Dao 3 Chapter 19 (Patreon)

Dar slept fitfully; his dreams filled with terrifying swarms of devils devouring the land around him like a plague of locusts.

And the worst part was that he knew it was all his fault. He had started the insect devils on their path of destruction, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it might have gone differently should he have chosen another option.

The devils plagued the countryside as Dar watched, holed up in his cliffs. Downstream, the village of Bellhaven, hunkered down for the winter and ate what little they could get away with, unsure if they’d be able to find food in the spring.

Dar watched as his dreamworld swirled through the seasons, spring arriving and food growing scarce. Villagers wasting away, too weak to fight back against the horde of insects and instead starving inside the caves.

How had it come to this?

“It’s okay, Dar. Dar, wake up.” Soft hands roused him from his sleep.

Dar grabbed onto those arms like they were the last life raft in the middle of a sea. “What?”

“You were having a nightmare.” Sasha cooed and ran her fingers soothingly through his hair.

Amber was there as well, a wet cloth in her hand. “Milord. You had us worried. You’ve been out for a little over a day.”

He frowned, wasn’t she in his inner world?

As if anticipating his question, she answered. “Cherry helped us out once she knew we were safe. Tami is still sleeping, and Neko is pacing outside the room.” A smile played on Amber’s lips.

“I couldn’t let her disturb his rest.” Sasha put her hands on her hips. Dar had a feeling getting Neko out of the room hadn’t been easy.

But he ignored it all and pulled Sasha off her feet and into his bed. He’d missed her. “I could use some company. Let Neko in.”

“Yes, Milord.” Amber hurried to get his favorite cat girl.

“Dar.” Sasha started to complain, but he gave her a squeeze, letting her know that he didn’t want to talk. He just needed the comfort of other people.

His nightmare had been so… vivid. Eerily so. It was like the dreams that require checking the entire house before going back to sleep. He couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling.

“Is everything fine in the village?” He asked.

“It has been quiet since you left.” Sasha responded, not asking any further questions about how he’d appeared in front of her or how he’d gotten injured. Instead, she cuddled into him, letting her soft body mold to his.

Dar heard Neko moving into the room for only a moment before a weight landed on him. She crawled over him, peering into his face before giving him a peck on the cheek. Satisfied that he was well, she cuddled up against his back, pressing her face into his neck to the point he was worried she was going to suffocate herself.

Shifting, he found Neko’s head and patted her. “I’m alright. Everything is going to be okay.” He comforted the cat girl. She melted at his words and was swiftly asleep.

“It would seem you aren’t the only one having trouble with sleep.” Sasha commented, grabbing his arm and wrapping it back around her waist, sandwiching him between the two women. “Please, get some rest. We’ll talk in the morning. But I expect to hear everything.”

Dar grumbled in agreement and pressed himself against Sasha, burying his nose in her hair and drifting off to a more comfortable sleep.

It was the kind of sleep where he could slip into his inner world.

He found himself once again in the extensive field with the black stone keep towering over everything.

As he looked around, he noted that the little dao tree had grown yet again. Now, it towered over the landscape like a hundred-year-old oak. It not only sported a black strip, like it had been painted in tar, but a strip of the tree was now smooth, like polished stone. The leaves branching out from that section were a sandy brown that made them look like dead and dried leaves, but they swayed in the wind like any other leaf.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Cherry dropped down from the tree, looking up at it with awe and back at Dar with a thrill on her face.

Dar did a double take as he looked at Cherry. She now had a lock of black and brown in her hair. Dar assumed her connection to the tree was changing her, too.

“I can’t believe how big it has gotten.” Dar looked up into the leaves, seeing fruits peeking out between the leaves. “It’s going to be a bitch to pick those.”

“If you need them, I’ll pick them.” Cherry smiled. “You dropped off many new corpses. I had the maids bury them, and as a result, there are new fruits coming in.”

“Anything ripe?” He asked, and the dryad disappeared into the tree before swinging down and dropping off a strange assortment of new fruits.

