Snow Fox Supremacy - SFS - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

AN: I’ve been putting in a lot of work on this one. Stormfall… it’ll come back at some point, probably. I mean, I made a cover already, so surely it’ll come back. I do feel a little bad about putting it on hiatus, but I’m like a kid on crack when it comes to starting new things. It’s a real issue. That, and I think Stormfall needs time to steep a bit more. It was almost where I wanted it, but not quite.

Until then, this is something I think might be a little more successful and fun to write—Snow Fox Supremacy(title pending).

— — —

This isn’t your average cultivation story.

Waking up in an abandoned shrine wasn’t how my mornings usually started… or so I thought. Being chased by monsters and thrust into a world of danger and intrigue likewise wasn’t on the agenda… probably. Here on Ghost Dragon Mountain, though, anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Thankfully, not all hope is lost. My—erm, unique constitution gives me plenty of advantages. The biggest one? No one suspects a snow fox. The second? Being the Recorder, whatever that means. If I keep my wits about me, I just might be able to make it off this cursed mountain alive. 

As they say, big things come in small packages. Assuming I live through the next couple minutes alive, at least. But hey… there’s snow way I’d die just like that, yip?

— — —

AN: Snow Fox will reign Supreme… eventually. I hope you’re in for another long storm! 

Genres: Action, Mystery, Fantasy, Adventure

Tags: Attractive Lead, Dystopia, Grimdark, Local Protag, Monster Evo, Non-human Lead, Steampunk, Chivalry, Female Lead, Kingdom Building(), LitRPG, Martial Arts, Non-humanoid Lead, Progression, Secret Identity(*), Strategy, Survival, Wuxia, Cultivation

*Kingdom Building: Still not a hundred percent sure about this one. I have plans for it, but we’ll have to see where the story takes us.

**Secret Identity: Goes in line with the top one.

Warnings: All - except sexual content.

I think it’d be really funny to enable sexual content, though, and mislead people with the whole ‘this isn’t your average cultivation story’ thing. ¬‿¬

Ah, right, if you’ve read the Lost Drops, this might look a bit familiar. That should only be for the first two chapters, and even then they’ve received massive overhauls since I decided to shift directions to something way better.

Chapt 2 & 3 Coming shortly. Oh, and its my patented super weak to strong.

— — —

Chapter 1

Cold, abandoned stone pressed up into my side. For a long moment, I didn’t move. Everything felt wrong. My body was too small and way too light like I’d been folded into a shape that didn’t quite fit right. The stale air, thick with rot and old incense, clawed at my throat. The strange dysphoria faded as quickly as it hit me.

”Achoo!” A weak sneeze sends a shudder down my body. The sound echoed harshly, and stirred even more dust into the air. By the time everything settled, I was fully awake.

My trembling limbs gave out when I tried to stand. The world tilted alarmingly, and I collapsed once more with paws failing to find purchase. White fur, soft and fine like a newborn, collected disturbed dust and debris. It quickly faded into a dull gray. My dull little claws clicked faintly against the cracked stone underneath me as I tried to steady myself.

Where am I? A sharp flicker of memory struck me. It was distant though, like lightning flashing over a distant horizon. I could see it, but I couldn’t quite reach for it. My ears lowered flat to my head.

My chest tightened painfully, and I forced myself upright once more. The world wobbled as my legs struggled to support me. My eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom coating the place. Everything came into focus and emerged from the darkness.

What once must’ve been a shrine surrounded me. It’d been ground down to nothing but bones and dust over time, though. Cracked wooden beams lay collapsed everywhere like broken ribs. A roof of uneven earth and tangled roots hung down like pale worms, barely holding the ruin together. Stone lanterns lay shattered across the floor half buried in dirt and debris. Their flames had long gone out.

I stood on top of an old, destroyed altar that looked like it’d been viciously hacked at with a sword. It was too clean to be done with an ordinary blade. Even now, I could feel faint pulses of electricity clinging to the wound in the stone.

