared for Stella to close the distance in less than a second.

Stella found him rather endearing, which made the act of decapitating him a regretful one. The poor lad hadn't even had a chance to use a technique to defend himself, for Stella had activated her earrings, rendering him frozen with fear. "You would have made a cute servant boy," she chuckled, pushing the body through a portal that materialized to her left.

Hearing more than a dozen voices echoing through the eerie forest, Stella knew it was time to move on. As arrogant as she was, she recognized that facing more than two cultivators alone would be suicidal.

She raised her sword and pointed ahead. "Ash! Transportation, please!"

A moment passed, but nothing happened. "Tree? Hello? Portal, please?"

Stella's eyes darted between the thicket of the forest. She could see the pale and sickly light from the cultivator's soul fire in all directions, and she quickly discovered she was encircled.

Stella's eyes darted between the thickets of the forest. She could see the pale and sickly light from the cultivators' soul fire in all directions, and she quickly realized she was surrounded.

"Found her!" A feminine voice shouted.

Her head snapped in the direction of the voice, and she spotted a woman emerging from behind a tree, displaying her peak Soul Fire realm cultivation.

"Stella Crestfallen?" The woman summoned an exquisite sword that gleamed in the moonlight that snuck through the thick canopy, "What are you doing down here all alone?"

Stella's eyes flickered to a black root that had emerged near the woman's foot, and she couldn't contain her smile.

"Alone?" Stella raised her sword and charged at the woman.

The woman was naturally confused and tilted her head while easily meeting Stella's sword with her own.

Stella's eyes became swirling abysses as her earrings activated, and she relished in how the woman's calm demeanor cracked.

A swirling portal of spatial Qi materialized behind the woman, and with a brutal knee to the stomach, Stella shoved the woman through. "Who said I was alone?"

Stella giggled and hurled herself through the portal before it collapsed. She felt the familiar pressure in her ears as she rapidly changed locations and reappeared in the courtyard.

There was just one problem—the woman had Diana in a headlock and held a dagger to her throat.

"Miss, I wouldn't do that..." Stella warned, but it was too late. Diana, in her frenzied state, had already snatched the dagger from the woman's grip and started clawing at her eyes.