The rise of the pervert primordial

Despite how calm the king of water beasts looked, the truth is that she was furious, because she is smart enough to know that the four major races coinciding in the same place like this is essentially impossible to happen jut by luck.

Also, now that she looked at the black horse that appeared at the front of her main force, which is the sole reason as to why she decided to be on the move and not just send a part of her forces to go after him, she realized that it wasn’t that strong.

The explanation behind the previous is actually quite simple, the liquid in the container which the little wyrm poured on the black horse along the way to the living area of the reticulated boa race, was a mix of Vivian’s blood and the venom of the black horse.

Now, the black horse stopped developing in the venomous path since he was captured and instead started focusing in the physical aspect, both because of Alice using him to move all the heavy stuff around the camp and due to the manual, he was given, which basically turned him into a meat shield.

That’s why despite him lacking in terms of attack power unlike Ember, he could kill all those boas just by stepping on them at high speed, because his body has grown stronger and he is rather heavy as well.

Still, in a rough calculation “Mule” should be at most at the level of a royal guard of the black horse race, with a stronger body with a weaker venom, and that is not enough to threaten let alone the king of water beasts, but even the leader of the reticulated boa race in a 1v1 fight at least.

So, Aster used the mix of black horse venom and Vivian’s blood, to give him a further threatening aura, that now was gone since the mix had lost its effect and also to make things more credible at first glance, the black horse was actually bitten by the old king cobra and even got his venom injected into his body, of course he was fed an elixir so that he wouldn’t die, but he had to look miserable so he was made to bleed with multiple bites.

Anyway, the fact that the four major snake races ended up gathering, in an area out of her main influence zone and that the black horse which even she thought to be a trouble, turned out to be fluke, not to mention that a claim for a duel was made and none of her subordinates from the green anaconda race were present, not to mention that even Guardian was here, made it obvious for the king of water beasts to realize that she was tricked and she was furious about it.

Under those circumstances, no matter how smart she is, she can trick her way out of a duel, after all to be a king she needs subordinates to rule over so if she rejects a duel and against a much smaller snake on top of that, she’ll basically be giving bases for three of the four major snake races to cut ties with her, as she prefers to spend most of her time in water due to her massive size and the fact that there is absolute zero risk factors there for her, since fish don’t grow past two meters, eat plants or smaller fishes only and they are not like the animals on land, as in they have no intelligence.

That’s something Aster has confirmed himself; the fish are plain mortal animals even the largest among them easily fall prey to fishing rods and nets and show no difference in behavior when compared to mortal rank fish, the reason remains a mystery though, not even Guardian knows it but in the lynx words it might be because the “beings in the sky” had never shown interest in animals that can only live underwater.

‘I’m the one who makes others move as I please, whoever planned this I’m going to rip them apart, starting with the one that dares to challenge me in the open!’, thought the massive anaconda as she glared at Espi.

There are conditions when a duel is issued, three of them to be more accurate, and they are decided in a 1-2-1 order, with the challenged king being the first one and the challenger being the second, this is because the new king is supposed to surpass the previous one, and also because the king can’t choose the dates when he is going to be challenged, with the exception that only a duel per week can be issued and that the king must be in good condition at the time of course.

“Grrrr!”, with a growl instead of a roar, Guardian nodded as she said “A fight to the death it is, may the challenger state the second condition”, said the lynx to which Espi softly hissed in response.

“Hisss”, while the first condition is whether the duel will be a fight to the death or simply incapacitating the opponent, the second condition is the battlefield and the little wyrm casually said “Underground cave, abundant in rocks and water as well”, which caused an uproar among the many different snake races.

“She is challenging the king to a fight in a water battlefield!”, is what the snakes were saying in their different “languages” after their respective leaders somewhat informed them of what was going on, which were all understandable for the little wyrm.

