Realm of Mo

[Hidden Dimension, Realm of Mo]

Orochi made his way out of the portal room, only to stop at the glyphs inscribed on the walls, which bore similarity to the script used by his people.

Several old serpent houses used the Realm as a training or hunting ground in the ancient past. Orochi could make out the glyph representing the House of Pangu, but nothing other than something about bits and pieces of their history.

If memory served him right, the Realm of Mo used to be ruled by the House of Pangu before an emerging black hole swallowed their home world up.

The glyphs could belong to the House of Pangu.

Above the portal room was the landing strip for their ships. Orochi wondered if the landing strip was in ruins by now.

He looked towards the old entrance to the Realm of Mo looked the same even after several millennia.

Anywhere was better than Mount Miwa. Misery loves company, and Orochi is not ready to accompany Ōmononushi or the two miserable souls in tow for some stupid weapon.

He frowned at the thought of how easy the swindle was to gain access to so much soul energy power.

Way too easy.

Is Ōmononushi that gullible to give him the control of the regulator? If not, why? Orochi shook the uneasy thought out of his head and pulled back his sleeve to check the glowing circular tattoo, a portal device embedded within him.

"Back-tracer," he said, and a holographic image emerged out of the device on command to display the important information.

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Orochi's lips curled upwards with smug satisfaction as he let his sleeve fall back into position, covering his forearm while the screen disappeared.

Ōmononushi attempted to place a tracing lock on him to see where the portal led to. Five times and failed.

The device on his arm overwritten each trace and misdirected it elsewhere. If they tried to look for Orochi, the device will mislead his pursuers elsewhere in the far corners of the hidden dimension.

Takamagahara and the Mishakuji could be mad at him for all he cared. Ōmononushi would probably give him an earful later if he returned to the stinking planet of Earth.

Besides, Ōmononushi wouldn't dare to report it because Takamagahara would suspect him of being in league with Orochi. Orochi factored Takamagahara's long entrenched suspicion of the Jomon into his escape plan.

Even if Ōmononushi reported his escape to Takamagahara, none of the softies, including Susanoo, in the Upper Council dared to enter the realm, except for Yatagarasu.

Yatagarasu would shoot himself in the foot since he gifted Orochi the broken mobile portal device a few centuries ago to tinker with. Orochi figured out to fix the device over the long, boring time of imprisonment. Then again, he knew better than to trust celestial crows. They came with their hidden agendas.

Orochi clenched his fists as his resentment fired up over the memories of being cooped up like a caged bird in the damn mountain in Okuizumo, and given only barely enough soul stones to operate an archaic machine as a slave.

For centuries, he bade his time for this day to escape. The forbidden Realm of Mo is the world where his ancestors once used as a training and initiation ground for elite soldiers and royals, when he was a young serpent then.

For a good reason. No ordinary soldier can survive the realm. The living creatures in the forests are unique. Unlike Earth, where Orochi could easily coerce or influence a creature, or even a weak tree soul like a kodama, the Realm of Mo's living and hidden dimension beings were more dangerous and trickier to deal with.

The Realm of Mo is also the home of the most vicious primeval beast kings, like the ones running loose looking for that Alex, and Orochi knew fighting them is not in his best interest.

Remnants of a seal shimmered in front of him at the entrance. The claw marks on the smooth cave walls made him wary, especially when he spotted a blackened control pad with static sparks flying out.

In hesitation, he turned back to look at the entrance way. Then took a few steps out as the remaining energy fragments cackled from physical contact with his body.

He looked upwards at where the landing strip would be, but the top resembled a jungle with purplish vine leaves falling untidily over the edge.

Turning back, Orochi noticed the clearing in front. A makeshift cooking pit laid at the edge with a rotting carcass on the ground. Half eaten sticks of rotting cooked meat laid around the pit.

Over three individuals were here. They hastily threw aside their food. A fight broke out, perhaps, Orochi thought as he noticed the scruff marks, cracks and deep dents on the hard soil of the ground. Fully evolved souls, like him, didn't need to eat even though they can swallow food to fit into whichever society in the world they influenced.

