Book 5 Chapter 7.4 - Snow Country
Aire didn't know that the little thing nailed to the tree was currently in an awkward situation as well. Compared to the meat bull, the male before it was clearly tastier. In its eyes, the tastiness of something came from the amount of abilities it contained. The power within the bull meat was pitifully low. Even though it ate half of it in a single meal, it only barely satiated its hunger. In its opinion, the meat cow was completely dull and uninteresting, but Aire was releasing a warm light and energy radiance.
It had more than ten compound eyes, every single eye's use different to some extent. The combinations of more than ten eyes overlaid on each other were numerous to the point of being difficult to count. However, no matter how they switched modes, Aire still looked more appetizing than the flesh bull.
Its stomach became more and more hungry, but it resisted the temptation. In this torment, it grinded its blades in a sullen manner, the two sharp carapace blades unexpectedly producing sparks as they grinded together. These movements startled the man below. Even though he didn't move, the energy within his body was abruptly increasing and decreasing, the fear he felt clearly quite great.
Aire obviously didn't know that his feigned calm appearance was completely stripped before the other party's complex vision.
For the little fella, resisting this temptation, especially the temptation of hunger, was extremely difficult. It was still extremely young, not knowing what was called a will. When it began to develop a clear consciousness, it already grew within its mother's body for a period of time, and then it was born. As soon as it was born, it left its mother's body; in its opinion, this was extremely normal. Its mother's repeated warnings before leaving were just things she muttered to herself, even more so a type of blessing and hope. However, what she didn't know was that it actually understood everything.
From the moment it was born, it had its own consciousness and intelligence. Its mother ordered it not to get close to her, and also not to look for her. It was extremely obedient, because it sensed an extremely strong and dangerous aura, as well as even a dark gray radiance that represented death. Even if its mother didn't tell it to, it still wouldn't approach her. This came from its young body's instincts to survive, as well as a reflection of its intelligence. It understood clearly that right now, it would only become a burden to its mother. Before it was born, the power of that organism called Eileen left it deeply terrified.
It needed to grow up, needed to become stronger.
To survive, grow, and become stronger, this was the deepest instinct engraved in its genes.
As for its mother's wish to have the small village's people foster its growth, in its opinion, there was completely no need. Even with its preadolescent body, it still had a perception radius of over fifty meters, so hunting for food and hiding from danger was not a problem at all. It was to the extent where as long as it wanted to, it could completely massacre all the people in the village within a month of its birth.
It didn't believe itself to be human, and everything it saw proved this fact. However, it knew that its mother was human. That was why before it became hungry to the point where it couldn't go on any longer, or when the food was just too delicious, it wasn't too willing to use humans as food. While inside of its mother's body, it felt incredibly warm and comfortable, leaving it full of good impressions towards the human race.
Right when both parties above and below the tree were at a loss, the little fella's movements suddenly went rigid!
Its body continuously trembled. Scales emerged on its blue-green skin one after another, and the thin plates spread out, every single scale releasing a faint yellow radiance below them. These scales were long and flowing, their edges incredibly sharp. When they completely unfolded, this little thing completely became a blade sphere. If any vicious beasts tried to open their mouth to eat it, as long as it unfolded its scales, it could easily blast that vicious beast's inners rotten.
However, the reason why it displayed these scales right now was clearly not to attack. Its compound eyes were frantically flickering, and its four limbs that were inserted into the tree trunk were pulled out as well, lightly pressing against the tree trunk, only barely supporting itself on the tree trunk.
Several minutes later, it seemed to have discovered something. It released a soft screech. The few long scales on its back lengthened to their greatest extent, releasing several streaks of faint golden-colored radiance. This radiance had powerful driving force. It exerted force, leaping out, and then unexpectedly flew into the sky. It changed directions in midair, and then with a whoosh sound, it flew into the distance, immediately vanishing from Aire's field of view.
Aire stood there, completely stupefied, not understanding what had just happened at all. When the little thing flew into the air, he thought that he himself was dead for sure. Who knew that it would unexpectedly fly away, moreover fleeing in such a flustered manner!
Aire's entire body suddenly loosened up, breaking out in cold sweat. At the same time, a type of sticky and cold sensation stuck to his body, making him feel incredibly uncomfortable.
He breathed in and out heavily. His knees went weak, and then he sat down on the ground.
The forest became even gloomier, but Aire who had just obtained a new lease on life didn't notice these things. He even more so couldn't detect that in another world, an incomparably vast shadow surrounded this entire region. The shadow discovered Aire, and then it reached out a tentacle into this world, touched Aire's body, but then returned to the void world, uninterested. There were a few more tentacles that touched the remaining half of the bull flesh, clearly somewhat interested, lingering about for a long time before withdrawing.
The shadow rolled over like waves, heading towards the uninterrupted mountain range. Aire only felt a wave of coldness sweep over his body, as if he had been continuously battered by ice-cold ocean waves. He recovered a bit of strength with great difficulty, and then struggled to his feet before slowly leaving the forest. As for that flesh bull, he would leave it there. Even though it might draw that little thing back, if he brought it away or burned it, there was a greater chance of infuriating that little thing. Should that happen, it would be the same as bringing a disaster onto the entire village.
The gloominess of the forest continued for another half hour. This half hour left both of Aire's legs feeling powerless, slowing down his normal walking speed by more than half. The road that normally took him ten minutes, now after half an hour had passed, still didn't bring him out of the forest. Aire cursed silently. The number of ridiculous events that happened today were just too much.
When Aire emerged from the forest, his eyes suddenly lit up. There seemed to be an extremely pretty young man and two girls who walked past him. The momentary breathtaking view made Aire's heart skip an entire beat. However, when he rubbed his eyes and saw what was before him more clearly, he discovered that there was nothing there, and there wasn't the slightest trace of anyone passing by on the ground.
Aire carefully examined the ground, but he really didn't find any traces. However, the memory of the three people was still extremely clear, and they were less than a hundred meters from him when they passed by!
This was the first time since Aire's birth that he doubted his own eyes. When his repeated search proved fruitless, Aire finally decided to give up. He had experienced too many things today, shocked too many times. He needed to get some proper rest.
His ten years of peaceful living was shattered today. Aire even wondered if all of his luck had been used up in the past decade.
From a certain perspective, Aire's premonition was correct.
A few hours later, the shadow from a different world swept over in reverse. Then, a dazzling and enormous ball of plasma flame slowly rose from within the village.
It was venting its anger. Unfortunately, this information was already useless for Aire.