Dao 4 Chapter 12 (Patreon)

Dar stepped forward on the grassy plains of his inner world.

“Look at it.” Cherry hugged his arm, her eyes wide and on the verge of another one of her nympho episodes.

Dar didn’t have to guess what she was talking about. The Dao Tree had grown yet again, far surpassing the original stump. Now it branched out with new growth as a blue and white patch swirled up the bark and extended out into leaves, looking like huge snowflakes.

“It’s beautiful.” Dar stared up, unable to take his eyes off the new patch of the tree. “Wonder how big it will get when we absorb more.”

“The grandest tree of any!” Cherry’s eyes were starting to glow as she pawed at him.

Dar couldn’t help but notice that the others had already sat down against the frosty section of the tree and had started to meditate.

“Dar.” Cherry breathed, her eyes a bright glowing green. “My tree, I love you.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Later. Let’s not disturb them.”

The dryad pawed at him further. “Dar. I need you.”

Knowing that anything more would only encourage her, he kissed her forehead and disappeared from his inner world.

“How is it?” Valdis asked as Cherry shot out of his navel and whirled on him. Valdis frowned as she noticed Cherry. “What’s wrong with the pipsqueak?”

Cherry jumped on Dar, grabbing his face and giving him a kiss that scorched with want and need.

“Oh damn. What is this?” Valdis didn’t bother Cherry as she sat down and stretched out on the ground.

“A little help?” Dar tried to pry Cherry off, but vines were growing out of her, latching onto him.

“Want me to get your pants off so she doesn’t ruin them?” Valdis offered with a knowing smirk.

***

Cherry panted on the ground with a satisfied smile as Dar drew her naked body into the inner world.

“Phew.” Valdis fanned herself. “Okay, that was pretty hot. The dryad really knows how to go at it. I mean, are all dryads that flexible? I hope you don’t think all spirits are.”

Dar glared at the death spirit who had helped herself, watching the whole time Cherry worked out her need. “Think that was funny?”

“No. It was crazy hot. I mean, she was just like a little bundle of sexy, hot crazy, unstoppable nympho. I’m surprised you aren’t a dried husk if I’m honest.” Valdis looked up at the sky. They were running out of daylight.

“Lilith put runes on me that help restore everything.” Dar grunted, straightening his clothes. “No idea what she used them for before.”

Valdis looked away as a blush flushed onto her cheeks. “No idea either.”

“Well. The excitement is over for the day. Think we could make at least a little progress towards the mountains?” Dar wasn’t going to remake his locomotive, knowing it wouldn’t work as well anyway. Instead, he started walking, pushing heat out in front of him to melt the snow.

“Got any dao that would let you walk over the snow?” Valdis asked as she walked on it like she weighed nothing.

Dar did have the dao lightweight now. Activating it, he tried and stepped up over the foot thick snow. “Guess that does make it easier. Still sure you don’t want to fly me?”

“Going to be a long trek up the mountain.” Valdis looked away from his question and at the hills that rolled out from their position. “Sure you don’t have another artifact from your other life that we could use to just pick us up and pluck us onto the mountain?”

“Not that I could make now.” Dar sighed. He found himself wishing that he had a helicopter. It would make the trip so much easier.

“Damn.” Valdis strode over the snow. “What was the other world like?”

“No dao, no mana. Just humans and their technology, always improving their technology so they can do more things.” Dar thought about it. “Really it feels cut off from all of this, and that’s in the future right? Does that mean there’s no Dao in the future?”

Valdis frowned and looked away from Dar. “There will always be dao. I don’t know why you lived a life in a place without mana, unless something cut it off. Then again, I haven’t left this world. But Lilith predicted there were more worlds or more realities.”

Dar nodded but didn’t let his mind wander too much. That felt like a deep rabbit hole. “So without enchantments, they use electricity to power things. Converting electricity to heat, mechanical energy or other forms of energy with technology.”

“How do they make energy?”

Dar pointed at the sun that was starting to dip behind the trees. “Sun is a big one. The light it gives off can be captured by devices and produce electricity. Another is destroying chemical energy into heat.”

“Burning logs?” Valdis asked.

“No. Denser forms of energy. Coal, gas or oil. There are problems with that too.” Dar shrugged, not about to get into that particular conversation. “Then there are wires that span the entire world, delivering electricity from one place to another.”

