Ch. 12 - The Great Forest of Motto

The next day before dawn, the four young dragons finally arrived at the Great Forest of Motto after a long tedious journey.

The forest had existed for thousands of years on the Nordhill continent. It occupied a vast area with rich vegetation and a wide variety of species. In the centre of the forest, there even lived extraordinary creatures comparable to adult dragons.

The good thing was that powerful creatures had a strong sense of territory and didn't leave their territory easily.

The young dragons landed on the outskirts of the Great Forest of Motto. Although the centre of the forest was filled with danger, the periphery was still relatively safe. Most of them were ordinary beasts. Even ordinary people in the villages around the forest would enter the fringes from time to time to hunt, and improve their family's diet. If they could encounter old herbs, then they would make a fortune in a single stroke.

There were many adventurers around the forest hunting for transcendent creatures. If it wasn't for them, Amos would have liked to stay and settle down here until he reached adulthood.　　

The young dragons reached a consensus to reduce the flight altitude, so as not to intrude into the territory of flying transcendent creatures they couldn't afford to mess with. The plan was to first find some local beasts and learn more about the territorial divisions in the depths of the Great Forest of Motto before entering. Blindly travelling through the forest would lead to encountering unbeatable creatures.

Amos and the other dragons walked under the trees that were tens of metres high. The sun shone through the gaps of leafy treetops, illuminating the ground with countless spots of light. The insects and snakes crawling on the ground which were directly touched by the dragons' claws either were left shivering or they froze altogether.

Amos walked while surveying the surrounding environment; nothing here was without consequence and ignorable.

Amos found a trampled and bent leaves of the grass.

"There are traces of human activity here. According to the footprints, there is only one person. It can be estimated that he is a resident from around the forest, but he may also be a strong person who prefers to travel alone."

"Should we avoid him?"

"No need, this is the outskirts of the forest, and he is unlikely to be strong. Besides, as long as we are not unlucky enough to encounter a Legend, a single adventurer is not much of a threat."

At night, the young dragons found a tyrannical bear's lair. After forcing the cave owner to move into their bellies, they took up the bear's cave as a temporary residence.

The violent bear was a level 5 creature and was originally an overlord in the outer forest, but he would have never thought that while sleeping, the dragons would grace him from the sky.

Unfortunately, the tyrant bear's temper was too irritable. When he came up, he started going berserk so Amos could not get any information from him, and the bear could only be used to fill his stomach. The young dragons decided to use the tyrant bear's lair as a base to explore their surroundings.

...

Boom!

A bolt of lightning flashed across the night sky, lighting up the night sky as if it were daytime, and the world quickly returned to darkness.

The large water droplets fell with a clatter on the leaves and smashed into several petals. The scattered rainwater on the broad leaves converged into larger raindrops, which rolled along with the veiny leaves, falling on the ground and percolating into the soil.

In the darkness, a figure holding a short bow was running through the forest.

"Bad luck! I got lost and it started raining again! Balinor's blessings! Why am I so unlucky?"

Another bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, shining on the figure, revealing the appearance of a young barbarian hunter in a sheepskin jacket.

By the light of the lightning, the hunter found a cave ahead, his nerves immediately tensed as his body became fully alert.

It was good to encounter a cave when it rained, but only if the cave was without a master. Someone having a fixed cave in the depths of the forest only indicated that it was housed by a fierce predator.

The careful hunter did not dare to gamble with his own life, and he was ready to retreat. Suddenly, a large hand of magical energy coalesced and grabbed him before he could even react.

Under the illumination of lightning, he saw four hideous dragon heads.

"Balinor's blessings!" The poor hunter fainted due to fear.

"What to do? He's passed out."

"Let's eat him! We can't question him now that he's fainted!" Felicia said while licking her teeth.

"Let me do it." Amos cast a spell to condense a ball of water and splashed it on the hunter's head. The hunter woke and sat up, just in time to meet a pair of golden dragon pupils, and was immediately hypnotized by Amos.

Amos looked at the dazed hunter and asked, "Who are you?"

　　...

The hypnotized hunter answered all of Amos's questions. After squeezing out all information, the young dragons argued about his disposal.

"Amos, the food is delivered to you! Why can't you eat it?"

Facing his sister's question, Amos went silent. Of course, he couldn't tell the dragon siblings that he was a human in his previous life.

Amos said after deliberating for a long time, "I have been thinking for a long time why intelligent dragons are classified as beasts by the world, and I think I found the reason. To judge whether a species is civilized or not, the answer can be concluded from their diet. So, I want to make some changes and reduce unnecessary killings, and prevent cannibalism."

Felicia digested her brother's words and said, "When have the mighty dragons ever cared about the opinions of those lowly creatures?!"

"But there is no denying that the age of dragons has passed, and now humans are the dominant force on the continent."

Amos spoke up and said, "As long as we are still in Nordhill, we can't avoid dealing with humans. Changing the habit of feeding on intelligent creatures can reduce our troubles a lot. Besides, we don't lack food, do we?"

"All right." Felicia knew she was powerless against her brother's decision, so she didn't say anything more and lied on the ground to sleep.

Fifty thousand years ago, after hundreds of years of war, the alliance of five-coloured dragons and metal dragons finally drove their arch-enemies, the Titans, out of Nordhill.

The dragons who killed thousands of enemies and lost eight hundred of their own entered a long recuperation phase, but they didn't want the status of the continent's overlord to be replaced by the strong rise of the elves.

In the Inheritance, the scenes where the dragon's still dominated the mainland was still quite vivid and animatedly depicted and due to this, there were still some dragons who were yet to emerge and break out of their illusions of still being the overlords of the continent.

Early next morning, Amos threw the unconscious barbarian hunter into the territory of a fierce beast.

He was now a white dragon, although he decided not to be like other vicious dragons, and take killing for fun, he would never be merciful to the enemy and let someone threaten his existence.

In the cave, the young dragons discussed their next course of action.

"The information provided by that barbarian is limited, but at least we know the distribution of some of the creatures in the deeper zones. There is a scorpion lion and a pack of 20 or so dire wolf packs ahead. We can't avoid their territory, do you have any good suggestions?"

"Amos, I think we should go through the dire wolf territory."

Amos gestured for Willy to continue.

"The dire wolves have nothing but advantage in numbers, even if they have the courage to attack us, their individual strength is weak and they might not be able to break our scales." Willy continued, "But the scorpion lion is different, it is equally strong, and its highly toxic tail is a great threat to us."

"Very well! We both thought the same thing, but you missed one thing, the alpha wolf which can command more than 20 packs is not a simple character, it has at least the strength of the middle second tier, plus together with the wolf pack, they may even be stronger than the scorpion lion."

Amos' voice turned grave, "However, this kind of powerful wolf will not be too low in wisdom. If we can communicate, not only can we pass through safely, we may also get more information, but of course we have to prepare for the worst."

The four young dragons also had nothing to say, and immediately left the cave to set off for the dire wolf territory.

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