Li Yu traveled west, leaving the volcanic lands of Cinder Rest behind. The terrain shifted gradually. The blackened earth gave way to rocky foothills and eventually rose into the Mist-Veil Mountains.
This region was rugged and isolated. The peaks were constantly shrouded in low-hanging clouds and the valleys were deep. The area was covered with large trees and ancient pines. The thing that stood out the most was the silence. It was the kind of place people went when they did not want to be found.
Li Yu walked with the relaxed pace of a person that had nowhere to be. His bamboo staff was clicking against the stone path. He was enjoying the solitude, silence, using the ti to develop his techniques and enjoying beautiful scenery here.
On the third afternoon of his trek through the mountains he caught the scent of woodsmoke. It was faint and mixed with the sll of roasting herbs. It wasn't the sll of a traveler's campfire, but of a permanent camp or ho.
Curious as to who could be out here Li Yu followed the scent. He veered off the trail, climbed up a steep ridge and then descended into a hidden bowl-shaped valley that was completely cut off from the main roads.
Nestled beside a small and clear mountain stream was a cabin. It looked decently well built, a sign that the people staying here intended to stay for a long ti. However, it wasn’t exactly what soone would call a high quality built ho either.
The base was made of heavy black stone that looked like it was gathered from the surrounding area. The upper structure was delicate timber framing, typical of human craftsmanship. A garden out front grew both hardy mountain tubers, herbs and delicate flowers.
Li Yu approached openly and did not sense any malice from the place. He probed deeper to be sure and sensed two people inside but neither of them seed bad. As he stepped into the clearing the door to the cabin burst open.
A massive figure charged out and was holding a heavy iron wood-splitting axe. It was a Xul'Thar male, his grey skin covered in old scars. The thing that stood out the most was that one of his horns was broken halfway up. He placed himself between Li Yu and the cabin and was growling low in his throat.
"Stay back!" the demon roared.
Behind him a human woman stepped into the doorway. She held a crossbow, her hands trembling slightly but her aim true. She was dressed in simple hospun clothes and her hair tied back with a leather cord.
Li Yu stopped moving and dropped his bamboo staff and raised his empty hands. "I an no harm. I was just following the sll of the campfire.."
The demon didn't lower the axe. He was looking Li Yu up and down, trying to gauge the intentions of this human who had shown up out of nowhere. Then his eyes locked onto Li Yu’s chest.
Stitched onto the lapel of Li Yu’s robe was a "gift" from a tailor in one of the previous towns, Root Hollow, who insisted on honoring the local legend. It was a design of a small stylized red crab.
The demon’s eyes went wide and the woman gasped when she noticed it as well.
"The Crab Cult," the woman whispered, lowering the crossbow slightly. "It’s him... The one the stories talk about. A young boy who is more demonic than even the most dangerous demons. Little Crab!"
The demon’s grip on the axe tightened but his shoulders slumped in defeat. "If you are him... then we cannot fight you. The stories say you can flatten mountains with a thought."
They were both entirely wrong but also one hundred percent correct just by chance.
"I prefer not to flatten anything if I can avoid it," Li Yu said gently while still being exasperated by their misunderstanding but also how they had landed on the correct conclusion. "Especially not peaceful hos."
He looked between the two of them. The tension, the fear, the protective stance of the demon and the fierce loyalty in the woman's eyes. It was a story told without words. He could take a guess at why they were here and why they were on such high alert.
"I am wandering," Li Yu said. "I have no quarrel with you. In fact, I am quite tired. May I rest here for a few days? I will happily pay in resources you might need or sothing else you are interested in."
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The couple exchanged a look. They were terrified but they also knew that if Li Yu wanted them dead, they would already be dead. He was after all Little Crab the destroyer of countless Xylarri lives.
"We... we cannot stop you," the demon rumbled, finally lowering the axe. "I am Bavork. This is Lina."
"I am Li Yu," he replied.
"You can stay," Lina said while stepping forward and placing a hand on Bavork’s massive arm to calm him. Where she got her confidence from to even do that she did not know. "But our ho is small. We have no guest room."
