The so-called "energy addiction" refers to a state where creatures accustomed to living in high-energy environments for years suddenly leave their original surroundings.
Due to the lack of energy, they exhibit a loss of sanity and a frantic craving for power.
It is much like drug withdrawal. Those who have never experienced it cannot truly comprehend the agony and madness that come with an onset of addiction. It is not something that can be overcome by sheer willpower alone; remaining in a state of withdrawal for too long can even turn a living creature into a walking husk.
My will is as tempered as steel!! Wait, what is that? An energy crystal?
Just one bite.
Shaking his head violently, Asterion fought to control this newly emerged instinct—a primal hunger for the bio-energy of the leylines. He felt as though he were truly suffering from a massive "energy addiction" outbreak. At this moment, his only desire was to dive headfirst into the place where the bio-energy was most abundant and absorb every drop of power into his own body.
Asterion had not evolved three pairs of glowing orange organs on his head to locate bio-energy like a Xeno'jiiva, but the problem was that he knew exactly where the energy was most concentrated. He knew where he could feast to his heart's content. It was this very memory that constantly tormented Asterion's heart, urging him to return to the Confluence of Fates.
Yet, Asterion's reason repeatedly reminded him that he could not go.
Ugh, well, it was certainly a struggle.
With his core organs now numbering two, Asterion had to do more than just ensure the new organs evolved completely. He also had to perform a series of fine-tuning evolutions—such as adjusting the positions of his internal organs and the placement and length of his heat-dissipation vents—while attempting to master the pale blue elemental energy unique to Xeno'jiiva.
Time flowed steadily amidst these minor and major evolutionary processes.
To nature itself, the death of a Xeno'jiiva was insignificant. But to all life living within that nature, the death of a Xeno'jiiva was of paramount importance.
Those calls—sometimes loud, sometimes faint, sometimes strong, sometimes weak—that had always haunted the ears of the elderly Elder Dragons had finally vanished. They disappeared so completely that many old Elder Dragons felt their ears were finally clear, and their moods brightened significantly.
It was foreseeable that for the human kingdoms and the Guild, they would no longer need to worry about the path of destruction caused by the Elder Dragon Crossing every ten years. Well, the most likely scenario was that when the next Research Commission assembled and prepared to follow an Elder Dragon across the sea, they would find that despite the time having come, no Elder Dragon appeared.
Of course, the phenomenon of the Elder Dragon Crossing still existed, but the intervals were now stretched, and it was filled with uncertainty. If an old Elder Dragon was in a hurry to die, it might still suddenly head toward the "graveyard" of the New World.
The scholars of the Royal Paleontology Scriveners would likely pull their hair out in frustration over such a sudden change. However, for those living in the Old World, this was indeed a good thing—it would at least make their living environments a bit safer.
Those most affected by the Xeno'jiiva's death were, of course, the living things of the New World. One must not forget that before its death, the Xeno'jiiva had frantically drained bio-energy, directly causing the crystalline mountains within the Confluence of Fates to completely collapse.
The reason a Safi'jiiva is known as the "Undying Dragon" is that it can draw massive amounts of bio-energy to heal itself after being wounded. As long as the bio-energy is not drained, a Safi'jiiva is immortal. If a Safi'jiiva truly drained all the bio-energy of a region, that area would become a lifeless wasteland, taking untold years to recover.
Because of this, the Xeno'jiiva's act of draining massive amounts of energy naturally caused damage to the Confluence of Fates that could not be naturally repaired in the short term. Even though the Confluence of Fates received "blood transfusions" of bio-energy from the entire New World, the collapse of nearby energy corridors and a significant drop in energy concentration were inevitable.
The creatures living in the Elder's Recess were naturally affected by this change. They suddenly realized the concentration of bio-energy in their environment had plummeted. A common "couch potato" like a Dodogama felt it was something that could be endured with a bit of patience, but the Elder Dragons were different.
