The rise of the pervert primordial

Under the sharp glare of the scarred lynx, the moose opened way for the lynx which approached the foal who was still collapsed on the ground due to being attacked by the moose earlier.

As if the previous wasn’t strange enough, Aster and the others saw the foal groan to then lean its head against the body of the lynx, as if it was crying on the lynx’s shoulder.

And is if that wasn’t enough, the lynx actually placed its right paw on the back of the foal as if to comfort it, that was quite an “humane” interaction despite them being not only mortal animals, but also a predator and what could be considered a possible prey.

“Grrrrrr!”, with a loud growl, the lynx scared the moose away, making them disperse and return to their usual activities, like eating grass and fighting between each other with their antlers, while the lynx tried to help the foal stand up.

Needless to say, but the foal’s legs which were trembling, probably due to the wounds it has received, gave in not too long after trying to get up, ultimately falling to the ground a second later.

Seeing the opportunity, Aster nodded at Mira to then leave his backpack, weapons included on the ground as he walked towards the lynx accompanied by the ligress girl.

Needless to say, but while the lynx still didn’t openly show hostility towards Aster, it still positioned itself in front of the foal, and softly growled once Aster had reached less than a dozen of meters from it.

“You know, I would have thought that was a “threat” if I wasn’t used to be growled at by a certain someone, but I can tell that was just a “stay there”, so I guess having a grumpy ligress as a friend has more advantages than what I thought”, jokingly said Aster, which made Mira softly snort.

“Tell… I don’t want to offend a possible ally, is it a he or a she?”, firstly asked Aster to Mira, who without the need to take a look, knew the gender of the lynx, she is knowledgeable when it comes to spirit beasts and especially feline races after all.

“It’s a female lynx”, she said.

“Ahem, in that case, tell her that we don’t want to fight, if she can answer a few questions for us, then we’ll help take that child to a safe place in exchange”, said Aster, a proposition that Mira communicated to the lynx, who in response narrowed its eyes at Aster making a bunch of girls as well as Erick take out their wood weapons in response.

But more importantly, for the lynx at least, the little wyrm who was camouflaging herself, became visible and coiled herself with Aster at the center, it was a protective stance.

“Grrrr”, the answer was a softer growl from the lynx, which Mira translated the next second.

“She says it’s a long travel that will take almost a whole “cycle of daylight” to where that foal has to go, but says she knows what we are probably looking for and offers to helps us obtain it before the sun goes down as well as answering our doubts if we help”, said the ligress girl.

Aster didn’t doubt the lynx’s affirmation of knowing their agenda, she watched their activities in the forest yesterday after all, with the exception of the ore mining probably, luckily Aster had packed samples of the high-quality iron ore they had obtained before, because that would make it easier to show the girls that didn’t come with the exploration group before, what to look for.

“We accept, as long as materials like this are included in the deal”, said Aster as he took out a small half-finger sized piece of iron ore, a request that after being translated by Mira made the lynx nod.

“Did we just strike a deal with a lynx?”, mumbled Lieze with a confused voice, to which Tiana shrugged.

“As weird as it might sound, it’s one of the most normal things I have seen Aster doing”, said the energy constitution daughter.

“I agree”, added Nerissa.

“You see sis, one can never get bored when hanging out with brother Aster!”, exclaimed Erick as he took out spears and rope from the backpack, which of course made the lynx frown.

“Don’t worry, we are going to make a stretcher… something to make it easier and safer to transport that foal”, said Aster, realizing that of course a lynx wouldn’t know what a stretcher is.

Fortunately, after Erick and Sophia used the ropes and spears to make an improvised stretcher, the lynx understood the function and importance of it, so she allowed Aster and the others to approach the foal.

“We’ll take turns to carry the stretcher, Erick, Sophia, Tiana and Nina will take the first turn, we should have it easier to move through the forest as long as we are escorted by our new acquittance”, said Aster as he alongside Erick helped place the foal on the stretcher.

Surprisingly, though the small horse was not exactly comfortable with Aster and Erick’s presences, it didn’t resist thanks to the lynx remaining at its side during the whole process.

