Sitasia Valden Nox Chalenet: 2

~Foreign Space~ {POV 3rd Person}

Sita: Beginner Tier 4

Foreign Space, this is the name of the unstable space outside the stable space in which this world exit; and due to space here being unstable, it is always filled space storms made of things like from the broken shards of the space to varying uncontrollable berserk Laws.

And due to the same reason, not even Pseudo-Gods are confident enough of surviving in this Foreign Space, after all, even though the most prominent Laws here belong to the field of Space, Time, Creation, Destruction, and other similar ones, it doesn't mean other Laws aren't present here.

But this isn't the main reason behind individuals of this world dreading the foreign space, as the main reason behind the foreign space being this deadly is its unpredictability because one moment the foreign space might be completely still and the very next moment the same place in the foreign space might be filled by space storm strong and large enough to completely eat up a planet.

And its unpredictable nature is further increased by the fact that foreign space is sometimes affected by what is happening with the Laws on the stable side of space at that corresponding place; like at this time Lightning and Space Laws are being used by the two fighting parties, therefore at the corresponding foreign space, a storm with a quite unique composition of lightning and space is constantly wreaking havoc.

Even though this storm is strong enough to make even Pseudo Gods fall, surprising enough there is a small Tier 4 lightning spirit named Sita can be found here in this foreign space, who is desperately trying to survive; fortunately for this spirit, it is in the outer area of the storm and the place where it is currently present is dominated by Lightning Laws, hence significantly reducing the damage received as it is a pure lightning spirit.

But still, even with all its efforts, a strength of Tier 4 is nowhere near enough for surviving even the outer area of the storm.

Thankfully, being a Spirit, Sita doesn't have a solid physical form hence almost completely avoiding the fatalness of physical damage from the storm, but still, the rate of prana consumption is significantly larger than any situation Sita has ever faced.

It isn't like there isn't prana in the foreign space, but these prana aren't docile like ones in the stable space moreover even the prana attribute is constantly interchanging between lightning and space, hence the prana absorption rate of Sita has significantly reduced.

But for surviving this ordeal, Sita forced itself to absorb this dual attribute prana and had to use it without even getting the time of processing this prana.

Sita is a pure Lightning Spirit and originally no spirit can use prana of any attribute other than their own, it doesn't they can't absorb prana of other attributes it is just that they have to process that prana before using it; however Sita is still at Tier 4 hence still not owning any actual Law and most of this prana is still lightning attribute, therefore it can at least barely use this dual attribute prana.

But it isn't without a price; although Sita hasn't noticed it till now or doesn't even have the luxury of noticing it, Sita's original strength at Tier 4 has been constantly going down, and now it is just a step away from reaching Tier 3.

After all, initially, Sita was composed of pure lightning prana but the more it is using the prana from here the impure its body is becoming, and although slowly, Sita is gradually losing control over its body which is now filled with impurities in the form of space attribute prana.

_______

Sita doesn't know how long has passed since it entered this space but during this time it has tried everything to get away from this and failed in every attempt.

After all, the space inside foreign space is unstable in itself, added to the fact that a space storm is going on here, the Space Laws here are all messed up; in other words, taking one step forward might make that individual go tens of meters backward, or go a ten meters backward then a hundred meters forward, or go right and left at the same time hence tearing the body in two, or not even move at all.

Therefore after eating many losses Sita stopped trying to actively move away from the storm and did its best to increase the absorption rate of prana; however, due to continuously decreasing strength and control over the body it failed even in this, and the absorption rate has been continuously decreasing.

Sita's strength has already dropped down to Tier 1 and at this rate will soon reach the level at which Sita was born.

Soon prana composition of Sita became so impure that it's weaker control over its body made Sita reach the state at which it was born, anymore than this and Sita's life will really end

In many worlds as well as civilizations there is a common saying that 'Opportunity and risk usually come in pairs'; something similar is also happening here, and on the other hand, how can the world consciousness close all paths for its darling, Spirits. The only thing that Sita must do is keep trying without giving up and Sita is anything if not stubborn who just isn't the one who gives up; just like Sita has been chasing that lightning rabbit way out of her league even while being a Tier 1 and actually went back to that forest even after discovering the advantages of being in clouds.

