It could only be said that Alatreon still knew far too little about Asterion. He never would have expected that this junior harbored such malicious thoughts during their "friendly" sparring match.
Concepts like Turf Wars were far too foreign to Forbidden Monsters. They were born at the finish line; ordinary monsters would flee at the mere sight of them. Likewise, they required no training whatsoever—simply eating and sleeping was enough to make them the strongest. Life was simply too comfortable for them.
Uh, well, it was hardly surprising. Asterion was fundamentally different from those old-timers, after all. He hadn't been invincible from the moment he crawled out of his egg. Back then, even a single Jyuratodus could chase him until he was scrambling for his life; having enemies flee at his mere presence was something he couldn't even dream of.
Having eaten his way up to becoming a Forbidden Monster, it was entirely understandable that his competitive drive was a bit intense... Even though he had already reached the tier of the Forbidden Monsters, standing at the apex of the world, Asterion still instinctively began to ponder: if he could prey upon an existence of the same tier, would he become even more powerful?
The grind—ah, no, the striving—never ends.
"Let me get a taste of that, brother!"
Is there a tier above Forbidden Monsters?
Or perhaps... the King of Forbidden Monsters?
Licking away the inverse scale fragments and a piece of flesh he had pried from Alatreon's body from the gaps of his front claws, Asterion had already thoroughly cleaned up the battlefield. He ensured that not a single stray scale or drop of blood was left behind. The taste of Alatreon's vitality-bursting flesh and blood fascinated him immensely.
It was just a pity that the quantity was too small. A few scales and a tiny amount of blood were insignificant to Alatreon, and they didn't allow Asterion to absorb anything of true value... which was quite a shame.
He tried to say no to temptation, but the temptation of Alatreon was simply too grand. Any dragon with an ounce of pride would inevitably be curious. Unfortunately, Alatreon's strength was the real deal. After that brief, exploratory clash, Asterion had confirmed that even if he went all out in a life-or-death struggle, he wouldn't be able to take this guy down.
Getting injured was a minor issue. The real problem was that neither could hold back in a battle to the death. Before a victor could be decided, the New World—acting as their battlefield—would collapse under the strain first.
In fact, it was highly likely that even if the entire New World was dragged down with them, and the shockwaves of their battle wiped out most life on the surface, it still wouldn't kill Alatreon. The vitality of Elder Dragons was already absurdly resilient, to say nothing of a Forbidden Monster's lifeforce.
If that happened, Asterion would be the one losing big time. After all, the New World was his ideal Dragon Kingdom, a dream he had worked toward and nurtured for so long... For it to vanish over something like this without seeing any results would be incredibly frustrating for a dragon.
So, that was that. He would just have to find another opportunity to feast on Alatreon in the future.
On his way back to the Ancient Forest, Asterion continuously replayed every detail of his clash with Alatreon in his mind. To be honest, he felt a bit at a loss as to where to even begin. At the level of a Forbidden Monster, flashy techniques lost all meaning. Their sheer physical defense alone was something no mundane creature could breach; they could only be suppressed head-on.
Yet, Asterion didn't give up. Alatreon's movements and speed when shifting elements, the defensive power of its inverse scales... He would set a small goal first: whenever an opportunity arose, he would hunt down a Forbidden Monster to eat.
Giving up was out of the question—completely out of the question for the rest of his life. In Asterion's eyes, he actually stood a pretty good chance of achieving this goal. After all, he was fundamentally different from those old fogies.
The Forbidden Monsters currently existing in this world were all old relics who had survived since ancient times. They had remained at the peak of power for far too long—long enough to have thoroughly explored their own potential, knowing they had reached their absolute limit. Consequently, they could only eat, drink, and sleep every day, passively accumulating bioenergy without ever achieving a qualitative breakthrough.
Just like a bucket—no matter how much water you pour into it, a bucket is ultimately just a bucket.
But Asterion was different. Even by the standard lifespan of ordinary monsters, he was exceptionally young. He didn't suffer from accumulating countless years of bioenergy without being able to progress a single step, nor did he have any stagnant blockages. For Asterion, who possessed a unique stomach and the power of evolution, as long as he remained alive and the bioenergy within his body continued to multiply, he possessed limitless upward potential.
An opportunity to take things a step further.
The trait of infinite evolution was incredibly precious, even at the level of a Forbidden Monster. After all, the closer a creature stood to the apex of the pyramid, the harder it was to take a step forward. For others, this probability wasn't just low—it was zero.
