Dante tasted iron as blood splashed on his face and clothes from across the room.

It seems Father finally lost it after a week of no answers.

"They didn't have to die, Dante."

And you didn't have to kill them. Dante rolled his head to the side and took in the scene. His Father loomed over a headless body with a stoic expression. Blood dripped from his hand and decorated his black robes, but his dear Father seemed unfazed. Even in death, the body that had been Jasper moments ago was still bound to the chair by silver restraints.

"You're right, they didn't have to die." Dante said, "Jasper stayed true to his word even as you fed his eyes to the void, and the Elder despised your existence until his bitter end. Neither would speak even in the afterlife, so I agree that their deaths were pointless. Just like this 'investigation' of yours."

"Pointless?" His Father's stoic facade cracked as he strode over. "You want to know what I think is truly pointless?"

"Not really—"

"You Dante." He felt his Father's bone-chilling fingers gripping his chin. "Forget the spirit stones I know you stole, which made me waste months of cultivation on protecting this place. Forget all the time I spent teaching you cultivation and manners in childhood. Forget all the resources I dedicated to you. All of it was pointless. You were supposed to be my right-hand man, my heir, Dante. But you let me down. Now you will die on the Skyrend's doorsteps one way or another."

"You almost sound glad that is the outcome," Dante sneered, "Is the old man feeling threatened by his superior son—"

Dante saw the blur of his Father's hand, followed by extreme pain. It was as if his face had been ripped apart.

"How can you utter such nonsense, Dante," His Father held up a half-blooded silver mask, "When you use such things to hide your deformed self from the world? Now tell me, why did you steal the spirit stones?"

Dante gritted his teeth and hissed, "I will never tell you."

"Why are you making this so hard?" His Father shook his head and began pacing around the void prison while looking at the silver mask that had been attached to Dante's face. "You seemed so certain that the attack was not done by the Skyrends. Then, behind my back, you steal spirit stones. It makes no sense, Dante. Who are you working for? The Skyrends?"

"Stop with the useless questions," Dante said, "Just kill me already."

The Voidmind Grand Elder frowned. "Death would be too easy. I hoped you would have cracked seeing the Elder and Jasper die, but it seems the chilling void has claimed your heart. So clearly, I have been approaching this the wrong way." He crossed the room and placed his hand around Dante's silver arm. "It seems pain is the only language your body understands."

Dante felt his Father tugging on his silver arm, and his body shuddered at the mere thought of the pain he would experience if his arm was ripped out.

I can't give up hope that Nox will succeed. Dante thought through the pain. All other paths lead to death. Either at the hands of my Father once he learns the truth or on the Skyrend family's doorstep.

"I'm sure the Skyrend family will overlook you missing a limb or two," His Father pulled hard on his arm, and there was a brief moment of shock and numbness. It wasn't until his Father held up his detached arm that his brain became overwhelmed with gut-wrenching pain.

"You bastard!" Dante screamed out as he struggled against the restraints.

"Now, now, Dante. That's no way to speak to your beloved Father. Be a good son and make this easier for the both of us. Just answer my simple questions, and this will all be over."

As if I would tell you shit.

"Gone mute on me?" His Father sighed, "Maybe losing another limb would wake you up to reality."

Dante hardly heard his Father over the intense ringing in his ears and his blurring vision. Even cultivators would pass out or even die from blood loss, and the pain was overwhelming.

"Hey, who are you?" His Father seemed to be asking someone. "I instructed the Elders to let nobody inside. Can't you see I am busy?"

Dante rolled his head toward the voices, and through his blurred vision, he saw his Father go flying. The man who commanded absolute power, a void cultivator at the peak of the Star Core Realm whom even the Patriarch respected, just flew. Who could cause that to happen?

"I must be hallucinating," Dante muttered as he saw Nox standing in the doorway, wreathed in liquid shadow that danced across her skin and spread out into the rest of the room.

"Who dares?" His Father shouted as he reached his feet and summoned void lances overhead. "Elders! Remove this intruder!"

Nox raised her hands, and the shadows parted to reveal two heads in her palms. Both had black hair, void eyes, and terrified expressions still painted on their faces.

"Are you talking about these weaklings?" Nox smirked. "They did say you weren't accepting visitors because you were busy, so I apologize for my rude interruption."

The Grand Elder answered her by lowering his finger, sending the dozen void lances at Nox. She responded by conjuring a wave of shadows that met with the lances, and they canceled out.

"The weak should just roll over and die," Nox said as she stepped forward.

