The monsters complained back and forth. Asterion seemed to be muttering to himself, venting his frustration, while the Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers chimed in agreement.
In their eyes, their cub had grown so big and so powerful, yet he had suffered such a grievous injury... No matter what he said, he was right!
After coming to this familiar yet strange world and seeing his first Elder Dragon with his own eyes, Asterion had only one thought about these Elder Dragons... they were just plain annoying.
Every last one of them had a "holier-than-thou" attitude, never once considering how their wanton release of power would affect the surrounding environment and the life within it.
In the real world, it obviously wasn't like a game, where monsters would conveniently appear in order from easiest to hardest for the player's benefit. Here, Elder Dragons and Tempered Monsters would show up wherever they pleased, whenever they pleased. No reason required.
It was like running some kind of randomizer mod that penalized you by making you fight a "Zombie Great Jagras" (Vaal Hazak) on a Low-Rank 2-Star quest.
Asterion had always understood the logic, but whether he could accept it was another matter entirely.
Every corner of the New World was saturated with bioenergy. Even in a place like the Wildspire Waste, where the bioenergy was obstructed, its concentration was still far richer than in the Old World.
This was thanks to the countless Elder Dragons that had chosen to come here to die naturally over the millennia, including even apex Elder Dragons like Dalamadur. It was their remains that had nurtured the terrifying abundance of life in the New World.
Of course, one also had to "thank" the Xeno'jiiva lurking in the deepest part of the geovain. Its unceasing call over countless years was what had lured so many Elder Dragons to their deaths here.
This directly resulted in an excessive number of Elder Dragons in the New World. It wasn't just the aging Elder Dragons nearing the end of their lives who came here to die; many younger Elder Dragons, greedy for food or life energy, also settled here.
It was just that the Elder Dragons generally chose not to wage war against each other lightly.
Regardless of Xeno'jiiva's original intentions, the end result was that Asterion now had to face a world where, thanks to the overabundance of life energy, Tempered Monsters were common, and Elder Dragons would roam about on a whim.
If the Wildspire Waste was already like this, Asterion didn't even dare to imagine what the Ancient Forest—with its richer biodiversity, more plentiful food, and fiercer competition—must be like.
It couldn't possibly be a place where Gold Rathians roamed the ground, Silver Rathalos filled the skies, Espinas patrolled the canopy, Dreadqueen Rathian lurked in the shadows, and maybe even a Lucent Nargacuga or Thunderlord Zinogre... Ugh, just thinking about it was terrifying for a monster.
Ahem! He shouldn't scare himself!
He would just have to be doubly careful when he went there in the future.
As he continued to complain haphazardly to the Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers in their monster-tongue, Asterion's mind raced... Today, for the first time, he truly understood what "survival of the fittest" meant.
This was a cruel world, a cruel nature, that he had never experienced as a human. There was no care or warmth here. If you could live, you lived. If you couldn't, you died.
Many of the creatures killed in the aftermath of the two Kushala Daora's battle didn't even know how they died.
This was what terrified Asterion. His anger was also rooted in this: why wasn't he an Elder Dragon, but instead a common life form so easily affected by their power?
This lack of security, this anxiety of not having his life in his own control, was buried deep in Asterion's heart, making him yearn ever more desperately to grow stronger.
The rainy season in the Wildspire Waste had been a disaster this year. Many creatures living here had died in the cataclysm, but many others were rejoicing in nature's selfless gift. They had obtained a massive amount of food without any danger; it was simply the most bountiful rainy season in recent memory.
Everyone had their own way of life. Asterion didn't have the mind to worry about it, nor could he. His mentality had always been resilient. After quickly pulling himself out of his melancholy, he and the Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers began preparing to move.
He had been hesitating about whether to expand their old lair, but now there was no need to hesitate.
Instinctively, Asterion actually wanted to find a way to move to the Elder's Recess or the Confluence of Fates. There were volcanoes, lava, and abundant minerals there, making it extremely suitable for a Glavenus to live and grow.