‘Humph, she must think that her smaller size would give her the advantage in a rock filled area, and probably wants to use the spikes that grow in an underground cave with water present to kill me’, thought the massive anaconda as she smiled to her insides, she had the perfect place for the fight to happen.

“Grrrr!”, Guardian nodded since there was no complain from the anaconda “The battlefield will be an underground rocky cave with water, the challenger can state the last condition now”, said the lynx.

“Hissss”, the anaconda nodded as she drew a circle with her tail to then divide it into twenty-four parts before she signaled at two of the divisions with her tail, the last condition of the duel is its duration and the anaconda had said “Two hours”, these animals of course don’t know the concept of hours, they guide themselves by looking at the position of the sun in the sky, which still is not exactly normal mortal animal behavior but closer to that of primitive humans.

Also, two hours might sound like too long for a duel, so it might seem as if the king of water beasts was being magnanimous and giving enough time to the challenger to fight, but it’s the complete opposite.

If the duel doesn’t end before those two hours pass, the challenged is declared the winner by default and since it’s a fight to the death, the challenger is to be killed for failing to defeat the king.

Also, by nature venomous snakes are smaller than non-venomous ones, just look at the four major races, so the king of water beasts is only wary that the small white snake in front of her might be venomous, but even if she were to receive all the venom of the old king cobra leader, she wouldn’t die in two hours, so the anaconda just deprived her opponent of her best chance to defeat her, in her mind at least.

‘Heh, what a cunning anaconda, what a shame it she wasn’t complete irredeemable trash, we could have used her as an ally’, thought Aster who was seeing all this from afar, courtesy of his monstrously good sight, while Kana translated what was happening for everyone.

Seeing that Espi wasn’t objecting to the time limit, Guardian nodded to then jump from the tree branch where she was standing, graciously landing on the ground a second later, making the snakes retreat quite a few meters from her.

“Grrrr!”, the lynx softly growled as she pointed in a specific direction to then start walking, she basically something along the lines of “To ensure fairness, I’ll be the one to select the battlefield described by the challenger, follow me”.

Now, Guardian might not know all the corners and secret spots of the whole forest, since it is a massive place, but since she does know of all the races, she knows at least one or two examples of every different environment present in it.

And so, with the guide of the lynx the group of snakes from different races, minus a few boas which went “missing” along the way, as well as the black horse to which no one was paying attention, since he was for sure dead given that he was bitten and injected with the venom of the old king cobra, advanced until they left the tree abundant areas reaching one of the many clearings in the forest.

This one in particular was a bit lacking in terms of foliage, and had rocky ground, a large cave entrance could be seen not too far into the distance, but more importantly there wasn’t near any water body which confused the vast majority of the snakes, since one of the traits mentioned by the challenger in other words Espi, was that there should be water present in the battlefield.

Still, their doubts were cleared as they followed Guardian into the cave, the entrance was followed by a spacious corridor which descended a dozen or so of meters into the ground, before the open area exponentially increased.

“Hisss!”, that was the public exclaiming due to surprise, what laid ahead of them was a giant open underground space, where a deep underground river with water clear enough to see at least the first couple of dozens of meters, was.

Surrounding the river there were rock formations that had been created over time and just as the little wyrm asked, the roof and the ground was filled with countless of them, those were stalactites and stalagmites, even underwater there many rocks that could be seen, so there were a lot of “obstacles”, which is what the anaconda thought Espi wanted to rely on to defeat her, besides venom.

“Grrrr”, after the witnesses to the duel, in other words all the other snakes had accommodated themselves, far enough from the battlefield the lynx softly growled calling both the challenged and the challenger to come forward as she said that she’ll personally punish any party that breaks the rules of a sacred duel.

“Roaaar!”, with a loud roar that echoed through the cave, Guardian gave the greenlight and the anaconda whose aura took a 180° change from calm and calculative, to fierce and angered immediately pounced towards the little wyrm.

