Upon observing the Elder on the walls using a talisman to contact the Grand Elder, Ashlock shifted his view to the study inside the White Stone Palace, where the Grand Elder was slumped over a desk, murmuring the ancient language to himself.
The Grand Elder's concentration on the parchments was interrupted when one of the many communication talismans hanging from hooks beneath plaques bearing the Elders' names on the far wall emitted a pale light.
With a groan, the Grand Elder got up and walked over, removed the talisman from the wall, and listened as a distorted voice relayed the situation from the wall.
"A Dao Storm is coming?" The Grand Elder of House Redclaw hastened to the window of his study while gripping the talisman.
Ashlock did not enjoy the look of total disbelief and despair on the aged man's face. It reminded Ashlock of a man that knew he was about to lose everything as if he were about to hurl the talisman to the ground and scream at the heavens in anguish.
"To think a Dao Storm would arrive so soon," the Grand Elder murmured, clutching the talisman. "We are running out of time."
Despite the Grand Elder's doomsday demeanor, he maintained a composed voice, instructing through the talisman, "Get everyone off the walls and out of the mines. Have them all return here. The storm still seems a way out, so we have time to prepare."
"What about the mortals?" Through the talisman, the voice of the Elder stationed on the wall echoed in the room, and the ensuing stone-cold silence spoke volumes. "Grand Elder? What are your orders?"
"Leave them to die," the Grand Elder replied, retreating from the window and advancing toward the wall of talismans. "I don't even know how to save my family, let alone some mortals fated to perish in the beast tide."
"But the Ashfallen Sect entrusted them to us."
The Grand Elder paused, frowning as he gazed down at the talisman. "The immortal, huh? With his assistance, perhaps salvation is possible."
The man stroked his chin and began to grab and activate the talismans on the wall with haste. "Elders, heed my command." The Grand Elder shouted at all the glowing talismans on the table, "Assemble all the disciples of our esteemed Redclaw family and convene at the White Stone Palace. Those on the walls instruct the mortals to seek refuge in the old Ravenborne mine and offer a brief prayer for their souls."
Ashlock was determined not to let the mortals perish, not only because of the moral implications of standing idly by while hundreds of lives were torn apart when he could have easily saved them but also because of the potential benefits to his Ashfallen sect. With his resources, he could transform many of these mortals into cultivators, making their survival advantageous to him.
A chorus of acknowledgments filled the room, but one question caught the Grand Elder off guard.
"Should we inform the Patriarch?"
"Elder Brent," the Grand Elder responded sternly, "We are under the protection of an immortal. How could the Patriarch possibly compare?"
Ashlock wasn't certain he shared the Grand Elder's optimism in his abilities, but he was grateful that the Patriarch wouldn't be summoned. In moments like these, he was glad he had extended a root to the White Stone Palace and infiltrated the Grand Elder's study.
Now, he finally understood the magnitude of the threat he faced.
***
There were distant tremors as a literal wall of chaotic Qi that resembled a storm advanced in a direct collision course with the mountain range. It was still far off into the distance, but Ashlock could feel its looming presence from a hundred miles away through his roots lurking below the surface of the wilderness.
The oncoming storm appeared like a tsunami of dark clouds surging toward him, but upon closer inspection, a vaguely humanoid shape could be discerned at the storm's center.
However, now was not the time for panic.
As a tree, Ashlock could not flee; his only option was to confront the imminent catastrophe and attempt to mitigate the damage it might inflict on him, assuming he survived.
Ashlock tugged on his tether of black Qi to summon Larry back to the mountain and tried reaching out to Maple.
He also needed to consider how best to safeguard Little Kai.
Earlier, the Redclaw Grand Elder had mentioned that one way to survive a Dao Storm was to seek shelter underground. Fortunately, Ashlock had just the space beneath his mountain for such a purpose.
He had considered the mine as a potential refuge for Stella, Diana, and others during the beast tide, but he knew the beast tide was still years away. As a result, developing the mine into a proper shelter had been deprioritized in favor of other projects.
Currently, the mine consisted of little more than abandoned homes carved into the stone. However, there were some root tunnels that could supply water and fresh air, and Ashlock could grow fruit and mushrooms if necessary. He simply didn't know what would happen when the Dao Storm struck the mountain range, so his mind raced with preparations.
As the storm had not yet reached the edge of his roots sprawling into the wilderness, he decided to bring as many people as possible to safety while he still could. There was some merit in keeping the cave below him a secret, but his options were limited.
