The rise of the pervert primordial

“We didn’t see nor smell any corpse though?”, said Lieze, it was a justified question, maybe she would accept that others, including herself missed noticing a corpse but she was sure that Aster with that “dangerously” good sight of his would have for sure seen it, and Mira whose nose is sharper than any of the other present, would have smelled a corpse in the vicinity.

“Grrrr”, surprisingly, Guardian growled as if to answer Lieze, because she recognized one of the words she used in her sentence, the word “corpse” to be more accurate, as it’s something she heard too many times back when the previous batch of participants was here.

“As to why we didn’t see or smell any corpse, the moose said that the king of herbivores took it away with him, not before… eating the splattered brain and other flesh result of the moose being stomped to death by the king of herbivores”, translated Mira to then add.

“That would explain why there wasn’t any lingering scent of death, the corpse was moved instantly, I did smell blood but that’s normal since the moose tend to wound themselves when clashing antlers, so the scent of their blood could be smelled all over the place”, to which Aster frowned.

“Mira, ask Guardian if her diet changed when she became like she is as of current”, he said to the ligress girl who translated the question and got an answer at the same time.

“Grrr”.

“She says that wasn’t the case, she still only eats meat, but she certainly became a bit “selective” with how she eats her prey, basically since she stopped being a normal member of her race, she found unpleasant the taste of too much blood, so she washes most of it away in the water body that is nearest to her, but more importantly she wants to know why are you interested in that?”, asked Mira.

“Because bears are supposed to be omnivores, yet despite the large number of apple trees at that part of the forest, the bear didn’t eat a single fruit, in fact it toppled some without any care, so it’s safe to assume that it no longer eats anything besides meat and rotten one at that, what I mean is that this change whatever it might be, causes changes in the nature of the one that goes through it, but it seems to greatly differ from one individual to another”.

“From becoming less tolerable to the taste of blood, which is something I have seen in a certain smart little girl, to an extreme change such as…”, Aster who was in the middle of praising the little wyrm had his next words stolen by Vivian.

“An herbivore becoming an aggressive carnivore out of nowhere”, said the white-haired girl.

“Hisss!”, the little wyrm did agree with Vivian’s words, but she wasn’t too happy about Vivian interrupting her praise, luckily Aster calmed her down with a head pat, an interaction that didn’t escape the eyes of the lynx, but right now there were more pending matters to deal with than learning about what kind of relationship did the black haired human that stopped to try and reason with her before charging with a weapon, for the first time in her life, had with that young white snake.

“Grrrr”, Guardian approached the foal in a hurry and immediately tried to convey a message to it, the urgent tone of her growls made it clear that the situation has turned more serious than what she originally thought.

Unfortunately, the foal of course didn’t understand most of it, he is not a king of beasts after all, but he still managed to answer what the lynx wanted to know.

“Originally she thought the foal had gotten lost by itself after deepening into the forest while playing around, but it turns out that he was actually with his mother and she took him deep into the forest before disappearing from his sight”, said Mira as she translated Guardian’s growls.

“He wasn’t lost, but hidden for his protection then, that doesn’t sound good”, concluded Aster.

“Grrrr!”, with a few growls from Guardian, the king of flying beasts nodded and with a single chirp, one of the many eagles that were waiting on the branches of the nearby trees soared into the sky, disappearing from sight a few seconds later.

“She says that the situation has changed, originally she thought it was only a problem of the king of herbivores but even if he became a bloodthirsty monster, the other horses together would have been able to suppress him, especially his mate since she is not a normal member of their race either, but if she took their son to hide then it means victory wasn’t guaranteed, in other words… the king is not the only one that has changed”.

“A group of aggressive carnivore horses, led by a king, that sounds like a pain to deal with if left alone”, mumbled Aster to then say.

“Let’s leave the foal behind, in the territory of the king of flying beasts so it can be safe, I say we go and attack the horses before they grow stronger, I don’t think that they can change enough to be troublesome opponents in less than a day”.

Naturally his words were translated by Mira so that Guardian could understand them, and apparently, she agreed with the idea judging by the fact that she nodded in response.

“Grrrr”, she approached the foal who had started to get anxious as it noticed that something wasn’t okay, to then tell it to stay here while she goes to look for his mother, or something along the lines of it according to Mira.

Of course, everyone but the foal knew that the chances of the normal horses to be alive were rather small, even the little wyrm couldn’t help but look at the foal with pity for a second, before she changed her focus to Aster who was about to give orders to the rest of the group.

“I need one of the scouts to stay behind to both watch over the foal and have the most important job of being on stand by in case there is a need to request reinforcements”, said Aster, which made the youngest of the sisters, Nina to immediately raise her hand.

“I’ll do it!”, she said in a hurry, to then slightly blush when she was looked at with curiosity by the others.

“Ahem, I think it’s better for miss Nerissa to go with the group, since she is as strong as sister Iris”, she said as if to justify herself, though it was obvious that she wanted to be the one to stay behind because Aster said it was an important job.

