Oceanblaze Beasts (Part 1)
“To the forest!” shouted Qiao Xue.
Mu Yu lifted Lu Xiong onto his back and sprinted through the moist, pungent forest littered with corpses, arriving at a large gully, where the erupting volcano was visible. They had no choice but to stop there for the oceanblaze beasts had already occupied the sky.
“Aren’t fiends supposed to be stronger than fiend beasts? Can’t you guys communicate?” Mu Yu questioned.
“It’s pretty much impossible to communicate with them because fiend beasts haven’t developed enough intelligence to communicate with us. With respect to your first question, a lack of brains doesn’t positively correlate to a lack of brawn,” answered Lu Xiong.
“Not only are oceanblaze Beasts one of the most powerful fiend beasts in the water but also a force to be reckoned with in the sky and moved in groups. As they are level six fiend beasts, their combat power rivals our own, especially when they are protecting their offspring.
“They reside under the ocean until they need to find a volcano for their eggs to hatch. The reason they choose to give birth at volcanoes is to let the lava hatch their eggs, consequently giving birth to fiend beasts impervious to lava. When the volcano erupts, their offspring will be shot out. If I’m not wrong, they’re heading to the volcano to fetch their newborns that aren’t able to fly yet.
“My gut feeling tells me they will perceive us to be hostiles and attack us if we bump into each other. With tens of thousands of them out there on ground and in the air, we’re heavily outnumbered. All we can do is wait until they’ve fetched their newborns,” informed Qiao Xue.
“How about I go intimidate them with my dragon status?” volunteered the dragon vine.
“Sit down. You won’t scare any level six fiend beast. If you’re lucky, you’ll give them a fright, only to then be shredded,” ribbed Xiaoshuai.
Mu Yu leaned Lu Xiong on a rock for the latter to rest more comfortably.
“Where are those three? I don’t sense them anywhere,” queried Mu Yu, expanding his search radius to ten kilometres.
“You can’t find them?” inquired Qiao Xue.
“Not a single trace.”
There were still tremors going through the ground, and the volcano was still spitting comparably to drizzle, which explained why there were oceanblaze beasts waiting overhead for their newborns to be delivered.
Boom! The volcano commenced its next firing barrage, turning the white mountain into a red one and increasing the density of the smokescreen. The infants were having the time of their life, resembling little balls surfing larva. Their parents commenced what resembled an army extraction, swooping in to pick up their children. The hand-sized little ones were having a field day, trying to hide in crevices and cracks in rocks, giving their parents a chore.
Young oceanblaze beasts struggled to survive underwater. As such, less than 1% of the tens of thousands spat out of the volcano each time actually saw adulthood. The volcano was only active for about fifteen minutes and sprayed minimal lava, fortunately.
The various fiend beasts in the gully, pythons on the walls included, would’ve loved to feast on the little ones if their parents weren’t around. Thus, all the predators could do was pray one would accidentally fall in for them to feast off. The chances of a young one falling prey was quite high as the sight of various fiend beasts excited them similarly to children strolling through a zoo.
A level five python stealthily slithered its head out of its den and opened its mouth. One of the small fellows thought its mouth was some fun, secret cave or something and dove in!
“Oh my god!” Mu Yu muttered under his breath.
“There’s nothing to be surprised about given that they’re children. The oceanblaze beasts pick up their children in a big group and carry their offspring in their mouth for that very reason,” enlightened Qiao Xue.
One oceanblaze beast called for backup and charged at the python, scaring the python back into its den. With the others standing by, one of them breached the hole with its tentacle and hauled the python out to shred.
“Tweet, tweet.”
“H-hello, little guy?” Mu Yu greeted the little oceanblaze beast that was drawn in by the group’s peculiar appearances.
“Run! Its parents will trace its scent here and attack us!” warned Qiao Xue.
Mu Yu picked up Lu Xiong and made a dash for it, only to look back and see the little fellow jovially chasing after them – not to mention it was born able to run as fast as their full-pelt sprint!
“We can’t shake it off at this rate! I’ll kill it,” suggested the dragon tortoise.
“Don’t! If you kill any of the newborns, none of us will leave this island alive!” warned Lu Xiong.
“Let me!” The dragon vine confronted the little one and threatened, “Get lost, or I’ll eat you!”
The little fellow finally froze stiff in place.
“Done. Let’s get going,” proudly said the dragon vine.
All of a sudden, the little fellow wailed.
“Roar!”
Rampaging footsteps approached faster than Mu Yu could curse.
“Big Earthworm, what did you scare the kid for?!” reproached Xiaoshuai, not speaking to the kid because it was too young to understand him.
“How was I supposed to know it was such a wuss? If it can’t stand up to a dragon, it’ll never amount to anything!” argued the dragon vine.
“Guys, can we get priorities straight?”
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