The thought of returning to a bland diet of grilled dragon meat on a hot stone for the foreseeable future made Asterion's heart heavy.
The sky-filling swarm of locusts seemed to have flown in from the north, which meant the north had also suffered disaster. It was unknown just how far the devastation had spread.
On Earth, a typical large swarm of desert locusts could cover 2,400 square kilometers—equivalent to 340,000 football fields—and consume enough food to feed 3.5 million people for a day. Furthermore, once swarming, locusts would change their habits from eating only plants to devouring meat and even soft plastics.
Given the sheer size of the New World, 2,400 square kilometers was naturally a small figure. However, the locusts of the New World were not like those on Earth. They were larger, flew faster, possessed greater vitality and reproductive capabilities, and their bodies were fortified by bioenergy.
This meant they ate more and covered a larger area, though Asterion didn't know the exact dimensions. He only knew that these locusts were moving across the Wildspire Waste like a massive, shifting stain. Wherever they flew, the foundational ecology was destroyed.
Traveling along a familiar route to the nearby flower field swamp zone, Asterion found exactly what he expected. The once-beautiful sea of pale purple flowers and aquatic plants were things of the past. The formerly clear water surface was now submerged under a dense mass of locusts.
Piles of drowned locust carcasses had accumulated underwater. Before they could even surface, they were trampled back down by their own kind and suffocated. Their numbers were so vast that the current couldn't wash them away, making the swamp look as if it had turned into solid land.
It was a truly nightmarish scene.
Asterion also encountered a few Barroth and Jyuratodus. These fellows, lacking the wisdom to see the bleak future ahead, were currently as happy as the Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers. The Barroth, in particular, who usually loved eating insects, were acting like they had gone mad with joy. They rooted around in the swamp with their mouths open, every mouthful packed with protein.
In Asterion's eyes, this style of eating felt a bit like a "last meal before execution"—the final madness before the famine.
Eat up. Eat up. Build up your fat while there's still food... I'll come to collect the meat from you later.
Murmuring this internally, Asterion did not attack the other monsters he encountered along the way. And since food was plentiful, the other monsters did not attack him.
Given the size and constitution of a Grimalkyne, a swarm of locusts would naturally be highly toxic. But for large monsters, that amount of toxin wasn't enough to matter; at most, it might give them a bit of a stomachache.
More than two years later, Asterion finally returned to the place where he had once learned hunting arts from the Sword Master. From here, he could see the hunters' base of operations.
Compared to the refugee-camp-like settlement in his memories, the current base was much grander. Quarried stone blocks, cut into regular shapes, formed the main body of Astera. Although still rough, it now had distinct districts, much like a person possessing a complete set of internal organs.
The hunters were currently scrambling to salvage their supplies, looking busy and shouting back and forth.
The hunters had no solution for this locust plague either... This didn't surprise Asterion. What shocked him was the range covered by this swarm; it hadn't even spared the seaside where Astera was located.
It was important to note that while Asterion's nest and Astera were both geographically classified as being in the southernmost part of the Wildspire Waste, there was still a distance of several days between the two locations. And "several days" here was based on Asterion's movement speed and endurance. If it were a hunter, it would take nearly a month to make the trip.
One could only imagine just how vast the Wildspire Waste and the New World truly were. If the land area weren't so immense, the New World wouldn't be able to support the simultaneous existence of so many Elder Dragons, no matter how rich the bioenergy was.
But this locust plague had blanketed both Asterion's nest and Astera at the same time. The scale was so massive, and the ecological destruction so severe, that Asterion even found himself wishing an Elder Dragon would show up and wipe the locusts out.
Otherwise, he was genuinely afraid the Wildspire Waste would turn into a dead zone—a forbidden land for life. If it really reached that point, even if life sprouted again decades later, it would be a completely new cycle of organisms.
If Elder Dragons were truly nature personified—living symbols of calamity and nature's means of maintaining ecological balance—would a corresponding Elder Dragon appear to deal with this rampant locust plague?