But a place a hundred times more dangerous than the Wildspire Waste was no place for the Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers. It was also far too hot for the birds, and Asterion had no intention of abandoning them to leave on his own.
Coupled with various other considerations, after discussing it with the Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers, they prepared to move to the underground area where the gravelly plains met the desert.
As mentioned before, the layout of the rock cliffs in the Wildspire Waste was very strange. They jutted out from underground, one layer after another, like a forest made of stone. The parts protruding from the ground were remarkably regular and neat... Hmm, like a pack of french fries, all distinct.
The stone pillars above ground had gradually turned into deserts, badlands, or canyons after years of weathering and destruction from monster activity. But their underground portions formed a unique subterranean kingdom.
The terrain and environment here were far more complex than depicted in the games, full of interconnected underground caves, large and small, and crooked rock tunnels branching in every direction.
Aside from the larger caverns, the creatures that frequented this place were all small. The Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers' size actually made them safer here. At the same time, they could use the underground passages to go directly to the marshy flower-field area to conduct their daily egg-stealing activities.
The only problem was that with Asterion's enormous body, finding a safe cave where he could stretch out and move freely wasn't easy.
But fortunately, he could eat dirt. He could pick a spot first and then expand the lair himself, saving a lot of trouble.
Asterion was in no hurry to fulfill his death pact with that old Rusted Kushala Daora. Despite the fact that it was nearing the end of its life and kept saying "I'm dying," it was still an Elder Dragon. An Elder Dragon's "soon" definitely didn't mean "soon" as in one or two days, but "soon" as in at least one or two years, maybe three.
Or even longer.
That Rusted Kushala Daora had deliberately bitten off Asterion's blade-tail before leaving, telling Asterion to re-forge it before seeking him out again.
The reason Asterion chose this underground region for his new lair was, on one hand, to avoid potential future dangers—for example, if some other Elder Dragons started a fight in the Wildspire Waste and caused another cataclysm.
On the other hand, it was to make it convenient for him to mine... This place was closer to the deep geovain. Ores pushed up by the geovain's movement were hidden within the heavy rock. The only thing Asterion needed to be careful about was not to dig too far and bury himself.
Clang, clang, crash... Crunch, crunch, chomp...
Asterion didn't have a pickaxe. He could only use his mouth to eat the rock or follow the ore veins he found and keep digging.
Fortunately, a Glavenus's teeth could grow back after falling out. Otherwise, Asterion really wouldn't have dared to grind his teeth dull like this.
For the creatures living in the underground cave system, any sound here would echo and travel far through the stone, lingering endlessly.
And now, besides the clink, clink, clink of Hunters swinging their pickaxes, another sound had appeared in the caves—a crunching, chomping noise, like some terrifying monster feeding.
It was enough to scare the smaller creatures into hiding.
Asterion, however, was completely oblivious. As long as he didn't accidentally dig his way into Kulve Taroth's home, he wasn't worried at all.
Hmm, although, if I could eat some of Kulve Taroth's golden shell... that might be pretty good, too.
A "Golden Glavenus" or something.
Life suddenly became peaceful again. Every monster had its own business to attend to. To forge his most important weapon as quickly as possible and make it even harder, Asterion hadn't hunted any large monsters to accumulate life energy for many days.
Half a year ago, he had even gone back to the battlefield where the two Kushala Daora had fought, wanting to find some of their scales to eat. He did find a few, but not many.
Most of it was just rust slag that had fallen off the Rusted Kushala Daora. That slag was worthless; it couldn't be used as a mineral at all.
Speaking of which, Asterion had indeed eaten the vital organ the Rusted Kushala Daora used to control external storms—its horn. But to be honest, no similar horn for controlling wind had sprouted on his own Glavenus body.
Asterion had two theories about this. One was that he hadn't eaten the Kushala Daora's Gem or the special internal organ used to generate wind; that organ and the horn likely worked in tandem.
The other theory was that after eating the horn, he did gain the potential to evolve the corresponding ability, but he hadn't consumed enough Kushala Daora flesh to gain the Elder Dragon bloodline, nor did he have the massive amount of life energy required for evolution. Therefore, the latent potential had not yet manifested as a dominant trait.