If it would have been any other Spirit then, unless they had to directly face this storm, at least their life wouldn't have been a danger, after all, due to owning Laws they can survive for quite some time even without prana, moreover neither would have their body become impure expect for the case when they are directly dealing with other Laws.

However, due to the very same reason, that the other Spirits own Laws, they won't be able to go through the near-impossible transformation that Sita will be facing very soon.

When Sita reached the state of birth, it was the phase where its consciousness appeared for the first time and formed the body with the nearest element, lightning, hence giving the lightning affinity; although this isn't anything near everything that led to the birth of Sita, at the core level this is indeed what happened.

And now, Sita is in the same state once again, however this time, there isn't only the Lightning element nearby but also the Space element; with Sita's strong desire as well as a rare set of coincidences, Lightning prana along with a small amount of Space prana began gathering to once again form a stable body for Sita.

Although Sita is completely unaware and will remain oblivious for coming thousands of years, due to this event Sita gained a minor Space affinity; and in the future, this minor Space affinity will become the very reason for being elected as the companion of someone who will become the family, closest person, favorite person, most beloved person, and whatever similar names one might use....

If this would have been any other Spirit, due to them already possessing their own Laws since their birth, unless they went for a new Law, getting a new attribute in a way similar to this would be absolutely impossible; Sita succeeded only because of not being connected to any of the Laws hence this change became possible.

Though Sita doesn't know what exactly happened, it did sense that it's once again getting the body under control, so after recovering a little Sita made one more attempt of getting away from this storm, and, this time, actually succeeded, due to its newly obtained minor space attribute affecting Sita who isn't aware of it.

Because of finally getting a way of survival Sita properly observed its surrounding for the first time and it was at this point Sita noticed that somewhat familiar cracks have begun appearing in this silver space, only, this time those cracks aren't silver in color rather they are black and more than once Sita even saw starry skies as well as lands filled with vegetation on the other side of it.

Sita clearly remembers that it entered this silver-colored place though those silver cracks and this time these cracks are similar to the place it lived till now therefore it concluded that going through those cracks it can go back; however, doing this isn't as easy as it sounds because those cracks appear only for a short period of time and till none has appeared near Sita also going to those cracks in a short period of time isn't easy.

Because although Sita is gradually moving through this space and away from the storm, it isn't an easy task rather an extremely challenging one, as space laws inside the Foreign Space are still unstable therefore even though Sita obtained space affinity, it is a minor one moreover even if this affinity was the primary one Sita doesn't possess any space-related Laws through which it might at least move properly within this Foreign Space.

Actually, on the other side, although the surprise attack team succeded in attacking the planet once which even led to Sita getting swallowed in foreign space, no one except Reva knows about it till now and the actual damage that attack did to the planet's environment is insignificant; therefore even with all effort from the surprise attack team for another successful attack, they were pushed back to another solar system by the Lightning Spirit King, who began attacking them without a care in the world about itself; so the places Sita saw through those cracks in this Solar System, far away from the home planet of Spirits.

Although it took a long time for Sita to go near the place where cracks are appearing while protecting itself from the occasional waves of the storm, it finally reached the border of that place, fortunately, initially, the moving Storm has already dragged Sita along.

And this hard work indeed paid off, as very soon a new crack appeared quite near to Sita, who used everything to get there the moment it noticed the crack near itself...

*****

~Planet Gunaduhiri~

Planet Gunaduhiri is a low-rank planet which is even though a little bigger than the home planet of Spirits, the top powerhouses here are no more than Tier 5 and even their count never crossed double-digit.

As for the intelligent species living on this planet, well, it is quite diverse; from Humans and many Beastkins to even Elves and Dwarves, although the latter two are the minority with just one and two villages owned by them respectively.

Actually, this planet is dominated by the Beastkins and their only major competitor being the human race but they also own just two small countries.

Why competitors and dominating others? What about living together peacefully and helping each other?

