NOVEL NEXT Chapter 74: Another Trick
Looking at the handsome man before him, Ash felt a chill creeping up his spine. The face was exactly the same as his. Now that he noticed, everything looked identical — height, weight, face.
Everything was exactly similar. Not really — there was one major difference that mattered the most at the moment.
There was a sly grin on his clone's face that made his body tremble in discomfort. He could see it wasn't him who was smiling but the entity behind it.
"I got tricked," Ash realized.
The way everyone ignored him, the way he was lured deep inside here — he was tricked.
His eyes moved sideways as he felt the aura of his clone flaring.
"B-rank."
Ash deduced with whatever his luck could tell, and then used [Inspect].
[Level 34]
Ash compared its stats to what his own could be, considering all his titles, his armor, and short blade. Still, his stats only reached the thirties.
He took a deep breath, realizing how badly he was doomed.
"You knew about me all this time," Ash said, almost certain. His question wasn't directed toward his clone but at the entity controlling it.
He had been tricked. The Devourer had known about his position from the moment he entered its range. It wasn't that his cloak didn't work — this beast simply had an extremely high-level sensory and mental ability.
He felt so foolish to think he could escape the eyes of a creature that relied solely on mental perception.
"You think you can escape from me just because you did once?" his clone said in a monotonous, lifeless voice — yet it still sounded too similar to his own.
Jessie was still strangled between his legs, struggling for breath, but slowly her eyes dimmed, fainting from oxygen deficiency.
Ash laid her on the ground, standing up straight, holding a crystal to refill his MP — what he had wasted in killing intent till now while his body was still invisible.
"I give up. But what will you do with us?" Ash asked, his hands moving beneath the cloak where his clone couldn't see.
"Tch, don't bother helping me. You can try running," his clone said with an underlying threat.
Ash kept silent, waiting for it to make a move.
But it didn't attack.
"It's really hard to live a life stuck in a desolate land — especially when all you can eat are souls. I can't move, so hunting is out of the question.
"…Beasts don't dare come close to me anymore," the clone said, its tone shifting into something eerily human — almost conversational, almost weary. "You know what that feels like, don't you, Ash? The hunger that gnaws even when you're full. The silence that eats away your thoughts until you start talking to yourself."
"You lived a life of a loner yourself."
Ash didn't answer. His mind was racing, analyzing every word.
The Devourer Tree — or whatever fragment of its consciousness was wearing his face — was speaking about his previous life. Even in this life, there was no one he could truly call his own. If he forgot Jessie, then he was utterly alone.
"I wanted to consume your souls slowly. Your race — humans — have a very potent soul compared to these lowly scorpions." His clone paused, face turning gloomy and somber.
"Now that I realized how intelligent creatures you are. We can strike a deal — you take me with you and feed me, and in exchange, I will protect you from the beasts."
Ash blinked sharply. "You talk too much."
The clone smirked — his smirk, only twisted. "Maybe. But that's the only entertainment left for something trapped under its own roots. You can think about my offer — there's nothing for you to lose. You're going to die if you don't accept."
It took a step closer. Each step left behind faint traces of dark residue — pure energy, leaking from a body that wasn't supposed to exist.
"I don't need your body," the clone continued, its voice almost gentle now. "I need your presence. You're intelligent. You've walked through death — touched the edge of willpower and faced the danger no human should survive."
The invisible cloak shimmered faintly — a subtle glitch, a faint distortion that lasted only a second — but the clone's gaze snapped toward it immediately.
Ash realized that if it had read all his memories, then it must know about his guns. There was no point in a surprise attack.
"And how am I going to take you with me?" Ash asked, accepting the grim reality of his situation.
"I will transfer myself into a small branch of the tree that you can carry with you. I will protect you from every danger. I will make you invincible with my powers."
Ash fired under his cloak.
The SMG roared, mana-infused bullets slicing through the silouhette with bursts of pale blue light.
The clone didn't flinch. It walked through the barrage, bullets piercing through its body only to dissolve into nothing but a pure blue energy— as if reality itself rejected the damage.
Ash gritted his teeth, picked Jessie up on his shoulders, and made a run for the exit.
[MP: 180/210]
He wasn't going to get fooled twice. This tree was a master of deceit. Believing even a single word from it was courting death.
The aura around his clone was fake — forged to make him believe it was above level thirty.
All Ash did was stall for time, trying to make it think he was falling for its trap while he was actually recovering MP under the cloak.
If it truly had the power to transfer its mind into a smaller tree or beast, it would have done so already.
Ash gritted his teeth as a scream — one that wasn't human — tore through the clearing, echoing inside his mind instead of his ears.
"You dare—"
Ash didn't give it time to finish. He threw a mana grenade directly under the tree branch.
The explosion swallowed the area in blinding light — but the Devourer was unmoved, unfazed.
Ash ignored everything, walking out still cloaked, Jessie slung over his shoulder like a bag.
He pressed a hand to his head, biting back a growl as whispers tried to claw into his thoughts again.
"Running again?" the voice mocked. "You humans are such pitiful creatures — always running, never realizing you were the prey from the very start."