It was precisely because the Elder's Recess held the most abundant life energy in the entire New World that many Elder Dragons were attracted there to live in seclusion. Now, however, the energy environment of the Recess had changed. The turbulent energy and decreased concentration made many Elder Dragons restless.
This was especially true for those raising young, such as Teostra and Lunastra. As Elder Dragons with a strong sense of family, nothing was more important than the offspring they were brooding. The drop in life energy concentration would undoubtedly affect their young, which made the Teostra and Lunastra pairs incredibly violent.
Other dragons without young weren't much better. After all, the deterioration of one's living environment is a fact all dragons can keenly perceive, making it hard to stay in a good mood.
When dragons get cranky, they naturally fight other dragons. Many dragons that would have otherwise passed each other in peace now erupted into fierce battles. For a time, the entire Elder's Recess was thrown into utter chaos.
Eventually, some Elder Dragons could no longer stand the seemingly endless combat and chose to flee the Elder's Recess. As for the losers of previous battles, those lucky enough to survive had left the Recess even earlier.
When these fleeing Elder Dragons arrived in new environments, their survival, hunting, and claiming of new territories had a corresponding impact on the ecosystem. If the local ecological apex predator died, that was one thing; if they didn't, they would inevitably seek out a new territory where they could continue to prey and survive.
The entire New World had become like a giant coin-pusher machine. These fleeing Elder Dragons were the newly dropped coins, bound to displace the positions held by the original "coins," shifting the pressure layer by layer from high to low.
In game terms: The monsters have suddenly started rioting for unknown reasons. Monsters that shouldn't be there have been spotted in many places, and powerful monsters are constantly intruding during investigations. Find a way to uncover the cause of the riot!
...Assuming the current Astera was capable of doing so.
Humans were currently but a tiny species among the creatures of the New World. Across the distant ocean, even beneath the land submerged by deep seawater, bio-energy still flowed. There were even bio-energy corridors, like undersea tunnels, connecting islands and continents.
An unspeakable sound—like the earth vibrating, yet also like some creature roaring—was emanating from here. Before a collapsed and buried bio-energy corridor, a burly monster covered in rock seemed to feel something. It slowly raised its head and looked into the distance.
In front of it, the bio-energy corridor that had just been sealed by collapsed rocks had turned into a profound, dark abyss at some point.
This sound traveled far and wide. Very, very far.
It moved.
The only constant in this world is change itself. The more powerful a creature is, the more its birth and fall will produce thousands of changes in the external world. If one were to broaden their gaze, they would see that on an island far from the New World, within a canyon deep in the island, a massive crimson dragon-like creature raised its forebody as if sensing something.
And if one looked even further, they might see a monster covered in pitch-black reversed scales standing atop a mountain peak in a particularly distant sea, casting its gaze toward the horizon.
Too many changes were happening. As Asterion stepped onto the path of a Forbidden Species, the outside world would not stop and wait for him.
The Ancient Forest.
The Dragon God revered by the Glavenus Tribe had been missing for a full eleven years. Given the typical lifespan of a Grimalkyne, many newborn Grimalkynes only knew the Dragon God through statues carved from stone or wood.
Large, majestic, and scattered throughout the Glavenus Tribe's territory—from the great road at the base of the Great Tree leading to the top, to the tribal core in the middle layers where the Grimalkynes lived in large numbers, and finally to the entrance of the nest on the canopy layer guarded by the tribe's strongest warriors where young cats were strictly forbidden—the statues of the Dragon God were everywhere.
A signature set of statues for the Glavenus Tribe now stood on the large platform of the canopy layer. There were three in total. The largest, of course, belonged to Asterion, carved based on his appearance when he left the nest: a pair of bizarre wings spread wide, head raised to the sky as if roaring.
To the left of this statue stood the statue of the Bazelgeuse brothers. Similarly standing with heads held high, the dense clusters of blasting scales gave any Grimalkyne who had seen the Bazelgeuse brothers in action a sense of security, while also giving them the phantom sensation of their heads ringing.
