Sixth Jump Snippet: Battle Through The Heavens Part 2

Previously on 'EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE':
  Valki reunited with most of his companions. He makes a new close friend in the form of Xun Er and is invited to visit the desert home to the snakemen tribes with his family after a prank from Pandora has unexpected consequences.

Now:
  Xun Er was absent from the trip to the desert this time. It was just Valki, his brothers and the snakemen family. Pandora was being kept at the Xiao compound under watch from Birdy and Leo, to make sure she didn't pull her illusion trick while Valki was surrounded by snakemen. If the situation became desperate, Sunny was with Valki as always (a fact that irked Leo to no end). The trip to the desert took a few days, where Valki made pleasant conversation with his siblings. They were spoke about a mercenary company they were planning to establish in the desert once they had gathered enough people. It would partly function as protection from some of the more unsavory factions out in the desert. Luckily the snakemen tribes had been rather quiet in recent years though there were stirrings that this would soon start to change.
  Valki was taken to stay in a small town near the border of the endless sandy desert. They allowed to stay in a quaint little house that the two disguised guides said was the family home. Valki mentally called bullcrap on that when he saw the complete lack of familial items. He was already sensing a trap. If he were to take a guess, this was all Pandora's fault. To 'celebrate returning' the pair brought out some jars of wine and platters of food containing what Valki could only assumed to be mostly sleep potions. He had a few bits here and there to not arouse suspicion and had the Void Devouring Flame consume all of the pill effects. With something like the Void Devouring Flame in him, there were few things that could harm him if he ingested them. When he saw his brothers start to nod off he pretended to start to fall asleep too. As long as they did nothing hurt to them, Valki was content to leave this as a learning experience for his brothers. Based on what he had analysed from the pills combined with how much he saw them eat, he calculated that they would probably be knocked out for another three days. That should hopefully give him a reasonable time frame to act outside of their influence.
  Sure enough, once they had checked the three of them were asleep they set about clearing away the spiked food and wine and replaced it with regular stuff. Then they grabbed Valki and carried him off into the desert in the dead of night. Valki briefly opened his eyes to check and saw that they had shed their disguises and were now making their way in a specific direction at great speed. It took several hours before they reached their destination. A bustling snakeman village by an oasis. They placed him in a bed in a well fortified building and left. Once he confirmed that they had left and were not watching, he sat up and set about surveying his surroundings. He quickly got in a meditating position. He contacted Leo to let her know of the situation and asked her to reassure Xun Er that he was fine. He didn't want the Gu Clan coming down like the wrath of heaven to exterminate these people in order to rescue him.
  Xun Er asked to talk to him directly, so he quickly swapped with Leo. Xun Er fussed over her until she was finally satisfied that Valki was fine. She was in the middle of hugging Valki when Leo warned her that people were coming back. She uttered a quick bye, swapped back, and closed communications, cutting off Leo mid exclamation of "Wrong b-!". He quickly lay back down in the bed and once again pretended to be asleep. Seconds later the door creaked open and he heard slithering as three snakemen entered the room. He recognised two of the energy signatures as the pair that had brought him here, but the last was unfamiliar. They were also much stronger than the pair. If he were to hazard a guess, the new one was at the level of a 7 Star Dou Ling. Nothing major in the grand scheme of things but still a formidable opponent in most backwater places like here.
  The stranger circled back and forth around him a few times, before pausing to lean in close to Valki. They swept their head up and down his body a few times before backing off and declaring that they could indeed sense the traces of snake in him. It was almost but not quite like the effect of the ritual they used on snakemen when they were young to fuse them with a powerful snake soul. Valki was also able to identify that the newcomer was a woman. If he was extremely lucky they might even be someone he recognised from the series.
  The snakewoman told them that she would take him to the Queen. The two protested, saying that they would have to deal with the Xiao clan if his two brothers woke up to find him absent. She silenced them, saying that they would never find them, especially if they had not revealed themselves as snakemen. And even if they did connect the dots, a single no-name clan would not be able to stand against the might of the Queen and her forces. With that said, she draped Valki across her shoulder and left the compound. This trip was much shorter due to a combination of faster travel and smaller distance to cross. It took a scant 15 minutes for them to reach the next location. Valki was dimly aware of going down a well lit corridor that eventually opened out into a massive room.
  A regal sounding voice from up high calmly asked why Valki had been brought before her. The Dou Ling quickly outline the situation, and then bowed out of the room once dismissed, carefully setting Valki onto the soft grass bellow. Valki heard a soft slithering sound that quickly changed into footsteps before a shadow fell over his face. The regal voice spoke again, this time slightly softer, telling him to stop faking and open his eyes. Valki did so and peered up at the beautiful face of Queen Medusa. She gracefully helped him up and started to walk around him, inspecting him from head to toe (Valki was honestly getting slightly tired of being checked like a piece of meat). Since Valki at this point was only 7, coming on 8, he only came up to her waist, so had to peer up at her to look at her face. She had forgone the face veil and royal look that Valki remembered she had first appeared with, appearing much like how she had after fusing with Xiao Cai. She appeared to have found what she was looking for and gave a small nod as she stopped in front of him.