"I need no room," Li Yu smiled. "I will build my own."
He walked to the edge of the clearing near the treeline. He found fallen timber and he gathered river stones. For the next two days the powerful Soul Formation cultivator worked with his hands as if he was a mortal to build his ho.
He stripped the bark from the logs. He mixed mud and straw to make mortar. He stacked the stones to create a foundation at the bottom.
As he worked a strange lancholic peace settled over him.
He rembered the ti before sects, before wars, before all of it. He rembered a small drafty hut in his village that he and his parents lived in. He rembered his father patching the roof before the winter snows. He rembered his mother humming as she swept the dirt floor.
It was a hard life but it was a life filled with a specific kind of warmth. The warmth of survival, joy and all the emotions and mories in between. Most importantly it was emotions and mories shared with people you loved.
Li Yu placed a log and he secured it with a wooden peg he had whittled himself.
Thunk.
The sound echoed in his mory.
Bavork and Lina watched him from a distance at first, confused by this powerful entity playing at being a mortal builder. But slowly the fear they had for him faded.
On the second day Bavork approached with a bucket of water.
"You... you notch the wood differently," Bavork noted, pointing at the corner joint.
"It is an old style," Li Yu said, wiping sweat from his forehead. "From my ho village. It holds better against the wind, I rember my father saying. This is the only way I know how to do it."
"Show ," Bavork grunted.
By the afternoon, the demon and the human cultivator were working side by side. Bavork had the strength of ten n, lifting the heavy ridge beam into place with ease while Li Yu handled the precision joinery. Not only were they working on Li Yu’s hut, they were also making corrections and improvents to Bavork’s house as well.
That evening they ate together around a fire outside.
"How did this happen?" Li Yu asked, gesturing between them.
Lina smiled at the question and was looking at the massive demon with soft eyes. "The war that happened in an instant. My village was lucky that it was further to the west but also unlucky that it too soon got overrun by Xylarri beasts. I was quickly cornered and thought I was dead."
"I was part of a forward scouting party for the Demonic group strike force," Bavork rumbled, staring into the fire. "I saw her. She was... fighting. She had a pitchfork against one of the Xylarri and was going to be killed. She was terrified but she did not put down her weapon. She was going to fight until her last breath."
"He saved ," Lina said. "He took a blow ant for . That is how he broke his horn. After the battle... as our village was being evacuated by the Alliance. My village did not want him there. They called him a monster because several of the elders from my village had friends or family killed by Demon outbreaks in the past. But I saw him. I saw the person."
"After the war was over, I tried to et her again but was condemned by her village. Instead of going back and trying to rebuild it we decided to leave together. Fearing both my own side and clearly her side didn’t want there," Bavork said simply.
"We found this valley. It is quiet. But we know it is forbidden or at least not looked well upon. Humans and Xul'Thar... the war is over, but the hate is not. It is understandably still there. We are not looking to change the views of everyone else. We simply want to be together for as long as our love exists."
Li Yu nodded slowly. "Change is slow. Hate is heavy. But love... love is one of the few things strong enough to carry that weight. I won’t say I know anything about love myself. However, I saw the love my parents had for each other and for . It was one of the strongest driving forces in their entire lives."
He looked at the small hut he had built. It was rough, small and drafty. It was perfect.
"This hut that I built… that you helped build… it reminds of ho," Li Yu whispered.
The peace in this small area of the world lasted for four days since Li Yu’s arrival. On the fifth morning, the sound of shouting shattered the calm of the valley.
Li Yu was ditating by the stream when he felt the disturbance. Chaotic Qi in the air. Angry footsteps. He opened his eyes and stood up. It was easy to tell what was going on. Erging from the trail were twenty people. They were a mix of local villagers that lived on the edge of this mountain range and a handful of low-level cultivators wearing the robes of a local sect, the Red-Peak Sect.
Leading them was a middle-aged cultivator with a goatee and a sword strapped to his back. He radiated the aura of the late Foundation Establishnt realm, which made him a god in these remote mountains.
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