The rise of the pervert primordial

A few seconds after Espi who by the way was still shinning in a dim blue light, fell asleep, Alice who was riding on the black horse who was sweating after being threatened to be turned into grilled horse meat if he didn’t rush to where Aster was, arrived.

“Ahh, looks like I missed the fun”, said the wild dragon princess as she saw the long anaconda skeleton, the fingerprint shaped giant crater and the little wyrm who was sleeping while resting her upper body on Aster’s shoulder.

Kana and the others started appearing from the same direction as well, both the ice princess and Tiana glared at Alice, they were supposed to ride on the black horse together but Alice immediately set off after jumping onto it’s back.

Luckily while Ember is younger and smaller when compared to the black horse, she has quite strong legs so she could give those with relatively lower stamina like Aria, a ride alongside Kana.

‘Just wait until we get our spirit energy back, I’m going to turn you into frozen dragon meat’, thought Aria as she saw Alice smirking at her like saying “I arrived before you~”.

Kana on the other hand while also not exactly happy that Alice arrived faster, mainly because her riding method is obviously way rougher on the mount, instead focused on the little wyrm’s current state.

“Is Espi fine, big brother?”, she asked to which Aster nodded in response.

“Don’t worry, she defeated the anaconda and brought back her corpse as proof of it, it’s just that there was an unexpected “pest” attached to the anaconda, but everything turned out well and Espi is in the process of receiving compensation from the blue flaming board for that”, he said as he gently scratched the little wyrm’s head making her happily hiss in her sleep.

“Hisss~”, amusingly enough, when Aster tried to take Espi and place her in a backpack so that she could safely be transported, the little wyrm cutely coiled herself around Aster’s waist.

‘This spoiled little girl… oh well, I was not going to actively participate in the fight against the black horses anyway and Espi deserves this much of a reward’, thought Aster, though the little wyrm’s wound which had resulted from exerting more strength than what her body could handle, had closed on her way to the surface as she escaped from the black shadow, so that she didn’t suffer from blood loss, the scales that had cracked and split due to the impact had yet to completely recover.

So, Aster knew that Espi had taken the decision to finish the fight faster even if it meant harming herself in the process, as she felt something else was going on behind the scenes, it was an admirable decision from the little wyrm since she had promised him to prioritize her well-being over victory.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think Espi will wake up until night so we might have to wait until tomorrow to declare her victory over the anaconda to the other snake races”, said Aster, to which the old cobra leader who was in a backpack wore by Kana, shook his head in response.

“Hissss”, though it looked rather funny to see the old cobra peek his head out of a backpack on the little girl’s back, his words were rather serious.

“Cobra grandpa says that he will spread the news of Espi defeating the anaconda, if we give him one of the bones as a proof, he guarantees that no one will be able to say anything about it, also the king cobra, anaconda and reticulated boa races will recognize Espi as their king”, said Kana as she translated the old cobra’s words.

“Very well, let’s do it like that”, said Aster, he approached the nearly ten meter large skeleton of the anaconda and used a small chisel and a hammer to break out the bone which used to be connected to the anaconda’s head, which was clearly broken by a huge heavy impact, that was the result of Espi beheading the anaconda with her tail, though the little wyrm chose a whip sword manual, her scales are not sharp like the ones on Alice’s tail by innate for example, but smooth and tough instead, so the wound looked more like the one caused by a blunt weapon.

After handing the bone which carried the aura of the anaconda to the old cobra and letting Vivian disassemble the skeleton, as she also scratched some bone dust because turns out the bones had venomous properties, Aster was about to send the old cobra away because they had other things to deal with, when Kana tugged on his right sleeve.

“Big brother, can we invite cobra grandpa and the other cobras to eat dinner at the camp with us?”, asked the little girl, to which Aster ultimately nodded seeing Sarina also give him a “Pretty please”, gaze.

“Sure, I said we’ll offer a banquet to our new friends anyway, they little ones can eat raw fish and the young and adult cobras can even eat the dried one, I’ll leave the preparation to our chef, but before that…”, said Aster as he patted Kana’s head to then look upwards just in time for a familiar-looking figure to descend from the sky.

“Screee”, it was the son of the king of flying beasts which had a paper tied to one of his legs, this was the normal long distance communication method agreed upon between Aster and the girls of the sect, the emergency one being retrieving pen and paper from the storage to then sent the note into it, like the little wyrm did, as for the smoke signals, they were reelevated to be urgent but not life and death affecting.

“The second group is here, they met with Agnes and the others and are waiting for us to reunite with them, the king of flying beasts just found the black horse group’s hiding spot and she is waiting to guide us there”, said Aster as he kept the paper in his backpack.

“Cobra grandpa, we’ll come to take you to our place later”, said Kana with a smile making the old cobra nod as he parted ways with the group, virtually he was the leader of the snake races being the strongest among them as of current so he had to stabilize the situation, also to be honest while Espi was going to be recognized as a king, the little wyrm will for sure prefer to spend her time crafting things with Aster anyway, so the old cobra will have busy days ahead of him.

