The rise of the pervert primordial-Chapter 770: The fourth day of the development trial (part 3)
Despite the clear difference in size between a basically six-meter large king cobra and Guardian, the old cobra actually didn’t raise his body, so that he had to look at the lynx from below, which in other words means that the old cobra has to know about Guardian’s "status" and role in the forest though he isn’t a king.
"Hisss!", the other cobras apparently are not the same because when they saw their leader’s stance, they started getting impatient, until the old cobra told them to remain still.
"Grrrr", once the initial greeting between those two which established the hierarchy had taken place, Guardian told the old cobra that they wanted to have a private meeting with him.
To which the old king cobra leader accepted, the other cobras didn’t understand what the lynx was saying, but they obviously didn’t like that their leader was going to be left with a group of estrangers so Aster intervened.
"Let those three five-meter cobras stay, Espi, Kana and myself will stay from our side, that should be enough to convince them", he said to the lynx.
Aster chose who will stay based on their capacity of understanding the cobras and Guardian, also it wasn’t hard to see who made the cobras the wariest, namely Alice, Vivian, Agnes and surprisingly Ember.
While on the outside, two young girls like Kana and Espi were more acceptable to meet with their leader, as for Aster he was good at hiding his strength so the cobras were indifferent towards him.
"Hisss", with a soft hissing sound, the old king cobra explained to the three who stopped the group from advancing earlier, and they nodded at their leader in response, that was much more acceptable than just leaving the old cobra alone with estrangers. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖
"We’ll follow those guys, you guys can look around but don’t cause any trouble", said Aster as he specifically gazed at a certain dragon princess, the four-meter cobra that guided them was staying with the group since he was the one that took them here, to make sure that the young cobras didn’t cause trouble on their end as well.
With that sorted out, the old king cobra led the group towards a giant tree which stood behind the nest of the pregnant female cobra from earlier, which was basically hollow and acted as some sort of "meeting room".
"Woah, look at this big brother", mumbled Kana as they entered the trunk of the tree, just to see the large space to which it led, that was obviously not natural, using the tree as a cover the cobras had dug an underground shelter, which was connected to the nest of the pregnant female cobra.
’King cobras build unique nests but this is completely different, it feels more like an escape tunnel than a nest, how much time did they invested in making this and more importantly why’, thought Aster as he saw the underground space which extended far into the distance though obviously the width was adjusted so that only the cobras would fit, besides at the initial cave like center of it of course.
With the old king cobra leader and the three adult ones siding between Aster’s group and the nest of the pregnant female cobra, the conversation could start.
"Grrrr", with a soft growl, the lynx looked at Espi who casually slid towards Guardian while she explained the reason of their visit to the old king cobra leader.
It was a rather short explanation, Guardian basically told him that they had a champion to challenge the anaconda and wanted him to support the claim for a duel.
"Hisssss!!!", the three adult cobras who though weren’t able to understand Guardian, understood the intention behind her words given how Espi was presented according to the tradition which they know about, immediately expanded their hoods and hissed with hostility at the lynx.
This time however, the old king cobra didn’t immediately suppress them, in part because unlike in public where he is to maintain absolute authority over the group, in private he puts more weight to those three’s opinions and in part because the old king cobra wanted to see the reaction of the "little" white snake which was presented to him as a champion.
Of course, the little wyrm remained calm despite being glared at by the three adult cobras, what’s more, the old king cobra was surprised to see the two strange "animals" which he had an idea of what they are based in knowledge passed from his ancestors, also remain completely calm.
"If I remember correctly, supporting a duel doesn’t carry any negative outcome, regardless of the result of the duel’s result, so I would like to know why the hostility at the sole mention of it", said Aster to the lynx, which made the old king cobra gaze at Aster.
Though he couldn’t understand human language, he could tell that Aster somewhat understood the intention behind their hisses, now imagine his surprise when Kana outright translated what the three adult cobras said in a voice that they could also understand.
"Mmm, I might be missing on the details but they are saying something along the lines of "Let’s throw them out of here, we are already in such a bad state so what will happen when that little one gets killed by that anaconda, it might be the end of our race", it’s strange though, I don’t think they are afraid of the anaconda itself, if I were to say it, they are afraid of its methods", said the little girl, which made the three adult cobras stop their heated discussion on the spot to gaze Kana’s way.
"Hisss?", they obviously looked confused at the fact that Kana could understand them and more importantly that they could understand her, which was understandable, even Guardian still finds Kana’s capacity to communicate with other races without discrimination an absolute wonder, even she can’t do that and she has lived in this forest for centuries and thus knows all the races that live here, even if she doesn’t know every part of its territory.
