The previous evolution had thoroughly drained the bio-energy accumulated in Asterion's body.
Although the physical changes appeared massive, essentially, this evolution was still within the scope of ordinary wyverns, so the consumption of bio-energy, while high, was bearable.
Except for the evolution of his forelimbs and steel skin—but the old Kushala Daora had footed the bill for those features, so they hadn't sucked Asterion dry.
Returning once again to the days of accumulating bio-energy, Asterion had already tasted the flesh and blood of an Elder Dragon. Therefore, he had a rough idea of the astronomical figure required for the bio-energy needed to truly evolve the capabilities characteristic of an Elder Dragon.
Compared to the energy consumed in this recent evolution, the difference was like that between a sea and a lake.
No wonder Nergigante chased and hunted Elder Dragons. The bio-energy stored within a single Elder Dragon far exceeded that of ordinary wyverns; one was better than six. If one chose to accumulate bio-energy by hunting ordinary wyverns, the energy gained probably wouldn't even cover the consumption of the hunt.
Since Nergigante had already provided the solution formula, he just had to copy it.
After patrolling a lap around his territory, Asterion found a spot with a wide view on the small hill atop the nest. He lay down, squinting as he observed the Grimalkynes busy working below, while pondering which Elder Dragon to target next.
Hmm... The hunters discovered the New World because the Guild observed the Elder Crossing phenomenon that occurs every ten years. The First Fleet set off following a Kushala Daora, and midway they encountered Zorah Magdaros, who had failed to enter the Everstream who knows how many times.
Calculating the time, how long until the Second Fleet departs?
The arrival of every fleet meant an old Elder Dragon nearing the end of its lifespan had arrived in the New World—Old Elder Dragons are great!
He had to fight old Elder Dragons!
Even if he had to use "wait-it-out" tactics against old men, it was still better than fighting Elder Dragons in their prime! It was easier! And they had plenty of bio-energy inside them!
Simply perfect.
Sigh, it is Nergigante's selection process after all; this path really has no issues... except maybe having to fight Nergigante for food?
Asterion had already begun thinking about how to kill Nergigante in the future.
"Boss, meow! Want to taste some roasted fish, meow?"
Just as Asterion was thinking, two Grimalkynes swayed over carrying a roasted fish, looking at him with faces full of anticipation.
It was a large fish, over a meter long. For an angler, this was a trophy sufficient to parade around the city three times, but for Asterion, it wasn't even enough to fill the gap between his teeth.
"Roar!" (Not bad!)
He nodded his head as an affirmation of the roasted fish. Seeing Asterion's reaction, the two Grimalkynes ran down happily, shouting as they went.
"The Boss says he likes this flavor, meow!! Do it this way, meow!!"
"Ohhh!!"
A small group of Grimalkynes waiting below immediately cheered.
Almost all the Grimalkynes in the Wildspire Waste were now gathered at the Glavenus Tribe's area. Asterion couldn't even tell which were his own cats and which were wild cats anymore.
But they were all good cats.
The messengers sent by the Glavenus Tribe had indeed explained to these kin the changes in their tribe over the past year and the object of their loyalty. However, the idea of a smart, powerful, and benevolent monster willing to protect Grimalkynes was a bit too hard for the cats to believe. After all, in the eyes of Grimalkynes, the words "powerful" and "benevolent" couldn't be put together.
Monsters with combat power at the top of the ecological hierarchy were all deadly violent, wanting to eat cats on sight.
This impression only gradually changed after these outsider Grimalkynes couldn't resist the temptation of food and the persuasion of their kin, personally coming to the Glavenus Tribe's territory. But even so, Asterion's massive size and sharp sword-tail made these Grimalkynes' legs tremble.
They looked like they would dig a hole and flee at the slightest noise.
Fortunately, Asterion adopted an attitude of turning a blind eye to them. After discovering that Asterion wouldn't attack them, these outsider Grimalkynes finally breathed a sigh of relief and began working under the leadership of the Glavenus Tribe Grimalkynes.
One could say they were full of enthusiasm; after all, as long as they helped the Glavenus Tribe celebrate this festival well, they could return to their tribes with enough food to last a long time, making a huge profit.
This is much easier than risking our lives to hunt, meow!