If so, what kind of dragon would it be?
Asterion waited.
He was curious. If nature truly used invisible means to adjust the cycle of life and death, what kind of Elder Dragon would exterminate a plague that had nearly destroyed the ecological foundation?
He waited, and waited, and he... he waited for nothing.
The locust plague passed.
Carcasses piled up on the ground like a bright yellow sea. They rotted, they dried out, but until the very end, Asterion never saw an Elder Dragon appear.
The locusts had starved to death.
Even though locusts had short lifespans—averaging two to three months—these locusts didn't live to the end of their natural lives. They died early from starvation due to a lack of food.
Even the locust corpses the Grimalkynes scavenged were shriveled; squeezing them didn't produce much moisture.
This meant that before they died, they had completely stripped the vegetation from the entire region. The future Asterion had foreseen was gradually becoming reality.
The number of herbivores had decreased significantly. In the past, Asterion only had to take a stroll to the nearby flower field swamp, the adjacent canyon, or the rocky outcrops to find nesting Apceros families.
But now, the Apceros families in his memory had vanished. A few Apceros corpses remained in the nests, but their exposed flesh was exceptionally shriveled—not the kind of dryness caused by post-mortem moisture loss, but the emaciation caused by malnutrition while they were still alive.
Even the dung at the entrance of the nests was so dry it had lost its scent. If there were any Apceros still alive, they had likely migrated long ago.
The current Wildspire Waste truly felt like a dead land. Under the baking sun, most of the locust corpses dried out too quickly to rot and breed disease. They were small and desiccated rapidly.
A simple gust of wind was all it took to blow them into the air, scattering them to unknown places where they would crumble and become part of the soil.
And the one thing the Wildspire Waste never lacked was wind.
Originally, one could still see some greenery—small streams flowing through canyons, low shrubs growing stubbornly in rock crevices, or bitter desert cacti.
But after the locust plague, the Wildspire Waste had truly turned into a barren expanse of yellow—the purest color of rock. Even the yellow-green that barely represented life had disappeared.
The old Shaman watched this with anxiety burning in his heart. He had promised Asterion several times that as soon as the rainy season arrived, they would immediately plant various spices, including herbs. He begged Asterion not to abandon them.
Uh, even though Asterion had repeatedly told the old Shaman not to worry and that he wouldn't abandon them, it was useless. These Grimalkynes still racked their brains trying to prove they could still be of service to Asterion; otherwise, they felt physically uncomfortable.
It wasn't surprising. While waiting for the locust plague to pass, the Grimalkynes had eaten all the mushrooms they had salvaged from the locusts' mouths. The planted herbs were reduced to roots. They didn't have enough spices to offer Asterion a grand meal, and going out to hunt had become impossible for them.
Asterion's life hadn't changed much. Every few days, he would go out to hunt, eating some bursting little snacks along the way. When he chopped down a large monster, he would drag it back to the nest for the Grimalkynes to process. And the Glavenus Tribe—oh, now including the Grimalkyne tribe that had stayed to pledge loyalty to Asterion after the Great Gluttony Festival—benefited.
Asterion ate the best and most nutritious parts of the carcasses, while the Grimalkynes ate the leftover scraps. While an all-meat diet did lead to malnutrition, the Grimalkynes managed to survive the famine this way.
The older Grimalkynes knew well that if such a disaster had happened in the past, every tribe would inevitably have seen many good cats starve to death, or even entire tribes disappear. But under the protection of Boss Glavenus, the cats not only didn't decrease in number, they were full-bellied and had even added many new kittens.
This was a stroke of immense luck!
With the older Grimalkynes spreading this sentiment, the anxiety in the other Grimalkynes grew even stronger. They were desperate to prove their value to Asterion.
The nest where Asterion rested had been swept countless times by the idle Grimalkynes. Even some protruding stones had been polished until they shone, almost reflecting light.
Only by working hard could these simple, rustic cats feel a little peace of mind.
However, the death of the locusts did not mean the disaster was over. On the contrary, the true days of hardship were just beginning.