Although this idea might sound beautiful and all, its practicality is quite small; it isn't like two races can never have friendly relations, in this world only there are more than one such places, but this is also a fact that it isn't easy for two different groups to coexist without fighting; even different Beastkins are fighting among each other, which is the very reason Humans still have two countries for themselves.

Why 'was' dominated by Beastkins and not 'is'?

Actually, the solar system of this planet is quite near to the solar system of Spirits' home planet, so much so that long ago Spirit Kings have blocked the gravitational pull between the stars of both solar systems to prevent them from colliding with each other anytime soon, so when the war started this planet was among the first few that got captured by the spirits.

Therefore even though Spirits only killed those individuals from this planet that participated in the war and never interfered nor were interested in the life of general people so much so that few of the countries and villages are still fighting amongst each other, the real owner of this planet are the Spirits.

_________

{POV Sita}

First I reformed my eyes which got destabilized while passing through that crack and then looked around.

Finally ... I left that horrifying silver space; really, colorful places are much better.

As I was looking around, suddenly, I once again sensed those familiar prana waves along the silver cracks; as much as I want to find the source of these waves and now especially the silver cracks, I already learned that I am just too weak to even get near the vicinity of that place; but I don't plan on giving up will definitely do it after becoming bigger (stronger).

I once again looked at surrounding as I have to get away from here as soon as possible; after all those silver cracks might suck me in again and I don't think getting out of there again would be any easier than last time.

Then I noticed that I am quite far above the land, much farther than anywhere I have gone before because that annoying green wind always stopped me; almost instantly after looking down, I discovered a very strange fact, as far as I can see there are no clouds.

Crossing that crack took too much of my prana so I am already running low on it and the absence of clouds means I need to eat prana from the air, which will take a long time for me to be full as it is very thin and it ... 'tastes' bad as that prana isn't similar to one inside me.

Still, I decided to go below because I know that if I go too far above prana start becoming thin, and refilling my prana takes top priority along with getting away from these silver cracks, and going to the ground satisfies both of them.

_________

On the other side, quite near to this planet, the Lightning Spirit can't distract itself from the fight due to which it missed the youngest spirit taking a step in its life, which, although will give many experiences to Sita, it will be because of these experiences that after thousands of years when Spirits locate Sita and meet again, Sita will....

__________

*Crackling*

Very soon I reached the forest on the ground, but this place is....very strange.

First and foremost, there are no clouds so no easy food and no sleep; then even after reaching the ground I can feel that prana is very very thin compared to what I remember; and last, I can't sense or see that hateful water anywhere near me, which used to be everywhere and always falling from the clouds, which I know is called rain.

I have no idea where I am now or where I used to live, but now I am sure that this definitely isn't the place where I used to live.

As much as I prefer a place like this which isn't covered with detestable water everywhere, I still need to search for clouds otherwise it will take me too much time to become as big (strong) as me before entering the silver space, as I have already noticed that compared to before I have become significantly smaller (weaker).

For now, it is time to get back to the old method of replenishing prana, by killing beasts living in the forest; and I have already sensed quite a few of them around me.

Now that I check again since I came out that silver space even though I became smaller (weaker), the range of my senses has increased; and not by a little bit, rather it has stretched many times over the previous one; I don't know why but anyway it will make my search for food easier.

*****

~Some unnamed forest, Planet Gunaduhiri~ {POV Sita}

I don't feel like sleeping without the clouds, that's why this time I counted the number of days passed correctly, without forgetting in middle even once; however, I still felt that days and nights in this place are much longer where I used to live.

Anyway, I have been living in this new place for 37 days.

During this time, I have been trying to recover but without clouds and with this thin prana I am nowhere near my last size (strength); therefore I have been searching for clouds while traveling and hunting the beasts I encountered to make my recovery even a little faster, although, sometimes these hunts consumed more that amount of prana I get back from them; I really have become much smaller (weaker) as before coming here I have easily hunted beasts with more prana in them than ones I fought here.

Also, this place is much much bigger than my last place as till now I didn't find any wind wall which used to appear in my last place when I go too far away from my sleeping clouds.

