6 Oh Well, I Guess I Accept The Gift

A determinate look appeared in Darkscale's eyes. He then closed them slowly and opened his little mouth. Immediately, he started employing again the breathing technique gained in his Dreams.

Illuminated by the sparse light, the little meager snake remained buried under the complex net of old heavy roots, his body battered by the fury of the winds and the rain. Even so, he didn't bulge: his expression remained concentrated and he kept practicing his breathing exercise.

However, that stoic appearance of his was greatly ruined by his wide open mouth and the ridiculous sucking sound that he made.

As he continued using the technique, silvery swirling lines started to revolve around him, constantly being absorbed inside his mouth.

"What?" surprise appeared on his face when he started to perceive a cold feeling running inside him from his mouth and cycling around his body. At first, he considered that maybe he simply was doing the exercise better than the last time. Maybe he had achieved the same result that he remembered in his Dream because he became better.

"Ehehehe, of course! I'm a genius after all… if not, why would the King bless me with his Dreams?" Darkscale was very pleased with himself, continuing the breathing exercise while feeling startling changes on his body. Contrary to the first time he used the technique, there wasn't any kind of backlash and any sort of pain. His flesh, at least that little that remained, was constantly charging with more power.

However he soon then started to feel a difference between the coldness he recalled and this new one he was experiencing.

It was like truly like the difference between heaven and hell: the coldness in his memory seemed able to purify all evil, made him feel clear and pure; this one instead brought with itself a macabre intent, a vague anguish and killing intent.

"Huh?"

The snake could have sworn having heard something whispering indistinct words in his ear, causing a long and cold shiver run down his spine.

He immediately attributed the strange sound to the howling winds and tried to calm down and keep practicing. He could feel that his strength was growing at an incredible rate and he didn't want to stop.

However, the whispers continued. Not only, more he continued cultivating, more clearly he could hear them. First, they were only bizarre sounds, very indistinct. Then, they become more and more understandable.

"Mph, this is just the wind… I always had a vivid imagination" continued stubbornly Darkscale, not wanting to stop now that he could tell that there wasn't any backlash to the use of the technique.

Despite how much he tried to convince himself that it was only some illusion generated by his imagination and the weather, he soon started to make out actual words.

"They.."

"Mommy!"

"Why are you doing this?!"

"Ahahaha, my friend you…"

"ARRRRRGHHHH"

Already dripping in cold sweat because of the countless strange whispering noises, Darkscale almost felt himself pass out in fear when he heard a vibrant scream. He immediately stopped what he was doing, opened his maddened eyes.

The first thing he noted was that the whole place seemed more "alive". Hundreds of insects were running around under the roots that paved the forest ground.

It almost seemed as if the sun had finally vanquished the storm, coming back to bless the forest with his light. However the storm was still there, alive and well: the raging wind still shook the tall dark trees, the heavy rain continued to batter them and the occasional thunder came down painting golden veins on the sky.

But the strange colors and liveness of the forest wasn't the thing that attracted most of Darkscale's attention. Those were the silver lines.

He didn't know what else to call them. Shiny strings of light that danced around him. They emanated a cold and ominous feeling, and those voices that kept being susurrated in the air, seemed to come right from them.

"What the hell?"

The reptile moved his body away from the cage of silver that the lights had formed around him. The voices became immediately less audible.

"What are those things?" wondered the little serpent, studying the fluttering lines. He focused on a single line of silver, following it with his gaze till it fused with the others in what seemed to be the origin of all those creepy silver threads. It was a clutter of while light, hidden under a tree with a bloodied and broken bark.

"That's where the human disappeared!" suspiciously noted the snake, looking at the signs of red blood still fresh on the broken surface of the tree.

"Hmph, this is clearly human devilry!"

The first thing he thoughts was simply go away: he didn't trust anything that had to do with humans. Before he could do so, the lights started to autonomously disappear, slowly dissolving into little sparks.

The snake's eye widened when some of the little sparks touched him slightly: he felt a cold, grim sensation on the spot touched. The thing that surprised him wasn't the sensation per se, but the meaning that it had: it was the same thing he felt when he was cultivating.

His face darkened when he realized that the white lines could have been why the technique did work this time. However, he didn't flee like he had planned to. How could he? He needed to discover what was the origin of those silver lines now.

He slowly started to move towards where he had seen the cluster of lights buried under the wounded tree. He continued to comfort himself, telling himself that the hunter-cultivator human was long gone.

"Maybe he forgot something here, or that teleportation of his left behind some kind of usable force?" though the little serpent, remembering how his whole elevation from the masses of unintelligent beast came from some drops of blood left casually behind.