It was all good news.
Filled with this anticipation for the future, Asterion flew at breakneck speed all the way back to the Ancient Forest. Uh, except for slightly overshooting his destination due to poor eyesight making him misread the landscape below, everything went smoothly.
The only strange thing was that the creature lurking deep within the Leyline Corridors—suspected to be Shara Ishvalda—had suddenly stopped in its tracks. Not only did it cease its approach toward his direction, but its active aura had also fallen completely silent, as if it had drifted off to sleep.
Hmm, Asterion suspected that his battle with Alatreon had frightened the fellow. But since it no longer had any intention of moving forward to pick a fight, Asterion had no interest in squeezing into the Leyline Corridors just to take it out right now.
Asterion had already spent too much time in cramped, gloomy places like the leylines. Unless absolutely necessary, he didn't want to delve deep into the subterranean world again.
It was time to enjoy life.
The seeds of evolution had already been sown. All living creatures on this land would live anew, possessing a much broader future... As the creator of this new ecosystem, all Asterion needed to do next was wait.
In a rather anomalous phenomenon, while more than half of the New World was thrown into chaos due to the evolution of life, the southern region of the Ancient Forest—the very source of this evolution—fell into a bizarre state of silence following Asterion's return.
It wasn't that Asterion had done anything bad—ah, wait, one shouldn't automatically assume that whenever he acted, it was to do something bad. In short, once he returned to his nest, Asterion completely entered a state of slacking off and enjoying life. Every day, he would either tease the Airstream Dragon into flying around or engage in some "intimate activities" with Kulve Taroth. He even became extremely particular about his food; only meals prepared by his number-one dragon-chosen chef could pass his lips, and he refused to eat anything else.
Now this was the life!
In Asterion's own words: "I've worked hard for so many years; I deserve a good rest." Leave aside taking flight to patrol the forest; he was too lazy to even roll over.
Yet even though Asterion did not intentionally release his aura to assert his presence, the massive chasm in their fundamental life-force was impossible to conceal. Just like the words he had once shouted to Mirrorblade, he didn't need to actively adapt to the environment; the environment would spontaneously transform into whatever shape made him the most comfortable.
As time ticked away, the oppressive pressure of a Forbidden Monster slowly radiated outward from the Glavenus Tribe like an invisible undercurrent in the deep sea. It was quite fascinating: the more powerful a monster was, the more acutely it felt this pressure, which pounded relentlessly in their heads like a tolling death knell.
In less than half a year, not a single large monster could be seen in the entire southern part of the Ancient Forest—uh, except for Asterion's household, of course.
The Rathalos and Rathian, Gold Rathian and Silver Rathalos, as well as the Zinogre, Anjanath, Astalos, and Nargacuga that used to soar and roam here had completely vanished. Regardless of whether they were Subspecies or Deviants, every single one of them had fled.
Don't ask why—the answer was sheer terror.
Merely catching a whiff of that aura was enough to make even the most violent wyvern instantly calm down. The terror engraved in their bloodlines made them prefer fighting to the death against local apex predators in other regions over staying here to endure such psychological torture.
The mass exodus of large monsters instead left behind a vast living space for low-to-mid-tier creatures. In particular, those small animals that previously could only survive in the cracks, constantly at risk of becoming another creature's meal, had completely adapted to the environment after being thoroughly eroded by the Underworld energy. They weren't negatively affected by Asterion at all.
—Or perhaps they had been affected?
In any case, they all lived leisurely and contentedly... though, come to think of it, perhaps they couldn't really be called "small animals" anymore?
If someone were to place one of these current creatures alongside its counterpart from ten years ago, absolutely no one would be able to connect the two. These guys hadn't just packed on muscle; even their brain capacity had made massive strides forward.
Intelligence.
Intelligence is precisely what allows ordinary life to transcend the mundane.
This miracle-like quality had already manifested within these creatures. Although the language they had developed so far still sounded like a crude combination of various syllables, and their written script consisted only of extremely simple, primitive symbols carved onto tree trunks and stones, they had already learned to manufacture simple tools, understood how to utilize traps, and had even begun to sprout primitive religious and class concepts.
If one were to be precise with the classification, these guys could already be categorized under the broad umbrella of Lynians.