Speaking of which, it’s important to clarify something, Guardian doesn’t meddle in the way the kings conduct themselves with their subordinates, unless they break the rules that could affect the prosperity of the forest, so she also had idea what was going on here, more accurately why was the king cobra race in such a state, she goes around travelling throughout the forest from time to time, visiting the different areas and the ones in charge of them one after another in order based on the longevity of the race in question, only after finishing a whole round of visits does she start all over again and that takes a long time.
To put an example, the last time Guardian saw the current king cobra leader, he was a small child and that was more than twenty years ago, which is the average lifespan of a king cobra in the wild, though they can potentially live more, especially this old king cobra considering that while he isn’t a king, it’s obvious that he is not a normal mortal member of his race, in a rough calculation Aster would say that he is at a similar stage as the mare who could stand up to the king of herbivores momentarily so long as she didn’t expect to survive much after that.
"Grrrr", with a soft growl, the lynx asked the old king cobra leader to explain the events which she had taken place for their race to end in this state, the conversation was easy to understand, courtesy of Kana translating in this case for both Aster and the adult king cobras that couldn’t understand the lynx.
"Sister Guardian says that the last time she was here, they were in low spirits as it had been a whole generation since their king was dethroned and the new members of their race didn’t know about their glorious days, but the group was more than twice what it is now and everything was relatively normal for them".
"What’s more, while most of the elders from back then should have met the end of their lifespans at this point, it doesn’t make sense that none of them are alive, not to mention that this weird "shelter" didn’t exist", said Kana.
"Hisss", the old king cobra leader seemed nostalgic for a second there, he still remembers the though crushing benevolent presence of Guardian when she visited the leaders of that time, he was one of the few children that peeked at her from the distance.
"Cobra grandpa says that for the next three to five years things remained more or less the same, but then... they started being isolated by other races, starting from the snakes that lived in the adjacent areas which moved away from them, even when they went to the major water bodies where reptile races gather, they were met with cold stares".
"Then, fights started to break out between the members of their race and multiple other snake races at the same time, apparently the focus of the discord was the fact that the king cobra race mainly if not completely feeds on other snakes by innate", mumbled Kana.
Which sounds "plausible", until you take into account the fact that while they do indeed feed on other snakes, they only need to eat once every few months and as per the ancestral rules set up by the continuous line of kings that came from their race, they avoided fights besides when they had to hunt for food, so they only killed to eat or to defend themselves, never being the ones starting the conflict.
Nature gives everyone a chance to prosper, even if each king cobra having to eat meant that the same number of snakes from other races had to die, in the months that it took them to have to hunt again, many times that number of snakes would be born, so they aren’t a burden but fulfill the important role of controlling the number of other snakes that live in the forest.
And that had continued undisputed for countless generations but apparently changed when the current king cobra leader was growing.
"Hiss", nodding at Kana, the old king cobra continued with his story.
"The fights escalated more and more and one day there were casualties, around ten snakes from other races fought an adult king cobra and both sides ended up dying, which resulted in the anaconda stepping in to "mediate", by the petition of basically all the other snake races, the king cobra race was to diminish the total size of their group to a certain limit, if they didn’t do it themselves, then the other races joining to attack them until the limit was met would be... allowed", mumbled Kana who could already tell what happened next.
"The conflict and the "solution" that followed, happen to be only a couple of years or so after a new batch of members of their race had been born so of course they couldn’t reduce the size of the group as they were told, thus a battle against many different middle sized snake races took place with parents being the ones standing at the front of the battle".
King cobras are rather unique among snake races, not only due to their size despite being venomous snakes, they are the only snakes that build a nest for their eggs, and not only that, the female also stays and aggressively defends her eggs until they hatch, what’s more unlike other snakes they even tend to form stable pairs even in the wild.
Now, that is the case with normal mortal king cobras, and as you already know, the animals in this place are not normal, so that especially strong "maternal instinct", was taken to the next level, so the king cobras here really care for their children.
’Even the wood stripped snakes had shown obviously intelligent behavior and king cobras are actually smart so, they should be even more so in this place’, thought Aster.
"As a result of that battle, a lot of adult king cobras died, but the number of casualties on the other side was many times that of them, so no one attacked after that, the problem is that the leader of back then who had lost his son and grandchildren in the fight, went straight to the king of water beasts to fight, not for a duel, he and a group went with the intention of killing her and taking revenge on the green anaconda race".
"Unfortunately, after killing quite a few members of the green anaconda race, they were also killed and for having started a revolt against a king without going through the proper process of a duel, they were punished with being forced to remain within their territory and the nearby areas for the next twenty years, luckily at the same time with that the king cobra race now met the stipulated limit", concluded Kana before the old cobra added.
"Hisss".
"He says that with most adults dead and given how they had become "public enemies" the remaining adults and young members that could fight were now forced to guard the border of their territory, but the biggest problem is that since they couldn’t leave their home, they couldn’t hunt...", and here Kana stopped for a second, the three adult cobras all seemed to be gritting their teeth, something to note is that the three were male cobras.