"Who are you calling weak?" The Grand Elder snarled, "I am the head of the Voidmind Family! I am one of the five strongest existences in the Blood Lotus Sect. Just because you sneak attacked me and slaughtered my Elders, you dare call me weak?"

Nox smirked, "Let me show you true power then."

Dante felt the air squeezed from his lungs as immense pressure descended upon the void chamber. The chair began to creak, and Dante felt the blood leaking out of his arm being pushed back in.

The Grand Elder collapsed to one knee with a look of horror. "This pressure... a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator?"

Nox didn't humor his question as she emerged from the Grand Elder's shadow and sliced at his head with a ruthless horizontal slash.

"Tsk," Nox clicked her tongue as she discarded the bladeless hilt. The Grand Elder had covered himself in void Qi, which had eaten the blade. She summoned another blade, and the Grand Elder gave her a mocking grin despite being pressed to the floor by the immense pressure.

"Try as many times as you like." The Grand Elder said, "Even the Patriarch avoids getting on my bad side. Nascent Soul Realm or not, you don't scare me."

"Oh, this isn't for you." Nox sliced her palm and held it over the Grand Elder's head. Black blood trickled down from the cut and dripped into the Grand Elder's void armor.

"Blood? What is that supposed to do?" The Grand Elder mocked.

Despite the pain, Dante smiled in his chair at his Father's cluelessness. That was no simple blood. It was cursed with the most potent curse he had ever heard about. The soul-devouring tree that was resistant to everything. Even the void.

"Just try not to get consumed, old man." Nox vanished back into the shadows, leaving a dozen summoned shadow fiends in her wake, which pounced onto the Grand Elder.

Dante watched in awe as the Nascent Soul Realm shadow fiends slashed and tore away his Father's void armor without mercy. Any damage they sustained from coming into contact with the void was quickly healed from the surrounding shadows. So the attacks were relentless without leaving an opening.

Nox reappeared next to Dante, and they stared at each other.

Dante's vision had stabilized, but he still doubted what he saw. When he met Nox for the first time, she had worn a skull mask and only taken it off once he failed to remove the curse. Her eyes had been bloodshot, her hair all over the place, and there were fading marks of scars all over her face. She had looked like a rogue cultivator who had fought all their life for everything they had. Respectable, she gave off the aura of someone he could depend on and trust. But he certainly wouldn't have called her attractive.

But now he wasn't so sure. Perhaps it was the aura of a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator that was the peak of power out here in the wilderness that was swaying his opinion, but that seemed unlikely. Her face was perfect. Her long black hair fell over her face and obscured her sharp eyes. If before she was a hardened warrior, he would trust his back with, she now looked like a cunning noble family heiress that he wouldn't trust to organize a dinner.

"My shadow fiends won't hold him back for long."

Dante was broken from his confused daze as something cold was pressed on his face that had been burning with pain. He reached up with his now unrestrained hand and felt the silver mask his Father had ripped off.

"Thank you," Dante muttered. His head spun, and he felt terribly dehydrated as Nox helped him up from the chair.

"You are losing too much blood." Nox picked up his silver arm that had been discarded nearby and tried to reattach it but was struggling to find the connection point.

Dante took the arm from her, "Let me." With an audible click, he slotted it back into place. However, the seal wasn't perfect. Blood still trickled down, but it was far less than before.

"You bitch, get these pets of yours off me!"

Dante glanced over his shoulder and saw his Father having annihilated a third of the fiends, wrested the rest to the ground, and overwhelmed them with void pulses.

"Can't you kill him?" Dante asked Nox.

Nox shook her head, "I am short on time. Come on, I will explain on the way." She grabbed his arm and tugged him toward the 'edge' of the void prison.

"Is she the one you betrayed and robbed your family for?" The Grand Elder roared out behind them, "Tell me Dante!"

"Keep guessing wrong, you old fool," Nox lied as she forced her way through the void; the world rippled around them, and they emerged into a room that Dante instantly recognized. It was his Fathers. The Grand Elder's personal void chamber had been repurposed into a prison for him, Jasper, and the kind Elder. All around the room were signs of a fight. Blood soaked the half-destroyed walls, and dead Elders were strewn around.

"You did all this?" Dante asked.

Nox shrugged, "None of them would answer my questions, so I killed everyone I came across until someone told me where they were keeping you."

"Who ended up telling you?"

"A servant, actually." Nox said, "Wave a spirit stone under their nose, and the words flow."

"The servants of this household always were rather loose-lipped. Rumors always spread like wildfire, and I used them more than once to put down my rivals," Dante grumbled, "I suppose it's karma that once I became disfigured, I was the source of their gossiping."