“Across kingdoms?” Valdis asked excitedly. “That must be a great era of peace for kingdoms to work together like that.” She smiled, and Dar didn’t have the heart to tell her about the politics and struggles that still existed. But he had to admit, it was relatively peaceful given Earth’s history.

“Humans get a little antsy when there isn’t conflict, if I’m honest. So they find other ways to cause trouble. But in general, it was a peaceful time. Everyone works hard to make their communities a better place.”

Valdis nodded along. “Yes. From what Cherry and the others say, your little village is wonderful. They describe it as if it were the land of the Drasil.”

Dar had heard of the Drasil several times from others in his town. He had equated them to gods, but then Cherry had said they were the opposition to the Mo. “What happened to the Drasil? Or do they just have some pact of non interference?”

Valdis sighed. “They aren’t real, or at least, not anymore. Legends spoke of them. The White and Lilith spoke of them as those that had transcended even the celestial dao. Lilith believed they either left this world for another, or they were killed. At the same time, a celestial spirit or demon can fight a Mo. For the most part they are only at the celestial level themselves, but their control of their element is ingrained in them to the point that many of them are the very embodiment of the dao.”

“Killed.” Dar decided. “If they were off in another world, at least one would remain.”

The death spirit shrugged. “It matters not. Either way, they aren’t here.”

“It does matter. Because if they were killed, something had to do it, and that sounds terrifying. Were there any Mo that required a large number of the celestials to join forces?” Dar asked, feeling like he was missing something.

“Nope.” Valdis jabbed a finger forward and shot a beam of green light into the tree. A crouching badger fell out of the tree already stiff with death. “Sometimes Lilith recruited the local celestial to aid her if there was a large infestation of the devils. But she didn’t really need them to seal the Mo. Mostly she just was resealing ones that had already been sealed.”

Something growled in the woods as the ground rose, the start of the first hills.

“Oh, I should warn you. Around the mountain range, no one hunts monsters. The White and her court let them grow in hopes that they become new demons.” Valdis put her hand on her sword, ready to draw it.

“Wonderful. Will we get in trouble for killing a few if they mistake me for a snack?”

“No?” Valdis frowned. “That’s the way of life the strong survive. Besides, if they are dumb enough to attack me, then they weren’t going to be smart enough to become a demon anyway.”

The way she said it so flatly made Dar burst into laughter.

“It’s not funny.” She grumbled. “I am a grand spirit. And not just any grand spirit, but one of the strongest when it comes to combat. To attack me is suicide for most.”

Dar remembered Karn as she talked about being the strongest grand spirit. “Ever fought Karn?”

“The big white bully? I’ve seen him fight. He actually challenged you in your black armor once, back when you were just Lilith’s puppet. Lilith made you just stand still in your black armor and told The White that Karn won if he could make you budge.” Valdis smirked.

“He never won, did he?” Dar now realized why Karn had such an anger boner for him. That would have been humiliating.

“Nope. Not once. Poor fur ball. Why, have you met him again?” It was one of the first times Valdis had been interested in something other than Lilith, so Dar took advantage of it.

“Back when we were dealing with some issues in Bellhaven, he went there as a representative of The White and recognized me without my armor. I fought him without it and won again.” Dar explained.

Valdis let out a soft whistle. “Bet he got all pissy, threatened big things and stormed off to lick his wounds.”

“Spot on.”

She nodded to herself. “Don’t worry. He’s mostly hot air. Though if he found you were heading up Frost’s Fang… he might do something.” She suddenly was being more vigilant. “He doesn’t know does he?”

“Don’t see who would have told him.” Dar tried to think back if he had ever mentioned going to The White around Karn, but he couldn’t remember any instances. “But you could kick his ass, right?”

“I could kill him.” Valdis clarified. “I don’t really do half measures when it comes to fighting. Death is kind of the end all be all of combat.”

Dar nodded. It made sense, but damn if that wasn’t a little intense.

Dar hoped Karn would keep his white furry ass out of Dar’s hair on this trip. But instinct told him he wouldn’t get so lucky. Dar had a feeling he would see the polar bear demon again.

***

Tami sat down next to the dao tree with Cherry who reeked of sex. “This book was… Lilith’s?”

“Yes, and now it is Milord’s. Do not take advantage of his kindness.” Amber stood nearby with her arms crossed.

Tami was having trouble reading the two maids. They doted on Dar much like the help in the palace, but unlike them, when Dar was gone they didn’t gossip nor disparage him. Instead they dedicated their time to him and tried to be ready for what would come next.

She had made the very poor attempt to get close to them by discussing Dar behind his back.