And soon, the stretcher was being carried by those four and the foal was ready for transportation without moving it too much so that its wounds wouldn’t worsen.

“They’ll follow us from behind while we have a little conversation, if you don’t mind”, said Aster as he signaled the lynx to show the way, making the latter give a confused gaze to Mira who sighed in response.

“Don’t worry about it, that guy is more of a beast than even ourselves, he’ll be able to keep up the pace”, said the ligress girl as she was remined of the fact that even as of current Aster still had yang energy saturating his body.

Apparently, the lynx was worried that if Aster divided his attention, he’ll end up tired and their travel would end up taking more time than needed, since he was the one calling the shots in the group, but now that Mira affirmed the contrary, the lynx nodded and then started advancing in a specific direction.

“Let’s go”, seeing the lynx signaling the way, Aster gave the order and they started advancing through the forest as well.

…

As Aster expected, the path that the lynx took was way more efficient than any they had used before, having very little obstacles in the way and specially avoiding troublesome encounters with other animals, meaning that the lynx is used to peacefully stroll through the forest, which is strange.

‘If she is the at the top of the food chain in the forest, it’s weird that she is avoiding crossing paths with other animals, I guess the snakes were right, the lynx is a pacifist, that doesn’t explain why that foal was actually relieved to see it though’, thought Aster as he nodded at Mira.

Those two or more accurately three, since the little wyrm was quite literally stuck to Aster’s side, accelerated a bit, putting some distance between the rest of the group and themselves, approaching the lynx from its right side.

“I know it’s rare for mortal animals to have “names” for them, besides some specific races, but considering you certainly aren’t a normal mortal lynx, I trust you have a preferred way to be called as?”, asked Aster, which was translated by Mira and answered with a low growl, not from the ligress girl but from the lynx this time.

“She says that it’s not a “name” perse, but a long time ago she heard the word “Guardian” and that’s the word she associates to her existence”, said the ligress girl to which Aster nodded.

“Okay, we’ll go with that for the time being, I guess it’s related to the reason as to why that foal wasn’t afraid of her and the moose showed a reaction more akin to respect than the fear an herbivore would feel for a predator”, said Aster which made the lynx let out a slightly louder growl than before.

“It’s an interesting story, but before anything, Guardian says she doesn’t want to anger the “dangerous beings in the sky”, so there are questions which she won’t answer, leaving that aside, she agrees to tell us the origin of her name which is related to some important aspects of this place, not just the forest but as a whole”, said the ligress girl.

What came after that was quite an interesting tale, apparently the places were the walls raised signaled actual divisions in the territory of this realm, each contained enough landscapes to house different races with different characteristics.

Of course we are talking about the characteristics of animals, so they weren’t that specific, the point is that there is a certain number of “representatives” for the different races, for example there is a king for every type of environment in each division, a king of water beasts, or a king of forest beasts and the same applies to mountain beasts, flying beasts and the list goes on.

Which might sound weird for mortal animals, but is a really common behavior among spirit beasts, since if a spirit beast is strong enough it will go past their supposed role in their environment, to dominate over other spirit beasts, the type of ambition to climb above others one would expect from a human, because as spirit beasts advance in terms of cultivation, they gain more human traits.

Anyway, the point is that the lynx is not one of those kings, she used to be the king of predators within this territory, but now she “regulates” the activities within the whole territory, making sure that no race breaks the balance, so while they are free to fight and kill each other for survival like any animal would do in the wild, things like making a complete race disappear is not allowed under the lynx’s watch.

“Well, that explains why she associates herself to the word “Guardian”, however I doubt she thought of it herself, perhaps we are not the first participants of the development trial she has met?”, asked Aster which made the lynx gaze at him from the corner of her eye for a second.

“Yeah, she has met humans before… three hundred or so years ago based on the number of “daylight cycles” she mentioned, and she took the word guardian as her name by listening to them using it to refer to her usual activities”, said Mira to then add.

“And before we ask, Guardian says she won’t tell us about what the humans of back then did in detail, but she says a lot of them did die within this territory, for different reasons including the being who was supervising them, which apparently was a pillar of black smoke”.

