[Tree] Chapter 643: Too Many Pills (Patreon)

The following few hours were some of the hardest Elder Maren had experienced in her long life. The man she saw as a father figure was squirming on the ground and howling in a mixture of pain and confusion, as if he were being eaten from the inside. His robes were soaked through with a putrid, tar-like substance that Elder Maren assumed was impurities, but she had never seen so much expelled at once.

All Elder Maren could do was clear her furniture out of the way as Ferrin staggered to his feet and tore at his soaked robes, only to stumble and crash to the ground again.

"What did you feed me?!" Ferrin roared as he slammed his fist, cracking the old wooden floorboards. "This feels worse than death!"

"I'm sorry, Patriarch," Elder Maren said, and for the first time in decades, tears welled up in the corner of her eye. "I thought they might help you, not make you suffer more."

Ferrin turned and glared at her. His crazed eyes were bloodshot, and his face was beet red with sweat. But as Elder Maren studied him through teary eyes, she noticed something distinctly missing.

"Ferrin, I think..." Elder Maren rushed in and grabbed Ferrin's impurity-soaked beard. Ignoring the eye-watering stench coming from him, she pulled his head up and checked his neck.

Ferrin was livid as he tried to kick her away. "What are ya doing, you crazy—"

"Ferrin! The Uldrenneth blood." Elder Maren dropped his head and met his angered gaze with a beaming smile. "It's gone!"

Ferrin froze, and his eyes widened. "The Uldrenneth blood is gone? Yer serious?"

"Yes," Elder Maren said between sobs of relief as she retrieved her polished fishhook from her belt and held it between them. Ferrin inspected his reflection in the polished metal, and a look of astonishment crossed the old man's face.

"Well, I'll be damned." He traced his neck. It was coated in a thick layer of expelled impurities, but beneath the grime, no more black lines were reaching for his brain.

The shock of learning the Uldrenneth blood was truly gone faded quickly, and Ferrin's expression twisted in pain again. He bent over, consumed by a coughing fit that made the last one look mild.

Elder Maren supported the large man as best she could. "Ferrin, you just need to overcome whatever the pills are doing to you, and you will survive!"

"That's easier said... than done..." Ferrin wheezed between coughs and fell forward, gasping for air and clawing at his throat. Elder Maren panicked.

"What's wrong?" Elder Maren circled the Patriarch, hands hovering uselessly.

"Something is crawling up my darn throat!" Ferrin's eyes bulged as his mouth was pried open from within by two tiny hands that gripped his cracked lips.

The shadowy thing hauled itself out of Ferrin's throat with a sound akin to a boot being pulled from mud. Ferrin collapsed to the side, struggling for breath while the thing perched on his head and turned toward her.

It had no eyes, but Elder Maren felt it looking.

"W-What is—" Elder Maren began.

It leaped.

Her shocked scream came out embarrassingly high as Earth Qi flared across her arms on pure reflex, hardening her skin in an instant before the thing struck her face. It was heavier than it had any right to be, and strangely cold.

Its little hands grappled for her eyes between her arms.

She swatted it away with a stone-clad palm and stumbled backward, crashing into the furniture she had stacked against the wall to make room for Ferrin. A chair splintered under her weight, but broke her fall.

The thing hit the floor, skittered, and rose again on all fours. It looked like a shadow's attempt to take human form, but it was wrong and twisted.

A demon? Elder Maren guessed as she tasted the demonic Qi tainting the air. The creature lunged again, but this time Elder Maren was ready. It met her Qi-coated fist, loaded with the weight of her earth dao.

The thing exploded on contact into a demonic haze that smelled strongly of sulfur.

Is it dead? Just like that? Elder Maren wrinkled her nose as it mixed in with the stench of impurities and circled back toward Ferrin, who had gone from beet red to pale. "What was that?" she asked in a forced whisper.

"I think," Ferrin wheezed, "that was my heart demon."

Elder Maren raised a brow. "You're telling me your heart demon just crawled out of your throat and attacked me?"

"Yes." Ferrin worked his mouth as if he was trying to get rid of a nasty taste. "Just where did you get those pills?"

"A... demon," Elder Maren admitted.

"A demon?!" Ferrin repeated, terror gripping his features. "When did you meet a demon?"