Offering bowls lay scattered around it, with their contents long turned to powder. A statue of a fox off to the side of the place lay shattered and destroyed in large chunks. Something in my chest twisted painfully at seeing the devastation. Who am I?

”Achoo!” I sneezed again. The sour scent of mold and old wood washed over me. It mixed with the decay that dominated this place.

I flopped off the altar and staggered out toward the caved-in entrance into the desolate shrine. A beam of faint, flickering blue light barely punched through the rubble, and illuminated a gap barely large enough for me to fit through. From the other side, the scent of rich herbs and smoky incense flowed in and replaced the isolation of the shrine.

Crawling out of the shrine, I slipped through the cracks and into a great hall. Pipes hissed and steamed along the walls, giving off faint bursts of warmth that pushed back the chill in the air. They connected lanterns in a vast sea of bronze. Said lanterns flickered with blue flames like some kind of ghost fire.

A faint pressure pushed down on my small body. Mountains of scrolls, items, and herbs lay scattered around the great hall. Jade slips and manuscripts floated gently above pedestals like they were bound midair in invisible chains. Racks of weapons scattered around the place, each chained up like they were some dangerous beasts.

The entire place felt unsettling. My tail lowered and straightened out behind me. Seals and strange symbols crawled along display cases and the walls like lurking serpents. I couldn’t understand them, but my instincts screamed not to touch anything. 

A demonic looking sword on the far side of the room glowed with a faint red as I passed by. A cackling laughter broke out of it, only for the runes to flash and flicker to life. The sword abruptly trembled and went silent.

Beyond all of that, though, large red doors covered in flickering script sat cracked open. Moonlight, much more dominant than the light given by the lanterns, beamed into the treasury. Should I… leave? This place—it feels off. Like I shouldn’t be here.

I slunk closer to the doors and peeked out into a small inner courtyard framed by a roofed walkway. The same blue flame lanterns sat all around the place, with even more bronze pipes scattered around. Snow filled the courtyard, burying everything and reflecting the brilliant light of the moon.

Although it was covered by the snow, the courtyard was in tatters. A wooden structure in the middle of it lay collapsed, and divots through the space revealed signs of fighting. In several places, the bronze pipes were cut and broken, freely emitting steam that almost seemed to glow against the cold air.

More dominantly, the far side of the wall surrounding the courtyard lay in ruin. A snowstorm whirled just beyond the walls of the complex, though somehow didn’t invade this place almost like it was being restrained by some kind of magic. Beyond the broken wall, all was lost in the flowing white and sharp winds.

What now? My head churned, and the rest of my body wasn’t far behind. I felt sick. It was like there was something pressing into my body from all directions, and filling me with a disgusting sensation. More than anything, I wanted to leave this place and the sickly pressure behind.

A thick stench of dried blood hit me. It made my already nauseous stomach churn even more fiercely. The coppery scent burned slightly, like there was an additional level of fire that shouldn’t be in blood. The strange combo smelled dangerous and unnatural.

Something scraped across stones on the other side of the clearing. My ears flicked to it, and I went very, very still. It wasn’t quite footsteps. The scraping noise sounded wetter, almost.

”Hi?” A woman’s voice called out curiously. It was followed by a burst of high pitched laughter.

I slipped back against the wall, and hid in a shadow cast by one of the ornate pillars supporting the roof. A shadow appeared in a door on the far side of the courtyard. The dark shape, illuminated against the door by blue light, looked human.

A cold wind cut through the hole in the wall and spread over the courtyard like frost. It blew between the pillars of the walkway, creating a low whispering whistle that made my ears flatten to the sides of my head.

“Hi hi!” The head of a person—creature? The head of something poked out from a door on the other side of the courtyard. It continued to push out without a body, and sent a primal spike of dread through me.

Strands of… hair? Yeah, strands of extremely long hair linked back to something just behind the door. The distorted head floated out and drifted between the pillars of the walkway while sniffing.

