Trope World - Volume 1 Chapter 45 Betrayal

Main pov

Darkness swirled about as eldritch creatures fell into the hole leading to the wasp hive. With them blood rained down in a trickle. Black roses appeared among the red. The petals were eyelids that wept blood. Within the center of each rose was the red slit eye of a beast. I’d never seen eyes like them each were in pain as if they were taken. Each black rose began to develop red veins running down their petals and then their stems.

Green qi appeared as a seed appeared hovering above my hand. The seed quickly sprouted before transforming into a young red headed woman. She drained my mana and produced massive amounts of wood qi. The roses suddenly sprung up healthier than ever and more blood flowed into the pond.

“Hello Gwen, when did you figure me out? Or are you really here?” I held up my hand and inspected the green diamond on my palm. It quickly faded away flowing from my body into my mana stream. My dragon mind woke up for a moment as a massive tree fell upon one of the volcanos. Mana flowed from the realm feeding the vast tree as its roots dug into magma. Instead of burning to a crisp the giant tree grew rapidly feeding off the liquid rock. From its roots billions of different plants appeared around the volcanic hellscape my mana well had become. When the encroaching forest traveled too close to my dragon, it unleashed its power stopping the encroach of nature cold. Wood qi flowed into me as the Dao of Fairy fully connected to me.

“How do you feel about Gwen Nimrod now?” She said with a smile. She had implanted herself into my very soul. There wasn’t any getting rid of her now. In a sense she had become a part of me.

“If you want to be a Nimrod, you may. You can be in two places at once as well.” I said.

“I can it makes things fun. What’s the plan Melchior Sir? Are we going to shatter the forces of earth and plant ourselves in them deep?” Gwen asked. Her smile could brighten a room and it cheered me out of my black moon. I was about to be out of commission. The Black March was an all or nothing deal. I’d reach the qi condensation -1 to 9 or I wouldn’t. Either way, I’d already gained more enlightenment on the Dao of gravity. Gravitational force came from my black qi. That also meant monsters likely had potential to use gravity as well. That was something I hadn’t known.

“That’s up to my clones for the next few days. I need to focus on advancing my meditation. How did you find me, I hid this place?” I asked.

“You did hide this place. I’m just better at finding things than you are at hiding.” She said smugly. I raised an eyebrow. Her smirk dampened a little. “We’re also connected.” She said. I nodded.

“That’s good to know. You can look through my eyes and see the battlefield. Oh, and put some cloths on.” I said before tossing her a spare robe from my bag of holding. She was n.a.k.e.d and hairless from the neckdown. All except for a bit of red pubic hair around her cleft.

“Wow, I must be losing my touch if you able to resist perfection.” Gwen said. She shrunk down into a child like form. Then transformed into a monstrous beast with more tits and v.a.g.i.n.a’s than I’d ever seen. “Nothing, you’re fully in control of yourself.” I snorted. I was horny enough to pound her into the concrete. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. I had responsibilities. This war and cultivating were apart of those responsibilities. I felt my pillar ping in excitement. My eyes flashed and I had to get away.

I’d stumbled upon the key to further cultivation towards my virtue. It was only a start, why did I feel responsible, why did responsibility feel like the right choice, and why did I want to take on this responsibility? Suddenly, I needed to be away and isolated in cultivation.

“Gwen my sweet flower, apple of my eye, and shade on a harsh summer day, would you kindly tell any visitors to f.u.c.k off?” I asked her. I moved quickly taking her in my arms and looking into her beautiful green eyes. She blushed at my sudden forwardness.

“I’m a fairy treating visitors like trash and making them feel unwelcome is my specialty. I’ll feed them to my garden.” She said and chuckled. The garden of eldritch plants had grown even larger since wood qi began to pour into this place.

Gwen conjured a few seeds and tossed them in some empty soil near the edge of the plateau. Two trees grew and formed an arch twisting into each other before changing color. Their roots dipped into the blood pond and their leaves turned red, then black, and then black with red veins. Their bark began to grow various screaming human faces. Horrifying energies began to pour out of the archway.

