The rise of the pervert primordial

Leaving aside Mule who would rather die than anger Alice, the group of ten black horses that were chosen by the king of fangs advanced through the plain towards the direction at which Mule had pointed them at.

“Neigh”, on the way one of the horses looked at the team leader in charge of them, to then ask “Sir, who is the guy that was brought in by the king, he’s got quite the big frame but I don’t remember anyone mentioning an external member of the herd moving separately, what’s more because of him we were sent out to run a boring errand”, he said to which the team leader horse answered.

“He was one of the first seconds in command designated by the king, which supposedly died when the secondary group was ambushed by those damn snakes, of course he is only a defeated loser now, so there is no need to worry about him”.

The black horse leading this group used to be a normal member of the herd but he was “promoted” to a second in command after the whole incident with the mare which left a vacuum in the group’s hierarchy.

Of course, as a newly promoted second in command he was given a group of newcomers in other words only horses that lived in the desert and he was put in charge of supervising the menial tasks of the herd, like hunting and scouting.

So now that Mule returned even if defeated, he had to protect his newly acquired position, which is why he wasn’t lashing out at his subordinates for not having erased the traces of their hunt properly and why he also made his trusted aide bring out this subject so that he could disparage the other party.

‘Damn, why did that guy had to return now, the king trusted him more than the other seconds in command, that’s why he was left in charge of the secondary group and he can’t be blamed for the defeat of back then since that huge snake was involved in it, not to mention that… he somehow grew a lot’, cursed the team leader in his mind.

Mule was already larger than the average black horse and now that he had obtained a manual and was forced to complete missions like there was no tomorrow by Alice, he actually grew more, so in terms of size he was only second to the king of fangs.

Anyway, having achieved his goal of making the desert horses dislike Mule, the team leader saw the border of the forest appear not too far ahead from the group, at distance he couldn’t see any signs of snakes waiting to ambush them.

Still, the few members of the group that died when they clashed against the anaconda were mostly the result of the black mamba race’s venom, so the team leader didn’t forget to remind his subordinates to be careful.

“Neigh”, that meant something along the lines of “If you are bitten, don’t let the snake escape, eat it, our bodies have received the new power of the king so eating what you fight and kill will help you deal with venom”, he said as the group entered the forest.

A conversation that reached the ears of a certain filly who had a little girl with blond hair and blue eyes, sitting on her back, that was naturally Ember who was hiding a couple of hundreds of meters away from the border of the forest, with Kana.

With a soft chuffling sound, the filly communicated what she had heard to Kana, who passed the message to Aster.

“Big brother, sister Ember says that the black horses had gained the ability to grow stronger by eating what they fight and kill”, said the little girl to which Aster nodded.

“I see… well that basically confirms that whatever had made the former king of herbivores change, it’s not related to the anaconda”, said Aster as he patted Kana’s head a couple of times.

According to the mare, the change on the now king of fangs was gradual, one day a young member of their herd was attacked by a wolf that had separated from its pack and after killing the wolf that had caused the death of one of the foals, the king slowly became more aggressive.

He went from only fighting when the occasional predator appeared outside of the forest, to go into the forest to look for them and actively fight and kill them, that being said they never saw him eating meat and the mare thought that he simply was angry at the death of that foal.

Until later one morning the former king announced that he had learned of a way to become stronger and wanted everyone to practice it, which was being injected with the toxin that he had somehow obtained alongside those fangs that clearly shouldn’t appear on a horse.

If it had only been that maybe more of the original herd of horses would have accepted but that change came with a certain thirst for conflict and meat, probably caused because an herbivore transformed into a carnivore in such an unnatural way.

At least that’s what Aster used to believe, until he heard the previous, if things stopped at that, he could still believe that the horse’s change was caused by himself alone, since Guardian is an example of a carnivore that grew wiser and reigned in her predator instincts, the lynx avoided unnecessary conflict and only killed to defend herself and to eat, nothing more.

What’s more, despite she being the strongest animal in the forest she didn’t seek to control nor rule over others unlike the kings of beasts, but instead preferred to liver her abnormally long life in seclusion while maintaining the balance of the forest.

‘Transforming others and also becoming strong through fighting, killing and consuming enemies is far from what a mortal beast even one like Guardian should be able to do, so there is no doubt that there is something else going on with that black horse’, thought Aster.

Honestly, in a 1v1 Guardian would be able to kill the black horse with ease, to have a chance against the lynx, the king of fangs would have to use his subordinates as shields while looking for a chance to ambush her and even then, chances were that he would die alongside all his subordinates and maybe he would be able to gravely wound her.

But it’s not because Guardian has some kind of magical ability like him, well, she does have lineage suppression but that’s something she attained herself and there is still a logical reason behind of it, no, the lynx will win because she is way physically stronger, agile and smarter than a member of her race should be, not to mention that she is a lynx the size of a lioness, in other words her strength still originates from that of an animal, it’s just that her capacities were amplified past what her limits should be.