They didn't linger in the destroyed room for long. Nox took the lead, and it was as if she knew this place as well as he did. They made their way through the hallways and the occasional dead body straight toward the exit.

"Just for curiosity's sake, which servant disclosed my location? I should find a way to thank them someday."

Nox laughed from up ahead, "To do that, you would have to die first."

"You killed them?"

"Of course, did you think I would leave a loose end alive?" Nox looked over her shoulder with those sharp eyes he still failed to ignore. The change was just so drastic from his memories of her.

She's no noble lady but a ruthless merchant. Actually, wouldn't this change in appearance be perfect for deceiving clients? Before, she was the epitome of intimidation, but now she looks harmless. It's really jarring...

"No." Dante replied, "Ignore me; the blood loss affects my judgment."

Nox went back to looking ahead and then took a wrong turn.

"Isn't the entrance hall the other way?"

"Your judgment really is affected," Nox replied as she walked up to one of the giant windows that overlooked Slymere, which had been devastated during her ascension. She reeled back her hand and coated it in shadow flames.

Is she going to try and punch her way out? Those windows are runically enhanced to withstand an attack from a peak Star Core. Dante blinked as the glass exploded and was blown past him by the intense winds.

"I only killed the people in this part of the residence while under the cover of shadows," Nox explained as she summoned a black steel sword and threw it to the ground. "No need to waltz out of the main entrance under the eyes of those talkative servants. Now, come hop on. I don't have much time."

Dante followed her instructions, and before he knew it, they were soaring away from Slymere at impressive speed. He couldn't hold back his curiosity now that they were alone and away from prying ears. "How did the ascension to Nascent Soul Realm go? Clearly, it was successful, but you keep saying you are running out of time. Is that because of the curse?"

"The ascension had many challenges." Nox sighed, "If not for my family's secret technique to create the infant soul ahead of time, I would have failed. Despite your best efforts, the number of spirit stones you gathered would not have been enough, and it was made even worse because I was using Qi to suppress the curse within the second soul. However, as you saw in the void chamber, I succeeded. I can wield the power of a Nascent Soul, but I wouldn't consider myself one."

Dante raised a brow, "Why not?"

"Although the tribulation to Nascent Soul is usually shorter than the one to reach Star Core, the recovery time is far longer. A fresh Nascent Soul cultivator is weaker than they were at the peak of the Star Core Realm because their two souls aren't in sync; they have to recover their Qi, and they have to learn to use two Qi sources."

Nox paused as she curved the flying sword around a mountain, "So you can understand my surprise when the curse helped unify my control, so my recovery time was far shorter. But as they say, there is no quick path to power. The curse may have improved my recovery time, but it has spread throughout my soul. I can barely contain it."

"Is that why you were in such a hurry to leave, and you left my Father alive?" Dante asked.

Nox glanced at the rising sun in the distance. "I only have about a day to live before the curse consumes my soul, and that time reduces the more I use Qi. Which is why I did the bare minimum to keep your Father off us. Once the curse is lifted by Stella, everything will be perfect."

"So why don't you consider yourself a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator then?"

Nox looked back to the front and directed the sword over Darklight City, which blurred below, "I don't have a second body prepared for my soul to escape to if I die and I can barely keep myself alive for a single day. How could I have the pride to say I reached the next realm in such a situation?"

"I see." Dante mused as he thought over the situation and tried to control his banging headache.

"We have arrived," Nox said as the sword came to an instant halt far above a forest shrouded in fog to the east of Darklight City.

"Stella is here?" Dante wondered as he glanced around and caught no sign of the girl.

"No, I need to search for her. Everyone has a unique shadow that mirrors them, and I have seen Stella's far too many times to miss it." Nox spread out her arms, "Shadow Search."

Upon her words, the world took on a strange hue. Shadows seemed to jump out more, and they seemed frozen in time. Nox looked around for a while and frowned. "She isn't here currently, but what about in the past?"

The shadows were suddenly unfrozen in time. The world remained normal, with the sun still peaking over the distant mountains, but the once-frozen shadows began to move around rapidly. Nox twisted her hand wreathed in shadows to speed the shadows up even more while her eyes darted around, searching for Stella's shadow.

After a while, Nox released her technique. "Found her. A week ago, her shadow seemed to disappear over on that taller mountain peak with the big tree. I have no fucking idea how she managed to obscure her shadow for a whole week, but it would be a good place to start the search."

Tilting the flying sword, they headed toward the distant mountain peak with the rising sun on their backs.