17 The Myth of the Nine Sun Yang Emperor (Amber's perspective)

Louis came running at her, grabbing her hands, speaking little more than gibberish. He had a great smile on his face and, although she understood none of the words he speak, she understood his intent. He was excited. For her. He placed a pebble within her hands. She promised to keep it safe. The clay orb he already had to replace his first gift to her, so she wasn't about to waste this one.

However, seeing Shea, Carla and Amelia immediately use the items Louis had given them, she did the same. A mellow and cooling sensation entered her hands. It was at the point in time she realized that her body was always hot, burning. She finally understood the relief of being cooled down. Even bathing in cold water would do little to cool her down. It was a miracle in itself that the water did not evaporate, let alone cool her.

"Do you see a bright blue dot within the meridians in your right hand?" Louis asked.

Sure enough, a bright blue dot appeared within her right hand, clotting the little hole in it. Louis had called it meridians before, like canals where the boats float on, where the water all flows in a direction. He had done this before, to show what her meridians looked like, but she got lost every time she tried to do it on her own, eventually giving up. The clay orb was more fun and made her feel much better, especially how proud Louis got whenever she told him how much she practiced.

"Yeah," Amber said, after a while, returning to reality.

"Follow it with your qi," he said.

Simple enough. She put the spirit stone in her right hand and the qi automatically followed the blue dot with a thought, just like a chasing game. She got moved slowly at first, since the qi would hit the walls and slow down at first, but eventually she got faster and faster, from a crawl to a sprint. Closer and closer, just a little bit further, her qi chased, but the bright blue dot always remained just a little bit ahead.

She didn't know how long she had been chasing, but the ball of qi fell down a hole, lost. She tried to reach down, but it was too far away. She wanted to lean over more, reach a little deeper, but she was stopped. Someone hugged her from behind. Its body was whitish, humanoid, but with no features. It hugged her gently, as if afraid to hurt her.

"Who are you?" Amber asked.

The body did not respond with words, only slowly growing as more and more of her body was wrapped within its embrace.

"Please tell me who you are. Please." Amber asked.

The body still did not respond, only growing bigger around her until it disappeared. Then the hole in front of her grew whiter and whiter, until it became a pure white sphere with a black dot at the center, like an eye. Amber wanted to poke it and nothing stopped her. Each time she did, the eye got bigger and bigger.

Soon, she could see the see the blue ball again. It was on the floor within the depths, but she grew tired as she drew closer. Then, for some reason, the white light entered her body, cooling her down energy as she grew more and more energetic, happier. She smiled at the ball, pouncing at it with all her might.

The ball disappeared at that moment, so she looked around. What was originally darkness turned into a pure white landscape and just as she was going to call out for help, she shuddered. The coolness within her body vanished as a deep heat erupted from her body. The world around her distorted visually and she lost focus at whatever she was looking at it, until the world turned into a sea of flames.

She felt hotter and hotter, until she felt like she was going to burn up, then the cool rain fell onto her face. Colorless, elementless qi fell onto her body, dispersing the flames.

She felt cooler as she was dragged away, outside of the orb she could not see but could feel, dragged away from the meridians, the tunnels, she had been running within, dragged away from her familiar homeland into the void. The world was a warm red and a giant girl, who looked exactly like her, stood before her. It opened its mouth but nothing came out. When it finished moving its mouth, it walked closer to her.

Amber tried to run away, but she was held in spot. Help. Help. Louis. Help. Mother. Help. Father Help. Help. Save me. The giant increasingly walked faster, soon breaking into a run, then a sprint then entered her body.

Her mind and spirit exploded, unable to grasp just what happened. She lost consciousness immediately.

Amber had a dream. A dream where small orbs of fire danced around her. Innumerable rows of orbs bobbled up and down, some moving left to right, others from right to left. Then bit by bit the orbs entered her body, yet her body didn't feel like hot like it normally did. Instead, she felt stronger and the orbs a bit closer than earlier. Her mind felt clearer.

Elaine wore a light blue dress with the water shrine ensignia. She sat on the edge of the bed, with the front of her body facing Amber. Her left hand was on Amber's chest while her right hand held three fingers against her chest, praying.

"First mother? Where is Louis and mother?" Amber said, puffing her cheeks.

"First mother? Me?" Elaine said, smiling. "Oh my, someone's already in the family, I see. Tera is doing just fine. I'll wake her up." She pointed to Tera who was sleeping on the bed. "Louis is in his room, if you would like to see him."

"Mommy!" Amber said, hopping off the bed and running to her. She jumped into her embrace, like she did every morning. "Wake up! Wake up!" She pinched her mother's cheek, as far as she could. Mother liked that a lot. She always did it when she was happy.