“Hissss!”, that was the king of water beasts telling Espi to “Come and face her”, since the little wyrm slid at high speed towards an area filled with stalagmites, of course the anaconda wasn’t just speaking for the sake of it, she wanted to see if her intimidation worked on the enemy.

If that was the case, then the white snake might not stop completely, but she should hesitate for a moment at least, which could be an opportunity to catch up to her, unfortunately it didn’t work.

‘Tsk, well that was to be expected, my brother wouldn’t choose a challenger that would freeze with intimidation alone’, thought the king of water beasts as she accelerated as much as she could in land.

Given her massive size, she of course wasn’t a match for the small white snake in terms of speed, that being said, she counted on the fact that her opponent would try to take advantage of that.

The eyes of the anaconda shone in a cruel light as she saw the little wyrm zig-zag through an area full with small stalagmites that had almost no distance between each other, they were basically caltrops for the more than eight-meter sized king of water beasts.

‘Humph, that won’t work you fool!’, thought the anaconda as against what the vast majority of snakes, she directly continued chasing after Espi soon reaching the area full of stalagmites.

“Crack!”, that however wasn’t the sound of the scales of the king of water beasts being cracked and pierced by the stalagmites, but the sound of the later breaking as the anaconda moved at high speed over them.

“Hissss!”, the reticulated boa leader cheered, followed by his subordinates, “The king is strong, long live the king of water beasts”, they shouted as they saw that the scales of the anaconda could win against those shark-looking rock formations in terms of toughness, something they found hard to believe, like the young anaconda leader had said they were closer to fanatics rather than loyal subordinates, they couldn’t be blamed that much though, since the king of water beasts had accomplished some interesting feats that we’ll be seen through the fight.

“Hisss”, seeing the anaconda chasing after her without leaving behind any trace of blood nor peeled scale, the little wyrm saw the first of her plans failing, so she changed to the next one.

Under the surprised eyes of not only the spectators but also the king of water beasts, Espi suddenly changed directions to rush through a stalagmite using it as a ramp to then… jump upwards.

The little wyrm who had shot herself towards the roof, reached a stalactite and used it as support to then move through the rocky ceiling towards the area above where the anaconda is.

Now, moving while upside down is not that unbelievable for a snake, because while they can’t stick to surfaces like insects or small lizards, they can climb through even vertical walls, so long as the surface they are moving is not smooth, since they use their strong muscles and scales to grip onto rough surfaces, or even anchor their tail onto something to hang down from elevated areas, a behavior that has been observed in races like reticulated boas for example.

However, snakes don’t jump upwards like that, they leap their bodies and some races do it fast enough to become airborne for a short moment, but the little wyrm just jumped around fifteen meters upwards, even if she had gained momentum with her high-speed movement and used the stalagmite as a “launching ramp”, it was hard to believe.

‘Is she a crossbred of a flying snake or what… no, those guys don’t actually fly, they simply glide and their time in air depends more on the altitude of the place out of which they jump and she is not that slender not to mention she is too large for that’, thought the king of water beasts.

Flying snakes can move in the air up for up to a hundred meters, but rather than flying is more as if they swim in the air by flattening their bodies and then twisting them in order to make turns and control their direction, also they don’t grow more than 1.2 meters and the smaller ones are the ones that can glide the best as well.

“Crack!”, and the surprises kept coming, as the king of water beasts saw how one of the stalactites that was suspended above her suddenly detached from the ceiling, descending at high speed towards her.

“Booom!”, stalactites tend to be narrower and longer, similar in shape to icicles, unlike stalagmites which are thicker and rounder in shape, however that was still a rock of around forty kilograms falling from a height of fifteen meters, that can generate more than enough impact force to smash concrete or crush a vehicle.

Which is why the anaconda dodged by twisting her body to the side, so that she was only hit by the resulting flying debris as the stalactite exploded upon clashing against the ground.