And he was right, Aster took out four spheres of different colors, one red, one yellow one orange and the last one was green colored, and showed them to the lynx to then say.

“Green means everything went well, yellow means we require assistance but everything is fine, orange mean assistance is required with urgency and red means don’t come under any circumstance, pass this information to the king of flying beasts and tell her to ask her subordinates to be in contact in case they see a cloud of powder of those colors from afar, so that they inform Nina of it”.

Mira translated everything to the lynx who nodded and then explained the giant eagle who passed the order to her subordinates, because apparently she was tagging along now, it’s worth mentioning that her children was told to stay behind and accompany Nina, which made him complain because the little wyrm who is younger than him was going, but after a small beating by his mother, he stopped complaining and obeyed.

Of course, the giant eagle called more of her subordinates so that they would guard both Nina and her children just in case, it was a strangely interesting sight to see dozens of eagles watching over the place from many trees in the vicinity.

“How much time will it take to reach the horse area if we move at full speed?”, asked Aster to the lynx.

“She says that the area under control of the king of herbivores is quite large and we would be at its border in an hour if we move a bit faster than we were before, with some luck we would be able to see something without the need to reach the heart of their area”, said Lina as she translated Guardian’s answer, to which Aster nodded.

There was one last thing he needed to communicate to Guardian before they could leave, so he approached the lynx, whose reaction was a confused expression as Mira passed the message.

…

Around forty minutes later a group of eight people, a lioness sized lynx and a giant eagle could be seen running out of the forest at high speed, and in case you wonder why only eight people were seen running out of the forest, if today’s exploration team consisted in ten people, including Aster and only one in other words Nina, stayed behind, that’s because, the ninth member of the group wasn’t running by herself, but was instead riding on the lioness sized lynx.

With a happy smile that didn’t match the strange situation, a white-haired girl couldn’t help but laugh as she looked at Aster who was running not too far from her to then exclaim.

“This is amazing~”, that was of course Vivian who was being transported by Guardian, the reason being that while Vivian is not as fragile as her looks might make it look like it is indeed true that her endurance is the lowest among the group, and she is not a body cultivator as well, in fact she is the one who has moved her body the less in the whole sect, due to her circumstances.

So, while she could have probably reach their destination without falling behind, she would for sure end up tired after moving at high speed for such a long period of time, so Aster asked Guardian to give them a hand with that.

And when the lynx for obvious reasons asked why the white-haired girl deserved such a treatment, Aster told Vivian to stop using the breathing technique from the manual she bought from the exchange monolith, which she was practicing with the purpose of diminishing the threatening aura that she naturally radiated due to the poisonous blood that circulated through her body, and Guardian’s question was answered.

The giant eagle immediately flew away from Vivian’s vicinity, while her wariness skyrocketed, while the lynx though in a way smaller proportion still took a small jump backwards to then carefully observe the calm yet threatening white haired human in front of her.

“She is Vivian, our friend and the “protective charm” of my family, her ability to dissuade enemies will for sure come in handy, so it’s better that she is in top condition just in case”, said Aster, something that the lynx totally agreed with after experiencing the sensation of danger radiated by Vivian, up-close, which for sure equaled that of a king in her eyes.

And that led us to the current situation in which the white-haired girl was riding on Guardian and she was enjoying every second of it, she has only ridden on the little wyrm before after all.

“Damn, that looks fun, do you think she’ll agree to let me…”, Erick who was about to ask if Guardian would allow him to ride on her, had his dreams immediately shot down by Tiana.

“Dream on, not only was Vivian allowed because she is a girl, but because she is probably the lightest in the group after Kana and Aria, a muscle freak like you would need a rhinoceros or something like that to work as a mount if we are talking about mortal beasts”, she said, making Sophia giggle.

While Erick felt bitter about the negative answer he got, the lynx in question started slowing down the pace because they were reaching the border of the horse area, which was a vast open plain with small tree agglomerations here and there.

And not too far ahead from them there was a… horse’s corpse, how did they know if they haven’t arrived next to it, well, to begin with it could be seen that its neck was smashed, and second both Mira and Guardian slightly moved their noses with disgust due to the smell.

Something that Aster did a few seconds after them when he also caught a tinge of the characteristic smell of rotting flesh, it wasn’t that strong though meaning that the horse in question shouldn’t have been dead for a long time, but the heat from the sun and the insects were doing their job quite well.

And that wasn’t all, once they had arrived next to the corpse, Vivian immediately said.

“Be careful when touching it, it’s faint but there is corpse poison on it, judging by the quantity and the strength of it, it didn’t originate in the host, but entered its body by external interference, though what killed it was definitely the neck wound”, said the white-haired girl as she observed the corpse.

“Scree”, the giant eagle descended from the sky, after receiving a message from the subordinate she sent ahead of them beforehand which was returning from north of their current position, and remained high in the sky while the king of flying beasts descended.

“Grrrr!”, Guardian was obviously not happy of what she heard, based on the aggressive tone that her growl had.

