They were both very quiet while moving down the pathway, Kou was almost soundless and Li was as quiet as a prowling Tiger would be. It was surprising how quiet such a large creature could be. The way leads down and in weird circles and the walls had these strange little orbs attached to them that glow.
Squinting Kou reached out to try and pry one off but they would not move at all, making her wonder about this place more. What is it? How did it get here, does someone live here? Is it dangerous? These thoughts run through her head as she made her way further and further down the hallway. There was a sense of adventure here for her and her curiosity won over her fears. She was strong now, probably the strongest in her party, she could definitely beat up Li and Lu! So she did not think there would be anything too dangerous.
It took an entire 10 minutes with their slow speed to reach the end of the Tunnel, there were markings and writings on the wall but neither Li nor Kou could read any of this so they simply choose to ignore them, and once they stepped outside of the Tunnel both of their eyes went wide.
In front of them was a secluded valley, half of it grassy land and the other half forest and bamboo, there was even a small lake and a creek running through the valley. It was not very large, but it was perfectly surrounded by mountains on all sides making it basically impossible for anything to get here. Misty clouds seemed to cover the valley from above making it nearly impossible to spot it from above.
The both of them stood there slackjawed completely confused as to what was happening. There was no snow, even the temperature here was mild like in late spring, nothing like the freezing biting cold outside. Not that Kou minded either way. Taking a deep breath Kou glanced around her thoughts wandering for a moment, there was even a small hut at the edge of the forest, and there was a pathway leading down to said hut, the pathway was made out of the same weird crystals that illuminated the tunnel leading here.
"Let's investigate first before we go back..." Li seemed suspicious, and so was Kou. There was no way nobody was living here right? Some kind of Mountain God or Devil maybe? Either way, the two of them snuck down the pathway, towards the hut. It was nothing impressive, 2 story house with one room on each floor, an engawa encircling it on both sides. There were some potted plants on it that had lost their luster some time ago, dry and probably dead. As Kou approaches her nose twitched the same as Li and for a moment the two exchanged glances.
Both knew that scent... Death. Something here had died, an animal or human, something like that. The stench of death was ingrained into the energy around them even. They snuck around the house a few times peeking in through the windows... There was a figure sitting in a meditative position in the middle of the room...it was a man, that looked like a dried plum, with no flesh, his skin tightly wrapped around his bones, its eyes empty but having a faint red glow to them, He was very tall far above 6ft and had once probably had a powerful build given his broad shoulders, long white hair reached down to the ground from where he sat and a long beard grew out of his chin.
They continued to sneak around the house for a little bit, but then suddenly the men's head snapped around with a sickening crunch as dark red eyes stared at them for a moment, black energy walled around him as he busted outside into the open confronting the two of them. However, he was clearly a mindless creature, frothing from his mouth as he stared at the two of them, his long-clawed hands reaching out to grasp Kou. But she flipped out of the way quickly. While Li swiped at the man from the side, pushing him back.
"Careful! I think he ain't a person anymore!" Li warned making Kou nod lightly as she went on all fours ready to fight for now. The creature stared at them, and then again attacked Kou leaving Li alone for some reason. However the Tiger did not feel like being ignored, opening its giant maw it spew out a blast of flame hitting the living corpse dead on as it tried to grab Kou again who had jumped away once more, shocked by the sudden flame breath.
"You can do that?!" Kou was surprised but Li just growled: "Sure can!" However, the Creature rushed through the flames, damaged but not "Dead." It reached out with one hand and a giant palm of energy shot out pushing Li into the ground squishing her hard, making the tiger spit out blood, one could hear a few bones crack with just that attack.
This left Kou frightened she did not want to get hit by that at all, and her instincts were screaming at her to run away, however, she steadied herself as she stared at the groaning Li while the creature was moving towards her. She didn't really like what was happening Li was her companion and she would fight for her if she needed help. And clearly, this was a deadly threat and she was not about to let her die.
