Guardian: The Awakening

The Land Of Poison

-Zhu Hong-

That night Zhu Hong had indeed dream with the land of poison. She was granted the insight of what to expect in the next territory, which was more dangerous that she expected, because what awaits them there was more than clouds of poisons and a ground full of holes.

As she wake up in the morning and the others did as well, she passed around a medicinal pill that will neutralize the poisons for the coming hours, because of all the territories, that one was the shortest. However that didn't meant it was the safest. She came closer to Yunlan and pass on the insight information Nuwa had granted in her dreams.

"Worms? Huge ones, huh... Ah... and here I thought I had already seen it all. Damn, I hate worms." Yunlan joked.

"Yunlan, this is serious..." Shen Wei said.

"Of course it is, my Wei..." Zhao said, giving his lover a light kiss on his cheek. Zhu Hong smiled as she watched the Fire Prince go red in embarrassment.

"Don't worry, Zhu. We will deal with the worms as we encounter them. Luckily it will not be for too long and as long as we take care of each other, we will surpass this the same way as we did before. The question is, are you ready, Zhu? I know the last happenings had affect you quite dearly..." Zhu looked at the direction in which Da Qing was talking with Guo.

"I'm fine as long as he lives, worry not." Zhu whisper and Zhao arched an eyebrow.

"How strong is your link to him now?" Yunlan asked.

"The same as yours with Shen Wei, I guess." Shen blushed as Zhao gave him a more or less indecent look.

"Then it's quite strong indeed. Ah, young love, how wonderful... don't worry, your Earth Prince is strong too, I just hope you can have him when going back to our land, the same way I will have my Fire Prince heating my water every night." Zhao said.

"Yunlan!" Zhao laughed, taking Wei's hand and kissing it very softly, making both Wei and Zhu blush even more.

After all of them were ready, they go out of the stone. There was a purple cloud covering the ground, but with Zhu's medicine, they were immune to the poison for the next twelve hours, however, they needed to be careful as they walked, because the cloud of poison was covering the holes and Guo would had fall inside one of them if it wasn't for Chu's pulling him back just before he stumble in.

After that, Da Qing leaded the way, avoiding the holes he sensed in the ground and bordering those ones who were too big avoid. At all times, Da Qing keep his eyes closed, while holding Zhu's hand. There were relaying on their spiritual connection, so he could feel the things Zhu did that could risk their lives from the poison cloud. They soon find out that there were many kinds of creatures that lived under the ground cloud, but most of them were fairly small, not like the huge worms Zhu warned them.

"Hey Qing, just where are they? Did they leave?" Chu voiced, making Da look back in annoyance.

"Are you that eager to fight? The holes go too deep in the ground for me to sense all the way down, back off." Qing warned and so they walked in silence for around an hour, killing those other small creatures that dare to attack them. Then one small hound like creature, begin making a deep sound that resonate in the valley and then, another further away seems to answer back.

"Shen Wei!" But even before Yunlan yelled to him, he was already half releasing a fire arrow to kill it.

"Damn, they are coming up! Shen Wei, send fire inside the holes!" Qing yelled and the Fire Prince gather his energy to cast it away into the multiple holes, ignitiating them as deep as he could, but still, the things came out, even if they were half burned.