“She said that a third of the original group from the king of herbivores, which consisted in around eighty adult horses, is being surrounded and watched over by less than twenty horses that are taking turns to eat the corpses of their former comrades, as for the king of herbivores he is not in the vicinity, but he basically killed all the horses that are being eaten now, as for the king’s mate neither her nor the foals of the group were in sight when that eagle arrived”, said the ligress girl.

Apparently, it hasn’t been that long since the fight ended, because the corpses were pretty much untouched at this point according to the eagle and the former king of herbivores alongside a part of the horses that were following him left to look for the missing members of the other group.

“Maybe some of the defeated horses can still move and help, but after what they had experienced I doubt they’ll listen to us, and there is not enough of us to get rid of all the enemies, if even one escapes we’ll lose the advantage of being in the shadows, so let’s find the king’s former wife first and have her convince the other horses to help”, said Aster, which was translated by Mira and made the lynx growl with confusion.

“Grrr?”, that meant something along the lines of “where should we look for her”, to which Aster nodded in response.

“The focus of the eagle was wrong, considering how much that mare worried about her child, and taking into account that she for sure is wounded after fighting the forker king of herbivores, she probably took the other foals to hide into the forest but returned to not attract attention in their direction due to her noticeable size, so, she should be somewhere within one of the small tree agglomerations around here”, he concluded.

The message was passed to Guardian through Mira and then given to the king of flying beasts who put hands to work alongside her subordinate to look through all the tree agglomerations, until one in particular drew her attention, as in there was a thick concentration of foliage that even blocked her sight from above and while possible naturally, it’s something that would happen in a the thick parts of the forest, not in the small tree agglomerations in a plain.

Still, it’s something that would only be noticed by someone that could see at the area from above and a normal flying beast wouldn’t pay extra attention to it, so when everything was combined, it was basically a message that only a flying beast out of the norm like the giant eagle would notice.

“Scree”, the king of flying beasts returned to where Aster and the others were and then signaled the way to the agglomeration of trees in question, which was in a position that fitted what Aster had concluded, it was far from the forest and to the west, which was the preferred cardinal point of the bear.

And as he expected, once they arrived at the agglomeration of trees and opened the thick foliage cover, they found a wounded brown mare which was laying on the ground breathing though heavily, in a slow pace.

The moment the lynx saw the mare, she approached it and softly growled at her, which made the mare visibly let out a sigh of relief, no one needed to have that translated, she was told that her child was safe.

After a quick gaze, both Aster and the ligress girl concluded that the mare was going to be fine, she only had some scratches and a slightly deeper wound on her back, though painful it wasn’t something to worry about.

Naturally the mare noticed the strange companions that Guardian brought with her, but at this point in time she wasn’t in the position to complain, specially because one of them brought out a container of some sort with a liquid that just by smelling it made her tired eyes open on the spot.

“This will give her a temporary energy boost and this will numb the pain she is feeling, the wounds will still be there, but she won’t feel them until the effect runs out, they are safe for consumption but… I don’t have much of them, especially because the dose needed for a horse is of course larger than for a human, tell her about the plan I mentioned earlier”, said Aster to the lynx as he took out a pair of containers from his backpack.

Those were the potions Mylene worked on, an energizing drug and an analgesic, it should be enough to put the plan into action, but his words were clear, there wasn’t enough for all the horses that were being watched over, the ones that could move would probably survive while the others will die, that was the best they could do.

“Grrrr”, Guardian conveyed the message to the best of her capacities, since the mare wasn’t the king, though she was in a more advanced state than that peacock from earlier, she was at most three four parts as strong as a king.

Surprisingly the mare calmly nodded, as if the deaths of the other horses didn’t surprise her, it was for a good reason though, those from the defeated group that could not move at all anymore, and unlike her didn’t run at full throttle to trick the former king in order to deviate the attention from the children, were affected by “poison” and were already sentenced to death.

Since the subject came to be, Vivian couldn’t help but ask the lynx to convey a question from her to the mare as they advanced from a route given by the giant eagle who was watching over them from the sky.

“Where did the corpse poison came from, it certainly can exist without the need for spirit energy, appearing in corpses that were left to rot in places rich in yin energy, but it would take a really long time to be produced that way, it would be easier for it to be created by a snake that feeds on corpses and lives in dark places, which would imbue its natural poison with corpse poison”, said the white-haired girl, to which the mare answered by opening her mouth as she said something to the lynx.

“Huh, I don’t know if I missed something, but she says that the forker king of herbivores… injected the poison with its canines which had grown larger now”, said the ligress girl.

The part about a horse having canines is not the weird one, some horses do have them, especially wild ones, they are “fighting teeth” and are more commonly seen in male horses than in mares, but the fact that the former king is producing and injecting corpse poison in others with them, is really strange.

“Now we have poisonous horses, this keeps getting weirder”, mumbled Lieze to which Tiana jokingly said.

“Ah, the innocence of being a newcomer to this group, enjoy it while it lasts”, the energy constitution daughter still remembers that Aster talked his way into convincing a living chatterbox tree to follow him back to Galatia, this is still far from that.