Reborn as a Demonic Tree-Chapter 378: Masterful Deception

Vincent pressed his back against the stone wall as he carefully peered through a runically enhanced window. Down below in the Nightrose castle's courtyard lined by statues of him in his prime, he saw the few remaining Grand Elders of the Blood Lotus Sect who had stood on his side cowering before the Nascent Soul Realm shadow lich. He couldn't hear what the lich was saying to the Grand Elders as he was refraining from spreading his spiritual sense beyond the castle and possibly giving away his location.

"It looks like it's finally time," Vincent said in a deep, raspy voice that surprised even himself. It had been a while since his consciousness occupied his real body, and he had forgotten how far it had deteriorated.

He stepped away from the wall, and his long toenails scraped on the stone as he trudged into the depths of the dark room. His long arms reached for the shelves as he gathered body parts floating in large jars of murky brown liquid. While he could create clones from blood and have them appear genuine to weaker cultivators with a clever application of illusion and gravity Qi, they were nothing but disposable puppets that could command a fraction of his power. He had to carefully make a body from scratch if he wanted to create one capable of housing his many bloodlines and affinities.

"Hopefully, the eyes won't spoil before I can set up a new preservation array," Vincent grumbled as he took the jar containing his new eyes off the array built into the shelves. While spatial rings slowed down decay, they couldn't stop it entirely. "Wha—ugh," Vincent suddenly kneeled over and retched while desperately gripping the shelf to stabilize his shaking body. Wiping his mouth, he inspected the back of his hand with a frown. "Black blood? That's new..."

Pushing himself up to his trembling knees, he tried to calm his broken body down. "The killing of my clones had a more significant toll than I thought," Vincent grimaced as he looked within. His soul was an absolute mess. Three affinities competed for dominance, and since he had used much more blood and gravity Qi recently, he was unstable. Add some soul damage on top of that, and he seemed on the brink of going supernova.

This isn't good. I had hoped to strike an alliance with the Ashfallen Sect to buy some time to switch bodies, but those bastards seem hellbent on destroying everything I have built up and killing me, but for what purpose?

Vincent stabilized himself on the shelf as he thought through his long list of enemies and drew up the most likely.

Now that I think about it, there's no way for a Divine-level sect to appear out of nowhere.This must be a division or lapdog for the Celestial Empire. Maybe the Chairman finally decided to free himself from the council by establishing a shadow Empire in the wilderness? If that's the case, it would explain why the threads of fate with my highest survival rate would be if I headed to the Celestial Empire. The Chairman would rather let me live and recover than expose his secret branch to the Celestial Empire to hunt me down.

Vincent had a long history with the Chairman. They were like two old friends, just on the opposite side of a fence and with a dagger ready to slit the other's throat.

Of course, there is no guarantee that the Chairman has anything to do with the Ashfallen Sect. They could also be a group that found a way down from the eighth layer of creation. Vincent sighed. What he needed was more information. He was utterly in the dark. Let's see... I've already decided I need to get ahold of Stella Crestfallen's bloodline. If I let her live and I escaped from here to the Celestial Empire, all I would achieve is living for a few centuries, but I would never be able to step into the Monarch Realm without the assistance of her ancestral knowledge of laws. I'm sick and tired of sitting in silence and listening to heaven's whispers for years on end with no results.

With that course of action decided Vincent looked toward the east. He had failed to capture Stella Crestfallen earlier due to her Spatial Anchor and because she somehow noticed that he had replaced the demoness beside her with a clone. But all hope was not lost. He could smell her bloodline from here.

Taking a deep sniff and contemplating for a moment, he slowly opened his eyes and smiled. "Darklight City. She is hiding near there, without a doubt."

Trudging back to the window, Vincent eyed the Grand Elders in the courtyard below. It seemed the situation had deteriorated.

Moving the sect is not feasible without the protection of other families and their help in building arrays. The new area will be monster-infested, and another demonic sect may try to claim it. A fight is inevitable, which will consume a lot of Qi and set me back decades. I'll go after Stella Crestfallen in Darklight City and flee elsewhere once the beast tide reaches its zenith. Now, who was in control of Darklight City again?

His eyes flickered between the group below, and a slow realization set in.

It was the Ravenborne family, but they were killed by the Winterwrath and Evergreen families under my orders. However, both of those families were then killed, and then the Redclaw family took over? That shouldn't have been possible unless the Redclaws got help from someone else. Vincent ground his teeth as he remembered the Redclaws had shown up alongside the Ashfallen Sect. They must be working together to take me down. I'll have to approach Darklight City cautiously, as it's likely the stronghold for the Ashfallen Sect.