So the only plausible explanation was the beast kings. They are the only ones who use the meat as sustenance, instead of soul stones. Residual energy signatures still lingered in the environment and three felt familiar.

Two invaded his mountain in Okuizumo, but for the life of Orochi, he couldn't put a finger on the third.

His nostrils caught the stench of a sourish gamey smell, distracting him from his deductions. Another sniff made him ecstatic as his predatory instincts kicked in. Death has never stunk so sweetly with the aura of fear.

Then Orochi's eyes caught the trail of fresh dried blood on the ground. The girth of stained, congealed markings indicated an enormous beast with serious injuries.

He sniffed at the blood and continued walking, following its scent cautiously into the forest where the overgrown shrubs provided cover, mulling over whether to shape-shift from his human guise into his original true gargantuan form, or stay small.

Handicapped with two serpent clones left behind in the human world, Orochi only had five more to spare out of his seven serpents. The other two left behind could pretend to sit in the lair, playing prisoner to satisfy Takamagahara, until he can free them.

Orochi surveyed the area for landmarks and odd details with great care, committing their features into memory, as he moved in stealth behind a tree, paying heed to walk over the broken twigs.

The sight of the first strewn lifeless corpse of a gorilla sized feline with sabre-like canines and large wings. Its eyes glazed over with an opaque film, a sign of poisoning.

Something ripped out its long sausage like intestines, laying in a ripped pile, partially dried on the bare brownish ground. The sheer brutality brought a smile to his face.

Orochi looked ahead and noticed more strewn lifeless carcasses of bloodied beasts, some too mutilated to identify, filled the path like trash carelessly discarded after death.

Even the small bodies of a bird-like creature laid on the bare brownish path before him with the carcasses made it look like a graveyard.

Orochi frowned at the scene of wanton killing. Whatever that attacked them went on a rampage in one hell of a blood thirsty killing frenzy.

Not a beast king, they would only kill what they had to eat. He squatted over the corpse and examined the deep gashes on it by pushing the fur back with his fingers.

A stinging pain stabbed into his finger and he noticed an escaping trace of reddish miasma, a tell tale sign of injuries inflicted by either his kind or a creature of the hidden dimension, which transformed to the physical form.

His ears pricked up at the sound of groans echoing around him. Movement in the air is still. Too still. Except for the wind rustling the trees, he couldn't hear any creature or the infamous flying insects which roamed the realm at all.

He slowly got up and backed away into the trees for safety. Carefully studying the marks on the trees, he noticed scrapes against them. And one dark shimmery purple scale, almost blackish, stuck out of a tree.

Orochi inspected the scale that resembled a common wood fungus found in the realm.

He plucked the scale, which was as big as his hand, out of the tree trunk to examine it. A quick stabbing pain in his hand forced him to drop it. The scale vanished in a small puff of the same earlier reddish miasma when it touched the ground.

Had he no immunity, the miasma might have penetrated his energy waves.

"Thank you," a voice emanated from the tree.

Orochi widened his eyes in surprise. A kodama, the soul of a tree, spoke to him for the first time in the Realm of Mo.

"What happened here?" He asked, but not expecting an answer. This isn't Earth and the kodama here, like Takamagahara, knew how to gang up against one individual. Personal experience told him that much.

"A battle between the two beast kings and Kanghui a moon ago. That's all I can say in gratitude. Oh, and avoid the north."

Kanghui is here, Orochi thought and then recalled the clearing. Not good news since two beast kings left the realm to hunt down bait in Okuizumo.

They really wanted to kill Kanghui for freedom from the contract. Then a question popped into his head - if Kanghui is here, where is Kanghui now?

Not that he really wanted to meet Kanghui again. Both of them stayed out of each other's way since they knew each other, but maybe it is time to meet a worthy opponent or… a new ally he can use.

Orochi looked up and searched the skies for the location of the south star, the only fixed constellation around the realm. Then his eyes narrowed at the faint yellow aura in the dusky skies. North is straight ahead.