Anyway, seeing Aster having the little wyrm coiled around his body which “limited” his movement, Alice had a glow flash through her pretty red eyes as she held onto Aster’s free arm to then say.

“My, since our dear Espi is sleeping it would be better for you to not move that much, so come we can share my transportation~”, the wild dragon princess while smiling at Aster, gave a death glare to the black horse who lowered himself so that Aster could hop onto his back with ease.

Unfortunately for Kana, the space on Ember’s back was enough for slim a girl like Aria or Vivian to sit alongside her, while the filly also had small bags hanging at her sides, but Aster had a bigger frame, so the black horse was indeed a better option.

“Let’s go”, said Aster as he led the way following the young eagle who guided them to where his mother as well as the other group and the ones who were left behind to guard the king cobra race, where.

Around thirty minutes later, Aster and the others saw a group led by the purple lightning princess waiting for them at the border of an area to the east from where they came.

“Hi, looks like everything went well on your end, right?”, asked Valentina, as she saw Espi who had stopped glowing at least, being coiled around Aster’s body.

“Yeah, there was a small incident but we can talk about that while we take a short rest and grab a quick lunch as well”, said Aster, it was around 1:00 pm as of current and the groups had both moved at high speed not too long ago so it was better to recover to their prime before continuing their way.

In any case, judging by the direction in which they had advanced, the black horses should be not far from where they met the mare before, so they had to travel through the forest to the east before coming out of it to reach the plain area, and that should take at most a bit more than an hour so even if they rested the group should be back to the camp before the sun completely left the sky.

“Mm, I heard from Agnes that you shared some of your rations with the cobras, but don’t worry, Angela packed freshly prepared fish ready to grill enough for both groups”, said the purple lightning princess which was for the better, since they had shared some of their rations with the cobras, Aster and the others were going to have a light snack originally, but now everyone could eat to the content of their hearts.

As one would expect from the receptionist girl, she foresaw Kana wanting to share some food with the animals, so she prepared for it.

While Cayden and Erick made a quick bonfire and Sarina started grilling the fish, the others snacked on some fruit while Aster told Valentina and the others about everything that happened with the snake races and the black shadow incident.

“I see, so one of the “supervisors” turned out to be involved with the anaconda, that was unexpected”, said the purple lightning princess as she cut a piece of grilled fish to eat.

“Espi defeated her without much trouble, so I guess that even then she wasn’t as strong as Guardian, the black shadow tried to retrieve the anaconda’s corpse and pursued Espi all the way to the surface for it, so there must have been something important in it, not anymore though”, said Aster as he was reminded of how the blue flaming board burned the anaconda’s corpse leaving only the skeleton behind.

Whatever it was, it was both what the black shadow wanted to obtain and what helped the anaconda become stronger.

“It probably was something that breached the rules of this place, speaking of which, do you think that the black horse or the bear are also being backed by a supervisor?”, asked Agnes to which Guardian shook her head in response.

“Grrrr”, with a soft growl she actually revealed an interesting secret.

“Sister Guardian says that she doesn’t know about the black horse, but she was there when the bear turned into what he is now and it happened because… he ate the decayed corpses of some humans around two hundred years ago, which he had dug out from a crater that opened at the rocky area where the bear race used to live, after that he massacred all the other members of his race and that’s when sister Guardian arrived to fight against him”, said Kana as she translated the lynx’s words, which made quite a few people frown.

“If I remember correctly the last time humans where in this area was more than three hundred years ago, wasn’t it?”, asked Mira to Guardian who nodded in response, those two could talk without the need of anyone translating for them.

“Then how could there still be anything left of a mortal corpse, for that bear to eat”, mumbled the ligress girl.

It only takes months or a few years at most for all the tissue to disappear out of a corpse, unless we are talking about a cultivator in which case depending on the realm, the body can remain intact for thousands to hundreds of thousands of years, but in this place, there is no spirit energy so that couldn’t be the case.

“We can assume that there was something wrong with those corpses, given how the bear turned out”, concluded Aster to which Guardian nodded.

“Grrr”, that meant something along the lines of “I destroyed the ones that remained by throwing them into an active pool of molten rock”.

Aster could tell that the lynx was being much more open regarding her life than before, but he decided to not say anything, Guardian will talk when she feels it’s the time for it.

After finishing their meal and resting for half an hour, the group cleaned the resting spot and then started advancing in the direction pointed by the king of flying beasts.

Since the lynx was paving the way for them and with the king of flying beasts having scouted the most suitable path for them to move, the group didn’t take that long to reach the border of the outer area of the forest that led to the plain where horse races live.

Though it wasn’t in the same area where they had found the mare and fought the secondary group of black horses, but further to the east where the plain was divided by a river which probably was connected to the lake near the camp, further into the distance one could see the plain turning into an arid desert, which was also what laid ahead after the rocky volcanic zone where the bear lived at the west.

