7 Territory

'I'm now five years old and growing into a fine adolescent. I'm roughly as large as a full grown Aptonoth or a single horse carriage.

My tail finally started to show signs of growing scales and my forelimb's bladed wings have doubled in size. They're long enough to cut clean through an Aptanoth if given the chance.

What's neat is that the membrane covering my winged forelimbs can be pulled back to reveal the full length of the blade.

It's super cool! It's like having retractable swords attached to your elbows.

Mom seems to be getting older, but that doesn't mean she's getting any weaker. She'd still wipes the floor with me in our spars.

And strangely last year a silver sheen started to take over the glossy black fur that once covered Mom's back.

It took me a while to figure out what it was but when she showed me her most recent stunt I remembered.

She turned invisible.

Just one day when sparring she disappeared. No sound, no nothing. Just poof. She was gone. And after I got smacked into the ground for getting distracted I remembered an old rumor that went around in the guild about a Nargacuga who would vanish into mist.

I thought they were just exaggerating or the person who saw this was going senile but now it seems it was true.

A silver Nargacuga that could vanish into thin air. This story was old enough that even my great grandparents knew about it.

So if the original Silver Nargacuga existed a century ago, it's not too far fetched to say Mom is probably its descendent.'

While Lucius was in one of his mental tangents Lucy was out hunting for lunch discovering that the forest was undergoing a metamorphosis.

Monster territory was defined by the hunting grounds of an Apex monster. Lucy being the strongest in the area granted her the title of apex. While her territory was 400 square miles it didn't mean it was hers exclusively.(100 square miles is the size of 48400 football fields or ⅙ the size of Oahu)

If one were to draw a picture where red represented Lucy's territory the red would cover a roughly circular area touching the east side of the Furahiya Mountain Range and the west side deep within the Great Forest.

Along the edges of the red you would see various colors overlapping such as the Blagonga who lived on the Mountain. His territory overlapped Lucy's for a few miles and the same could be seen along the entire perimeter. This area would often be viewed as a shared boundary. While various apexs could hunt here they would generally stay within the center of their territory.

Now if one Apex were to go beyond the shared boundary the invader would be seen as a threat. An apex only ventures into another apex's territory for two reasons. The most common one being a wandering Apex who were either forced out of its territory or a juvenile challenging other apex's for a territory to claim for its own.

The less common one being a ruling Apex challenging another ruling Apex to expand its territory. While uncommon it's not unheard of. This only happens during a great disaster or famine where food is scarce and an apex needs more land to hunt and find food. Disasters like these only happen a few times a decade and usually occur because of a passing Elder Dragon.

An Elder Dragon is equivalent to a walking disaster. Elder Dragons are so far removed from the known tree of life that their biology can seem other worldly. Controlling the wind, storms, and even fire Elder Dragons bring chaos with their mere presence. Lucy is quite the powerful individual to have overcome an Elder Dragon and that's reflected by her territory. Lucy's territory is on the larger side because of the various challengers that she has crushed over the years.

Lucy 'Something's not right. There are signs of turf disputes and various monsters that should live further in the forest are coming out further than they usually do.'

Tracks and claw marks are found all along the very edges of Lucy's territory. She leaves gashes along the trees and ground to signal to other predators that she lives here.

Finding no immediate threat Lucy heads back to finish looking for lunch.