“I see, well we already knew that the flaming board wasn’t the only one watching over the participants and that the way they conduct the trial differs, thanks to that red lightning cloud, though the bases appear to be the same, I won’t ask her to go into detail, but tell her I want to know if the crazed bear was around back then too”, said Aster, to which the lynx directly shook its head.

Apparently, she understood some human words, probably because she has heard them many times before, like “Guardian” which she took as her name, the word “Bear” was also familiar for the lynx.

“She says that within this territory, she is the only adult animal that survived from the time when participants appeared in this place, though infants from all races remained, among them was the bear she knows we are interested in”, said Mira.

To prevent any misunderstandings, Aster directly clarified their interest in the bear.

“We wouldn’t pay any attention to the bear, if it could be reasoned with or even avoided, but judging by its behavior, at some point it will try to cross the forest and there is no way I’m letting a bloodthirsty bear get anywhere near my group”, he said, which made the lynx’s eyes glow for a second before she gave her answer to Mira.

“She says that the bear has to be eliminated, it’s actually the only animal that has survived to this day from the generation after the participants of back then appeared and it ate the corpses of the dead participants, which she had prohibited to others, to then turn into what it is now, massacring its whole race and devouring them in the process and in the fight that happened back then, she got that scar”, said Mira, making the little wyrm hiss in response.

“Hisss”.

“Could be, maybe there were evil cultivators among the participants, or someone with an extremely negative yin type body constitution, either that or the process to become whatever kind of existence Guardian and the bear are, went wrong for it, maybe both”, said Aster to the little wyrm.

“I assume she won’t tell us about how she has lived for so long, without having an ounce of spirit energy in her body, but I want to know if it’s safe for us to eat animals that have become “different”, like that peacock?”, asked Aster.

The answer was an interesting one, in Mira’s words, even the bear won’t have any negative effect for humans due to its state, but she doesn’t recommend eating its flesh considering it likes to eat rotten corpses instead of fresh ones.

However, the meat of animals that have become different from the other specimens of their race, can have a positive effect in animals, it’s not a rule set in stone but more of a possibility though.

“We’ll test it with a fish first, but I guess the peacock is safe for consumption and it might be helpful for a certain someone”, concluded Aster to then gaze at the little wyrm who was happily sliding at high speed next to him, she hunted the peacock so it was fair that Espi ate it, of course not raw and bloody like animals would do, but perfectly cleaned, cooked and seasoned by a talented chef, just as the little wyrm likes.

“Grrrr!”, the lynx suddenly stopped on its tracks, letting out a slightly loud growl, as it looked up to the tops of the threes, which was translated by Mira the next second.

“She says we’ll continue with the conversation later, we’ll be passing by an area controlled by the king of the flying beasts and well, we beat up her child yesterday, which caused a dispute between her and the king of water beasts…”, said the ligress girl as she gazed at Espi.

“Hisss?”, the little wyrm was confused for a second, before she was reminded of the eagle she smacked away before, to which she snorted, clearly not showing any repentance for giving that arrogant guy a nice beating for treating her like prey.

Unfortunately, animals can’t communicate between different races, at least not mortal ones, but conveying their intentions is possible, and it should be easier for animals like the lynx and the so-called kings as well, so Aster took the chance to say.

“We could have killed that young eagle effortlessly, I’ll take a bet and say that the area where we found it is not under the control of its mother considering it was alone, and it would have been justified since it attacked our group first, but I asked my cute Espi to hold her hand, I think we have shown enough goodwill and there won’t be a second time”.

Eagles are not a race Aster or anyone who wants to eat a bird would put at the top of the list, and Aster isn’t someone to kill just because of it, but he won’t hesitate to slaughter any eagle that tried to actively harm the little wyrm, especially because she wasn’t in the wrong here, but even if she would have been, his course of action wouldn’t change.

