Chapter 78 (Patreon)

Power has been restored to me. Turns out a transformer caught on fire. Sorry for the delay I'll cook up something fun in return. Enjoy the chapter!

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The cattle drivers gathered up their beastly bulls and left in the morning. Xie Jin didn’t pay the man he insulted any mind as he led Chen Haoran down the road under a grey sky overcast with clouds.

Chen Haoran was once again filled with questions he wanted to ask Xie Jin. What did he mean by smelling peach blossoms? What was this Reservoir Town he disliked, and why? What was that ‘difference of opinion’ he had with the Seventh-Layer? Once again he held his tongue. They weren’t so urgent that he’d force Xie Jin to discuss things he disliked, at least not now.

“That guy said you were from the Basin. Can you tell me about it?” Chen Haoran asked.

Xie Jin brightened. He always did when he got the chance to extoll his home. “It’s a place where the rivers drain. It’s much lower than other areas in Zumulu so that’s why people call it the Basin.” He pointed to his black bone armbands. “We’re more famous for these though. The rainforest is full of bones but you’ll only find black bones in the Basin.”

“It’s all beast bones right?”

“Yes, but they’re so old we don’t know anything about them. Even the legends we tell are younger than the skeletons they speak of.”

That… certainly sounded old. Chen Haoran tried to compare it to his own world and found his examples coming up short. An elephant graveyard of epic proportions? It was the timescale that really threw him for a loop. How old was this world? How large was it?

A drop of water fell on his head and dispelled his thoughts. He looked up to see more fat drops of rain fall down from the heavy clouds above them.

“Should we take shelter?” he asked.

Xie Jin judged the sky then looked off somewhere in the distance off the road. He turned to Chen Haoran and grinned. “If you don’t mind getting dirty we can be there today.” His qi flared. “If you can keep up?”

Well there was only one answer to that.

Phelps squealed and instinctively tightened his grip when Chen Haoran flared his own qi.

“Lead the way.”

Xie Jin whooped and shot off the road into the woods. Chen Haoran cycled qi to his legs and sprinted after him. Phelps squealed in joy on his back. The rain turned from a few droplets into a downpour as they raced. As a Ninth-Layer to his Eighth, and practicing a superior cultivation method on top of that, Chen Haoran was faster than Xie Jin even carrying Phelps. He simply had more qi to use that performed better in every way.

Despite this he could not catch up.

Xie Jin flitted through the trees and foliage with a bird’s grace. Only touching down on the ground for the briefest moments before leaping back into the trees and propelling himself forward. It was an elegant parkour compared to Chen Haoran’s straightforward running. Even if he was strong enough to barrel through most of the shrubbery and vines it still took precious seconds from him that Xie Jin used to pull ahead.

“Hold tight Phelps!” Chen Haoran bent his knees and leapt high into the air. Clearing the tree tops in a long arc before crashing back down like a stone. He did it again, and once more, each jump followed by the sound of snapping branches and crushing leaves. Xie Jin pulled ahead even more with Chen Haoran’s fruitless efforts.

When he cycled his qi for one last jump Phelps squealed and he felt the sloth emit a strange energy. His next jump saw him flying into the air but rather than fall he floated. Phelps squealed again and the energy was cut off, Chen Haoran fell.

He was laughing as he did. “Do that again Phelps!”

Phelps obliged. With he successive jump he flew higher and higher into the sky as Phelps better adapted to carrying him with his power. Xie Jin was so far ahead now that he deliberately slowed down before he ran out of sight but the race didn’t matter anymore. Chen Haoran cycled qi to his eyes to see Xie Jin looking in astonishment at him and Phelps. He whooped out a jeering curse before looking across the trees at the large white mountain Xie Jin was leading them toward.

He touched down onto the ground next to Xie Jin.

“Since when could he do that?” Xie Jin demanded, pure jealousy writ large across his face.

“My little genius can do anything he puts his mind to,” Chen Haoran crowed.

“Lucky bastard.”

They shot off again down an open stretch of woods. The rain poured down in sheets making the dirt into mud. Thanks to qi they weren’t at all slowed down but every enhanced step covered Chen Haoran’s expensive silks with a muddy coat. He didn’t pay it any mind and took note of their surroundings.

“Is this a path?” He asked. Although the rain made a mess of things there was still far too much exposed dirt and the path they followed was suspiciously clear of vegetation beyond the odd root.

“It’s a road,” Xie Jin said.

“Not very well maintained is it.” It was by far the worst road he’d traveled on this entire journey.

Xie Jin scoffed. “The Empire only cares about the roads that lead to the capital.”

“Is this the real way to get into Zumulu then?”

Xie Jin smiled. “You’ll see.”

His smile only grew wider as they approached the white mountain and his excitement was so palpable Chen Haoran could practically feel it through his qi. He was lucky he was paying attention when Xie Jin suddenly halted or else he would have sent himself flying over the steep drop of elevation in the road.

“What the hell,” Chen Haoran whispered.

“Behold,” Xie Jin proudly said. “The Snake’s Mouth.”

Below them stretched an ocean of green jungle trees that grew so thickly that Chen Haoran felt he was looking a green wall. The white mountain he had spied from a distance was there, except it wasn’t because what he had seen then was only the top portion of it and what he looked at now was no mountain.

A titanic snake skeleton rose above that endless jungle as if it had been dropped on top of it. What he had thought was a mountain was instead the very top of a massive skull that now stared at them with it’s empty, cavernous eyes. Its maw was wide open, the lower jaw buried beneath the earth while the top half stretched higher than even the giant stone fingers that towered over White Ridge. Two fangs, javelins of immense proportion, hung menacingly.

Phelps screamed in horror and his grip on Chen Haoran became chokingly tight. He raised a hand to soothe the terrified sloth but he had no true comfort to give him when he himself was dazed by the sight. Xie Jin grabbed his arm and led him toward the skull with nary a care.

“For centuries the Snake’s Mouth was the only reliable entrance into Zumulu.” Xie Jin excitedly said. “Any who were foolish enough to invade the jungle would have to cross under its fangs. Many of those invaders never returned.” He smirked. “It was said that those who passed into the Snake’s Mouth would be swallowed whole.”

Chen Haoran could commiserate. He felt he was about to be eaten as well as they walked through the skull’s mouth. Rivulets of rainwater slid down the massive fangs and he could imagine them being venom instead. When Xie Jin led them under the fangs Chen Haoran’s body and qi shivered as one. He was suddenly reminded of an old tale from Earth, of the Sword of Damocles that hung over the head that wore the crown. In that instance he grew a great sympathy for that poor fellow who had to sit under that terrifying sword. Phelps’s claws tore through the silk of this robes and pressed into his skin.

“Amazing isn’t it?” Xie Jin wistfully sighed.

Now inside the skull they dried themselves off with a quick application of qi. A simple dirt road, pressed flat by countless steps, ran through the snake’s skull and down the rest of it’s skeleton. It was shielded from the rain by the snake’s spine, wide enough to fit an eight lane highway atop it, held up by ribs that speared into the ground like pillars. The seemingly endless jungle found no home within the skeleton, the trees pressed against the ribs and grew thick in the spaces between them but the path laid out under the skeleton was completely clear.

“How big is this thing?” Chen Haoran asked, his mouth dry.

“Big enough that we’ll be walking for days before we reach the end of the tail”.

“Days!?”

Xie Jin laughed. “Do you see why I wanted to bring you here now?” He opened his arms wide

“Welcome to Zumulu Brother Chen.”