Beside the underwater volcanic crater, a large mass of still-steaming meteorite from outer space was bubbling in the seawater.
Suddenly, a huge soft-bodied monster with one of its large tentacles broken laboriously pried aside the rocks and crawled out from the pile of rubble. Its body was tattered, and blood mixed with a viscous green fluid was constantly seeping out.
But this was nothing to the monster. It had survived that final clash of energy; as long as it was still alive, there was still a chance for everything.
Like a squid, it slapped at the seawater, extending its ragged tentacles to touch the dragon bones drifting in the water, wanting to stick them back onto its tentacles as it had in the past.
Yet the dragon bones that had once been reinforced by it until they became incomparably hard snapped into several pieces the instant its tentacles touched them. After helping it block most of the explosive shock wave, the fact that these white bones could still retain some integrity and withstand the wash of the sea was already remarkable.
But under the strength of a large monster, even the slightest force already exceeded what they could bear.
In other words, these remains were now completely unusable.
It stared blankly as the bones drifted away along the current, regretting its own arrogance for the first time—actually wanting to get a share of the spoils in a battle like this, even going so far as to ambush those disaster-level Elder Dragons.
But that opportunity had truly been too rare!
On ordinary days, even racking its brains, it could not manage to prey on those cunning Elder Dragons, whereas this time laid out before it had been a group of top-tier Elder Dragons that had fought for a long time and were seriously wounded!
To ensure its chances of success, it had even gone so far as to bring along its own Dragon Graveyard, yet in the end...
But even if it could choose again, it would make the same decision.
As the most greed-ridden of the Elder Dragons, not to mention regret—even dying because of this would not be enough to stop its greed.
In one stroke, it had been knocked back to square one. It could no longer stay in the Guiding Lands. In the past it had offended too many Elder Dragons here, and now its Dragon Graveyard had been smashed, it barely had any dragon bones left on its body, and one of its main combat tentacles had been broken.
It might as well retreat to the New World and go fight with Lagiacrus over territory.
Once it had more or less recovered, it would fight its way back here again!
Its scarlet eyes took one last look at the nearby coastal waters that had already changed beyond recognition, and in one stroke it had been knocked back to square one; the Nakarkos that had lost its Dragon Graveyard dragged its exhausted body along the coast, heading in the direction of the New World.
...
Behind Astera, on the rear mountain.
The Tempered Chameleos swallowed hard, staring unblinkingly at Mother Chameleos and Little Chameleos, who had their heads buried in their respective large food bowls, wolfing down the special nutritious meal jointly prepared by the Provisions team and the canteen.
Made from medium- and small-sized creature corpses suited to a Chameleos's taste, they were lightly roasted to remove the stench of rot, then combined in a perfect ratio with things like scatter nuts, Flowfern, poisonous mushrooms, and some Bitterbugs. Beside each large bowl, three Mega Potions had also been placed as an after-meal course.
The Tempered Chameleos watched the Felyne busying about at Mother Chameleos's side and smelled the aroma wafting from the nutritious meal; even the mental state it had cultivated over many years of slacking off and coasting could not help but churn at this moment.
It really wanted to demand: "So this is the 'hard life' you were talking about?"
It considered that, relying on its near-perfect invisibility, it had already been living quite comfortably these past years in the resource-abundant Guiding Lands. But now, compared with the kind of life Mother Chameleos and Little Chameleos had—where food was brought right to their mouths, with a reasonable balance of meat and vegetables and fully rounded nutrition—the gap seemed a bit too excessive!
No wonder that after only a few decades of not seeing each other, Mother Chameleos's size had already overtaken its own.
Its forelegs shifted slightly, and it had just been about to take a step forward to see what else was in the nutritious meal.
But in the next second, two warning growls of food-guarding rang out at the same time, and Mother Chameleos and her child almost identically assumed the same protective posture over their food.
Not wanting to be subjected to a mixed double beating by mother and child again, the Tempered Chameleos silently pulled its forelegs back.
Today, Slott had specially gone to find Mother Chameleos and, with an apologetic air, said that with Astera's current amount of supplies, they probably could not afford to support a third adult Chameleos, so he wondered if Mother Chameleos might be able to think of some way on her side.
Yet what answered him was Mother Chameleos's "are you kidding me" expression. She immediately said there was no need to bother with that scumbag dragon—just let it live or die on its own—and there was no need to worry about it sneaking food from the base's supplies either; she and Little Chameleos would keep a very close eye on it.
This stance of hers made Slott let out a sigh of relief, and without another word he once again raised the dining standards for Mother Chameleos and her child, which was how the present scene had come about.
"Gwa~"
When had the Tempered Chameleos ever suffered such humiliation? In the Guiding Lands, although it could not be said that it acted without restraint, it could at least rely on invisibility plus toxic mist to live however it pleased—when had it ever been treated like this?
Thus, after getting angry for a moment, the Tempered Chameleos, under Mother Chameleos's wary gaze, flapped its small wings and flew toward the depths of the forest.
Out of sight, out of mind!!
A dignified Chameleos would never eat food given in contempt!
Mother Chameleos watched this scene, then glared at Little Chameleos, who was pretending to have its head buried in its food bowl but was in fact secretly extending a paw toward Mother Chameleos's three Mega Potions. Under Little Chameleos's despairing look, she snatched away the Mega Potions that belonged to it, then paused for a moment—and as if suddenly feeling a bit of maternal affection, returned one of them.
"Gwa!" (In a bit, you go guard the other side, gwa. Don't give that scumbag dragon a single chance, gwa!)
Little Chameleos nodded furiously and used its tongue to roll up the Mega Potion and swallow it in one gulp.
Astera was its territory—absolutely no shady scumbag dragon was allowed to enter at will!!
Seeing Little Chameleos looking so spirited, Mother Chameleos contentedly stuffed her mouth full of food.
She understood that scumbag dragon far too well. Aside from working hard more than a century ago when it had tried to compete for her, at all other times it behaved with the standard Chameleos attitude. Seeing her and Little Chameleos eating so well—would it obediently go out to forage on its own?
Mother Chameleos wouldn't believe that even if Little Chameleos were beaten to death!
As long as they stayed vigilant for a while, once that scumbag dragon saw that nothing could be gained here, it would naturally return to the forest. At that time…
Mother Chameleos suddenly thought of a problem.
In the past, not many Elder Dragons had been active in the Ancient Forest—most only passed through occasionally.
So… did that scumbag dragon even know that a powerful fellow had appeared on the Ancient Tree?
If it got frustrated here at Astera and then returned to the forest, and upon seeing the Ancient Tree—which was also a cluster of structures—would it, on a whim, pick a fight with Logan?
It had to be said: back then, even Mother Chameleos's perfect invisibility could not escape Logan's detection. It was only after her mutation, when she deliberately improved her invisibility with special energy targeted at Logan, that she could fool Logan's Mind's Eye for a short time.
With that scumbag dragon's half-baked invisibility that was only a little better than Little Chameleos's, wouldn't it get caught on the spot and hung up for a beating?
Thinking of this possibility, Mother Chameleos decided she should find some time to make a trip to the Ancient Tree.
A lesson was one thing, but letting it escalate into real fight would not be good.
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