The final statue belonged to the Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers. It was very lifelike, though compared to the two majestic and domineering statues beside it, the Kulu-Ya-Ku statue looked a bit more comical, holding an egg in its arms.
Only during the annual "Great Stomach Festival" were most Grimalkynes allowed to go to the canopy layer to hold a festival, thanking the "Great Glavenus Boss" as the Dragon God, and thanking the Dragon God's brothers for their protection over the years.
Of course, eleven years is a short time—at least not long enough to create a fundamental difference in perspective between the old and young Grimalkynes. But for these young Grimalkynes, they worshipped the Bazelgeuse brothers even more—because they had actually seen the Bazelgeuse brothers show their might with their own eyes.
With their fierce and tyrannical appearance, blazing explosions strong enough to topple and incinerate trees, and eerie blue-purple flames, the young Grimalkynes were at their most excited whenever the Bazelgeuse brothers easily pinned down an intruding monster and violently blew it into shredded meat.
Ugh, it sounds a bit strange to say, but in the eyes of the scholars from Astera, the members of the Glavenus Tribe—a Lynian tribe that had formed a unique symbiotic relationship with monsters—had developed personalities entirely different from common Lynians.
Common Lynians, unless they had undergone training to become qualified Palicoes, tended to panic when suddenly encountering a monster, their first thought being to flee or hide.
But the members of the Glavenus Tribe were different. They were passionate about fighting. Even when large monsters fought each other, the Glavenus Tribe members would watch from the sidelines while ensuring their own safety. If the battle between the two monsters was intense enough, they would even jump out to cheer for them.
More than once, hunters returning from quests had complained about the Grimalkynes of the Glavenus Tribe. According to them, while it was true you could hire the Glavenus Tribe's help for a certain fee, when they unexpectedly encountered a monster, the hunters had to hold these lively cats back to prevent the overexcited felines from jumping out to start the fight themselves.
Generally speaking, there were pros and cons. After all, after gaining the knowledge of their distant relatives, the Bugtrappers, the Grimalkynes of the Glavenus Tribe had adapted very well to the Ancient Forest and could indeed provide a lot of help during investigations.
Having lost their instinctive fear of monsters, the Glavenus Tribe produced generations of warriors with abundant martial prowess.
The Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers also had their own following of cat fans. After all, who could refuse a friend with such a quirky and lively personality?
Over the years, with the help and guidance of the Bugtrappers, the Glavenus Tribe had continuously absorbed many local Grimalkynes. But due to different living habits, most of these newcomers lived with the original group of Bugtrappers who had first sworn loyalty to Asterion and moved to his territory.
With a massive influx of fresh blood and plenty of food and living space, these Grimalkynes belonging to Asterion naturally bred as much as they could, their numbers growing exponentially.
By now, there were at least twenty to thirty thousand of them. Once the new generation grew up and started forming families, the population would only continue to climb.
To the little furballs playing under the care of the old Grimalkynes in the Shaman District, the existence of the Lord Dragon God was a matter of course—a part of the world's background. Whether playing at home or climbing onto a roof, they could see the statue of the Dragon God; he was a complete part of their lives.
Does it feel like something is missing?
The young Grimalkynes indeed worshipped the Bazelgeuse brothers, but if you counted their father's generation, the most beloved and admired dragon was another: Mirrorblade.
He was simply too beautiful.
A massive frame, covered in silver-gray scales like mirrors, short yet sharp and majestic horns, a huge and slender razor-sharp sword tail, and that elegant, dashing way of fighting—he could easily cut an intruding monster to death without taking a single scratch himself.
After all these years, Mirrorblade had undoubtedly grown into a qualified predator. His size was even larger than his mother's. It's worth noting that in nature, female dragons are often larger than males because they are responsible for protecting and caring for the young.
His combat was cold and effortless. Every swing of his sword seemed to follow precise calculations; he never swung a blade unnecessarily, nor did he fall into pointless entanglements. His superior intelligence allowed him to easily discern the attacks and weaknesses of other dragons, enabling him to make the most accurate responses.
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