‘I’m more interested in how the king of flying beasts knew we were coming this way, did the snakes betray us… no, they have nothing to win and everything to lose by doing so, also they treat Espi as their princess and all, a coincidence perhaps?’, wondered Aster, to then be brought back to real world by the sound of leaves moving as a dozen of eagles descended on the branches of the surrounding trees.

But they weren’t what drew Aster’s attention, but the proportionately larger figure which landed not too far from them, it was a golden eagle and based on its plumage, this one was an adult, however the most eye-catching thing about it was its size, since it was more than twice larger than what a golden eagle should grow.

‘The size is indeed interesting, but this eagle doesn’t feel as “strong” as the lynx or the bear, I would say that around a fifth of the combat prowess of the lynx more or less’, thought Aster as he gazed at the giant eagle.

Speaking of which, the giant eagle looked at Aster’s group and then narrowed its eyes at the pretty white “snake” that was next to Aster, but then its attention was drawn towards the stretcher where the foal was calmly resting, before looking at the lynx as it let out a surprisingly calm chirping sound.

“Grrrr”, the lynx answered in kind with a soft growl of her own, which Mira translated for the group as the lynx basically explaining what happened between the little wyrm and the young eagle, acting as witness of the whole situation.

“Screee!”, after listening to the story from the lynx, the large eagle let out a loud cry and in response, a smaller and familiar figure descended in a flash, landing next to the large eagle to then… be fiercely pecked on the head by the large eagle.

Naturally the large beak of the king of flying beasts, made the smaller eagle let out pained sounds, but instead of stopping the large eagle pushed it frontwards with her right wing, making the smaller eagle awkwardly advance towards Aster’s group, to then bow its head at the little wyrm.

“What an interesting turn of events, I guess it’s good that we didn’t eat eagle soup yesterday hahaha”, half-jokingly said Erick, making Tiana feel a vein pulsing on her neck, luckily the eagles didn’t understand any human words unlike the lynx and there was no hostility coming from Erick, as it was a casual comment of that filter-less brother of hers.

‘Poor mother eagle, I understand what having a troublemaker fool as a relative, feels like…’, thought Tiana as she sighed to her insides.

“Grrrr”, the lynx took the chance to communicate why the king of flying beasts made her child apologize, apparently the young eagle thought Espi was a subordinate of the king of water beasts, he was out in some kind of coming-of-age ritual which involved hunting a prey alone, outside of the areas under the control of his mother, but under the control of a king which has a good relationship with her.

But, he was slacking after not finding anything and wanted to have a quick snack by eating some of the giant toads, which led to his encounter with the little wyrm, naturally after getting his ass handed to Espi, he went back and told what happened to his mother, who went to argue with the king of water beasts, only to be told off.

And things kind of escalated after that, because there was an unknown “enemy” in a hostile group, which had also beat up her son, so the giant eagle sent her subordinates to look for traces of the mysterious white snake, and word got to her by a random turkey stating that the one she was looking for had just destroyed a fierce peacock in a fight, which led us to the current situation.

“Wait a second, the explanation makes sense, but Espi doesn’t come to mind if we think of an animal subordinated to the king of water beasts?”, said Sophia, to which Mira added.

“The king of water beasts within this territory is not a fish but an anaconda that lives deep in the center of the forest”.

After her child had apologized the giant eagle did the same by though slightly, still lowering her head towards the little wyrm, out of politeness and because she was seeing a potential threat to the reign of the current king of water beasts, and as they saying goes, the enemy of an enemy is a friend.

Leaving the situation with the little wyrm which was solved with an apology aside, the giant eagle changed her attention to the foal, to then frown as it heard the growls of the lynx.

“The king of herbivores, which is in a good relationship with the king of flying beasts, is a horse and that foal is his son, that’s why it has seen Guardian before”, said the ligress girl.

“Then why did the moose attack him, they should be subordinated to his father, right?”, asked Vivian who was fascinated by the strange situation they were witnessing, she was having a blast in this little outing with her friend, and she was probably the only one that found this whole thing fun among the ones that accompanied Aster today, well besides maybe Erick.

“That’s the problem, the moose affirmed to have had one of their companions attacked and killed by the king of herbivores without any provocation the past night”, added Mira.