There were three in total.

Dar picked the first one up. It was heavy and dark, but when he bit in, it was like dark chocolate; it was bitter but delicious. The dao settled into his mind. Brittle. Devouring the others, he felt the dao of sharp and gritty take place.

An odd assortment of dao, he thought. Brittle and gritty were likely coming from the trolls, while sharp had to be from the mantis devils that he had absorbed. Both from that battlefield.

Sharp was always welcome, but the other two were odd.

By themselves, they might not have much application. Although he did think he could make sanding blocks with the dao of gritty. It would be better than using knives to smooth out wood.

“Nothing spectacular, but I won’t say no to more dao.” Dar told Cherry. “How are you?” His lovely little dryad was changing along with the tree, and he wanted to make sure she was okay.

“Great.” She said excitedly, hopping around Dar. “I feel so… full of life.”

“Uh, huh. Can you hold still for a moment?”

Cherry planted herself in front of him, her wide, slightly crazed eyes staring up at him. “Sure!”

He pulled at the different colored locks of hair and lifted them into her view. “Your hair is changing.”

“Oh.” She held the two locks of hair and gave them a tug to confirm they were indeed part of her hair before she rubbed them as if it was just dirt. But the two locks remained black and brown. “How odd.”

“I think you are changing with the tree, Cherry.” Dar let some concern creep into his voice. So far, the little dao tree had brought nothing but good to his life, but still, he couldn’t help being concerned for her.

She tilted her head. “Of course I am. I’m bound to it. I just wonder what this means? Maybe I should try to learn new dao again.”

Dar was surprised at the statement. He hadn’t realized she had stopped trying. “What have you stopped?”

“It just never worked. Outside of my new growth dao, I’ve struggled to comprehend much.” She looked up at the dao tree, specifically the two newly colored segments. “But maybe I’ll take a stab at some earth dao.”

He had known that spirits were often talented in their related dao at the cost of the broader spectrum, but he didn’t realize it was so bad that Cherry had given up.

“The family dao book is yours if you want it.” Dar thought that was obvious by now, but he still said it. Picking up the book, he went ahead and wrote down his three new dao.

Flipping through the pages, he passed Blair’s dao characters. But what shocked him was that several of them practically leapt off the page. Even though Blair was a fairly flippant person, she was the second strongest among their group, with three greater dao and hoping to form her grand dao.

All of her dao had to do with crystalline minerals. Apparently, that fit well within the earthen Mo abilities Dar had just gained.

Dar looked at them all with interest, wondering if he could learn them just as quickly as he had the shadow dao.

The idea kept fluttering in his head, but he tried to set it aside for the moment. First, he needed to finish the dao of bright to build the dao of flame. He needed the firepower the dao provided. Earth and Shadow were great for his protection and in a fight, but he knew that this wasn’t just a fight.

It was going to become a war, and he needed to be able to do more than wade in as a powerful soldier. Dar needed to bring some real firepower to bear.

Sitting down with little else to do, he returned to Blair’s dao of bright.

“I thought for sure you were going to learn her other dao.” Cherry said over his shoulder.

“No, I finish what I start.” He tapped the Dao of bright. “But you are free to flip through the book and learn what you want while I’m meditating.”

Dar didn’t want to waste any time starting his meditation. Even though he knew it had been a nightmare, it had left him with a sense of urgency he couldn’t explain.

Focusing inward, he started once again to cultivate the dao of bright, letting it flow through his channels. He’d practiced it several times already. By now, he had gotten the hang of it and immediately managed to get the dao character swirling through his body.

It sped up, faster and faster as he tried to harmonize it with himself, brand it into his very soul and learn the dao.

At some point, he had realized it had less to do with his physical body and more with his soul. But the concept of the soul was ephemeral at best.

Dar circled the dao character, filling every inch of him with the knowledge of the dao of bright. The corners of his mind blazed to light, sweeping away the darkness as he embraced bright.

His mind felt so energetic, so full of light as he finally understood the dao of bright.

