Back to false safety

The snake slithered to a safer area, away from the now chaotic town and under the covers of forestry. The other snakes slithered off the bigger one, as she transformed back to a half human.

"We are safe here, for now. I'll be going back to the main forest, and I must say it was smart of you to hitch your escape through me," the snake chuckled, amused with Miko's intelligence. After all, foxes with a single tail are generally young, and do not have the mental capacity or intelligence to scheme.

Miko transformed back into a half human as well, condensing simple clothes on her body. It was a simple white gown with long sleeves up to her knees. Her pastel, rose coloured hair fluttered in the breeze as she swayed her tail a little to give her some balance. "Thank you for the complement, of course I wouldn't have done so without being confident in your abilities." Miko replied.

The snake looked at Miko wide-eyed, shock. Foxes under third stage could not condense a human form, and Miko was only of the second stage. Miko understood the snake's confusion and replied, "Its a long story how I got to this state. I used to be stronger, but I made a deal with a god to exchange my powers for something. However, I'm still able to transform into human at will. Anyway, would you believe that I'm already four hundred years old? For some reason I lost my tails as well, but not my memory or intelligence. Perhaps this was to ensure I could never achieve godhood in exchange." The snake nodded in understanding, but decided not to press on further. Her curiosity has already been satiated, and everyone kept secrets, including herself. Sometimes, such secrets were deadly, and best not to be known.

"I see, I'll be going now. I have finished my business here, and given my baby snakes some herbs for cultivation," the snake said, slithering away. "Also, as an additional warning you can choose to heed, don't go around causing trouble like that when you are still this weak. Many beasts only venture out of the forest at third stage at least. You will only become a target for other humans. If you want to play around, go to those settlements nearer the forest or mountains. The worst choice you can make is to head to the central city."

"What is the central city?" Miko asked. Having been asleep for so long, she had lost touch with the human realm of the past. The snake paused in her tracks, her little snakes stopping along with her as well.

"You don't know?" The snake asked, her eyes widening in surprise. The central city was the suicide zone of all spirits, so few ever dared to visit, even powerful ones above the seventh stage avoided it. It was infamous among all spirits in recent years, all of them knowing it would be digging their own grave going there.

The snake, seeing Miko shake her head, began to explain, "The central city is the capital of this country. In our current continent, there is only one country, but the number may vary if you head to larger continents. The capital is filled with strong human cultivators, along with various sects and nobles. As we all know, each cultivator, regardless whether human or beast, has a bottleneck. Theirs is at seventh stage, making them more powerful. As such, the central cty is overun by many of such cultivators. Then, there are royal and noble families. Noble families may have lesser cultivation compared to the royals, but the royals are all incredibly powerful with a unique bloodline. So I heard, their bloodline pushes the bottleneck to eighth stage, and causes the amount of cultivation required from first to third stage to be the same, making it easier for them to cultivate. Then there are sects, with powerful masters in various fields such as inscription, alchemy, forging, etc. As such, at your current state, you wouldn't make it out if you entered." The snake explained. Miko now understood why her brother was worried with her running about. With her naivity and cluelessness, she could accidentally stumble into the central city one day without even knowing! Miko quickly thanked the snake, and went on her own way back home. In fear of people recognising her as the fox, she transformed into a complete human and covered herself in an illusion, turning her hair a brown colour. Usually, humans had brown and black hair, with few having unique colourations such as blue, pink, green, purple, so on and so forth. Like beasts, it usually meant they could cultivate, although half of them could not. This was one reason how Miko blended in so well in society for a long time.

Miko mamaged to sneak back to the residence undetected. News was already circulating around about the beast attack. The townsfolk were all on edge, unrest spreading like wildfire among them. Miko knew she could not stay here for long. If they did, there was a high chance those powerful cultivators from central city would have made their way here. By then, it would be dificult for Miko to remain hidden as they could sniff out her aura. Although their sense of auras were dull, human cultivators could tell apart beast and other human cultivators. That meant when the powerful ones arrived, Miko's cover would be blown. However, this incident also allowed Miko to leave under the pretext of immenient danger. Miko spent the remainder of the afternoon placing the remaining cultivation into the bottle to reabsorb later. However, she could not fully concentrate, since she was paranoid about Tashi returning home early due to the incident. Like she expected, Tashi did return home earlier than normal working hours.

"Are you alright?" Tashi asked, checking her body for injury

"Mhm, anything wrong?" Miko asked. He had probably caught wind of the news already, so she just decided to play dumb, as if she had not went out the entire day.

"There was a beast attack this morning around ten to eleven at the town square, right outside a shop selling cultivation items. It was near the lake. Are you alright? Were you scared? Are you hurt?" Tashi asked, reaching out to grab Miko's waist. Miko pushed his hands away, shaking her head. A normal person would not recover this quickly, and she did not have any excuse to begin with.

"I'm fine, I wasn't even there... why would I be?" She lied, "so why are you home early?"

"To make sure you're safe, idiot... What would I do if you were to die by the attack of those monsters? You might have not been there, but who knows how many of them are lurking around now?" Tashi replied, his thumb brushing her lips. Miko adverted her gaze, and but Tashi continued, withdrawing his hand, "How was your lunch anyway? Did you go out?"

"I..." Miko trailed off. As a spiritual beast, she could choose not to eat or sleep for a much longer time than humans. However, how could she say she was not hungry?

"Uhh... I'm trying to lose weight. My family said I have gained weight recently so..." She replied instead.

"I'll make dinner, you must be hungry after skipping lunch. And you don't have to lose weight, I think you are perfectly beautiful," Tashi whispered, brushing a kiss to her forehead.

Miko nodded before asking, "Do you think we could leave by tommorrow? It dosen't feel safe here after what happened."

"Sure. I'll take you to the central city tommorrow then, if that's what you are afraid of. There are many powerful masters there, no beast would dare to step foot inside. Even if there were, I'm sure those cultivators would be able to fight against them... I sure do wish I was a cultivator..." Tashi said.