But when it comes to “special” abilities from her race, she doesn’t have anything that could be seen as magical as for example Espi’s camouflage or her insane metabolism and adaptability, because Guardian used to be just a normal mortal ranked lynx not a spirit beast race.

And at the same time, she also lacks the abnormal abilities that beings like the bear, the anaconda and lately the black horse which go against their original races had obtained as well.

“Well, we don’t have to worry about that, let alone killing and eating, I doubt those guys will be able to even put up a proper fight anyway, to think our plan to get information on the black horses already paid off before we even captured one of them, those guys really grew quite arrogant”, ultimately said Aster as he sat down to relax.

The black mamba they had captured earlier as well as Mule proved to be useful once again, as Aster used them to bait some horses into the forest, in part for the members of their group to get some real-life experience at fighting animals and in part because he wanted to gather intel on the black horses.

Who would have thought that the black horses in question were stupid enough to talk about the way they grew stronger out in the open like that, also that ability is not something they had before, because after a few rounds of beatings Mule had spilled every little thing he knew about the king of fangs and his own transformation, so that’s something that should have happened in the span of time after they met the mare and today, given how the suffered losses against the venomous snakes, meaning they couldn’t do this earlier, maybe only the king of fangs was capable of such.

“Mm”, with a small nod, Kana looked in the direction where the black horses should be appearing in a moment as she felt Ember’s fighting spirit increasing, though it wasn’t their turn yet to participate, as specific members of the group were selected to meet the scouts Aster knew the black horse would send.

“Not fair, I wanted to fight too”, mumbled Alice as she held onto Aster’s arm to which Aria shook her head at her.

“You don’t know the meaning of self-restraint or patience, so ambushes are definitely not your thing”, said the ice princess making Alice softly snort as she closed her eyes and leaned against Aster, clearly not interested in what will unfold later.

There were exactly ten figures among the two groups that had reunited, which were missing while everyone else was at this hidden spot around five hundred meters away from the border of the forest where the group of black horses had entered.

Speaking of the black horses they were starting to feel as if something was wrong, because they had deepened almost four hundred meters into the forest and there were still no signs of snakes anywhere.

“Neeigh”, the trusted aide of the team captain couldn’t help but say “Could it be that they feared our retaliation and escaped as soon as they couldn’t catch that guy?”.

It was a possibility, since this place was way far from the area of influence of the snake races, also the ground was relatively free of leaves and bushes that could be used for the snakes to ambush and bite their legs which was the method the black mambas used to take down more than half of the black horses that died in the conflict with the anaconda, so they would indeed be at too much of a disadvantage if they decided to fight.

The same applied to the plains, open fields with short vegetation were a bad match for ambush attackers like the snakes, which is why the anaconda and the black horse originally didn’t have a conflict of interests and a truce was within the possibilities, their habitats wouldn’t overlap so their areas of influence would remain separated, until Aster framed the anaconda of course.

Just as the team leader was about to give the order to head back and report that they found nothing, he saw a weird “creature” come out from behind a tree.

‘What kind of animal is that?’, thought the black horses, what laid ahead of them was an animal that stood on its hind legs, didn’t seem to have fur, scales or feathers on the vast majority of their body, though they seemed to have hair like they do, it only covered their heads.

Instead, there were some weird things covering their bodies, and they were holding onto sticks with “paws” that lacked claws while their mouths also didn’t show fangs.

‘That’s perfect, the king was pleased when I brought him that animal we have never seen before from the desert that he promoted me, if I bring that weird animal for him to eat, my position will be secured’, thought the leading black horse.

“Neeeigh!”, with a loud sound, he ordered his subordinates to charge towards the strange animal, which by the way had red colored hair that the horses unfortunately couldn’t see as such, since the colors they can perceive don’t include that turning red into gray or brown.

Only for more of those strange “creatures” to come out from behind trees that were spread apart through the next one hundred meters, for a total of ten of them, which would make one believe that the black horses would stop their charge, but given that their targets didn’t have claws nor fangs, not to mention that they were even smaller and lighter than them, they judged that even if their numbers were equaled, they would easily win in a fight.

“Woah, Aster was right, these guys are too arrogant, newbies you are up”, said another one of the red haired “creatures” this one had her eyes nearly closed and a harmful-looking smile on her face as she spoke.

The three girls who though weirded out at the words of the oldest of the three sisters, Mina, still nodded and spread to the sides and the front, they were the newest “rising stars” of the core disciples, Amanda, Brenda and Violet from the black sword, red sword and purple lotus factions, respectively.

They came with Valentina’s group and were selected to gain experience, besides them, the three sisters, Mina, Lina and Nina as well as Iris, Sophia, Dahlia and Cayden’s girlfriend Sandra, were the ten that had come to fight against the black horses.

And in case you wonder why would Aster who preaches about efficiency would waste the chance to ambush the horses, when they even have throwable weapons like spears, that’s because he wanted them to gain experience in frontal fights against enemies that outweigh and outsize them, in any case with Iris and Mina there, Aster judged that no one would get hurt.