His vision blurred as he activated the {Eye of the Tree God}, opening a portal within the White Stone Palace's courtyard that led directly to the cavern housing Bob the slime.
An Elder standing in the White Stone Palace courtyard witnessed the sudden appearance of the portal. Startled, he leaped back, with wrathful fire springing from his fists, but quickly calmed down as he saw the distorted view of a cavern on the other side.
The Elder shouted orders through a talisman, and soon enough, the entire sect was gathering in the palace courtyard.
Ashlock followed one of the Redclaws retreating from the walls down a forest path and saw the red-haired women pause in the village that should have that kid that Stella interacted with.
"Everyone in the village, you must flee underground to the mines!" She shouted, "A Dao Storm that will rip you to shreds is coming."
The doors to the wooden houses opened, and villagers rushed out. They looked to the darkened skies with fear of the unknown. "Esteemed cultivator, the mines are an hour's walk from here, and we have children. How can we escape in time?"
"How am I supposed to know—" The cultivator's words were cut off as Ashlock opened a portal in the center of the village. Through the distorted image, they could see a dimly lit mine.
The cultivator inspected the portal and, after confirming its legitimacy by poking her head through and spotting other sect members pouring out a second portal, she ordered the villagers to gather their stuff in preparation to leave.
While keeping his attention somewhat on the mine, he quickly scoured the forest and opened a portal in the center of every village he could find. He felt like his brain was splitting in half while trying to upkeep and focus on so many portals.
After a while, Ashlock returned to the original village he had opened a portal in and saw a gathering of terrified villagers clutching bundles of their belongings. "Do they not have spatial rings?" Ashlock mused as he saw the mother clutching that kid's hand.
"Alright, let's go to safety." The cultivator spoke and gestured for the villagers to enter one by one.
Fortunately, the villagers possessed the bare minimum amount of Qi in their bodies to withstand the rapid change in climate as they stepped through the portal with uneasy steps. The female Redclaw decided to follow once she confirmed that all the villagers had escaped.
Then after ensuring that the villagers were comfortable, she went over to join her fellow sect members on the other side of the cavern. They exchanged a few words and seemed confused about what a Dao Storm entailed.
Ashlock felt overwhelmed as he tried to manage and think about so many things simultaneously, so he left the mine and hoped the cultivators and mortals would get along.
Suddenly, sharp pain and pressure surged down his roots, signaling that the storm had reached his roots that were within a few miles of the wall separating the forest and villages from the wilderness.
Switching his view to look out into the wilderness, he noticed the storm suddenly slow down as it entered his realm of influence. Was the spatial Qi from his roots messing with it?
Without much more time to prepare to fight the storm, Ashlock did a final mental checklist of things he needed to protect.
"What about Stella and Diana?" Ashlock cursed to himself. He had expanded his roots a little bit under Darklight City, but the girls were heading very deep into the city in search of hires and would likely learn about the incoming storm when it was too late for him to teleport them out of there.
That's when the seriousness of the situation set in. If he assumed this Dao Storm was on another level compared to the highest category of a hurricane back from Earth, he didn't see how Darklight City could survive the destruction even with its runic-enhanced buildings.
He had to somehow stop the storm without involving the Patriarch, as Ashlock would be instantly exposed by the Redclaws running their mouth or the Patriarch noticing his Star Core realm.
Would his selfishness to keep his identity hidden lead to the death of millions of people, including his closest allies and maybe even himself? Ashlock wasn't sure, but he vowed to try and stop the storm before it could wipe everyone out or die trying.
Ashlock had to close the villages' portals as the Qi upkeep of that many portals was taking a strain on his Star Core that had only just been refilled, and he couldn't split his control that far. Opening a dozen portals near the mountain range was possible, but keeping them open and then trying to fight a Dao Storm many miles away was not within his realm of capabilities. If villagers had been left behind, they would just have to rush to the mine on foot.
He then heard bells ringing in the distance from Darklight City.
"Damn, this isn't good," Ashlock cursed as he saw the city devolve into chaos, with people running in every direction. He simply didn't have the capacity to help them all, as the mine could perhaps accommodate a few thousand people at most, and there were millions residing in Darklight City.
Ashlock wondered if this was how the Blood Lotus sect would feel when the beast tide arrived, faced with the difficult decision of who lived and who died. Was this just a prelude to the chaos that would unfold in a few years?
Ashlock felt somewhat responsible if anything terrible happened, as his presence as a phony immortal prevented the Patriarch from coming to their aid. So, he decided that wasting even a single second worrying about Darklight City was time he could spend devising ideas on how to combat the storm.
