Dao 4 Chapter 30 (Patreon)

Dar felt another emerge from his body as the blade grew closer, and Dar’s heart nearly broke. He couldn’t fathom losing another.

But Valdis blocked the black blade and diverted it as it plowed through the earth.

“Your tree did something to me,” she grumbled, standing in front of him in all her warrior glory.

“That just means it likes you.” Dar coughed as his body continued to reconstruct itself with his new strength.

“Looks like I need to buy you a little more time.” Valdis swung her sword a few times.

Rather than the normal green glow it gave off, it was tempered with a second golden glow. Dar could feel that she was stronger than ever.

“Don’t worry about the maids.” Valdis shot two beams at both of them. “They’ll be back. We’ll find them when this is all over.”

Dar felt his grief begin to fill with the slightest tinge of hope.

“Okay, you’re right. But for that future, this needs to end.” Dar looked at Pandora.

“On it. Heal up quickly. You look like Neko got a little claw happy.” Valdis shot forward, flapping her wings so she flew just over the surface.

Something was different as Valdis charged Pandora. Typically, Pandora blocked with her body, but she quickly brought her black blade into her grip to stop Valdis. She seemed more concerned about Valdis’ weapon than Dar would have guessed.

The Valkyrie’s attacks came quickly as the battle-tested spirit put enough pressure on Pandora that she had to step back to avoid the blade.

Dar let out a breath he’d been holding, glad that the Valkyrie seemed to be able to keep up with Pandora. Dar focused inward, feeling the channels expand and inspecting his dao for the first time.

The grand dao of life, storm, and lava swirled over each other in three bands. The earth below, the life on the surface, and the storms above.

It made a little world.

The dao of worlds.

Suddenly, Dar felt like he was part of something more, something deeper. It was like he was holding a world inside of himself, making him larger than life.

As he studied the dao, he felt something snap into focus. His body settled, and he grew used to his new dao. He was in tune with the world around it.

Getting to his feet and focusing outside of himself once more, he found Valdis and Pandora still fighting. They were evenly matched when it came to swords, but each of their blows was taking more and more chunks out of the world.

Dar reached out his hand, focusing on his new dao as he formed a weapon. Similar to how he formed his lava weapons, he tried to infuse it with the dao of the world.

A miraculous blade that reflected every color of the world appeared in his hands as he rushed forward to join in the fight and end Pandora.

Pandora jumped back to avoid him. Turning, she only took one quick glance at his blade before a small bit of fear shone in her eyes. Her free hand flew up, pointing a finger at him.

“Dodge.” Valdis jumped back using her wings to carry her.

Dar threw storms forward and launched himself backwards. The other celestials flew high overhead, looking for an opportunity to strike.

From Pandora’s finger, there was a flicker of black light before a beam tore through the world, shattering Granterra for dozens of miles.

“Just what is her dao?” Valdis screamed as she hurled herself back into the fray.

Dao didn’t have an answer. He hadn’t even considered it given she came through the crack in the world, but she must have a dao.The words of the turtle Mo echoed in Dar’s head. It had laughed when Dar had used the word ‘make’. And now it made sense.

Dar rushed back in. “Her dao is the dao of destruction.”

Pandora’s finger tracked Dar, firing off another blast while Valdis swooped in from the other side, trying to reach the devil of destruction with her blade.

The Valkyrie’s blade cut into Pandora for the first time.

Dar couldn’t take his eyes off the spot where Valdis’ blade met Pandora’s skin. While the maids had struggled to inflict any damage when they did get through her barriers, Valdis’ attack made Pandora bleed. Blood trickled down from the wound, and Pandora seemed shaken.

Hope rising within him, Dar was spurred into a new frenzy. He came in low with his new blade made of his celestial dao of world.

Pandora stood, touching the wound in her side in disbelief as Dar whirled toward her from behind. She reacted quickly as he neared, bringing her sword around to block him, but in her distraction, she had forgotten that her fingers were still crackling with her dao.

Their blades collided as Pandora’s dao of destruction fired straight down.

The world exploded, and Dar blocked his face with his arms as debris flew through the air.

Dar and Valdis were knocked backward, but the celestials took the opening. Diving down, they worked to give Dar and Valdis a moment to regroup.

“You cut her.” Dar grabbed Valdis and found himself able to float in the air as he controlled the world around him. His dao were continuing to gather, led by the dao tree as it continued to react.

“Yes, but she’s growing stronger,” Valdis commented as she let him hold her aloft. “Although, so are you.” She looked down his body, watching the dao dance around on his skin.

“If she has the dao of destruction, then it doesn’t surprise me that her dao is growing more concentrated in the chaos she’s created.” Dar swallowed. Her latest blast had torn a hole in Granterra. Lava was now bubbling up from the core. “What did you do to the maids?”

“Sent them on the cycle of rebirth. When this is over, we’ll travel the world or to other worlds if needed. I’ll be able to find them.” Valdis gave him a reassuring smile.

Dar’s grip tightened on his new sword and gasped as more dao continued to form with the runes over his body.

“Having a fun time there?” Valdis asked.