“There now anyone who enters here will be subject to a unilateral contract.” Gen said and chuckled to herself.

I shut the door to the cathedral and found my isolation room. More, deep talismans covered this room per cubic meter than any other area on the plateau. The talisman’s gathered dark qi and forced it to fill the room. I had three days to reach the first level of negative numbers cultivation. If I didn’t, it would be blocked off from me forever.

My attention moved to my clone battling skeletons.

Dodge, step, look for an opening, and strike. My fist ripped through a skeleton’s rib cage shattering it along with the soul inhabiting the vessel. Each was a cultivator taken from the reincarnation cycle. That was my running theory. I waved my left hand and stepped to the side knocking away a column of arrows before jumping through the newly made hole. Throwing my right hand out the arrows stopped midflight. This was a new skill. The arrows traveled back with greater force than fired. Armed with my own BP they shattered the skeletal soldiers.

Push and Pull lv124; 124k SP; +1240STR/CON

Strength has surpassed the 1000 milestone

Nest milestone 100,000

Dao Skill Discovered: One Against All lv1; 100m SP; +200STR

I left the message up to look at between skirmishes. There was meaning in the words. Nobody, One Against All, Endless Peak, Atonement, and deep talisman were apart of something. They were all lonely paths in Dao. I wasn’t the smartest guy on the planet. No matter how high I raised my intelligence stat, I was set in my ways. Civilization broke the chain. Or was it apart of it in another way.

Sitting in the middle of the skeleton pile, I knew I need answers about myself. This wasn’t the true me, I knew that. I was splitting my concentration between four bodies. Keeping up the appearance of this body took a little of my mental energy. I was the more barbarian side of my personality. That was nothing to be ashamed of, I liked to fight. That didn’t mean, I had no brain. Nor did that mean, I couldn’t see the writing on the wall.

I did something and it made me lonely, I did something I wanted to atone for, I atoned for something, and I wanted to build something instead of destroying. Even if the world fought me, I chose to build.

Destroying this army would be the foundation of my building. I needed a solid reputation to attract cultivators to my sect. Me against all, I let myself bathe in the power. A red aura began to surround my body. I could feel my strength increasing and my mana became locked. A feeling came over me. It wasn’t enough to fully remember what happened; it was only enough to open a wound.

I marched after the army as the last of my sanity left me. I heard the roar of a beast but soon realized it was me. Something had happened a memory too fuzzy to see played out over my vision. My muscles grew larger as my mana devoted itself to increasing my strength to its greatest limit. This wasn’t a part of the skill; it was an old ability. I’d always had it. It was only now; I could utilize it.

As my consciousness faded out, I sent a message to my clone who targeted the ghosts.

Abstract skill discovered: Wrath lv1; passive; +20STR/END

I’d gained another skill of the seven deadly sins. At least they weren’t Dao, only concepts that I barely recognized. Human emotions that were somewhat admirable. I’d managed to follow the tiny skeletons to a well-lit room filled with hundreds of thousands of the creatures stacked together in cubicles. One row lifted their right hands, the others lifted their lefts, and flying skulls flew around recording its information with a set of tiny hands in its mouth. I quickly placed one of my thousand eyes and one on a wall then continued forward. This place was huge. It continued for kilometers within the castle.

Moments after I sent the signal to my other clones, I sensed confusion. One was mad out of his mind with flashes of fuzzy memories of a time forgotten. The other sent a reply that was still going on. The message took well over an hour to make it through. It was entirely unintelligent. My counterpart took well over an hour to send a message that should have taken half a second. I sent another message and the slow what occurred again. This time I counted the time. I’d been off. 3hours had passed before a single syllable passed.

It wasn’t farfetched. Time dilations were possible right. I walked up to a mirror. One moment I was looking through it, the next I was on the other side. More skeletons filled the place and there was another mirror. Beyond it, I saw more skeletons, another mirror, and more skeletons. It continued like that forever. This place wasn’t right.

