Dao 4 Chapter 23 (Patreon)

Dar never thought he’d be swallowed whole. It certainly wasn’t his kink, that was for sure. Now he was some sort of fantasy deep diver with an icy helmet that wasn’t perfectly clear, but it didn’t matter much. There wasn’t much around him.

Inside the Mo’s mouth was just a giant fleshy basin.

Dar couldn’t help but grin as he drew the black ax from his inner world.

He couldn’t swing as hard in the water, but it didn’t matter with the sharpness of his ax. He drove it into the Mo’s gums and dragged the blade along as he pulled himself forward with tentacles of shadow.

Dar tried to make lava, but inside the Mo, it just made bricks that cooled instantly. He smiled at the chance to make the Mo shit a brick, but he decided to focus on survival.

And he’d realized after the fact heating the water probably wasn’t the best for his current ice helmet.

So for the moment, Dar just focused on weakening the Mo enough that the dao tree could finish him off.

Dar used the ax like a plow and cut deep furrows in the mouth of the Mo as he continued to find its throat. It didn’t take long for his whole world to rock and shake as Dar continued to cut deeper.

Dar let out a dark chuckle. “Teach you to try and eat me.”

Suddenly all of the water in the mouth drained out, and Dar was tossed around as the Mo tried to jostle him. Its large fleshy tongue slapped Dar to the side of its mouth.

With the water drained, Dar no longer needed his helmet, or to worry about his lava.

Lava poured off Dar’s arms, scorching the tongue and the inside of the turtle's mouth.

It tried to open its mouth, but Dar flung himself for the throat, using jets of lava to propel himself up and into the throat before the mouth filled with water.

The Mo continued to shake its head as Dar burned large swaths of its mouth and made it into its throat. Thankfully the water didn’t reach, and Dar made a huge tube of lava. He kept it from touching the walls as he held it aloft and continued to stretch it behind him as he walked down into its throat.

“Stupid turtle thinks he can eat me. Let’s show him how wrong he is.” Dar pushed on his inner world and summoned Tami, Neko, both maids and Cherry.

“Where?” Tami looked around holding one of her globes of ice.

“We are in its throat. I’m about to seal off its throat with lava. I need all of you to do as much damage as you can. Tami if you’re able to, block off the other end. I’m not sure if it’s going to try and regurgitate us whole, but I don’t want that. We are chopping its head off from the inside.”

Amber and Marcie didn’t need a second order. They were going wild on the fleshy walls with their knives and flickers of shadows.

Dar turned, letting the huge tube of lava expand and fill the turtle’s throat as he drove spikes of lava behind it to keep it in place.

Dar wasn’t sure how often the Mo breathed, but he wasn’t going to let it breath again.

He couldn’t believe he’d gotten eaten by a Mo. Bai and Sha were not going to let him live it down.

“Neko save her kittens’ father.” She had glowing claws on the back of her hands as she tore into the throat with an intensity that even made Dar wince.

Dar decided to ignore Neko’s statement for the moment, focusing elsewhere. “Cherry, hold open where I’ve damaged, so I can dig deeper. Make some wedges for us all.” Dar treated the task like chopping down a tree. It was a particularly tough tree, but Dar was certain they could do it.

“This is… disgusting.” Cherry picked at her sheer white dress with a shake of her head before little branches popped up from slab of meat that Dar had chopped off and dove into the crevasse he’d made, holding it open.

Cherry did the same for the others and then continued to push the roots of her pants into the throat of the Mo.

The fleshy pink walls quivered and shook as the Mo was struggling with the damage they were doing.

“Keep it up!” Dar shouted, pouring lava into the wound he had created, making spikes and bracing it open with the help of Cherry’s roots.

“Dar, my ice is having trouble.” Tami shouted down the throat.

Dar could see the movements were crushing the ice wall she had made, so he rushed to reinforce it with a wall of cooled lava.

“Thanks.” Tami wiped at her forehead. “Got one of those big black weapons for me?”

Dar chuckled and pulled a sword from his inner world and handed it to her. “Knock yourself out.”

She frowned at his words and then turned angrily to the wall of flesh and screamed as she started hacking at it.

Dar joined her with a yell of his own as he tore back into the throat.

***

Valdis flew over the lake where Dar had just been sucked into the water, a moment of panic overcoming her.

The Mo was the strongest in the water, and it was currently in a large lake that it was continuing to make larger.

Bai rose up on a platform of ice and started throwing huge spears that expanded to the size of mature trees as they stabbed into the ground. “Sha, can’t you do anything? Get rid of the water.”

