Chapter 83: Surviving the Hole

The falling feeling had overtaken Zen, growing from his head, to his arms to the pit of his stomach. He flipped uncontrollably in mid-air, looking down at the wooden pikes awaiting to impale him upon landing.

A bur of white fell past him.

“Pulsing Palm!” Xue Shaonu hit the ground and a three pulses of white ki spread out along the ground, uprooting and throwing the pikes to the edges of the hole, making it safe for Zen to land on the ground with a thud.

Deng Ai was reading a book on his bed when there was knock on the door. He tilted his head in confusion before closing the book, marking the page he was on with his finger before walking to the door and opening it.

“Let me in!”

The commanding voice of Jao Fuu took him so off-guard that he fell off his feet. “C-Come in.”

“Where is he?” she asked as she stomped in, the barrier letting her into the room now that she had permission. “Where is he?”

“Who… Who are you looking for?”

“Oh you know,” she said. “Wang Zen. My brother is missing and I suspect he has something to do with it.”

“Wang Zen is gone,” Deng Ai said, getting back uup to his feet. “I suspect he has gone home like my other roomma…”

“He’s not back home. I know for a fact!”

“Well… no… he couldn’t have.”

“What?”

“If he has not gone home, then he may have gone to the Horn Forest to look for the Snow Ram.”

“And he dragged my brother there.” Fuu folded her arms in anger. “You, pack your bags. You’ll be leading me to the Horned Forest.”

“What? But I…”

“Be quick about it, would you!” she snapped. “My brother may be in danger.”

“Oh no!” Cong peered into the hole. “Wang Zen and Xue Shaonu . What am I going to tell everyone.”

Shibi ran up Cong’s back to stand at his shoulder, also peering down the hole. “Ook!”

“Shut up, Shibi. Wang Zen is dead.”

“I’m not dead!” a voice from the hole said. “Neither of us are!”

Deep in the hole, Zen looked towards Xue Shaonu. “Hey, are you okay.”

“Y-Yes,” she stirred, sitting up.

In the dark, Zen’s eyes widened.

Xue Shaonu looked at the length of wood that was jutting from her shoulder.

Zen scrambled to her, unsure what to do.

“Looks like I miscalculated my landing a bit.” She grasped the length of wood with her hands, making Zen flinch. “It should be okay if I…” She pulled the stick out and a spring of blood erupted from the wood, painting Zen’s shocked face.

His hands scrambled on her, groping her tender chest as they looked for the wound. He placed pressure on it, his hands interlaced with hers as the blood stopped spurting out.

“There,” she said. “Its not so bad. The bleeding has slowed.”

“No!”

They both heard Cong shout. They looked up as the light from above was blurted out by something the size of the hole fell down to their position, with its bottom lined in spikes! Xue Shaonu was up before Zen knew, her palm already shining white with ki.

“Pulsing Palm!” she shouted as she thrust her palm between the spikes as the object fell. There was a pulse of ki and the spiked, cylindrical boulder was sent up. From the spot that her palm had touched the boulder, another pulse of ki spread out, sending the boulder up higher before the last sent it even higher.

The boulder stopped rising.

“It’s not enough!” she said in despair before Zen leapt towards a wall and then jump to another.

He kept gaining altitude with this zig zag motion and when he met the boulder, he flipped upside down and thrust his legs out, making sure his feet landed between the spikes of the boulder, which had not been destroyed by Xue Shaonu ’s ki technique. He sent a lot of ki into his legs, causing some of the merky white ki to leak out, and pushed out, sending the boulder moving up and sending him shooting towards the ground.

Much to Zen’s disappointment, the boulder did not go up nearly as much as when it did when Xue Shaonu hit it and soon enough, its upward movement had stopped and was falling again.

“Heavenly Leap!” Xue Shaonu said, sending her ki’s through her meridians to activate the technique. She leapt up, shooting upwards like an arrow, catching the falling Zen on her way up to he boulder. Her palm shone white as she got closer to the falling boulder. “Pulsing Palm!” Once again she hit the boulder and sent it further up with a pulse of ki, seeing it rising higher still thanks to the next two pulses. “Zen, do it!” She launched Zen up towards the boulder as she fell down.

Zen knew what to do. He flipped upside down and once again thrust his feet out to the boulder. This time, his aim was off and his foot was stabbed by a spike. Ignoring the pain he sent a lot more ki to his legs than last time and thrust out, causing the spike to go deeper into his foot before it was pulled out when the boulder continued up and he was sent falling down, crashing into Xue Shaonu and sending them falling into the ground roughly.

The cylindrical boulder cleared the hole. Jao Cong gaped at the cylindrical boulder as it stopped in the air and began falling over towards him. It took Shibi jumping off his shoulder and running away for him to realise that he should do the same lest the boulder crushes him. He slipped as he scrambled away and was able to get out from under the boulder before it landed heavily on the ground.

Cong sighed in relief at having escaped potential death. Then he remembered his companions down the hole. On his hands and knees he scrambled to the lip of the hole to look down, only to be surprised when Xue Shaonu leapt out of the hole with Zen on her shoulder.

She arced over him and landed behind. “Are you both okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said as she dropped Zen on the ground.

Cong gasped when she got up. The front of her white blouse was now almost completely red with sticky blood.

She looked down at her ruined blouse. “Huh, looks like I lost more blood then I…” She felt light headed and fell down forward.

Zen caught her before she hit the ground and was shouting in panic as her vision went blurry before going completely dark…