Prime Originator

"Try not to breathe too much around here. Rodents are the carriers of diseases and plagues, let alone after being mutated and infected with Wrathful Demonic Energy," Leon warned the ladies. 

Soft Feather's large body landed on a patch of bloody vines and mutant rat carcasses before her frigid mist spread out and frozen the area, foul air and decaying corpses alike. 

"If we don't breathe, then are you asking us to suffocate to death?" Soft Feather threw Leon a questioning glance. 

Leon raised an eyebrow before he responded, "...Or you can just leave the area?"

"Ughk..." Soft Feather was immediately stunned, speechless. Why didn't she think of that?

Leon studied the bloody vines with interest, but then he suddenly noticed that the bloody vines did not try to ensnare Soft Feather. 

The frigid cold spread to the silver wolf's area before the bloody vines became rigid. 

Crack!

The bloody vines coiling around Silver were shattered like glass from a slight movement, freeing the silver wolf from its bindings.

"Awroo!" Silver howled excitedly. 

The Transcendent-level silver wolf began prancing around on each patch of frozen bloody vines and shattering them all into pieces for revenge. 

Seeing this situation, Leon quickly lost interest in the bloody vines. 

The power of Nihility spread out from Leon and reduced his bloody vine bindings into energy particles before he absorbed them into his body. 

"Weren't you interested in studying these bloody vines, Leon?" Aria asked with a curious look. 

"I did." Leon smiled lightly before saying, "These bloody vines have some incredible resilience to resist my attack. But if it has such a fatal weakness against the cold, it will not be very useful to us."

"That being said, I should collect some samples to study. Perhaps, there will be some other usage for it." 

Recalling that the entire elven tribe mainly used vines as their primary weapon, Leon decided to grab a bit more samples before storing them neatly in the Worldspace. 

Meanwhile, Soft Feather's pupil shrank from Leon's display of power, unable to comprehend what kind of ability he just used. 

But the fact that Leon could convert the bloody vines into absorbable energy left her shell-shocked. 

Recalling her mother's words, Soft Feather had no choice but to admit that human was not simple.

After Leon finished collecting his samples, he turned to Soft Feather and said, "Let us continue on our journey." 

"Well, hop on then." Soft Feather responded with a grudging tone that was evidently less resistant than before. 

Shortly after Aria fly onto Soft Feather's back, Leon noticed that Lilith remained unmoving, seemingly lost in thought.

Leon snapped his fingers in front of her face to catch her attention before he asked, "What's up? What are you thinking about in a daze?"

Lilith did not respond immediately but glanced at the mutant rat carcasses littered like mountains in the surroundings with few beasts of different species buried underneath without an intact body.

"The Skysilver Tribe is not far from here, yet the scene is like this… Makes me wonder how my family is doing…" Lilith said with knitted brows. 

"Worry about it now won't do you any good. We will know the situation once we get there. You can worry then." Leon thought for a moment before he added, "How far is the Desolate Crow Clan from the Skysilver Tribe?" 

"It's about a 600 miles stretch west from the Skysilver Tribe to reach the borders of the Desolate Crow Clan's territory and another 700 miles after that before we can arrive at the main tribe."

After listening to Lilith, Leon was quick to raise an eyebrow in response, "You've run quite a distance away from home there, missy." 

"Why did you run away from home in the first place?" Leon could not help but ask with his curiosity piqued.

Lilith pouted slightly before saying, "Well, I guess there is no point hiding this matter from you. I was simply running away from an arranged marriage set by my parents."

"Oh?" Leon's curiosity increased. 

Nevertheless, he hopped onto Soft Feather's back before he said, "Let us talk while we are on the move." 

"Alright." Lilith nodded. 

Shortly after Leon instructed the silver wolf to keep up, Soft Feather took off with everyone on her back and resumed the journey. 

"I thought you were a little princess or something within the Desolate Crow Clan. Why would your parents force you into an arranged marriage?" Aria stole the words from Leon's mouth and cast Lilith a curious glance while squeezing in between them.

Leon smiled wryly. 

"The Desolate Crow Clan is considered a Mid-rank tribe in the Wildlands, but it lives under the sovereignty of a High-rank tribe, the Desolate Netherbird Tribe, along with three other clans."

"Lilith issued a sigh before she added, "This is why we are called the Desolate Crow Clan and not the Desolate Crow Tribe."

"A High-rank tribe would mean that there's at least an Early-stage Paragon as its ruler, right?" Leon inserted with a curious look before adding, "Why don't you want to marry into such a powerful ruling family?"

"Are you kidding me? Do you think I am such a vain woman?" Lilith rolled her eyes angrily at Leon.

Shortly after, she added, "I've only met the Desolate Netherbird Tribe's Second Prince once, yet was enamored and asked for my hand in marriage. Do you think I will be happy living with such a person?"

"But for you to leave so irresponsibly on your own with such marriage contract with the Desolate Netherbird Tribe's royal family in place…" Aria frowned before asking, "Wouldn't it cause trouble for your family?" 

Lilith was stunned.

"Seeing that look on your face, I guess you did not think about the consequences your actions could bring them." Aria shook her head with disappointment. 

"I…" Lilith's body trembled, but she had no words to retort. It is exactly as Aria had said. 

Suddenly, Leon noticed the big hill up ahead, filled with mountains of corpses and ruined primitive structure, before he asked, "Is that the Skysilver Tribe up ahead?" 

"Yeah, that's the Skysilver Tribe alright—or at least what's left of it anyway," Lilith confirmed after a take a quick glance at the view ahead.

"I see.. Let us make a quick stop and see if we can find anything useful."