The Desert Spirit frowned and with a wave of her hand created rivers that funneled the water off, but it was still rising. “This Mo is incredibly strong, and the amount of water it is creating is enough to flood my entire country if not stopped.

Valdis watched as Bai fussed about, clearly concerned for Dar. Valdis didn’t think she’d ever see the celestial so flustered.

“Neither of them have surfaced.” Valdis reported, flying closer to Bai. “They are likely fighting underwater.”

Bai scowled at the Valkryie. “Now you're the expert? He will die if he fights it underwater.”

Valdis only smirked. “Never thought The White would worry for someone. Especially not a human.”

Bai blinked only to turn her head and snort. “I have made an investment in Dar’s success. It would be best for that not to fail.”

Valdis smiled, knowing there was more to it than that. Dar held a magnetism that was hard to define. She’d fallen for it herself. When they almost kissed on Frost’s Fang had excited her more than she was willing to admit.

Dar brought change and excitement with him wherever he went. It made the oaf of a man quite fun to be around, even if he was oblivious to his own magnetism.

Now that he had the dao of life, it was her chance to make a move though.

A huge pool of bubbles came up to the surface of the lake, and Bai summoned another dozen spears, hurling them down at the bubbles.

“We cannot just wait up here.” Sha glared angrily down at the lake.

“Diving into that water is suicide.” Valdis pointed out. “We should wait for it to surface for air. It is still a turtle.”

Bai glared at Valdis for a moment, but Valdis could see the concern within her eyes as well.

“Dar won’t die. He’s too stubborn for that. At least, that’s what Cherry’s told me.” Valdis hovered in the air, waiting. But each passing second made her question her statement. She began fussing herself. She didn’t know what she’d do if he didn’t resurface.

The water became turbulent as waves formed on the lake crashing into the side and into each other.

“It seems something is happening down below the water.” Bai said with relief evident in her voice.

“Dar is going to beat it in the water?” Sha sounded surprised and excited. They had all watched him grow rapidly over the week of Mo hunting, it was shocking just how strong he’d gotten.

The Mo burst out of the water, opening and closing its mouth like it was gasping for breath.

Valdis just laughed. “It’s fucking choking on him. The girls say that is normal though.”

Bai frowned at her and Sha let out a soft, knowing chuckle which made Bai look at the desert spirit in more confusion.

The giant turtle thrashed so hard that it rolled onto its back.

“Should we attack it? Finally it isn’t hiding in its shell” Bai asked, sounding unsure of herself.

“We don’t know where Dar is, but we can trap it.” Valdis suggested.

Giving the two celestials something to do spurred them into action. Giant chains of ice wrapped around the Mo and hauled it further from the water’s edge while a large bowl of sand raised around it so that it didn’t have easy access to the large lake.

Valdis flew down close to the Mo, extending her dao of death, trying to probe for the oaf’s dao of life.

Sure enough, she found it in the Mo’s throat and Valdis laughed like a mad woman as she landed on the Mo. She made sweeping strikes to start to cut into its throat.

“Valdis, I thought you said not to attack!” Bai hovered lower on her disk of ice.

“He’s stuck in its throat.” She replied as she a sharp black object punched out from the throat.

“Nevermind.”

***

Dar saw the light and with glee ripped open a wider path. “Everyone back into my inner world.” He drew them all inside without any fuss.

He kept hacking, doing as much damage as he could on his way out, pouring lava into its throat as he hauled himself out of the Mo.

Bai, Valdis and Sha were hovering just outside.

“Oh, hi. Do me a favor and just hit it as hard as you can. I think it’s almost weak enough.” Dar pushed past any awkwardness that might have been there after emerging from the Mo.

The three of them turned on the Mo in an instant and smashed it with a variety of attacks.

Dar pushed on the little dao tree until roots shot out of his chest and sank into the large wound on the Mo’s throat.

As it usually did, the dao tree started to drain the color from the Mo as its roots spread through the giant corpse. The Mo stopped struggling, twitching to stillness as it collapsed and was absorbed by the dao tree.

All that was left when the tree retreated inside of him was a giant shell.

Sha surprised him, coming up and wrapping him in a big hug. “We were worried when you went under water. Glad to have you still with us.”

Bai scowled at the woman over her shoulder. “That we were. It would be a shame to lose those two perfect maids.”

Valdis only laughed at the two celestials. “Well, then that wraps things up. And I was thinking. You have the dao of life now, so maybe the two of us should find a room. We can…knock our boots.”

