01 - VALLEY OF VIPERS [VOL 01 - FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT]

Beyond Erroneous Fields. On one of the northern cliffs in the Shushui mountain range.

“Arei Grysban… The vice master of the Celestial Temple. Look what’s become of you,” a man in a black cloak held a beating heart with a few of his eight arms like a spider crab gripping a sea star. “Except for that useless beggar’s plate, you’ve lost everything, even your own heart.”

“Your senior met his maker, but for you, it’s still not too late,” another man in a black cloak and bloody hands was rolling a ring on his fingers. The new and old stains of blood on his cloak stood out more than his unusually large canine teeth and animalistic eyes. “We couldn’t find what we were looking for in your ring. We know he passed on the secret of the temple to you. Share it with us, and then the giants of Gretta, the twelve supreme families, and even the Numbnil Belt can be conquered, and we’ll rule the world together.”

The two men in black cloaks were eyeing a woman in white, with half of her torso missing. Standing on one leg, she barely clung to life, holding a chipped sword in her hand. Her silver hair was tainted with the blood of the thousands she had slain. The bloody froth bubbling at her mouth and the blackening nerves showing out through the skin suggested that she had probably been poisoned. A small thorn in the foot could make a grown man go silly until it was out, but with half of her body missing, she stood bravely, as the heavenly wind blew hard and tested her, pressuring her to close her eyes and just give up. 

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” the one holding her heart in his hand asked, a tinge of commiseration flowing through his voice. “Do you not want to live?”

That wasn’t the question the guys who put her in this situation should be asking. She tightened the grip on the sword. The symbol of a silver sagebrush mildly glowed on her whole forearm like how life flickered in her eyes. And then her grip on the hilt loosened, causing the men to shower a subtle smile.

“You can barely hold the sword,” he clucked, as though he cared. “You don’t have much time. Do you want to waste the remaining seconds of your life to just pump blood to your brain?”

“I…” she said in a heavy tone as pain vibrated through her body, and no real concern was found in the eyes of those men. “I will join your side on one condition.”

“Anything. Just ask.” They sounded eager as grown men with giving-syndrome.

“Eat dog shit as your meal for the rest of your life.” Her words, every single one that flowed out along with the blood, pounded in their faces hard enough to loosen the stretchy smile they got going.

The smiles vanished swiftly as vapor. Smiles on their faces never looked like they belonged there anyway.

“It’s only natural,” the one holding her heart squeezed it into a pulp, “for those with power to hunt down those who disagree with them.”

The other one raised his hand and pointed his forefinger at her, “If we can’t get something, then no one else should.” A ray of violet light shot out of his finger and pierced through her forehead, sending her off her feet and back.

As she fell back into the darkest of valleys, the featureless summer sky further fatigued her battle-worn eyes. The sword was almost out of her hand. (Blood will soon flow everywhere. More than ever, the world now needs a whit of wonder. But what will it be? The answer to all the origins of the storms that will shake the world...)

A little noise broke at the cliff, signaling the arrival of something that wasn’t supposed to be there, causing the two predators in black cloaks to promptly turn their heads.

It surely wasn’t an innocent little rabbit. A twelve-year-old bald-headed boy was looking at them with a resolute expression, but his hands had already released two knives that whooshed through the air and reached the necks of the two men in no time. However, they effortlessly caught the knives with their fingers, both of them.

The boy’s expression drastically changed, for he wasn’t expecting his knives to be caught as if they were nothing.

They didn’t jump at the boy as would any provoked beasts. They observed him. An old bamboo hat and a full-sleeved shirt. A fruit bag on his back, and dried wooden sticks that were supposed to be in his arms were now lying at his feet.

As the boy shifted his gaze and remembered the moment the woman in white had fallen into the valley, thoughts rushed through his mind. Although she seemed beyond saving, his hands had moved on their own and thrown the knives, at least to punish her killers. But now, his knife-throwing effort proved utterly futile.

He immediately dropped the bag and started to run away at his own measly pace, but because his right leg under the knee was broken and only supported by wooden frames, he was basically no faster than a koala. And the faster he ran, the more his bones below the knees ached.

Before he took ten steps, he hit something and almost fell back. One of those men who were supposed to be tens of feet away was now standing before him. When did he cover the distance? And without making any sound whatsoever? Not a crunch of grass crackling under foot or even a swish of the cloak. What stunned him to the core, however, was when his eyes noticed nothing but a toothy smile flaring out through the shadowy hood.

“Nice throw, but a cripple like you wants to run away from us?” the man’s voice carried a superficial sense of pity. He was the same one who had crushed Arei’s heart. “You are really funny.”

“I-I shouldn’t have thrown the daggers. I will never speak a word of this to—” as the boy was speaking, he got slapped. The slap was so powerful he got blown away to the side, and many of his teeth flew out of his mouth. He was knocked out cold from all that sudden pain, and he fell from that cliff and deep into the valley. The bamboo hat, however, spiraled into the distance.

“I only intended to casually slap him, but whatever…” he still felt unsatisfied.

“You’re as cruel as ever, Desmond.” The other guy got a little kick out of what he had just witnessed. “You slapped a kid into the Valley of Vipers.”

“Well, are there people who don't get annoyed when others don’t do or say what they expect?”

“Mm. Throwing daggers indeed rubbed us the wrong way. That brat should be glad he got away with an easy death. His final resting spot will be this valley where even the most heinous criminals wouldn’t choose that for a hiding spot.”

“Indeed. That’s why we brought her here.”

“Anyway, it seems there are people on this mountain range. Should we just go and take care of them as well?” he could see that there were great-backed sloths tightly hugging the tops of the extremely tall trees in the distance and were watching them.