Today also I am traveling after filling my prana, but this time I had to hunt around twice the amount than the last time to replenish the same amount of prana; because for the last few days, I noticed that beasts I found are containing lesser prana than the initial ones and today I even found some beasts without prana, oh yes! I remembered they are called animals, very weak, and completely useless.

Also one more thing, during these days I also found useless white clouds.

Why useless? Because during my travel I found many of them but in each case the prana there was as thin as near the ground and sometimes even thinner, but the most disappointing part is that they didn't contain lightning in those clouds; therefore, after examining each one of the white clouds for the starting few days, now I have even stopped checking them.

As I was almost sure that only useless clouds exist in this place, suddenly, a loud sound reached my 'ears'.

*Boom*

I am quite familiar with this sound or rather I have been constantly hearing this sound before coming to this place, after all, this is the sound of thunder that comes out of the black clouds I have been constantly searching for.

Therefore, I immediately flew up in the sky to expand my field of vision and soon found the direction in which black clouds are just starting to gather. Finally finding the black clouds I have been searching for so many days I immediately flew in that direction.

And very soon I reached there; upon checking it I found that this is indeed a black cloud which contains lightning and thunder; however ... this was a huge disappointment because even after being the dark clouds filled with lightning, the prana density here isn't any better than the white clouds.

Still, I decided to enter these clouds because even though prana here is quite thin, prana here belongs to the lightning attribute which will make it faster for me to absorb; at least this is better than me moving aimlessly by randomly picking up one direction.

(Sita still isn't aware of the change in its attribute, moreover, it only gained a minor attribute which isn't easy to detect.)

*****

~Some unnamed forest, Planet Gunaduhiri~ {POV Sita}

It has been 25 days since I found the low-quality black clouds.

Yes, these black clouds are almost completely useless; no, not because of the low amount of prana in it, this is indeed one of the reasons but compared to the other one this is nothing.

The most annoying part of these black clouds is that they disappear after some time.

In the first black cloud that I found, I thought about going to sleep to make my recovery faster as I in the past I have grown most while sleeping; however, my plan failed before it even got started, because not even a day has passed and I wasn't even able to start sleeping, that black cloud disappeared.

Not giving up the thought of speeding up my recovery, I searched for another black cloud and very soon even found one, but that also disappeared and the time I was able to stay inside it was much much lesser than the time I spent to find it; so yes, pretty much useless.

And that wasn't the only time this happened as I didn't stop here and found two more expecting something different but the result was always the same disappointment.

After that, I hunted every being that came near me during my travel, whether it was beast or animal; at least I understood the meaning of the word frustration from that information I received though now that I think it would have better to not understand; along with this I also understood the meaning of stress-relief as well as what I need to do for it.

And now once again I am inside a black cloud which is about to disperse. How do I know? Because each time rain and lightning stop before black cloud disperses, and now lightning has already stopped and rain has also become quite weak.

Even though I already knew this was going to happen and I have already eliminated every beast and animal in this region, getting interrupted again and again doesn't feel any better, or rather I want to go on another round of hunting but due to the previous cloud annoying me this is not possible.

I hate these useless black clouds as much as I loved the black clouds from the place where I used to live before.

And before I knew it, due to uncontrollable anger and frustration I was already releasing lightning all around me, and, even after noticing it, I didn't feel like stopping anytime soon.

And I am glad that I didn't stop because for the first time after coming here I finally noticed ... something interesting; although as a net the cloud is still getting smaller, I noticed that cloud near me isn't dispersing and even though its size smaller than the original one, at least it isn't dispersing anymore.

I even did the test by stopping the random release of lightning and the cloud once again began dispersing and getting smaller; during this test, I also learned that once the cloud got smaller if I continue releasing the lightning it will once get back to the same size I am able to maintain but it really takes too long.

And creating the cloud from nothing takes even longer; while doing this test more than once I thought about giving up and searching for a new one and then keeping that cloud, fortunately, I persisted and succeeded in creating a back cloud, 'MY' very own cloud.

Also because I am only releasing my lightning and not doing any work like hunting or even traveling at my top speed the prana consumption is almost negligible for me so much so that by absorbing the prana near me I can always remain in top condition.