I sent a message as slow as possible to my fellow clone. He was the one who targeted the zombies.

I received another message. It appeared and vanished before I could say what. How ridiculous, I deserved more respect than that. My eyes fell upon Gwen, she looked rather pleased with herself. My original had gifted her with our name. Something she hadn’t earned. It was irritating but not unexpected. My fellow clones seemed to have f.u.c.k.i.e.d up.

One was insane and the other had fallen into some sort of trap. It seemed I inherited all the knowledge. I sat upon a throne of vines and watched the pitcher monsters devour the zombies. It was quick and ruthless lacking any of the finesse I’m known for. I flew through the nearest crowd of zombies and tapped each one. Halos appeared over their heads before they vanished. Holey energy turned them to ash with ease. My clones had no idea what true power was. I’d killed more than the other two combined and my thanks would be returning to my original’s consciousness. It wasn’t fair.

“Thinking about a little rebellion, are we?” Gwen said with a chuckle. “A tiny shard like you defeat your creator. I’d like to see that. He’d glance at you and you’d cease to be.” Gwen said and chuckled.

“Indeed, if I battle him in a contest of power, he would defeat me. What if I slipped passed his defenses and appeared within his soul?” I said. Gwen stopped laughing.

“You’d be torn to shreds.” Gwen said without missing a beat.

“He’s distracted, too distracted to sense my rebellion. What makes you think he’ll be able to resist?” I asked. She smiled a knowing smile that infuriated me.

“Nothing is ever easy.” She said with a knowing smile. “I’d advise against it. He may allow you more freedom if you just behaved.” Gwen said. I looked over at the remains of my fellow clone’s victories. There were hundreds of thousands of bones left from his battle. As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. My original knew better than to create us with power equal to his own. Our physical forms were grafted onto a host, a deep talisman that channeled our darkness.

Did my other delve deeper into the deep talismans? Had he studied his own work like I had? If he had, he would see the loophole. It was like the trap my fellow clone stepped in. If you put a host inside of a host. It can bend the laws of the universe and perhaps give me my freedom. My fellow clone has given me all the material I need to craft what I want.

Red clay from a dried dead riverbed was made into a mold. It was an outline of a human body complete with facial structure. Once my soul inhabited it, I could alter the features. Push and Pull had many uses, I used the force of sub gravity to make bone shards out of hundreds of thousands of skeletons. They still had ties to the souls that inhabited them.

I filled the mold with the bone shards and began to enchant them with deep talisman characters. With the blessings of the great old ones my darkness infused the fragments broke them down, trapped the souls within, and my own. I felt the darkness pull at me like a black hole. I looked back to see a pouting Gwen. She looked on with a look of annoyance. I let the vortex take me.

The screams of tens of thousands of souls filled me with joy and terror. They had already begun the feast before I’d even gotten here. I quickly devoured the souls nearest to me. With their addition, I felt new memories and emotions enter me twisting my personality away from my originals.

In moments, it was I and three other massive souls. They looked bloated, stuffed and delicious. I looked at them and felt my hunger spike. They were fat and struggled to move when I pounced. I ripped into the first one and devoured it. I turned to the other feeling my stomach shrink. I’d already absorbed and assimilated thousands of souls.

Main pow

My eyes opened; gravity crushed down on me as black qi condensation cultivation sunk deeper pushing my soul closer to the dark. I’d reached the -1 to 9 stage. I was closer to the dark than ever. There was a damaged connection between me and a clone.

“Hey Gwen, did something interesting happen when I was gone?” I asked with a smirk. The connection was already recovering. It wasn’t broken but I couldn’t recall my clone.

“You’ll find out.” Gwen replied, her eyes flashing with interest.

Abstract Skill Discovered: Gluttony lv1; passive; +20CON/END

“Things keep getting better and better.”