3 Roaring Like a Lion

"They're restless" a black shadow darted from the ground, hiding between the crevice of a huge builder covered in musk. Concealed inside the rock's stone entrails, two violet jewels fixed themselves on the surrounding forest shrouded in darkness.

After a couple of minutes, the sounds of numerous rushed steps started to reverberate from the direction that they were pointing to.

A cold beam of light flashed between the eyes of the figure hidden in the dark fracture, while a group of panting humans came out from behind some tall bushes.

It was a night of pure darkness, the countless eternal clear lights that normally illuminated the forests' skies were obscured by huge and grim clouds. Strong winds blew on the tall trees, making them bend and crack under the storm herald's rage.

No animal noise could be heard, making the forest even more gloomy than normal. Animals knew. They knew that a storm was coming. They felt it in their bones, the gravity of it made their pelts itch and their feathers ruffled. That's why they all kept to the safety of their lairs.

These hunters were different though. They seemed to be even more reckless than normal humans. Armed with an unending confidence and unlimited stupidity, they carried little fires on small wooden sticks and run all over the place.

"I don't believe that it fled too much far from here!" said a human with a clear crystalline voice. The other seemed to see him as a leader of some sort, as they all circled around him.

"Sister Winter Leaf is right, that evil vermin is somewhere close" continued a three feet hunter with the neck of a bison and a ridiculous sized stone hammer between his hand.

"Sister? Oh so that's a female human…" the dark silhouette that had buried itself in the boulder's crack was obviously the little black collar snake. Or Darkscale, as he started to think of himself after having been called that by the green haired human the day before.

It just sounded good and the serpent had searched for long to find a good name for himself but he never came up with a decent one. Mister Snake and Lord King Snake Emperor seemed not enough and a little too much respectively.

Darkscale observed with curiosity the human that now he knew was a female: he couldn't quite tell what was the difference. She had the same body size of most of the other humans. Maybe the hair? She did have long black hair tied behind her head, way longer than the rest of the group.

" Yes, maybe it's the hair…" thought the little reptile, pleasingly noting down the information in his mind. It was like a hobby of his. Since he started to have the Dreams, he began to love discovering new things.

Then his eyes suddenly widened while he remembered something very important.

"Wait a second… those humans that in the Dreams I would try to kidnap seemingly from nowhere… didn't they all have long hair?"

Darkscale didn't know what the Dreams' King did with those human females, but he seemed to grow excited every time he saw one.

Before this new piece of information that he just discovered, Darkscale always had been very stunned by the behavior. Why would someone take living humans away? And why only those with longer hair? Moreover, it was something that happened very frequently because the little serpent had plenty of Dreams in which he would attack and kidnap humans, especially those with long hair.

"I still don't know why he does it…"

Darkscale was certain that it had to have some meaning: the great creature that blessed him with the Dreams was capable of great miracles, so everything it did had to have some further meaning.

"Maybe one day I will have a dream about it" hoped the thin reptile.

In any case, he knew that even if he wanted to, he was too weak to ever think about doing something like that. He wouldn't even be able to fight fairly a human, let alone kidnap one.

"Fairly? Even unfairly…" thought the little creature self-depreciatively.

Even when he ambushed a totally unprepared human, managing to strike him and wounding him severely, he didn't manage to kill him. Yes, from the chatter that he heard during the time that they hunted him, he knew that the human he attacked survived. That left him a bit disappointed, but he knew that without finding a way to Cultivate he would probably never have a chance to kill one of those disgusting bipeds.

" If only I had some venom…" Darkscale now knew that there were plenty of snake species that all humans feared. Not only hunters: even cultivators, strong and weak alike. Some snakes had poisons that even the Cursed Blood's Owner feared.

"Ah, how good it would be if I had a super strong poison?" a look of intoxication appeared on his little rhomboidal face for a moment.

Then he tried to regain focus. Shaking away futile thoughts, the serpent continued to observe those stupid naked monkeys trying to find him in a night without stars.

He could sense an invisible tension among them.

" We need to find it soon, the young chief gave us a time limit of three days! Do you know what will happen if we don't find it?" silence followed Winter Leaf's words, while almost the entire group shivered thinking about the consequences of making the green haired young man mad. The only one that didn't show any fear was the man with the hammer, that simply shrugged.

Darkscale's eyes narrowed.

This wasn't the first time that some of the groups that followed him said something similar. They weren't hunting him because he hurt one of them. It was all because of the green-haired young man ordered them to do so. They always referred to him as "young chief" and he seemed to hold great importance in their tribe. A leader of some sort.

"Mph, he's not their young chief for nothing it. He clearly noted that I'm a great threat to his human race if left unchecked." There was respect glittering in his vertical eyes when he thought that.

He then remembered that Green-hair also tried to befriend him, right after he had just maimed one of his companions. "Clearly a great leader. And he has good naming abilities too. However, my hate for humans is too deep. We shall be forever enemies." a solemn air revolted around the little snake hidden in the shadows.