Kou felt the energy inside of her, if Li could spew fire, Kou could probably do something similar with ice, and so she grasped at the strands of energy inside of her wrapping them around her hands, as she avoided more grasped of the deadly creature, it was clearly very strong whenever it's hand it anything be it tree or ground it got crushed, much like Li did. But it was not very fast, in fact, it seemed somewhat anchored to the hut, not following too far. But it was still not laying off Li so Kou had to do something.
She felt the energy she could see energy in the air, and with her hands now covered in icy power she grasped out at him, suddenly its legs were frozen in place, and ice had formed around it slowly wandering up its legs and towards its torso, Kou was concentrating really hard on this, trying her best to make it into some form of attack, and it seemed to work. Li was able to fight her way out of the weird palm strike that had nailed her to the ground, the wounded Tiger limping off to the side before collapsing, but still breathing
Good.
But what was she supposed to do with this creature? She felt it fight against her power and was certain she would not be able to hold it for very long. So she used this moment to gain some distance to think while Li was out of danger for now as the creature clearly was after her first and foremost. She still did not feel very confident using her power to defeat this thing, and she was lacking a weapon to fight with. Luckily she was next to the forest and so with a swift kick she armed herself with a bamboo stick. The creature had broken free at this point having shattered the ice with its powerful hands and was now dashing toward her, still it wasn't swift. Kou struck out with the Bamboo but it shattered on impact leaving her with a shorter piece of bamboo, grasping at her sides the creature's fingertips touched her, basically ripping her flesh away and leaving a nasty wound.
Kou quickly jumped back huffing in pain as she looked at her "Weapon" it clearly could not harm the creature as it was, and now she was on the clock, she either had to finish this quickly, run away or slowly lose her energy and bleed out. There was another option... Fighting. Suddenly something clicked in her mind and she grasped at the strands of icy energy inside of her guiding them into the stick she was holding.
The Bamboo froze, and there was a faint white sheen to it now. It felt weird but also right at the same time, so taking the stick with both hands to get ready. The Creature looked at her it's dark red eyes focused on her, its body shape distorted rapidly changing between expressions and sizes, it was a horrifying sight like the creature was not supposed to be in this world, like it was corrupted.
It charged her with a screech, she was still far faster than it, however, her wound was slowing her down a little bit, so her dodge was slower than before not giving her the opportunity to strike right away, her breath was heavy, she was hurt before but this was clearly bad. Her eyes glanced over to the hurt tiger, she was still breathing but there was blood trickling out of her mouth and she was in no way able to move away.
Gritting her teeth Kou dodged another swipe of the creature before jumping away from one of those Magical Plam strikes, then she saw it. When it used this power the creature was immobile for just a moment. So she had a chance to strike it then. Kou got some distance pulling the creature as far away from Li as she could while breathing heavily.
She felt very lightheaded already but steeled her mind, gripping her weapon tighter she shook her head watching the Monster approach, just trying to strike it without any chance was too dangerous just it casually touching her already created such a nasty wound that left her reeling, so striking down on it with anything but 100% chance she would inflict damage to it was stupid.
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And so she speed around, avoiding its distorted weird claws and swings, trying to make it use that technique again by just staying out of its reach. And then it did, she felt the energy and quickly rolled out of the way, kicking the ground her weapon over her head, as she heard the palm strike shatter the ground her frozen weapon hit the creature's head dead on.
A deafening boom rang out, the creature's head was half caved in and her weapon had exploded into misty ice shards that had lodged themselves into the body of the corpse, it reeled back screeching again and Kou fell to her knees, some of the bamboo ice splinters had hit her too, and she was fully out of steam. However the creature turned and winced, it wasn't dead yet, albeit Kou could see it slowly disintegrating, still it had enough energy to reach out for her, grasping her by the shoulder and inflicting horrible pain onto her.