Elder Maren gulped. "Just before you arrived," she admitted. "You know that rift you said is a treasure realm? Well, I don't believe it's a treasure realm at all." She looked up at the demonic haze. "I think it's a portal to hell."

***

As the fog outside the window lightened with the rising sun, Elder Maren let out a sigh of relief as Ferrin slowly opened his eyes.

"Is it over?" she asked, despite seeing the sparkle of life in the old man's eyes.

Ferrin nodded. "It's over," he said, wrinkling his nose, "and besides the disgusting stench, I feel amazing." He opened his palm and formed an orb of pure water out of the moisture in the air. "My spirit roots are clearer than when I was a child, and the bottleneck I had faced for so long is gone." He dismissed the water into a mist. "I honestly can't believe it."

"Can't believe what? That you're alive despite foolishly drinking Uldrenneth blood?" Elder Maren joked.

Ferrin snorted. "Yes, but even more surprising is that I've broken through to the next stage for the first time in forever. In fact, I've never felt this clear-minded before. The control I have now over my Qi is beyond what I could manage before, even in my prime before the injury..."

Both of their gazes landed on his leg.

"It doesn't hurt anymore," Ferrin noted, a look of hope crossing his features. He pushed himself up with an ease Elder Maren had never seen from the old man, and he stood.

Then he walked toward the door, and the limp was gone.

Ferrin turned with a massive grin. "I got a spring in my step again!"

"That you do," Elder Maren agreed as she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "Oh, I was so worried I was going to lose you."

Ferrin's gaze softened. "Me too, dear. I thought I was a flippin goner and rushed here to say goodbye to ya," He came closer, and the two embraced until Elder Maren choked and pushed him away.

"Sorry, but you smell awful. Go clean yourself."

Ferrin chuckled. "Fair enough, I'll be right back."

Elder Maren watched him leave. His back was straighter than before, making him look more imposing as he stepped into the room the Archdemon had left hours earlier and vanished inside, the putrid stench barely leaving with him.

"What a mess," Elder Maren complained as she surveyed the room. The floorboards were splintered from Ferrin taking his pain out on them, and broken furniture lay everywhere. She crouched and ran a finger along the floor; it was coated in grime from Ferrin's impurities.

Letting out a sigh, Elder Maren got to work. She filled a bucket with stored rainwater and scrubbed down every inch of the lighthouse. After opening the windows to air out the stench, she placed a palm on the ground and grudgingly threaded wood Qi into the splintered floorboards to repair them.

An hour later, Elder Maren was almost done when there was a loud knock on the door.

"Coming," she called out, only for the door to be forced open.

A sharp-faced man wearing red-accented robes strode in with an entourage of disciples behind him. It took a moment for Elder Maren to put a name to a face, and once she did, she scowled.

"Rather brazen for an Elder of the Wavescale Sect to barge into my home unannounced," she said, dropping the chair leg she had been trying to reattach. "Do you and your group want to leave and try entering again with proper courtesy?"

The Wavescale Elder snorted. "Courtesy is reserved for those worthy of respect, and you, Sixth Elder of the Saltstone Sect, are nothing but a coward in my eyes. Even your own sect Elders and disciples disdain you."

A ripple of laughter came from his group that had filed into her room and now encircled her.

"I'd say an Elder showing up with so many people in tow is far more cowardly, but what do I know." Elder Maren shrugged and turned her back to them. "I have nothing to say to you. Leave."

"But I have something to say to you," the Wavescale Elder blanketed the room with his hostile spiritual pressure.

Elder Maren glanced over her shoulder with a raised brow. "You dare to be openly hostile toward me, Elder? Are you perhaps forgetting where you stand right now? This is the heart of the Saltstone Sect—"

"Not for long," the Elder said with the slimiest of smiles. "You can pretend to be clueless all you want, Sixth Elder, but your Patriarch's empty airship awaits outside this lighthouse. I knew you two were close, so I expected to find him here... or should I say his corpse?"

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," Elder Maren said with a straight face. "You should leave before you make a mistake, Elder."

The Wavescale Elder chuckled as he strode through the room with utmost confidence. "A mistake?" The idea seemed to amuse him. "The only one I see making a mistake here is an arrogant Elder standing her ground for a doomed sect."

