“I wonder what Mr. Cupcake is thinking right now. Is he scared? I bet he is worried about me. Probably wants to run away from the weird guy and jump into my lap like a good boy,” Shui said as she kicked another stone. It had been ten minutes of her going on and on about the terrifying Warg as though it was a small cute puppy with separation anxiety.
The hideous scarred thing stayed back at the camp with Zhong Da and his wife. The three of them would keep each other company, protect their rear in case anything made an attempt to attack them, and likely the most important responsibility, make sure their escape path if everything went wrong stayed clear and unobstructed with obstacles. Yin Hu trusted the Warg to do its job out of fear of Shui and trusted that Zhong Da and Wu Xui were terrified enough of the large thing to not try to back stab him unless they wanted to be eaten whole by it.
Yin Hu patted Shui’s head. “He’ll be alright.”
Jun snickered and shook her head.
Neither one was willing to tell the little girl that she was a dictator and that the Warg was petrified of her and Mr. Mo Mo.
Rong, on the other hand, was not having a good time of the whole thing. He grunted beside him, taking the brunt of all the Void Qi to let Shui and Jun walk alongside them without it hurting or affecting them.
Yin Hu could feel the change that filled the air not because the Qi had made its appearance before him, rather because of the familiarity he had with it from the floating island. That feeling struck him something fierce and left a horrible taste in his mouth. It made it difficult to know what to do if he wanted to help Rong with the burden he was carrying.
Jun ran up to him and whispered low enough that the humming Shui couldn’t hear. “Shouldn’t we have stayed back in the camp? What if there is something dangerous in there?”
He shook his head. Not only was this a private matter considering how inexplicably inseparable it was with his system and abilities to make the girls stronger, but it was a dangerous enough situation that he didn’t trust the Warg, Zhong Da, or Wu Xui to be by his side. Traveling with them was all nice and dandy, but keeping them close enough to stab him in the back was not.
At least in the distant camp they couldn’t change the situation they encountered out there. No sabotaging allowed.
Nor could he keep the girls there for the same reasons.
The thought of letting him out of his sight was enough to cause him enough stress to be incapable of fulfilling and checking out this area. If he needed to fight anything, his only thoughts would be filled with whether Shui and Jun were still fine. That would only lead to his demise. He felt a shiver go down his back as he imagined Zonda actually being some type of villain that had his eyes on the Who girls. They had seen enough bounty hunters since he had arrived on this cultivation planet to not trust anyone outright. Even if they had shown nothing but goodwill so far like the couple.
There was also the issue that the girls were more liable to cause a catastrophe when they were not under his supervision. At least with him, they were nothing more than a nuisance and potentially a headache, but otherwise nothing too dangerous. The second Shui got out of his sight. She had supposedly become some type of spirit queen or something of that nature, talking with dangerous monsters and beings that were probably as old as he was.
Jun, on the other hand, had fought a serial genocider and Demonic Cultivator from some famous clan or sect.
Leaving them with Rong was also a terrible idea. The Spirit was naive, to say the least, running and following Shui’s lead wherever the little girl took him. He was more of a puppy than the Warg was. White-eyed and innocent of the pranks, havoc, and machinations the devious girl was causing around the camp. Using his ridiculous abilities to cause more chaos than she would have been capable of by herself.
Including invisibility to keep pestering the couple and Jun.
They had tried to pull a prank on him once, but he caught them red-handed and made them do two hundred sprints around the widest parts of the camp. Shui didn’t even start complaining until she reached one hundred and sixty one. Rong never complained, but rather found it an enjoyable exercise. Laughing and giggling when Shui began to struggle.
Yin Hu still trusted the powerful Spirit to take care of Hu Jun and Hu Shui if he couldn’t. The thing had fought a literal Calamity and made it out the other side, that had to be worth something by itself.
The group paused as they reached the outer walls and bottom of the crater. Steep, sleek mud, boulders, and dirt covered the entire thing, making traversing them a hazardous task if they weren't all cultivators. He turned around to look back at the camp from a distance. The couple's tent sat on the sloping hills, hidden away from the horizon but on their side to still be visible by him and the girls.
Mr. Cupcake sat next to that tent and stared directly back towards Yun-Ho and the girls. Even from a distance, the thing looked gargantuan in size.
Yin Hu took a deep breath and gave his disciples a nod before turning around and beginning his climb up the steep walls. He didn't have an issue finding purchase on the stone and dirt. Unlike the girls who are slipping and falling into the dirt and mud, even though they were making good progress. Their dresses cleaned themselves as quickly as they got them dirty. Having precious clothing like this was a boon he could not image not having anymore.
Rong eventually morphed into a giant version of himself and carried both of them in his arms.
Yet, even that could not hide the tremble that went through the Spirit the closer they got to the peak of the creator's walls. The further up they went, the worse it got. “S-Should we keep going? W-What if it's still alive? What if it faked its death? What if it remembers me and wants to eat me–”
“Calm down,” Yin Hu said in the most confident tone he could bring out. Borrowing from all the BSing he had been practicing with since his arrival here. “The First Calamity is dead. Can there even be two Calamities at one time? The current Calamity is still out and about isn't it?”
Rong stopped in his tracks and blinked at him with a straight face. Long seconds of silence stretched between them before the Spirit resolved itself to a quiet sigh and shrug. “I hope not.”
Yin Hu was satisfied with the answer he got. It was enough so he kept moving up the walls until he walked over the edge, still walked over to the top while still looking back at Rong and the girls. Doing his best to show a strong, stoic face and instill the sense that nothing would ever go wrong as long as he was around. It was difficult when there was so much Void Qi around and the uncertainty of what might be in the crater.
For all he knew, Cthulhu might as well be in there.
“See. It’ll be alright. No point in worrying over nothing concrete–”
Rong stopped in his tracks as he crested the peak and stared past Yin Hu. He dropped the girls, form breaking back into the slime and finally re-establishing itself into the small little kid it liked staying as. It was pale and shaking like a tree as it hurried to copy Shui and hide behind Jun. All three were as white as sheets and could not focus on his words.
Yin Hu frowned at their expressions and turned to look back into the crater and what they had seen.
His breath caught and jaw unhinged just slightly, though hidden by his beard.
A gargantuan thing filled the cavernous crater of large sharp boulders sticking out in a hundred different places stretched further than he expected. In the center of it all was a mass of tentacles, each thicker than he was tall. Hundreds of listless, unmoving limbs that were covered in wounds and cuts and scars. Two holes on either side of the bulbous skull of bones and sour meat marked where the eyes used to be, each one multiple times wider than he was in height. Parts of its body were nothing more than a skeleton while other parts still had rotting flesh that visibly released a noxious gas of dark purple energy.
No. It released noxious Void Qi into the air.
His system pinged him with another red notification that forced itself into his vision. It came into focus as his gaze readjusted to it.
System Administrator Detected…
Administrator Deceased…
Thank You User 0019jfj848 - This information will be passed on–
Error… System Overriding Information Transfer Protocols
Information Transfer prevented
Administrators Protection Clause 0311X-4491x-091x Initiated -
Danger Threshold surpassed by x 12,577 folds
“M-Master,” Rong whispered from behind Hu Shui. “That’s it. That’s the First Calamity. That is the near destruction of all existence on this planet. The Ruiner of Generations, Eradicator of Entire Race Trees. The reason so little Qi remains in the air compared to the great yester days of past legends and primordial beings that fought for domination. That there is my greatest nightmare.”