Then there was a scream. Something between a warcry and a high-pitched "There is a rat" scream, and Kou looked at a giant boulder being hammered into the creature. Mimi was here, her clothes hanging loosely onto her her expression teary with snot in her nose as she lifted a giant boulder and hammered the creature into the ground like a fence post, she repeated this multiple times until finally the thing died, fully disintegrated and was gone.
Kou was left flabbergasted, and internally for a short moment she wondered why she would ever go anywhere without Mimi.. but then under shrill squeaking and Lu finally arriving she passed out.
...
She found herself surrounded by snow, a snowstorm raging around her, above her below her, and to her sides, there was no ground to stand on and nothing else in existence, there was only the snow and cold around her. She hovered there, as she closed her eyes for a moment feeling comfort in this situation. Then she heard an abstract voice in the snow, she couldn't make out what it said but it was certainly female, the voice was full of warmth and desire.. but she just could not hear what it said at all.
Then the voice was gone and she was left once more alone in the snow, Kou reached out a hand to try and grasp after the voice trying to make it come back but to no avail. After some time she settled down, the snow was calming her down, she felt her connection with it... and slowly closed her eyes, meditating in the snow. She could feel her inner energy so much better here, in fact, she felt like each and every little flake was part of her energy, and the storm all together was what .... was her. It was a weird feeling, but her mind was calm. As her inner world was covered in snow. She attuned herself even further to the snow, and finally, as she mediated she opened her eyes, a faint blue glow emanating from them. In front of her she could see Little orbs floating one of them was clear as ice and floated around her, while the other was also very clear but had red and fiery lines disrupting it.
She knew what they were. The second bead was what she had formed when she stood in the blizzard and took in the energy from it when she had felt the snow and ice gently caress her skin and hair, it came from a moment of serene peace and calm, she felt very good about it and it seemed to resonate with her quite well, it felt like it was part of her.
The First one was slightly smaller and had imperfections, red and fiery lines had dug their way through the bead, it was powerful, she felt might emanate from it, but as mighty as it felt it was unstable, and felt a little foreign.
She felt that this was wrong, and her inner world reacted to her thoughts, snow whirled around the tarnished orb, slowly cleansing it of the red, replacing it with an identical clear orb. But that was not all, the snow continued to polish both orbs as they floated in front of her, and they grew bigger and closer to each other. Kou felt peace in her mind as the snow calmed and the Orbs floated towards her midriff before being absorbed into her.
She closed her eyes
...
She woke up as warm light tickled her nose. She shifted uncomfortably and found herself lying in a soft and comfortable place, there was a fluffy blanket around her and something warm snuggled up against her side. She did not dislike warmth even with her cold disposition so she snuggled into this fluffy thing a little. However, as she was drifting out of her sleep she suddenly felt the pain and gasped. Her shoulder and side were hurting so much that her eyes shot open and she groaned.
She stared at the ceiling. She was in a nice little house, warm light fell in through one of the windows, and she could hear humming outside, she lay in a comfortable bed, and Li the Tiger had shrunken a little bit and made herself comfortable next to her hugging around her with her tail...
"Oh..." Li glanced up, the Tiger looked pretty beaten up but it had clearly healed up quite a bit already. "Mimi, Kou woke up!" The Tiger excitingly called out getting up from the bed and ruffling Kou up a bit. Slowly Kou pushed herself up, her body was covered in bandages, from her shoulder down to her upper body and legs, they were an intense herbal scent coming from the bandages, making Kou wrinkle her nose a little.
She did not have much time to readjust as the door to the little hut shot open and Mimi stood there with tears in her eyes, she did not tackle Kou even though it fooked like she wanted to instead she just got down onto her knees gently hugging the little girl against her.
"I'm so glad you are awake.." She sobbed.
...
Apparently, Kou had been out for more than 3 weeks after the fight. This shocked her half to death, 3 weeks? Mimi and Lu had gathered the two of them up and did first aid for them. But neither of them was a healer and they did not have anything to actually help Kou or Li.