And now that I have my own cloud I can finally go to sleep; really, a lot of things happened since I woke, from getting sucked into a dangerous silver space to becoming smaller (weaker) and from reaching a completely new place where clouds are useless to learning to form my own clouds and many other smaller things.

Now it is time to rest, and I hope nothing disturbs me in between, otherwise ... I will make sure to even burn the trees along with the beasts and animals.

*****

~Some unnamed forest, Planet Gunaduhiri~ {POV Sita}

I have now gotten used to living in this new place.

After learning to form my own clouds I spend most of my time in it, either sleeping or observing the creatures in the forest from up above; I do occasionally go out of clouds, but only if I wish to practice hunting or found something interesting on the ground.

And my going out of the clouds further decreased when I discovered that clouds follow me although very very slowly, but this means I can continue traveling and visit new places without leaving the clouds.

Today also, I was traveling in my clouds ... at a painfully slow speed, but I can bear with this after all this is at least better than having to search for clouds again and again added to the fact that none of those clouds lasted even for a whole day.

As for now, I am about to go down to the ground; yes, I did find something interesting.

Though I already knew from the information I received, this is the first time actually saw Humans and Beastkins. Unlike every other creature I have seen till now, these really don't live in the forest, rather these creatures live in something like ... forest made of stones.

Also, the most interesting thing about these creatures is that they create and use something called tools. What are the tools? Well, I am not really clear but tools are things they use to do whatever they want; like the colorful things known as clothes that they are covering themselves with, or like that thing called sword which the creature with the largest amount of prana is carrying.

I have already observed these creatures for quite some time and as I got to know from the information these creatures really like to fight among themselves as even now a group with prana in them are 'hunting' the ones without prana while saying something about handing over the village or something like that which I am not really clear or care about.

As I have never eaten prana from these creatures, now I am going to hunt them.....

__________

{POV 3rd Person}

This is a very small village named Little Tail Village and owned majorly by the Ibex Goat Beastkins along with a few small other goat and sheep families.

Actually, Little Tail Village is quite self-sufficient in itself, as even after being small, people here have a variety of skills which ranges from farming and sewing to medication and hut-building; however, this doesn't mean people in this village don't go out for contacting others, rather because of their self-sufficiency by selling their extra products people in this village live a life that is slightly on the luxurious side.

This has been going on for many generations and because this village used to come under a relatively strong Beastkin Kingdom, who received great revenues in return for their protection.

But as it has always been, either it is good things or bad things none can last forever; there will always be ups and downs in life, the only difference is that some people put the effort into making their downs shorter and ups longer while others give up.

Similarly here also one of the strongest Beastkin Kingdom, to which the Little Tail used to belong, joined the war and obviously on the opposite side of spirits; therefore, when Spirits took over this planet although they didn't even bother checking out the common people, they completely crippled the military of this kingdom and other groups or empires who stood against them.

And now with the kingdom nearly on its last leg, the neighboring kingdoms and empires decided to conquer and bring the kingdom to the grave.

Even with all this, the Little Tail village didn't expect to have any major changes in their internal situation as they thought that the only change would be the kingdom receiving revenue from them.

This would have really been the case, unfortunately for them, the kingdom nearest to them, as well as the ones who concurred their village region, is the Human Kingdom; and obviously the Human Kingdom won't let Beastkins remain the owner of Little Tail village, after all, the word 'Human' is there for a reason.

Therefore, human soldiers have come here to take the control of Little Tail village, or rather to force the beastkins here into submission and snatch the village as well as its resources.

People of this village know that the status of Beastkins in the Human Kingdom has rarely been anything more than slaves, especially for women and children whose fates had generally been much worse than just slaves; why do these people know about such things? Because that is how they used to treat humans before the Beastkin Kingdom got crippled, and although few in number, even in this small village there are human slaves.

As the inhabitants of this village refused to go down without a fight, human soldiers have already begun attacking them; unfortunately, except for the few hunters none of the people in this village are capable of fighting let alone being a practitioner and there is no way normal people can contend against practitioners, especially when these practitioners have trained their fighting capability to become soldiers.

