A Close Call

At the side of the Crystal-veined stream, a fluffy white with a tinge of gray Mirage Fox had been resting with his eyes closed under a shady brindleberry tree. The weather was sunny, with plops of clouds as thick as cotton candy scattered around. As a result of the forest clearing around the Serpent's Lair, more sunshine brightened the surrounding and lifted the mood of its inhabitants of differing species. 

It was just another day, where everyone had their own task at different fields under the supervision of the Elemental Fiend Primordial Queen Mother, Q-chan. Although the Mistress called her that way, the others were too fearful to call her as such since it sounded very disrespectful, hence, in general, others called her Lady Queen. The Mirage Fox, Lord Shiro, hadn't resumed his control, but nothing changed.

Shiro had been waiting for Mistress Hana since morning. He was unperturbed, rather, feeling quite serene with the change of air. The air within the cave dwelling felt somewhat stuffy after so many days of staying inside. Shiro opened one eye and observed the deepest part of the stream not too far away before he closed it back again.

At the deepest part of the Crystal-veined stream where the translucent waters turned a shade darker, Hana was sitting cross-legged with her eyes closed. She was fully immersed, with about three feet of water above her head. If she stood up, she could easily break the surface of the gentle-flowing stream. 

Ara, the Crystal-drop Tilapia Young Miss was just a few feet away from her. Hana was practicing her Soul-link synchronization with Ara to use underwater breathing. Another way to improve her Soul Power was to improve its quality, not just quantity. Hana noticed that she couldn't stay linked to her Soul Slaves indefinitely. Once her concentration was broken, the link would easily disintegrate. It took a lot of effort to reconnect. If she was too stressed or had emotional turmoil, it became harder to connect to anyone, hence, the need for some practice to maintain the connection at longer periods.

Although she wasn't sure about the mechanism of breathing underwater as a human being, she had faith in the soul-based cultivation technique. She noticed that using full Soul-link with Ara more frequently will make the established bond stays longer and more stable. This was only her fifth time linking with Ara, but she had successfully stayed underwater for one hour and 12 minutes, a feat no normal humans could do!

After superficially exploring her own body and Ara's, Hana noticed that once the link was up, she had essentially stopped using her own organs. It was too obvious since no bubbles appears from her mouth or nose. Instead, she felt a connection as if Ara was breathing for her. She couldn't truly confirm this since more elaborate experimentation was needed. This concept cross-checked her ability to see through the eyes of Kuro and Q-chan. Sharing the breathing ability of different environments was by far more intriguing than sharing vision. 

Nonetheless, the vision provided by both Kuro and Q was unique in their own ways. Kuro gave a single, HD heat sensor-like vision, while Q-chan's sight was telepathically enhanced multi-vision with thousands of her nestmates, the CCTV vision. Both kinds of vision have their own merits in differing situations. With the added new breathing technique, Hana's view was broadened again to new heights. 

Witholding breath for tens of minutes was great for emergency situations. Witholding hours of breath underwater would make underwater exploration possible! All bodies of water would eventually lead to the ocean. Even Kuro and Markisah had hinted about the existence of the unknown ocean to Hana on several occasions. The ocean means salt and seafood! How marvelous it would be!

Hana opened her glowing aquamarine eyes as she smiled at Ara! She gave an approving nod with a thumbs up to show her deep appreciation for the Young Miss. 

This seemingly simple Soul-link mattered a lot to the aunty. It wasn't wrong to have dreams! She just had to make it into reality. However, the aunty was not stupid nor reckless. She knew she also needed to strengthen her own body to resist the pressure and to prepare for the eventuality of being attacked by ocean beasts. Hence, it would be a very far-off dream.

Let's work hard to see her body's limits! 

During the last battle with the Silver-banded Eagles, Hana realized that she couldn't Soul-link properly with all available Soul Slaves to use different abilities at the same time. Due to urgency, she chose Q-chan as the main linker to give her multiple all-rounder compound vision. She had to link sporadically with the others during critical times only. Thank goodness, telepathic communication didn't need any extra effort on her part.

Hana had new short-term goals. 

She needed to establish more permanent bonds with her contracted Soul Slaves to gain access to their unique senses. Afterward, she had to practice multiple soul-links to be able to use a few senses at the same time to have higher versatility. Looking at the number of Soul Slaves she had, she know it would be a long road ahead. 

Mommy, I brought presents for you. Kuro's cherry voice resounded telepathically in Hana's head. Finally, he was back! Her favorite pet snake had been silent for three whole days after he brought back the nasty fire pangolin. Hana missed him quite a lot, but she held out and didn't wish to disturb Kuro from whatever he was doing underground. She was the one who permitted the Subterranean Subjugation Project.

Alright, give Mommy five minutes to dry myself, Sweetie. Kuro always gave her a pleasant surprise every time he came back from excursions. After a good amount of 'practice', a short pause was always welcomed, especially when there were presents for her waiting.