This massive species-wide evolution, which changed rapidly by the day, naturally caused some unease among humans. It gave them a distinct feeling of, "Everyone else is evolving, am I being left behind?" which deeply threatened their sense of security.
Despite the reluctance of some scholars and hunters, after the Guild in the Old World received a series of reports previously sent back by the Admiral, they held a careful discussion and made a decision, ultimately issuing a supreme command to the Research Commission.
The Research Commission, along with any hunters and scholars in the New World, are strictly forbidden from engaging in any form of probing, provocation, or hostile action against the Blue Star Dragon, unless the Blue Star Dragon shows a clear intent to destroy all existing living beings in the New World.
Even if such a moment were to arrive, the Research Commission could only attempt to dissuade it through verbal means. Under no circumstances were they to perform any aggressive actions against the Blue Star Dragon. If necessary, they were to evacuate the New World immediately and terminate the investigation.
Not only that, but to prevent widespread panic, the Kingdom and the Guild also activated their highest-level confidentiality protocols, strictly blocking any information related to the Blue Star Dragon and issuing a gag order to all personnel who had traveled to and from the New World.
A monster that transcended Elder Dragons and explicitly possessed intelligence no lesser than that of humans—it sounded exactly like a setting from some horror story. If such a monster were to become an enemy of humanity, how could humans possibly resist?
Asterion had no idea that he had single-handedly altered the stance of the Kingdom and the Guild toward the New World. Having confirmed that the Blue Star Dragon had officially claimed the New World as its territory, the higher-ups of the Kingdom and the Guild, after fierce debates, decided to slow down the pace of exploration in the New World.
At the same time, they indefinitely postponed the plan to develop Astera into humanity's first city in the New World, reducing the volume of various supplies shipped to the continent.
One could only say they were being exceptionally cautious. The elites of human society who could sustain humanity for so many years in such a world were by no means foolish. When it came to a Forbidden Monster—an existence capable of easily wiping out human civilization—the Kingdom and the Guild could not afford the slightest slack, terrified that some inadvertent action by humans might anger such a being.
In light of the latest directives from the Kingdom and the Guild, some hunters and scholars who could not accept this reality and were unwilling to have their bodies eroded by Underworld energy into a human subspecies boarded ships to return to the Old World. They represented the more conservative faction.
As for the remaining people, they had already prepared themselves to coexist with the Underworld energy, while also getting ready to adapt to this continent dominated by the Blue Star Dragon. Aside from figures like the Admiral and the Commander, who were already prepared to die in the New World, most of the rest were local humans born on the continent over the past few decades. Having no real concept of the Old World to begin with, they naturally wouldn't leave.
The shift in personnel temporarily lent a bittersweet, despondent atmosphere to Astera and the Frontline Research Base. There was both the reluctance to part with old faces and the celebration of new arrivals; in short, it was quite bustling.
Undeniably, the departure of large monsters in droves brought a genuine sigh of relief to the hunters and scholars. After all, they had no desire to be ambushed during their investigations by various blue-tinted monsters whose power far exceeded that of their ordinary kin.
Things were looking up. A unique ecological landscape, creatures in the midst of rapid evolution, and a safe environment for investigation—could there be anything more wonderful than this for a scholar?
The answer was yes, but it might not turn out so well.
At first, people truly felt that the environment had become safer. However, after barely half a year had passed, the Research Commission discovered that an ecosystem stripped of large monsters had not become simpler; instead, it grew even more hazardous.
Clan conflicts!
The newly enlightened Lynian tribes possessed no ancient historical heritage or ancestral wisdom. They only knew that they had to hunt as much food as possible—not just to fill their own bellies, but to ensure the healthy growth of the cubs in their tribes.
Thus, a problem arose. With the current biodiversity of the Ancient Forest, it had reached a point where Lynians were everywhere. There were insect-men, serpent-men, fungus-men, bird-men, fish-men, plant-men... in short, every variety and species imaginable.
A critical question emerged: Now that everyone has become civilized, what am I supposed to eat?
Where could one find ordinary animals in the current Ancient Forest? There wasn't a single easy target. Perhaps after the Underworld energy in the New World gradually stabilized and the power of evolution receded in accordance with Asterion's will, some common beasts possessing only basic instincts would reappear. But at least for now, there were none.
This was fatal. After all, the reason a food chain is called a food chain is due to the simultaneous coexistence of predators and prey—big fish eat little fish, and little fish eat shrimp.