Vincent suddenly felt a cold grasp caress his soul as pressure washed over him. His gaze snapped in the direction it was coming from, and he locked his eyes with the shadow lich down in the courtyard. It was staring right at him.

How did he notice me? Vincent scowled as he raised his hand and saw the viscous black blood still webbed between his sickly white fingers. All that had changed between now and the last time he was at the window was the presence of this blood. Analyzing it a little closer, Vincent sensed the faintest hint of divinity from the black blood.

"Is this blood from the All-Seeing Eye?" Vincent aggressively shook his hand as he stepped away from the window. That had been the name of the god Stella claimed to be a priestess of,and her daggers had been coated in this black blood. "It must contain some tracking qualities. But why now? Because it was exposed to the air—get off me!"

The building suddenly shook, and the runic enchantments on the window glowed fiercely with silver light as the defensive formation fought back against a cluster of shadow tendrils.

Vincent wiped the black blood on a random cloth before throwing it away. I need to leave—now. He quickly spread out his spiritual senses as his location was already compromised. As expected, he could feel strong cultivators and monstrous beings, likely belonging to the Ashfallen Sect, rushing toward his position through the castle. If not for the defensive formations slowing them down, they would already be upon him.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Rather than wasting his Qi fighting his way out and risking his body falling apart, Vincent exited the room and made his way to another. Inserting his hands into two holes atop a podium, he fed a grand array under the city his overflowing illusion Qi that was throwing his soul out of balance. The Nightrose Elders had thought him mad when he melted down their vast fortune of spirit stones to build multiple grand arrays under Nightrose City. He had done the same thing with every city he moved to, and never once had the arrays been activated. Some doubted they even worked and begged him not to spend so much time and spirit stones recreating the arrays in each new location.

But one could never be too careful. Money didn't follow one to the afterlife, and the one time he needed them, they were here for him. "Let's cover my escape with a few illusions, shall we?"

First, he had the city blanketed in a thick illusionary blood fog that seemingly appeared from nowhere. It was always easier to trick the mind when as many senses as possible were impaired—especially sight. Next, he had the fog seemingly drain the blood out of millions of mortals and gather it toward the Nightrose castle. He wanted it to look like the castle was gathering power and would explode. "Now for the cherry on top," Vincent grinned as he manipulated the illusionary blood fog to wrap around anyone inside it to give them blood masks and matching soul pressure.

This way, everyone in Nightshade City almost looked and felt the same in a cultivator's spiritual sight. Including the shadow lich, his still-alive family members, and the cowering Grand Elders of the Blood Lotus Sect.

"Now I just have to sneak out through the chaos."

Pulling in his soul's presence as much as possible, Vincent wreathed himself in illusion and gravity Qi to turn himself virtually invisible by bending light around himself before he left the array room. He then skillfully avoided his pursuers, who were still blasting through defensive arrays to his secret room, by using hidden tunnels between the walls that were only traversable by manipulating gravity to bend the space.

Making his way out into the street through an escape tunnel he had built himself and hidden behind illusion formations, he took a satisfied breath of fresh air. Ominous bells rang throughout the city, and the screams of mortals scrambling around through the fog, who all looked as if they were drowning from blood masks attached to their faces, were music to his ears.

Vincent grinned as he effortlessly floated into the sky without a sword—one of the capabilities after reaching the Nascent Soul Realm—and while still hidden by bending light around him, he shot off toward the east, leaving Nightrose City to fend for itself.

I'll head to Darklight City first and call on Valandor. There's something he has that's mine.

***

Ashlock couldn't believe he had missed an area of the castle. It now seemed obvious from the outside, but it must have been the work of these defensive arrays that kept his roots from getting near it. Silver light flashed across the exterior and window of the room like a force field.

"Come on, Anubis. Put some more power into those attacks."

While 'talking' nicely to the Grand Elders from the other families, he'd sensed his cursed blood from an upper floor of the castle and locked eyes with someone who looked like Vincent. Obviously, it could just be another clone, but anything was a potential lead, especially since his cursed blood led to the discovery. He had expected Anubis's shadow tendrils to smash right through the castle's stone so he could get a better look at the person inside, yet that had not been the case. This was one of the most impressive defensive formations he had ever seen.