So leaving Lu with the two of us Mimi stormed into the House completely flipping it over, and after a while she found a bag with a skeleton grasping it, ripping the bag out of its hand she looked into it... and apparently it held many things! There was food inside of it, books and even weapons, there were some weird vails and even medical equipment and books, all kinds of stuff.
Using the contents of that Magical bag of things they had managed to get Kou and Li back to stable condition and a few days later Li was mostly back to normal, if a bit roughed up and with a few cracked bones, but she was healing just fine.
Kou on the other hand had been in quite bad condition and took quite a bit to patch up.
"Anyway this place is amazing, the temperature is always nice, the pathway glows at night and the soil is super great! I started to plant some herbs and food, I found the seeds in the bag, and they grow really well, next month or so we can probably harvest a bit already!" Mimi really had stepped up.
She had read the books inside the Magical bag that was currently dangling at her belt. Apparently, it had a book called "10000 Spirit Fruits, Herbs and Grasses" Together with Lu she had identified the seeds they had and planted them in the field behind the house, they had also drawn up a rough map of the Valley, and cleaned up the entire hut, repairing it with wood from the forest.
Kou glanced around.. this place seemed peaceful now...
"Thank you Mimi...Lu." She smiled at both of them genuinely something that made Mimi tear up again and she gave a big thumbs up and Lu just coughed "It is all good young Kou, we are comrades together, now that our small leader is awake however I will bring up that we have found a place like this... and while I myself have not fought for it I feel... we own it now after you fought that creature." He pulled out a little bracelet, handing it to Kou.
"This Valley is called "Eternal Spring Valley" And it was created by an Immortal some years ago, an Immortal in the Golden Core stage of cultivation. He pulled out a rugged little book. "This is his dairy, his name was Elder Gowas... and the creature you defeated was his shade." He flipped through the booklet.
"Apparently as his death approached he gathered up all of his wealth all of the things he had gathered in his 300 years of life and created this Valley, he wanted to cultivate to reach the next realm here or die. He was of hardened spirit for a few years but as his death came closer and he made no progress he found himself bitter. It created inner demons for him, he wrote these things down... and his last entry was of a way to anchor his soul to the mortal realm.."
The Monkey stretched out his hands giving a little huff. "The thing you fought was the remnant of that ritual, a mere shade of his might, to our luck... we have learned much from this diary and the other contents of the bag, and they will let us live in comfort and enable us to further or growth in safety, so I propose we stay here instead of finding something else; this is the bracelet that controls the enchant of the Valley" He rose the bracelet.
"I do not yet comprehend how it works nor do I have the power to work it, but I think you should have it, your internal power is much more pure and strong than either of ours." Kou slowly took the bracelet, and she felt... nothing from it, only when she concentrated heavily to the point her head hurt a little could she feel some energy coming from it but she was too weak to do anything with this. She shrugged lightly. "Mh, Can't use it either... yet."
She was sure she would be able to soon enough.
"Anyway.. we can stay... if you all like this place.. Kou has no qualms about staying here, snow is close and apparently, we have food, no?" She asked which was met with a nod by Mimi and Lu. So after a moment, Kou leaned back against Li's fluffy body. "So this is now our den! We will live and thrive... yes."
Mimi nodded happily "I like it here! It's comfortable, the River Water is nice and fresh and there is nobody ordering me around and I can do whatever I want and I don't have to work with nasty men!" She seemed happy with this idea.
Lu nodded "I want to read all the books the Elder left behind and teach you to properly read and write and share the secrets of the dairy and these books with you all. I also enjoy this place, it is calm and serene. And I see an opportunity to grow strong here, strong enough that we can go out and never have to hide again.
Li gave a yawn "If you guys stay I will stay... there is nothing to hunt here, so I will leave the Valley sometimes but otherwise, I'm happy to remain.. here. I also don't want to leave Kou's side again." She nuzzled against the small girl a bit, clearly thankful about Kou saving her, their bond clearly much thicker now then it had been before.
Kou gave a small giggle at that and nodded. "So we stay... Kou will learn..."