“Leave them be. There’s no need to attract unnecessary attention to this place.”

“You are right.”

Soon those two turned into streaks of lights and flew away and disappeared into the clouds.

Sometime later.

About six thousand meters below the ground level, deep in the valley, where darkness ruled over light as well as shadows.

“AHHH!” the bald-headed boy just woke up only to find himself in a dark closed space, next to the lady with a half-missing body. “Please don’t kill me!” he shouted in haste; however, there was no response. Just then he realized that even though she was looking at the hole in the wall—the entrance and exit of the closed space—there was no life in her eyes. He got back to his feet with great effort and then walked over to her in a strange manner, mainly with the help of his working leg, and then snapped his fingers before her face just to make sure, and she didn’t blink. Of course, with a finger-girth hole in her forehead, there was no way she would move, right?

He checked his own limbs and body, and he didn’t suffer any major injuries, although some of his teeth were missing. His stomach was churning.

“I somehow survived, but…” he looked around. “Where is this place?”

The next moment, his eyes automatically turned toward the ground where a few words were written. These words were glowing, and they were the source of light in that pitch-black cave, so his eyes automatically were drawn toward them.

The words written were, “Trust, and you’ll live. Beg, and you’ll burgeon. Redress, and you’ll reign.”

“Uh…” after staring at the text for a moment, he scratched his head a bit. “I only recently started learning to read a bit seriously, so I’m not sure if I’m reading it right or not, but I recognize the words ‘trust’ plus ‘and,’” as he was wondering, he suddenly caught sight of a small bronze plate that was placed in the middle of the text. “Eh?” he picked up the plate, and it faintly glowed. His eyes widened for a moment. “What’s this?” After looking on both sides of it, he found out that there was nothing written on it. “It definitely glowed just now, but… Given how clean it is, it was definitely placed there recently. Wait… is it possible that the words are talking about this plate?” He shook his head. “No, that’s not possible. How am I supposed to trust a plate? Surely, she wasn’t joking in her last seconds, or was she?” He looked at her once more, and then walked up to her and closed her eyes. He pursed his lips a bit as he thought of the two men who were responsible for everything. “I don’t know who you are and why those people were after you, but…” just by looking at her condition, he could tell that she had been through a lot. Moreover, she was likely the one who had helped him during the fall, or there was no way he could have survived. “I hope you are at peace now, sister.”

“Mm? My voice sounds strange.” Talking with a few missing teeth wasn’t comfortable.

HISS~~!!

A skin-tingling hiss rolled from the rear and sent shivers down his spine. He slowly swiveled in response, and it wasn’t someone sibilating. A giant blind snake, almost four meters tall, entered through the only hole in the walls. Its fangs had grown so big, they protruded out its partly-open mouth through which a forked-tongue slithered in and out. Its eyeless sockets were like pits of poison.

Before he knew it, he stood frozen as fear flowed through his veins and fiddled with his nerves. Never in his life had he seen something so dreadful. As the 300-meter-long  crystal-horned viper snake creeped onto him, he suffered silently like a rat cornered by a cat.

The enormous reptile suddenly shot its head at him. He shut his eyes and screamed in horror. It was more of a given-up scream. But before the beast’s mouth could swallow him whole, an invisible barrier repelled it and denied its advance. The snake kept banging its head against the barrier like a creature that had gone crazy. And the glow in the room kept going down. Even though he was petrified, he still understood that something was stopping the snake, and every time the serpent crashed into the barrier, the brightness of the words written on the ground decreased.

He knew he had to do something, but what could he do? Against his will, his hands were shaking like leaves, and legs were worse off. Just the thumping sounds the collision of the beast against the barrier made was heart-flinching enough to give chronically constipated old blokes instant excretion. Its screams on top were blood-curdling.

The boy, however, had bowels hardened by hunger over the years. It would take a lot more than mere screams and sounds to discolor his pants. “The plate...” He soon regained some of his composure and slapped the plate and made strange noises with it. “There must be something I can do with it. Something. If I can find what that is… then maybe...”

But as time passed, nothing happened. And the barrier was almost gone. He wanted to throw the plate away in frustration, but this was all he had.

BAM~~!!

The barrier was broken, and the last faint glow in the room was no more. Only utter darkness filled the place, and the spine-chilling hissing of the snake made the situation even worse. As the snake slithered on the dusty, stony ground, he could tell it was coming at him.

“Please help me!” he raised the plate up to his front and looked away.

But nothing happened.

However, the serpent went past the boy and swallowed up the dead body of the woman, and then began to roll on the floor, trying to digest as well as absorb the power. Its scales grew thick and big. Its violet-colored horn grew in size as well. And it was now more than five meters tall and much longer than before.

The boy had no idea of what was happening because it was absolutely dark, but the snake’s cries stressed him to the bone and beyond. As he tried to get away with his crippled leg, the beast swung its tail, caught and tossed him into its mouth and swallowed him alive.

Even though he couldn’t see anything at all, he could tell what just happened. As his body went down the snake’s throat, his skin got peeled off at an abnormal pace. “Am I going to die here?” His heart felt heavier than ever as his sister’s image came to his mind.

Frustration crossed his face. “I’m truly useless. But I don’t want to die,” as his flesh melted, his resolve strengthened. “I still have things to do. I still have someone who needs me. I can’t die here.” All the central fears in him shrank as a sea of fortitude surrounded it. “Failure is not an option.” He squeezed the plate tightly as acid corroded his body.

“Help me…. Help me, please!”

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Author's Note: The thoughts of characters are italicized and surrounded by round brackets (). In mobile Apps, the text may lose its stylization, but the thoughts will still be surrounded by (), so I hope this clears up any confusion.