Dar looked between all of them, feeling like he was missing something. But everything was going to have to wait, because he couldn’t unsee the giant crack in the sky. “I think we have other problems.”

The others turned to follow his line of sight.

“That’s far.” Bai’s brows pinched down. “Over in Kindrake, if I had to guess. Maybe near Bellhaven?”

“Bellhaven?”  Dar startled. “We need to go then. That isn’t far from my village.”

“I can travel through the sands quickly.” Sha grabbed Dar’s shoulder. “All of you join hands. This is difficult.” Bai and Valdis were quick to grab hold of Dar.

He was in such a rush that he didn’t consider how much effort it would take for her to travel like this.

The movement felt like how Cherry traveled through trees or Dar through granite or shadow. Sha ripped them down into little grains of sand and they flit just under the surface of the desert, traveling miles in seconds as they sped across the desert.

Dar held tight to the others as Sha pushed them all through the sand. It felt like they were slowly slipping through his fingers, but then it felt like he hit a brick wall and he fell onto the sand face first.

Bai held herself up and Valdis flapped her wings to stop from face planting. Sha stumbled with the effort of traveling so quickly across the sands.

“Thanks.” Dar grumbled and pushed off the sand, wiping it from his hands, but he ignored wiping his face as he looked up. They were at the base of the mountain range that separated the two countries, and he could still see the crack in the sky.

From this distance they could see something new. “What is that?” There was something pouring from the crack onto the world.

“I do not know.” Sha answered. “I doubt it is something good. Especially if it has attracted the attention of the others.”

Dar turned to her and remembered the sand on his face, brushing it off. “Others?”

“The Deep One is on the move.” Bai answered. “He is rather… blunt and we can feel him.”

“Old Gold too.” Sha turned and Dar spotted something huge flying through the air up north.

“Then I won’t be left out.” Bai summoned a platform of ice and took over since Sha was worn out. “Everyone get on.” She made several chairs on the platform as it hurried through the air. “Do you need to train, Dar?” Bai asked curiously. Normally after consuming a Mo, he went straight into meditation.

“Don’t think I could concentrate, not with this happening.” His gaze lifted back to the crack in the sky as the thin trickle of darkness bled down onto the snow of Kindrake. Now that he was closer, he was sure it was pouring into the Bellriver a good ways north of Hearthway. But it was still far too close for his comfort.

Valdis nudged him. “I could think of a distraction.” She bobbed her brows.

“Not now.” Dar shook his head, feeling guilty for turning her down yet again. “But I do need to tell the women I made it out of the Mo.”

Dar pushed on the girls in his inner world and they came out with their weapons drawn before seeing the platform of ice and putting them away.

“The tree grew more, but it is odd for you to push us all out.” Cherry answered and turned towards the direction they were heading. “Oh shit. What is that?”

“No clue.” Dar replied. “But that black drip is too close to Hearthway. We are headed there.” He glanced at Bai.

“You point me in the right direction, and we’ll go protect your little village.” Bai confirmed without hesitation. “I wouldn’t want my people anywhere near such a disaster either.”

Sha had been quiet ever since she noticed the other celestials speeding their direction. “Disaster feels right. The turtle spoke of something greater than it, something that killed the Drasil.” She looked back up at the crack in the sky. “What business do we have fighting it?”

Neko put a hand on the desert spirit's shoulder. “Never count Dar out. He surprises Neko time and time again. He even gets me to bathe now.”

Cherry couldn’t stop her snorting laughter.

“This is a little tougher than a bath.” Valdis chuckled, but Neko had successfully lightened the mood.

“Then you haven’t seen Dar take Neko for a bath.” Cherry replied between chuckles. “If he can get her in the water, he can take whatever is coming his way. Besides, that tree of his can kill Mo, why can’t it kill something stronger?”

Dar appreciated their votes of confidence, but he felt an imposing doom from the crack in the sky. When he looked at it, he almost thought he saw something standing in the crack.

But that had to be impossible. They were too far away. Regardless, Dar couldn’t shake the feeling that something up there was staring back at him.

“We need to hurry.” Dar looked forward again. He knew he was stating the obvious, but there was something pulling him back home in a hurry. He was half tempted to dive into the shadows and fly across the land, but he knew that he still wasn’t skilled enough with that ability. Last time he had almost lost himself, and his village needed him.

One thing he knew for certain. When he got back to Hearthway, they were never leaving him again. He would stuff them all in his inner world and then deal with whatever was coming.