But how does one even defeat a storm?
His gaze returned to the eerily human-like silhouette at the heart of the tempest. Could it be that the Dao Storm had a corporeal form? Was that the area he should target? As bells ringing reverberated throughout the valley, Ashlock shoved spatial Qi through his roots toward the wilderness as the ambient spatial Qi he released into the air seemed to slow it down.
As the storm passed over the tip of his roots, he identified that the storm was made up of a mixture of water, wind, and lighting Qi rotating in a violent vortex at speeds that uprooted trees or caused them to crack in half.
Naturally, his first idea was to try and use spatial Qi. The air crackled as portals materialized and then exploded at the edge of the storm. Holes momentarily appeared in the tempest, only to be swiftly filled in again. The tactic proved as futile as throwing punches in a steam-filled room.
His next idea was to try and keep the portals open to move the storm elsewhere, but that idea was literally shredded to pieces as the storm ripped through the portals as if they were made from paper.
"System!" Ashlock shouted in desperation and quickly looked through his list of skills to devise a solution.
[Demonic Demi-Divine Tree (Age: 9)]
[Star Core: 2nd Stage]
[Soul Type: Amethyst (Spatial)]
[Mutations…]
{Demonic Eye [B]}
{Blood Sap [C]}
[Summons...]
{Ashen King: Larry [A]}
{Infant Grass Snake: Kaida [F]}
[Skills…]
{Mystic Realm [S]} [Locked until day: 3515]
{Eye of the Tree God [A]}
{Deep Roots [A]}
{Magic Mushroom Production [A]}
{Lightning Qi Barrier[A]}
{Qi Fruit Production [A]}
{Blooming Root Flower Production[B]}
{Language of the World [B]}
{Root Puppet [B]}
{Fire Qi Protection[B]}
{Transpiration of Heaven and Chaos [B]}
{Devour [C]}
{Hibernate [C]}
{Basic Poison Resistance [F]}
None of his abilities jumped out to him as viable solutions. His production skills were about as useful as throwing pebbles at a tsunami, and he doubted his {Devour} skill could do much... but it was worth a try.
Portals opened up on the edge of the storm, and his black vines shot through, but as expected, they struggled to latch onto anything or inflict any damage, even when he targeted that humanoid area of the storm.
With his system-granted abilities proving useless and his Qi doing little more than slowing down the looming destruction, Ashlock began to feel desperate.
"Where the fuck is Maple and Larry?" Ashlock pulled on the tether and could see Larry rushing up the mountain and would arrive any moment. Maple, meanwhile, was elsewhere. He cast a portal and brought Larry to the courtyard.
"Master?" Larry inquired in his gruff voice, "What are your orders?"
Ashlock was at a loss. Was there anything the Ashen King could achieve besides turning the already violent storm into an ash cloud?
The colossal storm, seemingly reaching for the heavens and casting a shadow over the entire valley, had arrived at the wall meant to shield the villagers from monstrous threats. What had once seemed an imposing stone wall now appeared no more formidable than a sandcastle before the mighty Dao Storm.
Then the storm paused right beyond the wall as if stumped. Ashlock was confused. Surely a wall barely reaching a tenth of the storm's towering height couldn't stop it?
The vague humanoid shape within the tempest began to sharpen in definition, and in the blink of an eye, Ashlock found himself gazing up at a titan of clouds, its visage marked by two eyes composed of pure wrathful lightning.
The storm's colossal head turned and glared directly at Ashlock. Then, a hand composed of fingers kilometers long emerged from the cloud, and with golden lightning crackling between its fingers, it aimed straight at Ashlock.
The world flashed white as lightning slammed into Ashlock with the force of a thousand suns. His bark shimmered with purple light as his {Lightning Qi Barrier} absorbed the brunt of the damage, but it shattered instantly, leaving a smoldering hole in his bark. The sheer power of the attack made the courtyard crack as his roots reaching the depths of the mountain kept him from toppling.
"Master!" Larry roared as he tried to blink away the blinding light. Once his vision recovered, he attempted to approach, but lightning continued to arc between Ashlock's branches, preventing him from getting too close.
Though Ashlock had survived the initial strike, it seemed his survival only served to further incite the cloud titan's wrath.
"Well fuck." Ashlock murmured as the cloud titan approached him, effortlessly gliding past the stone wall and into the forest between Red Vine Peak and the storm.
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