A large creature broke through a dense foliage in desperation. It was in a haste as it turned to the back multiple times while sniffing the air with panic. It galloped as hard as it could while feeling immense dread in its heart. The lush canopy-like trees didn't stop it from moving forward swiftly. In fact, the trees seemed to slightly bend or move, giving some space for it to squeeze through them.
[The omen is here!]
There was nowhere to go now!
There was a large rock mountain in front of it; the boundary of its tiny home. The Lord of the mountain had many aggressive Nobles flying around, finding spirit creatures to kill. Climbing to the top was akin to jumping from the tiger's mouth into an alligator's mouth (1). On its left was where a meandering deep river owned by a shrewd half-step Imperial Lord-leveled freshwater spirit fish resided. If it jumped in, it will never survive the attack of the five brutal guardians. On another side was the territory of a gruesome fire-breathing creature, its natural nemesis! It has nowhere to go anymore.
It hesitated for a moment, and determination reflected upon its cowardly expression.
[I must survive!]
The creature concentrated, and a bunch of green vines erupted from its body! The vines twirled and combined into something akin to a vine-drill and pierced through the large boulder in front of it. Like a grinder, a snug hole appeared on the side of the mountain, as the creature hurriedly went in. Behind it, large bushy herb trees grew upon its step to cover the hole almost immediately. Within, the creature kept on going as it went deeper and deeper!
...
[Checkmate!]
[Finally, I got that scoundrel! It was so hard catching its tail!]
A tiny inconspicuous snake as thick as a soaked charcoal-flavored soba noodle appeared from within the rotten leaves on the wet forest floor. One might even mistaken it with a gigantic wriggling millipede. However, once observed properly, it was Kuro in his camouflage form; the form that he was always in when he was with Hana. His mistress always looked at him with doting eyes while telling him how 'cute' he was, hence, staying in this form became a habit.
His body was covered in slime and grime, but his head, where a shiny red gem was encased, sparkled beautifully. Its two tiny wings were closed on its back, only showing a faint maroon-colored outline.
Kuro looked around where the last of the scent was detected and grin evilly when he noticed an out of place undergrowth at the foot of the mountain where the Silver-banded Eagles resided.
That stupid fellow. The boulder-like mountain was devoid of trees. It looked more like a pile of large gray-colored stone stacked together. Hence, the place where the creature went into hiding stick out like a sore thumb. That was the only spot with vegetation!
Kuro slithered in cautiously. The darkened newly-made 'cave' was just slightly bigger than the cave entrance to the Elemental Fiends' labyrinthian nest he frequented some time ago. With his current size, the small cave was very spacious. Screw-like scars seared the surface of the walls; a telltale of something forcefully grinding these stones into smithereens. Seeing the strength of the cowardly Spirit Forest, Kuro was more cautious than ever; his sixth sense told him that he was walking into another deadly trap.
Although he hadn't really seen the Forest Spirit with his eyes, he knew its scent as it knew his. They have been playing the hide-and-seek game for more than a week already. Kuro had encountered countless traps along the way but had breezed through the majority of them. However, he admitted that a small number of them were tricky, dangerous even. Finally, he was able to corner it at the edge of its territory. He was planning to see how this scoundrel will try to run from him again. He was determined to haul it back to Mommy. It had been too long. He hadn't known he was the clingy type.
The boulders under him vibrated slightly.
Kuro unfurled his tiny maroon wings and flew off immediately! Half a second later, green vines erupted from below, trying to catch him. They managed to grab a falling boulder, and the boulder was squeezed until it crumbled into tiny pieces. Another group of vines tried to grab Kuro from the top of the cave, but he managed to maneuver in time! From Kuro's back, airborne sickle-shaped leaves were shot towards him en masse!
Kuro didn't manage to dodge all of the attacks. However, the sharp leaves injured Kuro slightly since he didn't bother to open up his defenses. He received all of the aerial attacks with ease only to notice a little later that the leaves were poisonous.
Kuro grinned evilly. "Stop right now before I drag you myself from there. There's no way you could injure me! Surrender now and pledge allegiance to my Mistress." How stupid can a Spirit Forest be? Obviously, there was a high chance that he could neutralize poison since he was a snake. Nonetheless, only his mistress and his soul-brethren knew that he was poison-resistant. Outsiders only knew that he harbors the power of lightning.
No answer could be heard except for the smallest sounds of whimpering in fear.