Letting a deep breath out, he slowed down his mana in his channels and let everything settle back down. The dao of bright was complete.

He cracked open an eye to ask Cherry how long he had been out, but she was in her own meditation with the book open before her. Good. Dar hoped it worked for the dryad. She had been stuck at the same level for so long, it almost had to be painful. She no doubt watched demons like Karn steadily surpass her with some level of jealousy.

Dar left Cherry to cultivate and stood up, needing a break before he even thought about the dao of flame. Bright, combustion, and heat would be the perfect lesser dao to form a greater dao related to fire. His ability to cultivate these lesser dao was much improved, but he knew that the volatile flame dao would be much harder to accomplish. Something he would have to figure out if he was going to push himself as far as he needed to go.

Karn and the queen were proof that more powerful opponents were out there, and they weren’t far away. And from what he’d heard, even greater opponents might quite literally rise out of the depths of the ocean.

All of it only solidified one of the open questions that had been on Dar’s mind. He walked through his inner world until he reached the back to the black stone keep. The fortress dominated the landscape of his inner world. With every expansion of his inner world, he only unlocked another section of the keep.

At the moment, all he could access was the courtyard, dominated by a training ring and racks of weapons and armor. He wanted to understand what else the keep held, and the only way to find out would be to keep growing his skills.

And he planned to use that growth to help his women. Given the success the maids had cultivating under his tree, it was about time he brought the rest of his family in here to train at night.

He wasn’t alone in his goals. He had his family and, to a greater extent, his village. There were those within the village he knew would fight alongside him in any battle.

Dar stared at the door that stood deeper into the black keep, wondering just what secrets it held. But staring at it wouldn’t make it open. Sighing, he accepted that it would have to wait for another time.

Sitting down cross-legged in the practice ring, Dar probed the dao of flame. He wouldn’t start it just yet, but at the very least, he could lay the groundwork and start trying to understand it.

***

When Dar woke up, he was laying in bed. His body was sore and wrapped all over in bandages. Shifting, his body sparked reminders that he was still injured, but he enjoyed the soft press of the surrounding bodies. Sasha and Neko had curled themselves around his body while he’d slept, pressing themselves into him.

“Morning.” Sasha patted his hand, feeling him awake without even looking.

“Maybe I should go back to sleep.” Dar pulled her closer.

She slapped at his hands as they quested for her chest. “Stop that. We should get up. The village knows you got back, and the leaders are eager to hear your tale. I’m eager to hear it as well.” She turned and pressed her nose against his. “I don’t like my dao companion coming back home beaten to a pulp and carrying an unconscious woman.”

“Tami.” Dar answered the easy question. “Tami Cervus. Apparently, the Cervus family is a big deal?”

Sasha’s eyebrows rose on her beautiful face. “Yes. Her family is a big deal. Maybe I shouldn’t have let her sleep with Blair.” She bit her thumb.

Dar nearly choked out a laugh. “I don’t think Blair would do anything stupid. And Tami was out cold.” Dar pushed himself off the bed, feeling his bones settle. His chest wound strained, threatening to open back up. He let himself back down, grumbling. “Okay, I’m apparently going to need help getting out of bed.”

Sasha gave a deep throaty laugh but rolled out of bed. As Sasha shifted aside, a concerned Neko face popped into his field of vision.

Sasha chided the cat girl in exasperation. “You’re going to have to get off him if he’s getting up, or you could help.”

Neko ignored Sasha for a moment, sniffing at Dar, before she nodded and sprang to her feet. She grabbed one of Dar’s arms to help.

With the help, Dar got upright without freshly tearing open the wound on his chest. He was grumpy. It was going to be a rough morning.

But Neko stayed by his side and helped him get dressed before they headed out of the cave to meet with the leaders.

Sasha broke away to go check on Tami after making him promise not to spill too much of the story before she caught up.

Outside, Dar let out a breath of relief. The village was whole, and the sky wasn’t dotted with devils. He still couldn’t shake off the uneasiness the dream had given him. It had felt eerily real.