The deer demon rubbed at her cheek in remembrance of Amber’s assault when she had said anything negative about Dar.

They weren’t just his servants, but his devotees. And they were protective of Dar’s treasures.

The fact that he shared his treasures with his maids did mean something though. Tami had never seen that sort of lord before.

“Okay. So I’m to learn these lesser dao of cold.”

“Today you will learn these nine, and tonight you will work on fusing them into great dao.” Cherry glared at her.

Tami felt like the dryad was asking the impossible. And in any other situation, she would have declared it as impossible. Dar seemed to manage to make the impossible happen, but it didn’t make it any less daunting.

Tami wanted to be useful, but she still wasn’t sure she could keep up in a way that would be helpful to a man meant to rise to the power of a celestial or even a drasil?

“Yes. Then, I let myself become his dao companion and send him along the same dao path.” Tami swallowed as she said it. The idea of letting Dar touch her excited her, but she was also a little worried what would happen once he had these dao.

There were more than a few instances of dao companions being tossed aside once their dao was learned. She knew her father had done it more than a few times.

The head of her family had a large harem, in part to produce enough heirs to support the kingdom of Kindrake. But he was also a domineering man that no doubt enjoyed himself in the bedroom.

She had seen some of what he kept hidden in her brothers. It was part of why she hadn’t mourned the loss of her brother at Bellhaven for very long.

The man had his chin lifted high during the day as he looked down his nose at most. But there were times at night when she had heard the screams of women he fancied and seen them wither away under his ‘love’.

Dar wasn’t like either of them, she told herself. Everyone seemed to blossom under his care, and none feared him that she could tell.

He wasn’t like the men in her family.

“Your hands are shaking.” Cherry pointed out.

“Sorry. I just… this is too much.” Tami put the book down and hung her head.

Neko came up behind her and jerked her head up by her horns. “Is the deer done? She does not appreciate my Dar’s attention. If she is not up for it, let Neko learn the daos of cold.”

Tami’s heart clenched like someone had just taken the only thing she could do away from her. “No!” She shouted and covered the book.

“Then do it and stop messing around. Here, I will show you how Dar forces himself to learn dao.” Cherry started tracing a character in the grass with a look of pure focus. “The girls and demons seem to be able to do this method easily. But you are the only grand demon here. It would be a strain on either the maids or Neko to do so many so quickly, but Dar can do dozens in a night.”

“He just forcibly traces them?” Tami almost shrieked. “That’s suicide.”

Cherry grit her teeth. “Not if you have the willpower to push against the pain and do it. Though, it doesn’t work very well for spirits unless it is in their nature.”

Tami nodded along and reconsidered the task being asked of her. Spirits were powerful beings, but they were also more limited in their ability to grow.

For the dryad to be tracing a dao character of the cold was a sheer force of will that Tami envied.

If Cherry could do it, then Tami sure as shit could.

Taking the booklet, Tami stared at the first character for cold as she pressed her back into the frosty side of the tree. “I will do it.”

It was just a lesser dao, but the character wobbled and waved as it tried to evade her perception. Tami took her finger to the paper and forced herself to keep the tip along the design of the character.

Pain wracked her mind as she tried to fight against the dao, the very nature of the world, and make it hers.

She sniffed as her nose ran and only once she swallowed did she realize it was blood. On instinct, she leaned back so that her blood wouldn’t mar the pages of the precious book.

Tami’s vision started to waver as she got close to completing the character for the first time. It was like the world was shaking underneath her, and she pushed on even as the muscles in her body locked up.

When she finished the first trace, she let out an explosive breath as the pressure eased, but she was already more tired. And that had only been the first trace.

“How many times do I do it?” She asked, only to realize the others had all gone back to focusing on their own tasks.

Knowing she needed to do more to solidify it in her head, she went back to work.

Shaking it to clear the cobwebs she started the trace again.

The next time was easier, and she pushed to the end without shaking. Then she did it once more. The character etched itself into her mind after a dozen tries, and she felt the dao settle into her. It was an incredible feeling, and Tami couldn’t believe she’d actually accomplished it.

With a shaking hand, Tami flipped the page again. “I can do this. I can become his shortcut to a new dao that will help him.” She licked her lips as her nether region felt suddenly warm and tingly at the idea.

Dar was a very large man, and she was excited to feel him press her down into the grass.

Tami bit her lip and with a blush started in on the next character, taking a deep breath for what she knew was to come.