Food in the Wildspire Waste was never as abundant as in the Ancient Forest, and after the locust plague, the quantity of food plummeted.
The reduction in herbivores finally affected the middle and upper tiers of the ecological niche. Even if ordinary monsters couldn't foresee the situation months in advance like Asterion, they realized that survival was becoming increasingly difficult.
In the past, when two large monsters met unexpectedly, most—aside from the extremely aggressive ones—would choose to size each other up, exchange a few blows to determine dominance, and let the weaker one leave to avoid unnecessary injury and wasted stamina. The winner would then claim the hunting ground.
After all, herbivores were plentiful and their meat was fatty; food was easy to obtain.
But things were different now.
Herbivores had decreased massively, but the number of predators had not dropped accordingly. Driven by hunger, they finally turned their gazes toward other large monsters—fellow predators.
For ordinary monsters with limited intelligence, nothing was more important than filling their bellies. Even if fighting another predator meant injury, potential death, or massive stamina consumption, it meant food in the end.
The southernmost part of the Wildspire Waste had turned into a bloody coliseum; only the victors could eat and live to see another day.
Four months after the locust plague ended, even Asterion was affected—he was finding it difficult to locate monsters of suitable size to hunt.
Following the mass disappearance of the producers, the predators began to vanish in large numbers as well.
The invisible territorial boundaries between monsters had dissolved. Asterion didn't know about other places, but this southern region of the Wildspire Waste had become a chaotic demon realm—all kinds of monsters roamed everywhere, killing on sight, the victors feasting on the flesh of the losers.
Furthermore, Asterion discovered several monsters during his hunts that were not originally active in the south. They had likely fled from the central or even northern parts of the Wildspire Waste, only to find that the south had also been devastated.
The locusts had simply eaten and migrated, flying wherever there was food, eating and breeding until there was nothing left and they starved.
No Elder Dragon appeared to stop this disaster. Perhaps what ordinary creatures viewed as an apocalyptic cataclysm meant nothing in their eyes.
Asterion was somewhat disappointed. If an Elder Dragon had actually shown its face, he could have looked for an opportunity to take it out and acquire the Elder Dragon's power—those guys usually hid so well that he could never find them.
No matter how hard it got, the days always passed, one by one.
The residents of the southern Wildspire Waste—er, the residents who had struggled to survive until the end—finally saw a turning point.
The rainy season arrived.
Thunder rumbled from the horizon, and dark clouds blanketed the sky, blocking the blazing sun that always hung overhead. When the first drop of rain fell on the scorching rocks, even the dullest creature understood: this was the scent of life.
The plants revived.
Well, not exactly revived. Rather, the seeds buried in rock crevices, in corners, and under the soil sprouted. They replaced the dead, withered vegetation, greedily absorbing the rare rainwater.
The locust eggs buried in the shallow soil had died during the scorching heat of the past few months. Along with the locust corpses that had long since dried, rotted, and turned to dust, they nourished the new shoots, allowing them to grow strong in the barren soil of the Wildspire Waste.
The Grimalkynes cheered excitedly. They rushed out into the open without cover, feeling the precious rain. Then, they broke ground near their old tribal lands again, planting their treasured spice seeds—the ones the locusts hadn't ruined—hoping they would grow quickly.
After holding back for so long, they couldn't wait to present a delicious meal to Boss Glavenus.
But plant growth and ecological recovery would still take a long time. It was foreseeable that the Grimalkynes would likely have to live with their guilt of helplessness for a while longer.
Hunting for prey as usual, Asterion could see spots of green emerging along the way. This was especially true for the flower field swamp area; the dense mass of locust corpses was gone, as was the endless expanse of purple flowers.
But new aquatic plants were growing. Through the clear water surface, Asterion could already see wisps of bright green. It likely wouldn't be long before this place turned into a sea of pale purple flowers once again.
As long as food was abundant, given the reproductive capacity of herbivores, their figures would soon be seen here again.
It was all good news.
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