The entity was fully dragged out a moment later by creaking strands of hair, revealing a human form overgrown with scales like some kind of grotesque monstrosity. Scraps of clothing and broken armor covered her completely dyed in black blood. It moved like a puppet wound up by strings.

Its head, grinning with feral glee, lurched out from the rest of its body. Long strands of wretched black hair connected the head to the stump of its neck. The head floated freely around the door in an impossible feat from where it was tethered. Malice practically poured off of the creature in droves.

”Hiiii~iii!” The body didn’t move, but the warped head turned toward me slowly and sniffed at the air. It stared right at me—then kept turning until it faced the wrong direction.

I took a silent step toward the hole in the wall. I wasn’t sure what was beyond it, but anything was better than here. The treasury was also an option, but I had a feeling going back there would just cage me in. It only had one way in and out. The door the creature came through was another option, but my chances of getting around it were extremely low.

 I made it halfway to the hole in the wall before every piece of fur along my tiny body rose on end. I chanced a glance back toward the entity—

“Hiiii!” It stared right at me. One eye was covered by scaly growths, but the other was filled with deep hunger. Her feral grin stretched even wider, splitting the skin along her cheekbones and revealing rows of serrated teeth covered in rotting flesh. 

“Yip!” All pretense of stealth shattered. I scampered toward the hole in the wall. Each step of my paws on the freezing stone below sent me catapulting through the air.

Behind me, I could hear it crunch unnaturally fast across the snow of the courtyard. Being headless didn’t seem to slow down its body in the slightest. Lights flashed, and metal squealed like a sword being drawn from a sheath, but I was too terrified to look back. Instead, I just ran.

Being halfway to the hole in the wall gave me the slight advantage. I arrived just before it could reach me, and stalled at the edge. Below me, the ground dropped into a sheer cliff down into darkness. I couldn’t see the bottom of it. The blizzard blocked any chance of that.

I glanced over my shoulder and caught sight of the still rushing monster. Spectral flames lit up the scales covering her body and poking out of the broken armor. The flames split and flowed onto a sword, creating a maw-like serration of fire along its edge.

Stay, and the monster kills me. If I jump… maybe I’ll live? There might be snow down there to break my fall. I should’ve stayed at the altar. It reeked there, but at least I wasn’t facing imminent death. 

 My hesitation vanished as another cold wind sliced through the air. I flung myself off the cliff. A burst of spectral flames slammed overhead, singing my fur as I entered free flight.

The white flaps of fur billowed wildly in the brutal end of the snow storm. For a moment, everything felt like it’d be alright. And then I slammed into a snow bank far, far below the edge of the mountain. 

I rolled down the snow, flopping and flailing without any control. I stretched out a leg to stop myself—and felt something sharply snap. The wind sharply cut and tore a howl from my throat. My head slammed into a patch of ice—everything went dark.

I came to a moment later still tumbling down the edge. Snow flowed with me, creating an avalanche of white that devoured my waking world. My consciousness flipped like a coin over and over. One moment, I was awake in a world of white and feeling sharp impacts across my body. The next, everything faded to black with the mountain rushing up to meet me.

There was no telling how long it’d been until I came to a stop. I awoke buried in freezing snow. It pressed in from every side, and leached away any bit of warmth I had left. It pushed down my snout, suffocating and drowning me when I tried to breathe.

I weakly pawed at the substance to escape. I was well and truly buried though. My dull claws scraped weaker and weaker, and strength rapidly faded. The white snow, illuminated faintly, quickly started to grow red. My eyes swam, and dark spots pressed in from every direction.

Just as hope faded, the snow weakly lit up and started to glow. Something crunched above me, and a sickly voice called out muffled by the snow. “Something survived? Hang in there, friend, I’m coming!”

The snow crunched louder and louder above me, and a hand dug down toward me. The last thing I saw before everything faded to black was a seven-fingered hand covered in stitches.