"Humph! Ungrateful! I give you this chance, and you waste it! If you're not coming, then I'll come to you!"
Kuro maintained being airborne and moved forward rapidly. He caught a glimpse of a moving shadow four hundred meters away. In panic, the large creature bulldozed forward with its gigantic drill and disappeared from view in a flash.
Kuro immediately shot forward to give chase!
At the point where he saw the creature disappeared, Kuro peered through. Now he finally understood. It seemed that the stupid spirit beast breached an underground cave within the Silver-banded Eagle mountain! The cave was very spacious with a glaring light at the very top, indicating that the opening must have been at the summit of the mountain. Even his real body could move around with ease down here. He could see a few high-leveled Nobles flying above his head, hence he suppressed his aura to the bare minimum to prevent detection. Thank goodness he was so small at the moment. No wonder he couldn't detect the Nobles the last time he was there. Either all of them left their nests, or some stayed within the hollow cave inside the mountain.
Countless number of nests could be seen when he looked up from the crevices of the rocks. Even at the very bottom, there were about five to six nests. Most of them were empty, but two had one to two eggs. The familiar eggs were brownish with silver speckles on top, just like how he used to see them before. Looking at the eggs reminded him of Pii-chan, and it made him felt somewhat unhappy but tried his best to stay focused.
Kuro sniffed the air, trying to catch a whiff of the cowardly fellow but his senses were bombarded by the pungent odor of fermented excrement and wet feathers; he disliked this smell the most! It reminded him of the nasty-tasting Silver-banded Eagles he ate out of spite once before.
Suddenly, he heard the fellow made a lot of noise. With such pomp, Kuro didn't have to sniff around to catch its scent anymore; it was too obvious it hid somewhere nearby. Kuro slithered around to find the bugger broke an egg in one of the nests! It actually yelped loudly out of shock; most probably it did it unintentionally. If Kuro could slap his own head, he'd already done it. This guy! Seriously! It'll be food to one of the Silver-banded eagles soon.
A loud cry filled with rage resounded from the upper parts of the cave. The first cry was so loud, the whole cave trembled a little. A gigantic white eagle with three silver-colored bands over its neck dove down in fury! Tears filled its eyes; obviously, it was the owner of the egg!
Behind the white eagle, five or six large brownish eagles were in tow! Half of them were mid-stage Nobles, while some others were late-stage Nobles. However, the white one was already at initial-stage Lord!
[D4mn! That stupid fellow!]
With determination, Kuro slithered as fast as he could towards the Forest Spirit who seemed to be petrified to its place. He needed to drag the guy away by hook or by crook! There was no other Forest Spirit within a thousand kilometers around that he knew of. He didn't want to waste time anymore. From his connection with Mommy and the rest, he knew the second phase of planting could be implemented anytime soon. Everyone was counting on him to bring back the most important piece of puzzle for the Spirit-agriculture initiative.
Seeing the omen coming towards it, it cowered in fear and activated its defensive mechanism in reflex, "Seedling!"
The large creature who was as big as a bear shrunk until it was as big as Hana's thumb! Something akin to a hard shell formed around the little Forest Spirit as it stopped moving altogether!
Kuro, "..."
The white Silver-banded Eagle who was the nearest saw it too, and it too was dumbfounded, "..."
Kuro looked at the white Silver-banded Eagle, and the Eagle looked at him a moment longer. Both of them were speechless and paused their movement midway. The other birds behind the white Silver-banded Eagle crashed into it as they didn't manage to stop in time, resulting into all of them tumbling down together.
Kuro mustered all of his courage and swallow the fellow! He immediately ran away with the guy in his belly! It slithered towards the tiny cave the Forest Spirit made previously.
[I hope the stupid fellow won't get digested. It seemed that it might be its defensive skill. Seriously, why poke the hornet's nest when you're not capable!] Kuro grumbled unhappily. Now the wrath of the whole nest had been transferred to him!
Kuro blitzed through the hole he came from as the flock of Silver-banded eagles chased behind him closely. Two smaller eagles managed to squeeze themselves through the hole, but the majority of the pursuers were double the size of the hole, hence they had to make a detour and attack from outside.
Authors' Note:
1) jumping from the tiger's mouth into an alligator's mouth = a Malay proverb, translated from [dari mulut harimau ke mulut buaya]. It means escaped a disaster only to encounter another disaster