“Neeeigh!”, the black horses that saw the strange animals approach them raised their upper bodies from the ground in order to stomp them, just to let out pained sounds as sharp objects thrusted into their bodies.

“Tsk, they move too much”, said Amanda as she saw her spear striking the shoulder of the horse instead of its neck as she was intending to, luckily the wings of the spear made it so that the thing wouldn’t get stuck in the horse’s body so they were able to retrieve them and jump back to pus distance between themselves and the horses who had started ranting due to pain stomping with both their frontal and hind legs.

“Heh, you little girls are too impatient, going for the kill right away is good if you can overwhelm the enemy even for a moment, otherwise weakening them is the way to go”, said Mina as she dashed next to one of the black horses while slashing her spear at its hock.

“Neeeeigh!”, the horse immediately lost his balance and fell on its butt as if he was going to “sit” then his sight was blocked by dust which was thrown at his face, which made the horse raise and shake his head only for a spear to pierce his neck making him collapse on the ground dying in less than thirty seconds.

“See, just like that, easy and fast”, said Mina as she slashed her spear to the side to shake the blood away from the blade.

‘That was supposed to be easy…’, thought those three at the same time, Mina might have pulled off that victory in a matter of seconds, but it wasn’t easy in the slightest, she first targeted one of the most vulnerable areas of a horse’s legs to immobilize it, then blinded and confused it by throwing dust to his face which made him expose a lethal point, that she attacked with the spear next.

“Sis, normal people don’t know the exact location of important joints and the like nor their equivalents for animals”, said the sister in the middle Lina, Mina had cut the anatomical equivalent of a human’s ankle for the horse with extreme precision.

“Nor do they prepare capsules with dust in their pockets to blind the enemy”, added the youngest of the three, Nina to which their older sister softly laughed as she said.

“Well, they’ll lookout for it from this moment onwards”, Agnes and Valentina had tried to obscure Aster’s vision by raising dust with their training weapons during the spar sessions, but Mina went beyond that and actually prepared some capsules with a combination of dirt and wood dust which she could use to take the enemy by surprise, as expected she is someone who’ll use every possible thing to her advantage.

The leading horse saw how those seemingly “weak” creatures wounded three of his subordinates and killed one in a span of minutes and he immediately planned to call a retreat, but when he looked backwards, a figure which he found familiar despite not having seen it before, was blocking the way from which they came.

‘T-That is the giant lynx that the king warned us about!’, inwardly screamed the leading black horse as he saw Guardian calmly standing in the direction from which they came.

The lynx had started to actively asking to participate in Aster’s plans, which definitely was against her original neutral position, though she wasn’t taking part in this small fight as her presence alone contributed more than enough.

Luckily, only seconds in command were informed about the actual threat that Guardian represented, and his subordinates are desert horses where the lynx hasn’t set a foot on, so he still had some leeway to maneuver.

“Neeeigh!”, the black horse suddenly realized what was going on, they were lured into a trap by the guy who just returned to the herd which made his eyes get bloodshot as he ordered his subordinates to spread and escape in different directions.

‘Humph, as long as I escape, you’ll all die!’, he thought as he ran in the opposite direction at which Guardian was stationed, leaving behind his subordinates that were chased at by Mina and the other girls.

As for the leading black horse, he hadn’t run more than a hundred meters when another familiar figure appeared not too far from him, it was the niece of the king’s former mate which had caused them so much trouble, Ember.

“Neeeigh!”, that meant something along the lines of “So you have colluded with others to take revenge for the king’s former mate!”, to which the filly coldly snorted.

Her aunt was perfectly fine, she didn’t come in this mission because she wanted to spend more time with her son as she knew that things will get more serious later, Ember on the other hand wanted revenge for the deaths of her parents at the hands of the king of fangs.

With a little tap from Kana’s left ankle, the filly charged towards the black horse who after hesitating for a second, since she saw one of those weird creatures sitting on the filly’s back, decided to take her down because he remembers that Ember is quite fast despite her young age, so if he wanted to escape she had to die, also the creature on her back was the smallest out of all the ones he had seen and the stick she was holding didn’t have that shiny thing which killed his subordinate earlier.

‘Heh, and here I was worrying about how to make up for the deaths of my subordinates to the king, you’ll be enough for…’, the horse’s inner monologue was interrupted by a heavy impact landing on his head as Kana smacked the wood club she was holding instead of a spear, with the extra power gained thanks to Ember’s speed.

“Thud!”, the black horse which was disoriented by the hit he took to the head, was then tackled by Ember who raised her upper body to stomp on the enemy’s side, the result was that the filly was now proudly standing next to horse with her right hoof on its neck, if he did so as much as to glare at her, she could kill him on the spot with her powerful leg strength.

‘To think that defeating an adult horse was this easy with the help of Kana, the former king will be next’, thought the filly.