  Instead of questioning him about the presence of snake in his aura, as he had expected, she instead started to make small talk, asking about where he came from, what he liked doing, and more. After he dutifully answered the questions as best he could while trying not to give too much away, she started talking a bit about herself. She talked about looking after the snakemen under her command, about setting up safe havens for those who had been attacked by bandits. She closed this topic by mentioning how she grew stronger in order to better protect those under her. Then she seemed to stare into Valki's soul with her piercing gaze. If Valki hadn't seen much worse, he might have been intimidated.
  She stated clearly to Valki that she could sense the snake like presence inside of him, and she could sense what it came from. She knew that he harboured a Heavenly Flame inside of his cultivation soul. She asked for a portion of it, as much as he could spare, in order to allow her to complete a ritual that would let her better protect her people. Valki put on a considering face as he pondered what to do. Honestly he couldn't really think of a reason not to. In fact, doing so now would likely stop further needless blood shed. He smiled at her and said yes. She smiled sweetly back as he let a small rainbow coloured flame swirl around his arm like a serpent before settling in his palm. Medusa's eyes were glued on the flame and with almost trembling hands she gently took the fire and stored it in a ring, before wrapping Valki in a hug. She promised to help him in a time of need in the future, should he ever request it, before calling for the guards to take him back to his family. Valki gave one last innocent wave to her before he left.
  Instead of leaving however, they decided it was late enough that it would be better to wait the rest of the night before leaving. At the edge of the settlement they prepared a simple room complete with food and bed, and promised to take him back in the morning. Valki was in fact sleepy so he had no objections. He had not slept for over a day now and it had not been kind on his child's body. He hit the bed and was out like a light.
  He was woken up by a bright light shining through the window. Walking over to it, he could see the silhouette of a massive serpent in the sky slowly ascending to the heavens. Just as it reached the clouds, a massive bolt of lightning crashed into it's body and electrified the entire thing. The snake slowly crumbled into the ash and the aura of power vanished for a minute. Valki was just starting to worry she had failed when the aura surged back up, much stronger than before. Valki let out a sigh of relief. She had succeeded. A banging on his door brought his attention away from the morning light. The snakemen guards entered and informed him that they would be leaving now. Valki never noticed the small shadow approach his window.
  Valki was once again carried across the desert, but this time he didn't have to feign unconsciousness. The desert was kind of boring, Valki eventually decided. The entire journey was just endless sands as far as the eye could see. An occasional monster would pop up but be swiftly put down by either of the guards. It was midday by the time they reached the edge of the town his brothers were in and he bade them fair well, hefting the bag of food they had let him keep for the trouble. The first thing he did was naturally to check up on his brothers. They were still fast asleep and looked to stay like that for another two days. Given that he still had time to himself, Valki decided to tick something off his buckeklist. Namely, the acquisition of the rank 19 Heavenly Flame. Valki combined his power with Sunny and the Void Flame to locate where it was. They could very faintly sense it a few dozen kilometers north, so Valki quickly force fed his brothers some water to keep them hydrated and then set off. Finding the cave with the flame ended up as fairly easy. The closer they came, the easier it became to sense. Once they located it, Valki enclosed the entire lotus in a bubble of magic and transported it to his mountain top Godly Domain, where it could continue to grow and flourish in a pool of lava inside the mountain itself. The flame he swiftly ingested whereupon Sunny and the Void flame quickly broke it down and let it flow into the Flame Mantra without trouble.
  With that done he headed back to his brothers for the final time and was ready to put this all behind him. Life evidently decided it wasn't done messing with him though. Once he got back to the residence, he decided to unpack the food bag that he was given. He opened it up and saw, instead of the promised food, a small rainbow coloured snake curled up in the remains of a piece of bread. It choose that moment to wake up and, with a very human-like face of delight, leapt up to wrap around Valki. He stood there stunned for a few minutes while Sunny manifested to his side and broke down into a giggling mess. He numbly questioned why exactly Xiao Cai was in his bag and Sunny happily obliged to answer. From what she could tell, when Xiao Cai had been 'born' she had instinctively looked for her mother. Lo and behold, just a kilometer away was the signature of another 7-coloured Heaven Swallowing Python: Sunny. Xiao Cai had quickly made her way over to Valki and stowed away in his food bag without him noticing.
  Valki suggested they take her back, but Sunny denied it. She explained that even if they took her back, Xiao Cai would just escape and return to Valki once more. There wasn't much they could do other than take her with them. Valki looked down at the small snake, who looked back at him with bright innocent eyes, and sighed. He asked if she really wanted to come with them and Xiao Cai vigorously nodded her little head. This was immediately followed by the snake's stomach rumbling slighty. Valki sat down heavily on the chair by the table and conjured up some Queen Fairy Flame for Xiao Cai to nom while he evaluated what exactly in his life had cursed him so that things always went awry. A loud snore from the corner of the room reminded him that he would also have to explain all this to his family. At his feet Xiao Cai gave a small burp as she finished eating the flames and curled up into a ball to joined the brothers in snoring.
  Valki pinched his nose and sighed again.