“Hissss!”, despite the anaconda not being wounded, the many rock shards that hit her, did hurt, so she was of course enraged, what’s worse even if she were to climb through one of the walls of the cave, she couldn’t even think of moving on the ceiling like the little wyrm due to her massive size.

“Crack!” and amidst the anaconda shouting at Espi, the little wyrm broke another of the bases of a stalactite making it fall from the ceiling which forced the king of water beasts to move, the previous was followed by Espi repeating the same with another stalactite near where the anaconda had moved.

“Boooom!”, continuous loud impacts echoed through the cave as the snakes saw in awe how the anaconda had to move at high speed in order to dodge the rain of stalactites that was following her through the cave, which continued until one of the stalactites grazed the back of the anaconda actually peeling a couple of her scales, drawing blood from her body!

The snakes were in shock as they saw the king being the first one to receive a wound in the fight, it hasn’t been only ten minutes since it started as well, the anaconda saw red on the spot, still she hasn’t been just running around blindly she purposedly guided the enemy to an area of the cave where the ceiling only had stalactites of only around ten kilograms of weight, they were still large but less thick.

“Crack!”, and that wasn’t all, the moment the little wyrm made one of the stalactites fall, the anaconda stopped running and actually raised her body upwards, now, anacondas can raise around a 25% to 30% of their bodies from the ground, which is quite something given their heaviness, thanks to their strong muscles.

However, they do so to navigate through terrains or striking not to maintain a high “standing” upright position for long periods of time, on the other hand the king of water beasts is far from being a normal anaconda, as she just raising 70% of her body’s total length, just proved.

That gave the anaconda a height of more than six meters, which was enough for her to cut the fall of the stalactite in half, which allowed her to… catch it midair with her mouth.

“Booom!”, the king of water beasts then closed her jaws crushing the stalactite with her teeth, something similar to what the little wyrm did during the biting force test earlier, which is why the royal guard was more in shock, because in his mind only the king of water beasts was able to pull something like breaking rocks with her teeth.

However, this and that are not the same, stalactites are more from crystalline calcite which is more brittle compared to normal rocks in most cases, still the feat of the anaconda was nothing to laugh at, she did the previous while suspending three parts of her body in a vertical position to then return to the ground, with a defying gaze in her eyes.

It was as if the anaconda was saying “Go ahead, I will catch any stalactite you make fall”, though she lacked the capacity to directly reach the opponent, the anaconda had rendered the attack method of the enemy by controlling the area around her and using her own special abilities, it was a proof of its capacity to think.

Unlike the bear or that black horse who obviously have become muscle heads, this anaconda seemed to be changing in a similar way as Guardian, but it had a wicked nature when compared to the lynx.

‘Humph’, seeing the anaconda mocking her, the little wyrm softly snorted to her insides, as she moved away from the area to where the king of water beasts had guided her, until she reached a stalactite weighing roughly twenty kilograms.

The little wyrm first coiled her upper body around another stalactite, since she couldn’t keep herself on the ceiling just with her scale grip for what she was about to do.

“Crack!”, Espi coiled her tail on the fifteen-kilogram stalactite and then applied strength to break it off from the ceiling, before she tensed her muscles in order to… throw it towards the anaconda.

“Booom!”, the weight of the stalactite was less than half of that of the first one which was also the biggest and heaviest one that the little wyrm had made fall upon the anaconda, however there was acceleration included this time, since Espi threw it using her tail as a slingshot, so the stalactite which had turned into a projectile caused the same damage as the forty kilogram one.

What’s more, the little wyrm though roughly, controlled the direction of the stalactite instead of just making it fall downwards, so the thing landed right in front of the anaconda making the latter move at high speed towards the center of the battlefield before she jumped into the water.

“Hisss!”, once in the water, the anaconda had regained its confidence, “Go ahead throw as much rocks as you want!”, she yelled at the little wyrm, if the enemy launched a rock at her like earlier she could just submerge in the water and she knew that it would lose force, also in water she was way faster than in land, so dodging would be a piece of cake.