Ball of Nothing

Zero knew that he was going to meet Coux and Qin Yun later but he never thought the Demon Queen would come with Qin Yun to see him.

"Shittomi?!"

The snow queen smiled cheerfully and Zero's jaw fell when a skulk of foxes came rushing through the door. Zero yelped as they pounced on him and started licking him all over in their excitement. Qin Yun could only sigh as her girls started tackling Zero with their affection. She couldn't blame them for acting this way, it has been a long time since they saw Zero and he was their benefactor. When they heard about Zero's life-threatening injury, Qin Yun had to assert extreme dominance to stop anyone from barging their way into Half Moon Village just to help him. It wasn't easy for her to leave the foxes alone and Shittomi was very close to visiting Earth herself when she heard it. Qin Yun managed to leave them in the abyss and returned to the village to check on Zero, transferring some of her energy to help him recover faster. Nobody was more worried about Zero than his shifu and Qin Yun was glad that nothing too permanent happened. Looking at Zero now, it was hard to tell he was severely injured before.

It took a while for everyone to settle down and when they did, Zero smiled at Shittomi who nodded. They would discuss the job requests after the foxes left. For now, Zero entertained the clingy foxes and thanked Qin Yun for helping him out.

"Not at all," Qin Yun smiled. "The girls wanted to come too but it was difficult for them to all go over. Queen Shittomi wanted to do the same but it would have freaked a lot of the villagers out if we did it."

Shittomi sulked when she heard this. Qin Yun didn't allow her to visit Zero when he was unconscious but a lot of other scarier people visited him and she hasn't stopped complaining about it. Lucifer and Michael already made their way over to Half Moon Village, why was she only able to send a clone? Also, Beelzebub went in person and Shittomi felt extremely jealous at not getting that right.

The foxes fawned over Zero and asked about his new vessels. They heard from Qin Yun who heard from Truen that Zero made different vessels for disguising purposes on his travels. One of them was a beautiful elven healer and the other was a scrawny and weak-looking elven boy with freckles. Regardless, both vessels sounded adorable and they wanted to see it.

The first thing Zero did was to check with Mii to see if Wii was online. The eggplant fairy was still not fully online but the system functions were available so Zero asked if Lily was able to pull out some images of his previous vessels for the girls to see.

As busy as she was, Mii still complied and helped Lily to search her extensive library for the images. In fact, when they found the book, Zero was mortified at some of the images. The album had almost every single iconic moment of Zero's poses and expressions in his new vessels. Lily couldn't stop the greedy foxes from seizing control of the materialised album and Zero wanted to cry in humiliation as the ladies cooed and screamed over how adorable he was.

After approximately two hours of mental torture, Zero finally got rid of most the foxes with Qin Yun's help using bribery. Each fox had a limited edition picture signed by Zero in his alternative vessels. It was humiliating and almost immediately after the 'event' ended, Zero erased it from his mind and pretended that everything was alright.

The room became quiet once again after Qin Yun took her girls away. Shittomi and Zero finally had some privacy and the snow queen cast a spell to ensure nobody else would be eavesdropping on their conversation.

"You sought me out on some quest updates?"

Zero nodded. "I just wanted to ask if you knew anything about the portal to Whiskeria in Mystic Meadows. Fae King Vivian told me he had been guarding the portal for many years. Gaia recently reached out to him to inform him about my arrival but even so, he mentioned something about needing to find the four keys."

Pulling the Red Phoenix's Pearl from his inventory, Zero let Shittomi scrutinise it. "Do you recognise this?" he asked.

The snow queen frowned. She pulsed magic into it but was quickly repelled. Apart from the holder of this 'key' and Zero, nobody else could use it. Also, as Zero told her in a letter, there were traces of Nel's energy.

"According to Vivian there are three other keys like this?" she confirmed and Zero nodded.

"This is the key of fire. I need to find the three other keys that represent a different element each to open the portal to Whiskeria. I need the Moss Giant Orb from the Spriggan Alex guarding the Weeping Willow in the Great Forest of Altear, the Mermaid's Tear from Queen Leah of Indra Seagloo and the Condensed Sphinx Breath from Sylvia the Silver Witch in the United Nation of the Uncanny."

Shittomi quickly noted them down. "Four elements for the portal key... I think this isn't the hard part. After you open that portal, you should be wary about the trials Nel prepared for your arrival. Whiskeria is not the same as Earth. It doesn't have as much diversity and is extremely hostile towards foreign visitors. The furries might be extinct now but the humanoids still exist."

Curious about Whiskeria, Zero asked for more information.

"I can't say I know a lot about it. It's a branch planet from the Energy plane. Nothing material exists there. However, they have something called Net Flux that is something everyone fights over. You might need that if you want to survive on that planet. I have some of it stolen and robbed from some poor souls but I don't know how much you'd need..."

"No need," Zero smiled. "I'll secure enough for Bob, Truen and myself. Thank you for telling me. Are there any new updates about the other Divine Entities?"

Shittomi handed Zero an envelope. "Nothing about Venn yet. I need Baal to wake up so that I can trace Duu's location using his powers so we're working on that. As for Gugu and Jevy... I found a list of their stores."

Zero looked over the list of stores the Greed Divine Entity had and sighed. Even if he had a lead, this was too wide an area to search for the two troublemaking entities.

"Thank you," he told Shittomi tiredly. "I will update you about my progress after I reached Whiskeria. For now, please continue taking care of Baal for me."

The snow queen kissed Zero lightly on his forehead and it felt cold. "Let's go see your new friend at the Tree of Life."

Without delay, Zero hopped off the bed, eager to find out how Axel was doing. Last he heard, the spriggan was adapting very well in the abyss and had become something akin to a local attraction. Zero also wanted to know if Wiser was making better progress ever since he met the gnomes. The miasma and chaos energy converter should be finalised by now.