However that human from before didn't have any of the glorious bearings of the King, so what he left behind shouldn't be much useful.

When the little snake arrived next to the tree, his vertical eyes looked in the zone where he recalled the mass of lights and noted that between the roots there was a little shiny thing.

"Hmm?" silver ripples came from the metallic object, dissipating in the air around it. Numerous whispers came from the undulation that forked from the item. The snake stopped in its tracks when he heard them, the sound of his own blood pumping echoing in his head.

He staggered back a couple for a moment, though of fleeing reemerging in his mind. Yet, it only lasted for some second before a resolute look appeared in his eyes. "Mph, I Darkscale, I'm not afraid of some muttering lights" he affirmed with conviction, stopping his retreat. After making sure that there wasn't anything else around, he slowly crept between the roots and gave a closer look to the item.

"Oh, I remember this, didn't the human bring it away with him?" mused the little snake, while his tail moved towards the metallic circle.

The instant he touched it, a cold sensation run through his whole being. For a moment he felt as he was using the breathing technique again, only that the result was way much better! The amounts of cold energy that pervaded his body were superior and even the quality of that energy seemed better.

Unfortunately, before he could try to sense better what was happening, he felt himself pulled forward by boundless strength. The small metallic object seemed like an abyss without any end, a black hole that absorbed him with ease.

His vision dimmed for a second and he felt he was being stretched dozens of meters only to be compressed back to his original size immediately after. When the vortex of multicolor lights that surrounded him stopped still, he glanced confused around.

"Where Am I?"

A second prior he was cautiously examining a little object on the forest's ground, and now he was sitting on cold blue stone.

Around him there were many tall shelf, packed with old tomes. He knew that those objects were supposed to be important, but he did not understand why. In his Dream he had encountered cultivators ready to die to protect a book, but the King had never truly revealed some interest in them. So they probably didn't have much importance.

He ignored the books and the shelves and concentrated on the blue stone. "A cave?" though the little snake, observing as every single wall around him seemed made from that blue stone.

He was in a vaguely oval structure that was a dozen of meters in total area. Behind him there weren't any shelves, but instead there was a large empty spot. The stone walls there were enriched by a complex and strange inscription that enshrined a watery image of a forest.

"That's a portal" immediately recognized the little serpent. This wasn't the first time he saw one of those water-like surfaces that allowed one to transport from a place to another. The King used them all the time.

"That's not an image… that's my forest!" realized the snake after watching the picture and noticing that it was truly the same place he just had come from.

A confused look on his face, he continued observing the rest of the cave. He noticed that other than the shelves of books and a long table in the middle, there was only a large pool at the opposite end of the structure.

"That's…"

His eyes narrowed, noticing a figure immersed in the pool: it was a bare-skinned human, probably a male. He gave his back to Darkscale, and trembled visibly inside a pool of white muddy waters. The serpent didn't need to see him in the face to confirm that it was the same human that had mysteriously vanish before. He could recognize him from his smell alone.

While Darkscale tried to make sense of what was happening, he assisted to something that left him stunned: a strange sound came from the white pool, and immediately a puff of silver smoke arose from the waters, starting to float around the cave.

Creepy whispers, both sounding very far and remote and extremely loud and clear started to pour out from the silver cloud that moved slowly around in the cave.

" Hahaha, let's die together my lo…"

"Father, remember that I know wha…"

"Devilish monster, bego…"

"Honored master, I will fore…"

The voice was always the same, and continued to spout a multitude of random phrases, sometimes even more than one at the same time.

Darkscale's eyes widened in shock: he looked at the silver cloud passing near the ceiling, right under where the large blue crystals, that were the only source of light in the cave, emerged from the stone.

It was distant but he could feel the coldness and killing intent contained in that silver cluster. The little serpent had the certainty that if he cultivated around that cloud he would be greatly more successful than if he simply cultivated outside.

"What is this place?" he thought the little animal, trying to decide if it was wise to remain around for much longer. He could take the portal and he would most probably reemerge on the other side, in the forest that he knew and called home.

Certainty was better than staying is such a foreigner place with talking clouds and a human that seemed in pain while bathing in dirty waters.

"However… that talking cloud seems like something that I could use…" though the snake with a strange look appearing on his face.

"I lost my home to the humans, so I guess that's only fair that It's a human that repays back that debt" continued the animal with even more righteous confidence.

"Yes, this is only fair" nodding to itself the snake gave a malicious look to the oblivious man in the pool "ehehehe, Oh well, I guess I accept the gift. I was truly in need of a new house".