The next day Hou got ready to start moving and asked Armen where they might be more people.
"Well if we head west there's a small town if it's still there, other than that I heard there's some people underground in caves but I don't know where"
"Okay we'll head west then first and get everyone we can there to join us"
Hou put his fingers in his mouth whistling and getting Da to pick up Armen and his family on his back.
"Maybe we can get you a nice saddle buddy" Hou said to Da then he unleashed his wings and lightly tapped Da's back to get him going.
As Da moved west, Hou would fly ahead and take any parasites and monsters down. Any straggler monsters Armen and Da could take down.
From the sky Hou could see a few makeshift tents ahead, and he sped up to make sure they were friendly. He came down to land in the forest a little way away as to not alarm them like he did with Armen.
Hou walked casually out of the forest and into proximity of the collection of tents. Around the tents were small stalls and people working. There were people tanning leather and stretching it. Blacksmiths with mud forges. There were hooligans drinking midday but nobody was happy. Raising his voice Hou proclaimed,
"Anyone who does not want to hide. Anyone who wants to be safe or fight for safety instead of cowering come to me. I will make base only a small way East. If anyone is brave enough I can guarantee safety and power!"
With that Hou didn't wait for the people to stop staring or answer. He showed his friendliness now he needed to show his strength, he unfurled his wings and used his leg parasites to jump high in the air and start flying East.
In the smally shanty town, everyone who saw what came down was left speechless. A man, not a monster, had jumped higher than the trees and then flew away. This was not the power of a human, yet they heard him talk and negotiate. Everyone was in silence until all at once everyone started talking about if they would be safe, whether if they didn't join him they would die and whether they could even fight against him if he tried.
Hou flew for thirty minutes, meaning anyone from the neighbouring town he would join would need to have commitment to go far. Hou started to collect rocks and twigs, ready for Armen.
He grabbed gist sized rocks and started to lay them out in a circle, he then dug out the center soil and filled it with dry timber. Next he sat down for some alone time.
Sigh
'Everythings changed so much...'
He sat there not thinking but just taking in the world. Even though there was dark miasma covering the world, life still prevailed.
Even in this darkness full of monsters there were humans who persevered and survived. But while they survived they did not live. Hou wanted people to be safe and wanted people to live without the constant threat of monsters on their otherwise already low quality of life.
He wanted to give his people new hope, like in Sacrarium where everyone was ready to fight to bring back the twin suns...
Even now, Hou was strong but not enough. He could fight individual monsters but could he protect a whole community. In a way he's still weaker than when he was a simple blessed. As a blessed he had extraordinary power to protect his people but now he was safe from being exploited by the twin suns but... Was that better than his weak self now...
"Master... I need to become stronger! I can't protect much more people with my level of power right now, let me become a cultivator, it doesn't matter that my foundation is weak, I can't let my people have a weak leader."
"Sigh okay, but know this will be an extraordinary pain since your soul is still weak... Are you ready?"
"I am."
"Then follow my instructions and follow them completely. The core of creating an inner world is a dream world. When dreaming your soul can enter your dream realm, this is a quasi-inner world. What you need to do is shatter this realm and reform it with qi in this world. Then with your inner world you shall have a new dimension which connects the qi realm of spirits with this one."
Hou took this in and nodded. "let me do it"
Yue sighed internally and put Hou to sleep. Yue guided good soul into his dream realm while retaining his sense of self and purpose.
"I'm not going to help you anymore, now you need to figure out how to solve this dream and shatter it"
Hou opened his eyes in a bed with somebody shouting for him.
"Saviour wake up, time for your speech about the evacuation"
Hou rubbed his eyes and looked down, he was small and much much younger. And he could feel a slight warmth in his chest. He reached out his hand and saw a gateway open connecting in front of him to outside his door.
"What's taking you so long?" A big man with a muscular arm opened the door with a complicated expression. On the surface he was frustrated but he was also a little worried.
Hou saw this man, he saw Arm, and tears started flowing. He cried and didn't stop until Arm grabbed him into a hug.
"I know you're stressed, you don't need to pretend with me. Let it all out and when you're ready you can go out. I knew it was too much to let you be a leader, your only a child."
Arm held Hou in a tight hug and patted his head until Hou stopped crying.
"What about this, we delay the evacuation until tomorrow and you feel better, that better?"
Hou was still confused, he was back in his old body.
'Didn't I save Sacrarium and get transported in that cave. Didn't I meet master and... Master? Who's master and what do I mean save Sacrarium? I need to save Sacrarium! Today we need to use my gateways to move after a beast horde too large to handle was spotted.... I remember. I'm Saviour, and today is a few days after my thirteenth birthday'