“The best.” Dar’s runes glowed even brighter. “Let’s get back in there. The celestials won’t be able to hold her much longer.”

Hong was just beaten back and the phoenix’s fire swallowed the area around Pandora.

Dar didn’t care. His own dao related to fire flared brightly to protect him as he dove into the flames and fought Pandora.Their blades clashed, and Dar felt another grand dao form. His arms began bulging with strength and his mana channels filled with new power.

Dar roared in defiance as he kept the pressure up, attacking faster and with more power than before. He managed to drive Pandora back, but she still managed to fire off beams in the process. The world around them was utterly destroyed. And she was thriving.

Dar felt the ground under him shift as larger fragments of the world lifted up into the air, now nearly entire mountains were being sucked away whole.

As he watched her power continue to grow, Dar realized that he wasn’t even sure what he was fighting to save. Even though he was pressing Pandora further than before, their fight was only successfully doing one thing. It was ripping Granterra apart.

Another celestial dao slammed into place on Dar’s body, and he erupted with power.

Conviction settled into Dar. Regardless of what was left of the world, he would stop Pandora. He wasn’t sure what the future would look like, but she could not be left to end worlds.

Dar used his new power and channeled it into a kick, sending Pandora into one of the mountains rising up. Her body shattered the mountain with its power, but Dar noted a small trickle of blood that came out of her mouth.

Sand, ice, fire, gold, and rebirth dao blasted into Pandora from above, sending her through the mountain and crashing into the sands.

Behind them, Kindrake was a giant pit that was filling with lava, the mountains between the two territories were sheared off, and six celestials stood against Pandora.

Shaking off the latest attack, Pandora rose up out of the crater she’d formed in the ground.

She only smiled as she wiped the blood off her lips and raised a hand, gathering more power from the destruction she’d just created as she slammed into the sands.

An earthquake rocked the world, sending huge fissures across the land. The sand drained into them, and it felt like the world was splitting apart. Lava flowed up to try and seal the cracks, but Pandora slammed her hand to the ground once more.

Dar rode on a huge chunk of land that started to be sucked up into the hole in the sky, watching what was happening below.

Pandora and the rest of the celestials were the same—they were no longer fighting on Granterra. Dar struggled to believe it as the sky opened up to swallow it further.

Jumping off his rock, Dar went to attack Pandora once more.

As they fought, more chunks of rock were blasted into dust. Hit after hit continued, and Dar wondered if the tide of battle could be turned. They were relatively evenly matched, but Pandora’s power continued growing in the destruction of the fight.

But Dar could feel his little tree continuing to work within him. It had some broader vision, but he had no idea what that was. Continuing to attack, Dar had Valdis and the other celestials at his side, although they were all looking battered.

Pandora was only taking damage from Valdis steadily. The experienced fighter seemed to be the only one able to cut her, but Dar had noticed more than a few glances Pandora made at Dar’s blade. Something about it scared her.

Pandora’s body suit was torn, and Dar saw dao characters on Pandora’s body as well. But instead of blue dao characters like his, hers were an angry red as they glowed.

Dar’s runes gathered almost as if in response to Pandora’s, thrumming brightly as they spun, trying to create something new.Dar recognized it as something more than a celestial dao as it built up inside of him. His eyes grew as he tried to handle what was happening within his body.

Dar felt uncomfortably stretched, his power expanding inside of him to the point where he wondered if he would implode. Something new was forming, and he couldn’t even focus on what it was as he tried to push through the discomfort of the change.

As the power swell settled into his body and Dar felt whole once more, the tree pulsed inside of him, and Dar realized what it had done. The dao tree had been gathering the dao of the Mo to create something that stood opposite of the dao of destruction.

Now Dar understood.

The tree was trying to form the dao of creation.

Dar thought about all of the attacks that Pandora had shrugged off without injury. Valdishad been able to draw blood, but now he understood why. Rebirth wasn’t destruction; it was a remaking.

As the dao of creation formed across Dar’s body, he was filled with new strength. Dar watched the celestials battling and starting to lose, but he didn’t jump straight into battle. He suddenly knew what he needed to do.

He tried to create from her.

He tried to pull mana and call upon his dao to make something on the surface of her body. He expected resistance, but the universe itself seemed ready to create. The dao came to him easily.

A giant tree limb burst from Pandora’s shoulder, taking a chunk of her with it as she recoiled.Flowers exploded off of her body, taking bits of her with each petal.

Pandora went wild, sending off blasts of destruction, ripping apart the world around her and trying to combat the new life.

Dar could feel her strength swell as a dao that felt like Dar’s polar opposite radiated around them, soaking up the physical matter of the world and turning it into mana.

Watching, Dar decided to try to do the opposite. Dar was still visualizing trees, so he decided to double down.

He made a giant tree before him, its roots burying themselves into Granterra even as it started to crumble under Pandora’s fight with the others.

The tree’s first leaves soaked up mana like sunlight, and it grew.

As Dar watched, it grew at an incredible pace. Its roots tore out of it, reaching deep down into Granterra. It began winding its roots through the ground, holding together the broken world. Meanwhile, its limbs stretched high into the sky, moving towards the gaping hole.