Hmm, and they could also eat the scraps left over from carving dragon corpses. After a few days, these outsider Grimalkynes had all eaten until their bellies were round, turning into round fur balls.
They looked like they had been starving before; Asterion was even a bit worried these guys would stuff themselves to death.
Life is hard for the cats of the Wildspire Waste; lacking food, they didn't even dare to reproduce in large numbers.
It made the dragon sigh with emotion.
The Glavenus Tribe was already working with a bustling energy. The Grimalkynes used coal to build fires and cook—Asterion had dug up quite a few coal veins while digging randomly underground in the past, at least enough for the Grimalkynes to consume for decades.
With large concentrations of grills, stew pots, and stone slabs, the heat from the burning coal made the temperature in this area seem higher than elsewhere. The Grimalkynes even piled up a mountain of coal in the center of the clearing, the flames burning through the night until dawn.
This counted as a bonfire. Since wood is a scarce resource in the Wildspire Waste, they simply used a coal mountain instead.
The festival atmosphere grew thicker; every day, Grimalkynes skipped around the burning coal mountain. There were even young Grimalkynes playing on the edge, occasionally accidentally singeing their own fur and getting a scolding from their parents.
The scent of life, the scent of civilization—Asterion liked this lively feeling. After all, he was the protagonist of the festival. Even if he just lay on the hilltop motionless, the Grimalkynes would still look up at him from time to time while working.
Then they would work even harder, as if they had found their pillar of support.
The burning coal mountain made the place as bright as day even at night, but compared to the light and warmth, what traveled even further was the aroma created by the Grimalkyne chefs cooking.
It truly smelled fragrant for a hundred miles. The scent of stir-frying, the scent of stewed meat, and especially the scent of roasted meat—to those dragons with sensitive noses, it was simply an invitation to dinner. They followed the scent from very far away.
Lured by this soul-hooking aroma, some dragons indeed couldn't resist the temptation. After hesitating again and again, they stepped into Asterion's territory—and were then hacked to death by Asterion's messy blades, becoming new meat.
Even those dragons that could fly didn't escape. An Astalos swooped down from the sky wanting to snatch food from the tiger's mouth, but it didn't even touch the ground. During its diving descent, it was struck by Asterion, who launched himself like a shrimp and delivered a spinning tail bite-slash in mid-air, knocking it flying for several miles.
When the Astalos swooped straight down, its roar and the shadow of its wings made the Grimalkynes panic and scatter in all directions. But immediately after, Asterion flew across the sky and chopped the Astalos away. The two giant beasts battled in a ball not far away.
In the end, the Astalos was disemboweled and stabbed to death on the spot by Asterion's tail. This result made the outsider Grimalkynes unable to stop themselves from cheering.
"Boss Glavenus is too strong, meow!!"
"As expected of Boss Glavenus!!"
Hmm, that was about it; the cats' words of praise were very simple.
To be fair, the Grimalkynes of the Glavenus Tribe hadn't failed to mention how powerful and strong Boss Glavenus was before, and how lucky it was to receive his protection—but it wasn't until this moment, personally experiencing Boss Glavenus saving them from a monster's claws, that these outsider Grimalkynes truly understood this sense of security.
This damn sense of security!
Even the kin from the Glavenus Tribe next to them, who were proudly proclaiming Boss Glavenus's deeds, didn't seem so fanatical anymore; instead, they were viewed with deep envy.
We want a boss like this too!!
That's why cats are simple and kind; even in this situation, they only thought "Take me with you," not "I can replace him."
Throwing the Astalos corpse onto the pile of bodies, amidst the cheers of the Grimalkynes, Asterion leisurely returned to his "throne."
But this time, the gazes the Grimalkynes below cast at him held less fear and more worship.
If he had known that the Grimalkyne chefs cooking on an open fire could attract monsters, Asterion wouldn't have wandered around hunting before; he could have just camped at home and waited for prey to come to him—however, considering that battles between monsters often caused a huge commotion, and even if the food being cooked wasn't destroyed, it would be troublesome if the Grimalkynes were hurt, Asterion ultimately abandoned this idea.
The uninvited guests intending to ruin the festival all turned into new ingredients. However, in a place unknown to Asterion, his Big Eater Festival had another group of uninvited guests.
Hunters.