Just how paranoid was that freak? The amount of time and spirit stones that must have been poured into this castle could have founded a nation, and they were just going to leave it for the beast tide to destroy?

He even unleashed barrages of Spatial Blades infused with daos upon the castle, but his attack strength was weak as he wasn't fighting through {Progeny Dominion [S]}. Still, this was ridiculous. The stone around that one room could be blasted through, but the room itself seemed impenetrable.

Ashlock's vision blurred as he once again searched the vast castle with its thousands of rooms and corridors. He had his {Ethereal Roots [S]} already burrowing through the defensive formations around the room as fast as they could. Meanwhile, the Void reapers of Ashfallen, led by Khaos, were using their void-coated claws to slash away at a door that had appeared as nothing but another wall before.

It had only been a minute since Ashlock sensed his cursed blood and feared the man had already somehow escaped. His fears turned out to be true when his ethereal root broke through the wall, and his spiritual sense flooded the room. The place was empty. There was no sign of Vincent, clone or not. Honing in on black-blood-stained cloth discarded on the floor, Ashlock picked it up with telekinesis and confirmed that it was his Blood Sap.

"Spread out, find Vincent Nightrose at all costs," Ashlock said to the Void Reapers, and they vanished in absolute silence as they used Void Step to move elsewhere. He debated bringing in the rest of the sect to search for a moment but then dismissed the idea. They would need to eat Void Protection fruits and get their Spatial Anchors done again, all for the possibility of getting sent back to Red Vine Peak without seeing him. Gravity Qi could travel silently, and with Vincent claiming to have shadow Qi, he would be a nightmare to catch. Nox had been enough of a headache.

Searching a few more corridors and finding nothing but terrified maids hiding out in random bedrooms, he gave up and looked outside the castle to a sight he wasn't expecting to see. The city was shrouded in a thick, blood-red fog that swirled aggressively through the streets. Gongs from distant bells rang out, and he could hear everyone screaming.

"Larry? What the hell is going on?" He asked his guardian who he had left in the street to keep the Nightrose Elders suppressed.

"Chaos Master," Larry said as he floated above the fog, "It happened so suddenly throughout the entire city. The fog appeared, and then there were screams."

Ashlock tried to look closer, but the fog was like taking the lid off a boiling pan and getting a face full of steam to his spiritual senses. It was utterly impossible to penetrate. Surging Qi through his roots, he used telekinesis to push the fog aside, revealing a few mortals. There were strange blood masks on their faces that they were trying to yank off one another, and it seemed as if thin streams of blood were being siphoned from their bodies and gathering toward... the castle.

"Oh shit," Ashlock saw the gathered blood condensing around the castle and begin pulsing like a heartbeat. Faster and faster, it pulsed, all the while glowing with power. It was almost as if it were a soul about to go supernova. "Did that bastard set the castle and maybe the whole city to explode?"

It was a hell of a way to cover an escape, that was for sure. Ashlock's mind began to race. He could hear the mortals crying out for help through the blood fog. Millions would die, a capital city gone if he didn't do something. Morals and doing the right thing aside, this was an opportunity to get a lot of new worshipers—and fast. The problem was that he would need to open a portal to Red Vine Peak to use his Evil Eye and search for a solution to save everyone. After all, there was no use for worshipers that were dead.

Ashlock quickly confirmed his Voidstorm Aegis was active back on Red Vine Peak and found his sect members in Quill's library. "Stella, take everyone and hide in my Inner World for now."

"Tree! What is happening over there—"

"Sorry. No time to explain. Just trust me, okay!" Ashlock switched back to Nightrose City while feeling sorry for leaving his daughter in the dark. Gathering as much spatial Qi as he could muster, he opened a truly titanic rift in the sky. While one of this size was not needed, it helped add grandeur to his performance. Opening his Evil Eye, he stared through and could finally see Qi's flow, types, and cultivation level.

"Let's see how I can stop this from happening..." Ashlock trailed off as he couldn't believe what he was seeing. The Qi was high level, nearing the Monarch Realm. It was pure, and one of the most impressive displays of Qi he had ever seen.

But none of it was real.

It was all an illusion.

The blood, the fog, the masks... everything. Vincent hadn't been the fool—Ashlock had been played from the start. He wanted to be angry at being fooled, but how could he be? While Vincent had escaped, the bastard had set the stage for the All-Seeing Eye to save millions from nothing but an illusion.