But it didn't matter. Once he truly defeated that Rusted Kushala Daora and consumed all of it, his questions would be answered.
An aging, dying Rusted Kushala Daora that was already seeking death—could there be a better opportunity?
To cross the almost insurmountable chasm between a common monster and an Elder Dragon species, to achieve a fundamental evolution of his very being.
The young monster had a dream, and his life had hope. Therefore, Asterion had nothing to complain about or tire of in this sunless life of burrowing into the earth, constantly finding and eating ore. On the contrary, he was full of motivation.
But what Asterion didn't know was that as the time and range of his underground activities expanded, his presence gradually became less strange to the creatures that originally lived in these caves.
Asterion was currently buried head-first in a Machalite Ore vein, dutifully munching away. He had rarely found such a rich deposit. It wasn't just Machalite Ore; he also found the occasional Lightcrystal and Advanced Armor Sphere... Of course, Asterion couldn't recognize these high-grade ores from the real world. He only knew that eating these shiny things was better for him.
They could make his carapace harder, his blade-tail heavier, and sharper.
But above Asterion's head, in the gaps between two intersecting stone pillars, several pairs of eyes were watching him. The owners of these eyes had been staking out Asterion for a long time, and they were already very familiar with his daily schedule.
Sure enough, around dusk on the surface of the Wildspire Waste, Asterion, having worked all day, felt tired. He stopped devouring the ore vein and headed back to his lair through the tunnel he had carved out.
Compared to other ordinary Glavenus, the amount of minerals Asterion alone needed to eat was equivalent to what at least four or five other Glavenus consumed.
A normal Glavenus only ate minerals to forge and maintain its blade-tail, and at most, to fill its Flame Sac. But Asterion was different. Besides forging that exceptionally heavy and sharp blade-tail, he also had to cover his body in mineral secretions—two full layers of it!
One layer covered the base carapace that clung tightly to his muscles, reinforcing his defense. The other layer covered the surface of the air-sac carapace above the base carapace, adding defense while also increasing the lethality when the air-sac carapace detonated.
Hmph. All he could say was, however awesome it felt in battle, it was that much more troublesome to replenish afterward. The worst part was that this replenishment wasn't a one-time-and-done deal. After every single fight, Asterion had to eat more ore to reform the air-sac carapace.
It was just like Dio moving Polnareff down the stairs during his time stop—all about looking impressive in public while doing all the hard work in secret.
Most importantly, the raw ore was not equivalent to the mineral secretion. The ratio was about three-to-one; it took three parts of raw ore to refine one part of mineral secretion, not to mention the rates for high-grade minerals.
Asterion didn't have a better solution. If he wanted to have greater combat power than a normal Glavenus, he had to lose something. Time or energy—whatever it was, he just had to lose it.
There was no such thing as a life of peace and quiet, only bearing the burden and moving forward.
The Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers were already back in the lair. Who knows how many eggs they ate outside. They even brought one back for Asterion as a gift.
At Asterion's current size, a single Herbivore egg wasn't even enough to get stuck in his teeth, but he still praised the Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers as they looked up at him, making the birds chirp happily.
The eyes hidden in the cave ceiling watched Asterion all the way back to his lair. The three-dimensional structure of the underground world concealed their forms perfectly. After confirming Asterion had returned, the owners of several pairs of those eyes quickly departed.
Rustle, rustle, rustle... They passed through wide caverns and narrow rock crevices. Before long, the owners of these eyes arrived at a cave closer to the surface. It was adjacent to a cliff, allowing sunlight to stream directly through several window-like openings, but the ceiling was mostly thick rock, enough to shelter them from wind and rain.
It was a safe and cozy haven. A campfire was already lit in the middle of the cave floor. Next to it, several wooden skewers loaded with chunks of meat or fish were roasting, sizzling as the fat dripped, and the faint aroma of cooking wafted through the air.
It was full of the air of domestic life.
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