" Uh, but if we can't find his evil pet before the storm arrives? I, Ironboar, prefer the anger of the little chief to that of Mother Sky" Said gravely the human armed with the large hammer. Many other humans seemed to agree with him.

The hidden creature was confused by what the half-bison human was saying. "Evil pet"? He cared little about how evil humans thought he was, but what was the deal with calling him a "pet"?

"I can't believe that the young chief is forcing us to work for him just because he can. Why he doesn't ask his father for a new plaything instead of putting us in danger?" said indignantly a slender human with a long aquiline nose.

Winter Leaf sighed "He was given the authority to command us in this training exercise for the Ritual of the Hunt..."

"Brother Sutao would never put us in such ridiculous situation... he should be the one guiding the expedition" continued the human with the long aquiline nose. Lots of eyes in the group shined with regret when they heard the name mentioned by the thin human.

"An overweight pampered child or a cripple foreigner, it almost would seem as our tribe young generation is blind when deciding to whom give their loyalty" stated the muscular Ironboar, almost as talking to himself.

"It is sure better to follow Sutao than a moron only able to slam a hammer around!" screamed furiously the long-nosed human.

The girl with long black hair held in a tie on the back of her head blocked the two from continuing "Enough! we need to obey our orders... at least for now. When we're back to the tribe I will talk with the Elders... this is unacceptable!"

The other humans seemed to agree that the young patriarch had exerted too much the authority given to him by the tribe.

"Hmph, sending us in the dark to hunt and bring back a damned snake just because he wants it as a pet... mph, despicable" the eagle-nosed human clearly disliked the young chief of his tribe.

Darkscale was happily listening to the humans arguing with each other, learning new things about their inner organization when he heard something that left him dismayed.

"A pet"?

His little mouth dropped to the floor and his eyes almost popped out from his skull.

Was he really just searching for him to make him his new pet? The little serpent's blood starts to boil with rage. A pet? That stinky naked monkey wanted him, Darkscale, to be his pet? The minute body of the serpent started to literally shake in furor, while his violet eyes became completely bloodshed.

"Just wait damned human! When I'll become a cultivator I'll make you my pet, I'll make all your family my pets; your entire clan will become Darkscale's pet!"

He knew that humans liked to find animals and bind them to their wills, making them eating their left-overs and even cutting away their virilities!

"Evil creatures, Darkscale will make YOU all pets. Just wait and see!"

The anger and humiliation that the little serpent was feeling abruptly flooded out of his being, transforming into something that let even himself shaken.

"ROOOAAAAARRRR!!!!"

It was a terrifying sound that for a moment seemed to froze still even the raging winds. Echoes made it linger in the air like a ghost, scaring senseless everyone who heard it.

Darkscale included.

"Great Mother! What was that?"

"Devils! A devil must have descended again from the higher peaks!"

"We're done for!"

The humans were terrified. Only a year ago, devils were mystical creatures brought up by the elders of the tribe to scare little children. However, they became a vivid reality for all the tribes living in the region a few months before, when a devil descended from the High Peaks and started to slaughter people!

Not just any people, the devil targeted a group of Immortals! Those divine beings that could destroy a tribe with a whistle and fly in the air like dragons! Plus the evil devil managed to kill them all! It even toyed with them! This was information that directly came from the tribes that had people working as servants in the Immortal Sects.

The first to react was Winter Snow. Face was white as a sheet, she turned around and immediately started fleeing towards the tribe. She didn't even think about going back to the camp in the forest.

The rest of the humans started to run away right after, expression of panic stamped on their faces. They didn't even try to evade the many thorned bushes present in the area and quite literally jumped inside them, ignoring the wounds that they were causing to their bodies.

The last one to move was the big man with the hammer: he was clearly scared, but he didn't run away in a confused frenzy like the others. He helped up everyone who fell down and he even put the scrawny eagle-nosed human, that had fainted hearing the roar, on his back while retreating as fast as he could.

Soon, the only one remaining in the area was a little dark snake in complete awe.

Yes, at first he was incredibly shocked by the sound that came out of him, but after seeing the humans fleeing disorganized he started to feel great pride. Sibling in happiness for his great accomplishment, he came out from his hiding place.

" Who knew that I would be making humans run away in terror even before becoming a cultivator" declared the little serpent, coiling on himself with a mysterious air.

He continued to play around with various poses for a while and then he returned inside his hiding space. He didn't want to try his luck finding another place to rest. Especially one that it would also give him shelter from the tempest that was coming.

" After the storm, I will need another shelter… maybe I can point to something better than a rat hole this time…" mused the little creature.

He found a good spot in the opening and tried to relax. "It has been a while since I last had a Dream…" recalled the serpent closing his eyes.

Soon, almost as if the world was answering his prayer, he fell into a deep Dream.