“That’s my home?” the spider looked at the tomb, surrounded by the desert. “That can’t be it; my home is in the forests.”
“Well, you can ask about that to your ancestors. They are the reason this place is no longer a forest,” Ning said as he looked at the tiny people that came and went from inside the tomb.
“Are those people there to look at the beasts?” Dahlia asked.
“No, the beasts are inside a seal, so the people down there are only looking at a bunch of scams,” Ning said. “Let’s go down.”
The three of them slowly floated down to the tomb, and immediately people started noticing them. Ning and Dahlia were fine, but the massive spider flying in the air was a scene straight out of nightmare for many.
The guards of the tomb started pouring out to fight the Spider. They didn’t know how strong the spider was, but they were being paid to fight, so they would.
They all flew into the air, with weapons ready in their hands. They would sure fight the spider, even if it was to just test how strong he was, or to let the other people escape before the spider attacked them all.
However, when they got close, they couldn’t help but stop. Behind the spider, they saw Ning flying down as well.
They still remembered their terror from over a month ago when they had to fight against Ning and just his mere presence had scared them all.
“Run!” they shouted and flew back to the tomb to let everyone know that danger was approaching. Soon, no one remained in the tomb.
“That works quite well in our favor,” Ning said with a chuckle.
Dahlia started asking some questions as to why the people showed such behavior, but Ning sidestepped all the questions.
“So, is this where you left the three?” Dahlia finally asked after they had all reached the room in the middle of the tomb.
“Yes… this is where I left them,” Ning said, without paying much attention to what he was saying. His attention was clearly somewhere else.
“How do I get there, young man? Please tell me,” the Spider said very excitedly. It couldn’t wait to return back after nearly a millenia.
Ning looked at the shadow on his right and started wondering what direction he was facing currently. It took him a while but he realized. When he did, he couldn’t help but sigh.
“It’s afternoon right now,” he said.
Dahlia and the spider didn’t know what that meant so they asked, “So?”
Ning thought for a second and went to the center to remove the rock that was there. Once the half formation was clearly showed, he placed a coin at the center of it and said, “Step aside from this center part for a while, okay? Its a formation.”
The two of them nodded and waited. Ning disappeared and appeared high in the air above the tomb. He raised his hand and suddenly bright light started appearing from it that made even him wince a little.
He closed his eyes and sent his divine sense down to see what was going on. The shadows from the ceiling was completely misaligned, by a large margin, so he started moving around to fix it perfectly.
Dahlia and the spider were inside the room, looking at the shadow slowly moved around until it finally aligned.
“GET IN!” Ning’s voice sounded inside both of their heads and they simultaneously stepped into the formation. In a flash, the two of them disappeared.
“Now, what should I do,” Ning thought. He focused and started letting the ball of light float away from his hand at a steady rate.
Once he felt that it was stable, he teleported direclty onto the formation and disappeared the same.
When he reappeared, he didn’t waste a moment and teleported directly to the bottom, and managed to catch the falling Dahlia.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. She hadn’t expected to fall at all. “Thank you!”
The spider on the other hand had stuck to the side of the wall and was now crawling on it. “I would’ve caught her,” it said.
“Let’s go,” Ning said and walked to the center hall where everyone remained. The entire way, Dahlia couldn’t help but be amazed at how terrifying the gashes on the walls were.
When they finally reached the statue, Ning proclaimed, “I brought your descendant back.”
“Ancestors!” the spider cried out when he saw them.
“Is that really you, my child?” the spider statue cried out as well.
Ning saw the happiness in the spiders face, and soon everyone started to thank Ning. “Human, we hadn’t even given you the method to find our descendant, and yet you brought one back already in just a week. How did you do that?” The drake asked.
“Just luck, I guess,” Ning said. “Anyway, I’ll see you guys later. I’m going in to meet my beasts.”
Dahlia followed behind as Ning walked towards the stone door and disappeared into it. She slowly put her arms inside the stone and soon she disappeared too.
When she reappeared, she saw that Ning was already at the end of the cave. The spider followed behind her and looked at the opening with tears in all of its 8 eyes.
It hurriedly walked to the end and cried,”I’m home. I’M FINALLY HOME!”
Its screams reached all the way to the bottom of the cliff where the beasts heard it and flew up. “BROTHERS! SISTERS! I’m back,” the spider cried out and jumped into the forest.
All beasts ignored the presense of Ning and Dahlia and went to meet their newly returned brother. All but 3.
Aegis, Night and Blue flew up to the cave’s opening where Ning was standing. “Master, you’re back?” they asked with surprise.
“Hey you guys. I haven’t seen you in a while,” Dahlia said from behind.
“Eh? Little Dahlia, you came here too?” Blue said in surprise.
“Yes, Grandmaster brought me,” she said.
“How are you all doing? Are you having fun?” Ning asked.
“Yes, master. It’s really fun,” Blue said.
“We’re doing well, master,” Aegis said as well.
Night nodded slightly to show that he was having fun as well.
“But Master,” Blue said, “Why did you return so early? I thought you were supposed to come back a month later.”
“Oh, that… right. I didn’t know time moved differently here. It’s already been over a month on the outside,” Ning said. “Well, you guys are having fun, so that’s all that’s important.”
The 5 of them talked for a while, and the other beasts came up to them too. Ning let the beasts show Dahlia around, who couldn’t believe how many beasts there were still alive.
They stayed there for a couple of hours as that was the most Ning was willing to spend before days disappeared in the real world.
Once it was time, Ning decided to return.
“What do you guys want to do? You can stay if you want. I have no problem with that. Besides, I’m going to settle down now, and you guys won’t have the chance to leave or anything,” Ning said.
Unanimously, the 3 of them decided to stay. This place felt like a home to them and they didn’t want to leave this place unless necessary.
Ning smiled when he saw that. He was trully happy to see them happy.
“Alright then, I will see you guys soon,” Ning said and flew away with Dahlia. They returned back to the place with the statues.
“I’m going to leave now. What should I do to find your descendants?” Ning asked.
“Wait, let us give you a small technique,” the beasts said and started humming some words to Ning. Ning didn’t understand what they were trying to say but some sort of knowledge entered his mind. When the beasts were done, Ning had now learned a new technique.
He decided to use it and suddenly many feelings, all of which led to the statues appeared inside him. “Oh, so this is supposed to help me track down your descendants huh? It’s not bad,” Ning said.
“Yes, please use that to find them. Since we have nothing to hold you to this promise, you can instead view this as a request. So, you can not do it if you don’t want to either. We will leave it up to you,” the beasts said.
“Don’t worry. I have some free time, so I can help you. Although, I will be a little slow. Goodbye,” Ning said and walked away.
He grabbed Dahlia and flew to the ceiling. He entered the exit formation and suddenly felt his body lurch in a different direction from what should be. He hurriedly pulled Dahlia into his arms and protected her as much as he could.
The intense feeling of lurch disappeared in a few seconds, and when it was done, they were outside of the formation. Only, they weren’t inside the tomb anymore.
Fresh air rushed past Ning as he slowly let go of Dahlia. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” Dahlia said as he tried to get rid of the dizziness she was feeling. “That… that feeling, it reminded me of something,” she said.
Ning looked around at the many islands that was scattered around below their feet. “We were teleported; that was the feeling you felt,” Ning said.
Dahlia nodded.
“I see,” Ning said. “No wonder the spider showed up in the southern continent’s forest. There was a goddamn teleportation formation sneaked into the exit formation.”