Tera hugged Amber even before she got up. "My baby. My baby." She raised Amber up high and looked around her. "Are you alright, my baby?"

Amber giggled. "Yay, mommy is awake. Mommy is awake." She looked around. "Where is Louis? I did it, mommy! I did it!"

"Did what?" Tera asked. "You cannot possibly mean the cultivation technique? That endangered you. No way. You are not seeing that man."

"No fair, mommy. No fair." Amber said, jumping out of her embrace. "I want to see Louis."

She ran around until she found the lobby, then she knew where she was. She found Louis within another moment.

"Louis!" Amber said, jumping into his arms. They rolled a few times on the bed as he looked with his mouth wide open. She stuck her hand into his mouth and grabbed his tongue. "Got your tongue!"

Louis removed her hand from his mouth quickly. "How you feel?"

"My head feels lighter and my body feels cooler. Look." She hopped up and down on the bed. Though since her weight didn't change, there was no difference whatsoever.

"That's great." Louis said, smiling. "I will show you something amazing." He grabbed her hand and started running, but Amber kept pace each and every step.

They reached the basement where Louis had been concocting pills.

"Are you making pills?" Amber asked.

"Not today. I'll put on a show for you." Louis said, activating the area. "Want to watch a story?"

"Watch? Like a picture book?" Amber asked. "Yeah."

"Almost, like a moving picture." Louis said. "But, even better."

As the qi reached Louis' closed hands, they disappeared. "Long, long ago, when the world was young, the stars were born." Louis said, opening his hands. Tiny orbs of fire, much like in her dream, flew out of his palms and filled the entire array with tiny little lights. "Man had not existed at that time, only the stars themselves. They shined so brightly they would blind anything that would look at them, for their light was too wonderful for anything to comprehend and understand.

"However," Louis said, as some of the orbs of fire popped and disappeared, at first one by one, then almost a third of them disappeared altogether. "The stars could not shine forever on their own forever, they lived long lives. Almost as long as incomprehensible was their beauty, their glamour, but that too had a limit." The stars continued to pop until the last nine stars, the biggest of them all, remained. "When only the nine stars were left, the world was not the same anymore. Instead of stars, worlds now filled the space."

With a wave of his hand, Louis created a multitude of blue, brown and silver orbs, which filled the now empty space. "The nine stars had grown weary and believed it was a new cosmic era, one for the planets, not for the stars. Yet, they did not want to vanish." The nine stars - at the center of all the blue, brown and silver orbs - drew closer and closer until they fused into one star, smaller than any one of the nine original stars. "No, instead they wanted, wished, to fill the world with their glamour, their splendid. Instead of hoarding their treasured light in the dimming world, they spread it out, for all to see. But it, too, grew old like all the stars before them." The dark red orb turned into a warm orange then into a fiery white.

"The star grown attached to the worlds, caring for them as its children." Louis said. "Before it died, a fragment of itself fell to the nearest orb. This orb was not like the other blue, brown and silver orbs. It had a mix of blue, brown and silver. Some parts of it was blue, other parts brown and the remaining silver, until the fragment fell."

The fiery white orb launched a very small bit of itself, which was hotter than itself, to the closest orb. As the fragment got closer and closer, the orb it approached grew bigger and bigger. The blue oceans covered most of the surface but ground made the rest of the world. A gentle wind blew over parts of it, while tempests and tornadoes ravaged other parts, but as the fragment landed into the ground, it sunk deep before stopping. The ground filled the hole and the fragment seemed to disappear.

"When all hope seemed lost," Louis said, zooming into the ground where the fragment fell. A man made of fire walked out of the ground and, when he did, grass and trees filled the ground, fish and sea plants filled the water. With each step, new species of animals - animals Amber had never seen before - came into existence within the sky, the ground, the sea and even on the ground. "The star blessed the world with life."

The man continued to walk, but by the time he reached the other side of the ground, flames began to flicker from his body and the star in the sky grew dimmer. "Yet, the star paid dearly, for it used its own life to create other life. But before it died, it bestowed man, the image of itself, its remaining energy." The man of fire walked into a man made of earth and water. With it, it became a man of the modern era, not a humanoid clay figure resembling a human. "That man was later known as the Yang Emperor, chosen by the star - later called the sun, the nine, themselves, and the man who created all the other stars in the sky. Hence, creating the technique Nine Sun Yang Emperor."

Even as the orbs disappeared, Amber could see them dancing. All the new animals were things she never seen before. She had seen pictures before and she had seen the dancing orbs of fire within the clay orbs and her dream, but she had never seen something like that before. When she closed her eyes, they were still dancing. Although she didn't understand the story itself, she was now obsessed with it.