‘I guess the desert is way larger than both the forest, the plain and the rocky zones, probably after crossing it we’ll reach the area where those guys from James’s group live’, thought Aster as a cold light flashed through his eyes, before he put that matter at the back of his head.

As of current Aster could tell that the participants from different groups weren’t meant to meet anyway, also by foot, there is no way those guys would cross the desert in a short period of time, so they could be left for later.

“So, where are they hiding?”, asked Aster to the giant eagle, to which she let out a few soft sounds in response.

“Chirp”, listening to the king of flying beasts, Kana translated for the group, yeah, she had gotten proficient in the eagle’s “language” just by hanging around the young eagle for a day or so.

“She says that they are hiding in a natural tunnel that formed inside a hill, this way they can keep an eye on both directions while avoiding aerial recognition, they were only discovered this fast because they had to go out to hunt said Kana to which Aster nodded.

‘Mmm, the black horse is nowhere near as smart as the anaconda, he must have taken these precautions not because he knows that the mare had a good relationship with the king of flying beasts, but because he had a fight with the anaconda and wanted a safe place to rest rather than staying in the open like usual’, thought Aster.

The black horse was outwitted by the mare who is not as developed as a king of beasts, not to mention that he even ate one of the moose in front of his peers so that guy is not the scheming type, he probably was drunk in his newly obtained power, which gave Aster an interesting idea as he gazed at the black horse as well as to a bag which was hanging at his side in which a snake was kept.

…

A few kilometers away from where Aster’s group had emerged out of the forest, there was a hill with a large hole that crossed it side to side, proportioning cover to anyone that entered it while still letting both those inside and outside see each other.

Or well, that would normally be the case if the ones inside of the tunnel weren’t all pitch black horses that perfectly blend with the shadow projected by the roof above them.

Surprisingly, despite the black horses having suffered a loss twice, first when Aster and the others rescued the mare and then when the now king of fangs fought the anaconda, the number of black horses resting inside the tunnel was actually quite large, roughly one could see sixty horses calmly resting, it wouldn’t be that bad of a sight if there weren’t bones with a bit of blood and flesh leftover, piled next to the horses

Also, their numbers didn’t make sense at first, the group led by the former king of herbivores was formed by all the horses that lived in the plain area, but then once you noticed that more than half of the current group while also being black horses, clearly belonged to a different kind of breed, having a lean build with larger eyes and nostrils, it became easy to know what happened.

The king of fangs had crossed over to the desert and turned horses that lived there into his subordinates, to make up for the loses he had suffered before.

“Neeeigh!”, one of the desert horses let out a loud sound as he saw a black figure appear into the distance, which made the king of fangs who was resting next to a couple of mares get up and come out of the hill.

Just like Aster had supposed, that guy had grown arrogant due to his new powers because he didn’t wait for his subordinates to come out before he did so, that being said the king of fangs didn’t get too far from the hill and instead waited for the other party to approach.

Imagine his surprise when he saw one of his seconds in command which he thought had died when he was chasing after his former mate, the mare which refused to accept the new power he had obtained and guided a part of the herd to revolt against him.

“Thud!”, the black horse fell to the ground the next second, one could see many biting marks on his body but none seemed lethal, he was heavily breathing as if he had run for a long period of time though.

“Neeigh!”, the black horse looked at the king of fangs and “explained” what had happened to him.

“My king, we were ambushed by a large number of snakes, the group I was left in charge all died and I was taken away by a huge snake, only today did I manage to get away from where they were keeping me trapped because I heard you were fighting those damn snakes”, is what the black horse, whose identity is of course “Mule”, said.

The king of fangs recognized the biting marks on Mule’s body, they belonged to the black mamba race, he knew them very well because the loses he suffered in his small conflict with the anaconda were caused by the black mambas too, since they were the only other venomous member among the four major races besides the king cobras which of course didn’t participate in the fight.

“Neigh”, the king of fangs still asked “How did you find us?”, to which Mule answered by saying that he ran to the east and left the forest as fast as he could since some snakes were chasing after him, and by luck managed to see traces that reminded him of a large animal being dragged through the ground.

In the east plain area the only animals large enough to do that would be the horses, and only they eat large amounts of meat as well, so it was natural to suppose that those were traces left behind when those in charge of hunting to feed the group brought their prey back.

“Fine, let’s go inside you need to rest, also tell me the direction from which you came, I’ll send a few guys to check if those damn snakes are still lingering around the area”, said the king of fangs as he called out the black horses that were in charge of hunting today.

Though it was thanks to them that one of his seconds in command found the way back to him, those guys had screwed up and didn’t erase their tracks which could have led the enemy to their door.

“Neeeigh!”, with a loud sound, the king of fangs ordered them to go and check the whole area of the forest mentioned by Mule, as their punishment, the group of ten black horses lowered their heads and then parted in the pointed direction, which made Mule doubt for a second whether he should warn his former king of what was waiting for them, at least until Alice’s red eyes appeared in his mind making him shiver for a second.

If he was found out, at most he would die, but if he disobeyed the red eyed “creature”, he would wish to have died, so the option to choose was obvious in his mind.