Elder Maren stepped back, thinking he would eventually stop. But he didn't until they she was up against the wall. "Heavens, Elder Maren, I thought I'd enjoy you before tossing your corpse to the fishes, but you reek. Did you perhaps soil yourself in my presence?" He reached up and traced the back of his hand against her cheek. "What a poor thing you are—"

She gripped his wrist. "You might have walked out of here alive to tell your Patriarch the great news," she hissed. "But now that you've touched me, your corpse will suffice in passing on that message."

"And what message would that be?" the Elder asked with an amused smile.

"That the Patriarch of the Saltstone Sect still lives," Elder Maren replied.

The Wavescale Elder fell silent and studied her gaze for a moment before bursting into laughter. "Alive? Perhaps you really don't know. That old fool came groveling at our Patriarch's feet, begging and pleading for us to save your measly sect, and we agreed. All he had to do was drink a goblet of Uldrenneth blood for our entertainment, and we promised to save you all... we just didn't mention that it involved us absorbing the Saltstone Sect into our glorious Wavescale Sect."

Elder Maren felt her stomach drop. Ferrin had knowingly drunk Uldrenneth blood in hopes that the rest of them would be saved?

You really are a foolish old man to think the Wavescale Sect would honor your sacrifice. Elder Maren bit her lip in anger. They are a bunch of bastards.

"By the terms of the contract he signed, now that your Patriarch is dead, the Saltstone Sect and everything in it is rightfully ours." The Wavescale Elder gripped Elder Maren's throat, pushing her against the wall, and licked his lips. "Including you."

There was a click as the door beside Elder Maren swung open.

"That contract is only valid if I'm dead."

All of the color drained from the Wavescale Elder's face.

"Impossible," he muttered as he relaxed his grip and peered into the other room. "You're supposed—"

A rugged hand wreathed in pure water Qi shot out from the opened doorway, grabbing the Wavescale Elder by the face and lifting him up with ease.

The Elder squealed in pain.

"Elder!" one of the disciples in the room shouted and stepped forward. A few others followed, with water Qi condensing from the air around them.

"Stop where you stand," Ferrin's Qi-empowered voice boomed through the room along with his suffocating Monarch Realm spirit pressure. "Unless you too want to die."

The youngster leading the charge faltered, a half-formed technique failing around him. Weaker disciples at the back fell to one knee beneath the pressure, while everyone else paled.

Ferrin fully stepped out of the room like an enraged titan wearing bloodlust as a second skin. His always-towering figure, which had been diminished until now by his limp and rough appearance, was now on full display. He loomed over everyone like he must have in his prime and made the Wavescale Elder dangling from his hand look like a mere toy.

"We can talk about this," the dangling Elder pleaded. "I had no idea you were still alive..."

Ferrin ignored the Elder and addressed the rest of the room.

"Tell Torvun Wavescale that this is my declaration of war."

There was a sickening, loud crunch, followed by a splash of warm blood hitting Elder Maren's face. Ferrin released his hand, and the Wavescale Elder's body dropped to the floor with a thud.

A tense silence blanketed the room, while all eyes were locked onto Ferrin.

"Go, unless you want to be next," Ferrin said coldly while glaring at the disciples.

Not a single one dared to talk back. They scurried out of the room like rats and fled back to their sect. Ferrin pulled in his spiritual pressure and deflated once they were gone. Falling into a nearby chair, he stared at the dead Wavescale Elder on the floor and sighed.

"I went too far," he grumbled. "We have no chance at winning a war against the Wavescale Sect and their tamed beasts."

"They were planning to take over our sect anyway," Elder Maren reassured him as she wiped away the dead Elder's blood. "You did what you had to as our Patriarch."

"Heavens, it felt good to stand up to them for once," Ferrin leaned back in his chair and glanced at Elder Maren. "But that doesn't change the outcome. Unless your demon friend would want to help us win a war?"

Elder Maren grimaced as the image of a grinning Diana appeared in her mind.

"I would hardly call her a friend," Elder Maren grumbled. "Though she was far more reasonable than I imagined an Archdemon to be."

Ferrin faltered. "Did you just say... Archdemon?"