The hunters currently arriving in the New World didn't yet have the operating style of maintaining ecological balance seen in the future. Their energy was now mainly focused on investigating the mystery of the Elder Crossing and building the base—er, mostly the latter; progress on the former was currently zero.
Therefore, even if an unknown monster appeared and hunted other monsters on a large scale, these hunters had no intention of hunting this monster to maintain ecological balance, as long as it didn't come to destroy the base.
Just observation. Observation of a brand-new monster.
But when this unknown monster waved its sword-tail to hack and stab other monsters to death, and even displayed an astonishing Dragon-Style Spirit Helm Breaker, even the Commander—who was physically strong and had a high acceptance of unknown things—couldn't help but widen his eyes, his mouth unable to close for a long time.
On this monster's body, he seemed to see the shadow of an old friend.
That strange Glavenus that had been missing for a long time.
What happened next confused the hunters even more. Lynians living in the Wildspire Waste kept moving towards that direction. Although these Lynians didn't attack the hunters, they were very vigilant and had no intention of communicating.
Even when the Palicoes, fellow Lynians, went as representatives of the hunters to show friendliness, it was useless. These local Lynians were extremely xenophobic—and this was what the hunters couldn't understand: these local Lynians were actually moving outside with their young kin.
This behavior was completely illogical.
After various messages were sent back to the base, the Huntsman immediately applied to join the investigation team. The active Commander naturally wouldn't miss such a thing. Eventually, a four-man squad was formed to set out for investigation.
Searching along the tracks left by Asterion's predation, the four-man squad finally arrived outside the small hill where the Glavenus Tribe was located. Here, they could already see the chefs working enthusiastically in the distance, and they could see the monster lying on the small hill!
"Unbelievable, this monster actually isn't attacking the Lynians?!" Caly couldn't help but exclaim. "What are they doing?!!"
"Obviously, they are cooking," the Commander said, sniffing his nose. "It's confirmed; the fragrance we smelled faintly from far away came from here. Hah! Are these Lynians competing in culinary arts?"
"Look over there, they are serving that strange dragon, meow."
The speaker was the Commander's partner, a burly Palico with visible muscles on his chest and shoulders. He carried a Great Sword relative to a Palico's size. Both his expression and movements were steadier than Caly next to him, looking more like a veteran hunter.
Several people looked in the direction the muscular Palico pointed and saw a few black-and-white Grimalkynes carrying a stew pot up the hill with a wooden stick. When they arrived in front of the monster, the monster lowered its head and opened its mouth wide, allowing the Grimalkynes to pour the contents of the pot inside.
"It really is true." Caly rubbed his eyes in disbelief. "This is the first time I've seen a monster driving Lynians. Those Lynians actually look quite happy."
"This shows that this matter benefits them too, meow," the muscular Palico said in a deep voice. "Based on my experience, that monster probably protected these Lynians, and the price they have to pay is cooking for the monster, meow."
"But do monsters eat cooked food?" Caly couldn't help asking. "Even if there is a symbiotic relationship between them... er, I thought it would be the Lynians hunting and then offering the prey directly to the monster... That wouldn't be enough to eat, right? Sorry, I'm a bit confused."
"This shows that the monster possesses extremely high intelligence." Putting down the binoculars in his hand, the Commander said with a serious face, "This kind of wisdom really reminds me of an old acquaintance... Huntsman?"
"I'm not sure," said the Huntsman, who had been observing Asterion with binoculars the whole time, speaking crisply. "I haven't seen it make a move, and I don't know if the—Look! A dragon is coming!"
What the hunters discovered was the Astalos circling in the sky. They watched the Astalos dive, watched it get chopped into the distance by a blade, and watched Asterion stab the Astalos to death.
"What about now?" Looking at the Huntsman, the Commander asked again, "Is it your Glavenus disciple?"
"I, I—I don't know." The Huntsman's voice revealed a rare sense of bewilderment. "Is that my swordsmanship?"
The Huntsman had indeed seen a familiar trace in the swordsmanship Asterion used to hack the Astalos to death, but only a trace, which made him unable to be certain.
"It is said that this monster can use the Spirit Helm Breaker just like a hunter," Caly added. "I still feel this is that Glavenus, but if it really is him, why has he turned into this?!"
"Even the dragon species has changed!"
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