The aunty stood up from the middle of the stream, her pitch-black elaborate braid was thick and extremely long like a 1.5-meter sailing rope. The water easily cascade down from her black-clad bodysuit made from Kuro's molted skin. The wrapped Clawknife had always been tied to her waist at all times for safety reasons. As she walked languidly to the riverbank, Shiro passed her faded brown sweater with his paws.

Hana chuckled with mirth as she petted Shiro's head. When the sweet little fox was standing on his hind legs, he was slightly taller than Hana. He was very cute!

The aunty dried herself slightly with the sweater and wore it over her bodysuit to cover herself a bit. She was always unaccustomed to showing off her skin in public and had remained that way to this day even when there was no other human around.

 The duo turned to look at the ground floor of the cave dwelling at the same time. Kuro slithered towards them with a crowd of Elemental Fiends towing something over.

A stiff dark brown rabbit with its eyes rolling upwards the size of a 7-year old toddler. There was even some foam at the corner of its mouth. However, its fur looked so soft and fluffy.

A trembling short and round rat-like thing without eyes the size of an Asian adult. Its whiskers were quivering nonstop. Its four limbs had horrifyingly enlarged claws that looked like an old-fashioned scythe while its rows upon rows of teeth reminded Hana of sharks.

A grayish ant-like insect with a boulder-like body structure the size of a small boat. Without its six limbs, it will look like a formation of boulders side by side. It was incapacitated with lots of Bubble glue. But its antenna was moving left and right rapidly as if they were trying to sense the surrounding.

"Do you like it, Mommy?!" Kuro enthusiastically quipped with shining eyes, begging to be praised.

Hana sweated, "..." She couldn't say a word. 

"..Er, yeah, lovely. How do you want me to cook them? The rabbit and rat could be made into stew or curry if you like, but Mommy never cooked insects before, Sweetie. Mommy had seen in documentaries, deepfrying them with turmeric and salt was the way to go for the locals. I can try that for you." Hana stealthily planned not to take even a single bite. To eat something so cute and something rat-like wasn't her cup of tea. Ants? It's a no-go. However, since her beloved Kuro had gone all out to fetch some ingredients for her, she didn't have the heart to say no.

Kuro was silent for a whole minute before he burst out laughing in front of Shiro and Hana.

"Mommy, these are the local Lords working under the Fire Pangolin. They collect resources and food for him. An Earth Rabbit, a Fanged Mole, and, surprisingly that pangolin was able to enslave a small Earth Fiend's nest, or it ate the majority of them and only left some. This is their Queen Mother. They ate rocks to survive and kept to themselves unless threatened."

Realization dawned upon her. These were new 'recruits'! Hana blushed in dismay. She quickly changed the topic, "Why are they being tortured like this? Did they fight you?"

Kuro sighed exaggeratedly, "I didn't hurt anyone. The pangolin trapped them over for us. Once my spiritual sense brushed over them, the rabbit went into a seizure and the mole couldn't stop shaking. Only the ant tried to fight to escape. Chomper and Alpy Bubble-glued her for good of course. But we really didn't hurt anyone. I haven't even been able to talk to them, much less persuade them to join our cause willingly."

Hana and Shiro sighed speechlessly after they heard Kuro's narration. These spiritual beasts were so timid! 

Hana stepped forward as Shiro pricked her fingers...

...

..

.

Hana curled in a fetal position while being wrapped around by Kuro protectively. At the moment, Kuro was in his gigantic form. He was trying to control his rage from exploding at the new soul slaves.

Something went terribly wrong during the Soul-pact session. It had been done so many times until Kuro had become lax with security, resulting in such a situation. 

Although Mommy was still unconscious, her whole body was trembling in pain with her eyes closed. She looked so fragile, so small. Mommy rarely showed her vulnerable side to others. She was always the happy-go-lucky one, or during serious times, in strict mother mode. Hence, when Kuro saw Mommy look this way, it broke his heart. 

He had witnessed a bitter fight between Mommy and the feisty gray ant. The fight wasn't physical, but it was happening between two Soul Hall Domains. It turned out that he had misjudged the weak gray ant's Soul Power.

The Soul Power of the ant was higher than Mommy, and it didn't want to be subjugated. Although a large number of its abilities were suppressed by Kuro, it manage to find Mommy's Soul Hall Domain's weakness and attacked relentlessly. Her Soul Hall Domain nearly collapsed!

Kuro was so shocked seeing how Mommy retaliate. She was shouting with exploding rage and had unconsciously siphoned everyones' soul power including his to repeatedly stab the gray ant's domain. The soul attacks were tiny, but sharp and numerous. They came down on the ant's domain like unending rain. 

Even Kuro shuddered at the sight. 

He had never seen such manipulation before. Normally, a spiritual beast with high soul power would not be affected by Soul Needle Attacks performed by a weaker-leveled spiritual beast. 

But Mommy succeeded. Seventy percent of the gray ant's Soul Hall Domain collapsed and was immediately absorbed by Mommy, forcing it to submit, or it would die from the instability of its own domain. Instead of willingly letting Mommy absorb fifty percent of its Soul Hall Domain, it lost so much and was nearing death.

It was a close call.

He had thought that this was the end for all of them.

...