Dar’s tree grew and grew, plugging the hole and growing past it.

Pandora struggled with Valdis, unable to fire off more of her destruction or reach Dar and stop him. She managed one maneuver to break free from Valdis, but Bai and Sha were there, blocking her movement.

Even Old Jin and Hong got in her way.

Cherry poked her head out from Dar’s stomach. “Tree.” Her eyes were ablaze like two green fires.

“The biggest tree in the universe, just for you, Cherry. Help me grow it further?” Dar took her hand and pulled her out as they worked together.

He pushed their dao into the tree. Green shoots branched off the tips, and buds bloomed with swirling blue fruit.

The Granterra he once knew below him shrank as the tree grew larger. He was lifted up onto its roots while the tree grew, even as the fighting continued with Pandora.

Checking Pandora, Dar noted that she was growing weaker as she fought now. Her sluggish movements were obvious as Valdis scored more hits on her, and the celestials shrank back to their human forms to fight.

All of them were ragged, tired and worn.

But the tree had new life and energy.

The tree began to slow in its growth, having completely consumed the hole in the sky. Its roots stretched out, growing past the planet and beyond.

Dar stopped, feeling himself overwhelmed with power. As the tree grew, he could feel the power swelling up inside of him as well.

But the battle wasn’t done.

Dar held his sword filled with world dao before him as he rushed at Pandora, a new energy behind his movements. When their swords met, Dar blasted Pandora away, shattering the black blade in her hands.

For a moment, she looked confused, unable to fathom what had just happened to her.

“Stay back,” Dar called to the others as Pandora rushed him with a new weapon formed.

His sword cut through her sword and through the black suit that covered her body. She cried out, and Dar pressed a hand to her chest.

Flowers bloomed from her, ripping her apart. She was weakened, yet the dao tree never stirred.

But now Dar understood why. He understood why she’d made the Mo.

They were opposites. Consuming her dao would truly rip him apart. Pandora had created the Mo, destructive beings with the powers of creation, to split the power of creation and weaken it, keeping her power strong.

And she had almost succeeded.

Dar used that knowledge to form a new plan. He blasted her with his dao of creation, unraveling her and creating a cage for the dao of destruction and all of its pieces.

The cage resembled the seals that Lilith had once made, wrapping around the weakened Pandora, chaining her and shrinking the dao of destruction into an impossibly dark sphere wrapped in blue chains that were made up of his creation dao.

As it locked into place, Dar sighed.

“Is it over?” Bai held one of her arms, staring at the odd sphere.

Dar grabbed her shoulder, renewing her health instantly. “Yes. For now. I can contain her.” He touched Valdis and Sha, healing them as well.

He moved on towards Hong, but the wounded main recoiled.

“I do not need your help.” The proud phoenix turned back to Granterra.

The planet was broken. It was hanging on by threads and the roots of the giant tree that Dar had made.

The phoenix frowned and then his eyes grew wide. “My children.” He rushed to help them.

Dar looked at the shards of Granterra floating in the void, not sure what to do with everything.

“Did we really win? It doesn’t entirely feel like it,” Sha lamented, floating up next to him.

“We’ll make it right.” Dar looked out into the void for another planet. He hoped for something where he could relocate any survivors to, but he found nothing.

“Dar.” Cherry shot up to him, eyes ablaze with green light. “The tree! The tree! Come look.” She grabbed his hand and tugged.

“Cherry,” Dar tried but she was insistent, dragging him back towards the tree even as it continued to grow.

The others followed him as she dragged him up the impossibly tall trunk.

The tree was larger than all of Granterra now, continuing to absorb mana from the void. Dar wondered what else existed in the void, or if Granterra was the last of Pandora’s destruction.

“Look!” Cherry pointed up at the fruits growing amid the leaves of the tree.

They were all strange swirls of color, and at a distance, they just looked like fruits. But as Cherry pulled herself through the tree, Dar realized just how large each fruit had become. And as he peered closer, he recognized them for what they were.

Little budding worlds were growing amid the boughs of the tree.

“Dar! Dar! The biggest tree ever!” Cherry was beside herself.

He glanced at the four celestials that had remained with him. “Bai, Sha, and Valdis. Let’s find a place to make a home.”

Old Jin watched the tree continuing to grow with only curiosity. “Do you mind if I explore your tree?”

“Not at all…” Dar thought for a moment without replying. “But there will be one that I will seal. I would ask that while the seal is there, you do not touch that world.”

“Of course.” Old Jin nodded and flew off amid the branches to inspect the budding worlds.

“Come. Cherry, help me make a hollow in the tree. We need a place to call home.” Dar pushed the over excited spirit towards the trunk. He knew that she could sit and watch the fruit grow all day if he let her.

Cherry followed his lead, making a hollow in the tree where he could reside. He could see the rings inside expanding as the world tree continued to grow. The worlds amid its branches were growing fuller by the second.

Dar then sealed Pandora into the tree with him, refilling the opening.

Sitting down and taking a deep breath, he started his meditation as he fell into his inner world.