My Little Shifu

Lok

A giant wall of red was the last thing he saw as the sprites of the Peach Tree Grove threw up a wall around their mistress to not only protect her, but to punish the man who dared to hurt her.  One minute he was chasing her through the grove and the next second, a pair of familiar eyes suddenly appeared before his face.  The sneer on that cherub face momentarily stunned him, and though he was prepared to throw it out of the way, he was not prepared for the sudden hit to the centre of his head which instantly knocked him out.  It happened so fast, that neither Bai Qian nor Zhe Yan were able to stop them. 

The scream that immediately followed was ignored as the leader of the sprites quickly took hold of the mans ankles and dragged him deeper into the grove while Zhe Yan threw bolt after bolt of energy at the barrier they had created, one he had never seen the likes of in his entire life.

Terrified for Mo Yuan and unable to break into the enormous bubble of fire energy they had created with the Pearl of Immortality, Zhe Yan sped back to the hut for the only weapon powerful enough to break through it.  

In all the years that the sprites had lived in his grove, not once had they ever shown anger.  They certainly bickered and squabbled over the fruit and now and then, arguments would erupt at harvest time, but this was the first time he had seen the anger of a tree sprite which could be deadly if they felt their home or those they loved were at risk.  Only after what Mo Yuan did, or rather what they thought he had done, the deep love they had for Bai Qian overruled all reason.  And once a sprite loved, it was forever, they gave their lives to those who served them in order to serve in return and seeing as Bai Qian had spent most of the past few days in the grove crying, their love for her had obviously inflamed their anger.

Speechless and scared for his friend, he immediately took to rummaging through the back of his wardrobe the moment he entered his study for a weapon he had never used but had kept should the grove ever be threatened.  Only he had never thought the threat would come from within, which also had him thinking of the amount of peaches they had eaten in his absence.  He would have also taken them in hand had he not been so caught up with Xiao Wu and Mo Yuan.  But he knew without a doubt, that the cultivation they had gained from the peaches was what had increased their powers enormously, which heightened his fear for Mo Yuan.

Screaming at the top of her lungs to get the Sprites to release him, Bai Qian also remained outside the bubble of fierce energy that was growing stronger by the second which was being fed by their anger.  As much as she was angry with Mo Yuan, she did not want him hurt, after all, he was very important to the world, only these sprites were children at heart.  They loved deeply and hurt enormously.  They were also her guardians and though she knew they would do whatever they had to do in order to protect her and the grove, she was struggling to comprehend the barrier they had raised along with the hit they had thrown at Mo Yuan just seconds before it erupted.

The leader,  Lok, was a little brother to her and had been her constant companion when her forth brother was away, but the look in his eyes when Mo Yuan came into view, instantly had his warning coming back to her and like Zhe Yan, she was terrified of what he would do.  In fact,  she doubted Mo Yuan would even be aware of what was happening to him which frightened her even more.  Lok had always been a little more fiesty than the others, though she guessed that this was because he had been there the longest, only this level of anger went beyond normal, it was almost insanity that was feeding that barrier and she could feel it as it moved through the grove with them, burning the trees and setting the flowers alight.  

No amount of energy she threw at it would break it down or even put the slightest dent in it, yet the moment Zhe Yan arrived with the weapon that could only have come from the very Heavens itself, then she prepared herself to cloud jump directly to Mo Yuan as Zhe Yan raised the fan of Kunlun and with just one swipe, the barrier finally fell.