“Boss.” Glump called as Neko helped him sit down on a stump before scampering away to the central hearth for food. Apparently, she was going to dote on him. “I think you have a story to tell.”

“I do. Let’s wait for everyone else to join us, so I don’t have to tell it too many times. Sasha should be out here soon as well.” Dar took his bowl of porridge that was sprinkled with flecks of dried bison meat.

He took a bite, smiling. It wasn’t bad at all.

Sasha came striding out with a purpose, and the second she saw him, she reoriented herself towards him. “I hope you haven’t started.”

“Nope. Still waiting for Bart and Rex.” Bart was already heading their way.

Sasha nabbed a passing villager. “Can you go see if Rex can join us?”

“Sure.” He said.

“Must be big if you are in such a hurry.” Glump croaked.

“Do you see how beat up Dar is?” Sasha poked Dar in the chest, making him wince. “Case and point. We have a problem, and I’d like to know what it is.”

Bart settled down on his own stump. “Glad to have you back with us.”

“Glad to be back.” Dar said between mouthfuls. He managed to devour his bowl in short order and sheepishly held it up for more.

Neko didn’t hesitate, running off to get him more.

They didn’t have to wait much longer for Rex to join them, and Samantha joined as well.

“First, how’s the village doing?”

Sasha smacked him over the head. “No, we start with what happened to you.”

He sighed. “Fine. We traveled down to Bellhaven with Karn…” He started his story and gave them the details of his trip. Going over the time he’d spent with Karn and the nobility of Bellhaven. When he went through the devil attack and the details Tami shared from her scouting, Sasha’s leg started bouncing. He could tell she was barely containing her anxiousness as he closed in on the part about what hurt him.

Finally, he got into their stealth mission through the devil tunnels and destruction of their food source, and at that point, all the leaders were on the edge of their seats.

On his fourth bowl of food after finishing, he quietly ate as everyone just sat, absorbing what he’d said.

“So we aren’t part of Kindrake anymore?” Rex asked. “Is there any concern about aggressive action from the Kingdom?”

“They have bigger concerns.” Dar responded. “Between the devils, the war up north, and The White retracting her aid, I don’t see them moving a force to take care of us.”

Bart rubbed at his face. “I never thought I wouldn’t be part of Kindrake.”

“It was necessary to avoid the levies for war this spring. If we were part of Kindrake, they would come and demand all of our demons and spirits join the war effort.”

“Really?” That surprised everyone.

Dar nodded, putting down another finished bowl. “Think about it. If The White pulls her forces, Kindrake is going to scour the countryside for unaffiliated demons and pull them into their forces against the north.”

Everyone’s faces shifted in understanding. “You are absolutely right.” Bart agreed. “I understand why you did it. You just went beyond my expectations.”

“There’s one more thing we need to talk about.” Dar looked around the circle before pulling out a dao fruit of quiet. He still had many of them in his inner world. “Samantha, I’d like you to eat this fruit. Everyone, this fruit is how we can make the humans of our village as strong as lesser demons.”

She looked at the fruit and frowned. “It can’t be that easy.”

“It isn’t.” Bart spoke up. “Me and Tabby have already eaten one. Our daughter helped us with the process.”

Samantha looked up from the fruit to the old blacksmith, raising an eyebrow. “I thought you looked better.”

“I feel a few decades younger, too.” Bart smirked.

“My plan is to help everyone in the village make the transition this winter.” Dar explained. “I think as a wonderful teacher to the village, you’d best experience it for yourself so you can help everyone else.”

Samantha picked up the fruit and held it close to her chest. “I can do that. Can… can I have another for Jeffry?” She hesitated before asking for a fruit for her husband.

“Of course. I didn’t mean to suggest he’d be left out.”

“No, I just want him to go first. He’s not as healthy as he puts on.” Samantha looked at the fruit with hope.

“Sasha, get Amber and tell her she’s needed to help someone make the transition to an immortal right away.” Dar spoke over his shoulder before turning back to the group. “Anything else?”