In fact, now that Aster thought about it, the sole adult female cobra he has seen is the pregnant or more accurately "gravid" one that is laying on not too far from them.
"Now they had to use the pregnancy of a female as bait in order to get attacked so that they could obtain food, but that’s not always enough so... the mother and father willingly become "nutrients" for the young generation", mumbled the little girl.
In other words, the king cobra race had to resort to cannibalism, now, in the case of normal king cobras that’s not a "taboo" but even then, they normally only do so in times where food is scarce, preferring to eat other snake races, so you can imagine how much these king cobras who were more aware than normal, loathed the idea of eating their own kind.
But if that was making the three adult snakes obviously angry, the next part of the story affected even the old king cobra leader.
"Hisss!", to the point that he actually lost it for a second, it was understandable though.
"Only later when he became the sole member of his generation that lived through the first decade of adaptation to their current lifestyle, he got to know that all this was instigated by the current king of water beasts, she killed members of different snake races and pinned that on the king cobra race".
"Apparently that anaconda somehow gained the ability to produce venom, and on top of that it’s one similar to the one from the king cobra race, so that’s how she pulled that off, of course when they tried to expose this, no one believed them, in fact the snakes coming to make sure that their numbers didn’t exceed the established limit, diminished so more adults of their race had to sacrifice themselves, and after that they stopped trying to bring this subject, that’s also why they built this place", concluded Kana.
The previous didn’t surprise Aster considering how some animals mutated, if a horse could become venomous, it wasn’t too far stretched for an anaconda to do the same.
"She probably ate the corpse of the previous king and gained its venom or something along the lines of it", said Aster to which the lynx nodded.
In case you think that Guardian is also at fault here, the reason as to why the old king cobra doesn’t blame her, is because he knows that the lynx can’t favor any race in particular, she only interferes if the prosperity of the forest is at the stake.
And the anaconda took that into account, because if the enemies had killed the young members of the king cobra race, Guardian would have stepped in for getting in the way of the continuity of a whole race, however the anaconda counted with the cobras putting their lives on the line to protect their young members, so the previous didn’t happen.
The king cobra race weakened over time and ended up in a bad state, yes, but they were still one of the four major snake races, and their race while reduced in number would still continue to exist, it was a really well thought "cage".
The little wyrm who had remained still while listening to the story, calmly slid towards the pregnant female king cobra who surprisingly didn’t show hostility towards Espi, even though she approached the eggs she was protecting.
This female king cobra was not the mother of those eggs as she had yet to lay hers, but she was the one designated by the other mothers to protect them, the reason being that the others had already become food for the whole group.
As to why adult females were not in view that’s simple, female king cobras can actually go through "parthenogenesis", which means that under certain circumstances they can produce offspring without the help of a male, said circumstances involving danger to the continuity of the race, like this case.
So, to prevent increasing their numbers past their limit without taking into account the next batch of newborns, they females are always the first to offer themselves to become food, of course it’s not random, they rotate from a family to another one and so on.
"Hisss", seeing the barely fifteen eggs in the nest, the little wyrm turned to see Aster with a sharp light in her pretty green eyes, one must now that king cobras are known to lay between 20 and 50 eggs, and there were three separations for five eggs each, meaning that they belonged to three different female cobras.
"Hisss", the old king cobra explained that to reduce the number, the cobras that are to produce offspring purposedly don’t eat.
And that was the drop that broke the camel’s back for the little wyrm, she was reminded of the times she had to go to sleep with an empty stomach because she had to hide from the ones hunting the other wyrms in Esmeralda’s realm, which used to be the reason as to why Espi was a little glutton, she used to hate the feeling of being hungry.
Of course, nowadays, or more accurately since she met Aster, the reason changed to be that she liked the delicious food she got to eat and she loved eating in company of Kana, Aster and the others.
Fortunately for Espi and really unfortunately for the other party, perfect "Sandbags" to vent her anger presented by themselves, right now.
"Ahem, we have a little situation here, you better come out before Alice starts killing everything in sight", Aria’s voice interrupted the conversation and before Aster could say anything, the little wyrm had disappeared very much to the surprise of the adult king cobras.
’Poor bastards, they just had to come now’, thought Aster as he walked out of the shelter accompanied by the adult king cobras while the old leader remained to guard the pregnant female.
They came out just in time to hear a horrified hiss coming from a random patch of dead "leaves".
"Hishshsh!", the sound was produced by a gaboon viper, a race that is known for two things, its fangs which are the longest of any venomous snake race and its camouflage mastery.
Though the latter sounded like a bad joke considering the panicked expression on the face of the other vipers that were accompanying that once, since they didn’t know where the attack came from.
At least until Espi became visible the next second to then tighten the grip on the viper’s neck.
"Crack!", a loud shattering sound echoed through the vicinity as the little wyrm casually broke the neck of the viper, killing it on the spot.