After killing a few of the villagers the soldiers confirmed that as told in the report this village is completely incapable of resisting them, so the one leading the soldiers came forward and while pointing his sword stained with the blood of beastkins at the beastkin villagers, shouted using the prana to spread his loud voice and further intimidate them.

"You beastkins are unworthy of even putting up a resistance, SURRENDER NOW ... and, I might allow you to keep your worthless life."

These villagers are putting my greater fight than expected and if possible soldiers don't want to kill the villagers as although soldiers will get rewards for successfully capturing a village, capturing slaves will further increase it; after all a war is going on in their country, and males here can be used as disposable laborers while females as stress relief for the soldiers; because in wars like these, military might treat their own citizens cruelly let alone a completely different race.

Although some of the villagers were tempted to surrender, the more experienced ones know that upon surrendering their fates might become much worse than death; therefore as the village head had already died few others came forward to prevent their fellow villagers from getting such fate and ... die here.

"We will never bow down to some deceitful humans..."

"You can forget about getting anything from us."

"Yes..."

The leader understood that this time they won't be getting too many slaves, so without listening any further he gave his orders.

"You all already know; old rules, massacre who resist and spare remaining for making slaves. So ... Let's start."

Soldiers were ready to start and men of the village were trying to suppress their fear for resisting till the last breath while women getting ready to commit suicide.

*Boom*

But the moment leader finished speaking, a loud sound of thunder reached their ears from the black clouds they don't know when appeared above them; however, it wasn't the sound of thunder that stopped them rather they stopped because suddenly a bolt of purple-black lightning came down from the sky and strikes one of the soldiers at the back.

Whether it was human or beastkin none of them were able to respond to what just happened, and while they were still shocked the lightning bolt went to another soldier nearest to the first one leaving behind a still standing charred corpse of the soldier who wasn't even able to let out a cry before dying.

"Move back. NOW."

The leader finally responded and while giving orders began moving away from the lightning; however, by this time the second soldier was already dead and the third one was covered in dense purple-black lightning.

And very soon even the fourth one got caught by that lightning.

Watching how fast soldiers are dying and that too without being able to make any resistance the strongest among them, the leader, doesn't think he would be able to survive that lightning bolt; after all, the one who died first was a peak Tier 1 while he is beginner Tier 2; yes a little stronger, the very reason due to which he got the position of leader, but with how fast and that strong that lightning is he doesn't believe his little strength can make much of a difference.

Therefore, he ran towards the villagers while shouting in a completely enraged voice.

"What did you do?"

How can villagers know what this is, after all, this is Sita, who came down from the clouds for hunting the new type of creatures.

Villagers are also equally afraid of this lightning if not more than the soldiers. Therefore, they don't know how to answer this question, however, in the soldier's eyes, their speechlessness is proof that they are responsible for this lightning.

He turned back found out that around half of the soldiers have already died which made him understand that he can't even run away from here so he went for the 'only possible option', threatening the villagers.

"Stop that thing now otherwise I'll kill you, I'll kill each and every one of you."

The Beastkins completely don't know what to do in such situations but few of the previously despaired villagers are extremely excited upon watching the soldiers dying one by one without even being able to make a resistance just like they were previously in the front of the soldiers and even if the very same lightning kills them afterward they think that it will be worth it.

"Haha.....you all won't be able to escape....."

"You are facing divine punishment and soon your country will face the same."

Hearing their 'ridicule' he wasn't able to control itself and decided to kill them hoping that their death would stop the lightning.

Watching him come towards them, few of the villagers still capable of fighting came forward to protect the others; unfortunately, none of them was able to survive more than two swings from his sword.

He was always keeping track of lightning while trying to kill all the leader looking figures among the villagers hoping that it would work but he was just too slow as by the time Sita eradicated the remaining half of the soldiers he only managed to cross the defense line of created by the only practitioner villagers; anyway, it isn't like it would have worked.

Upon noticing that lightning has already reached the last escaping soldier, he turned around and prepared to make a last stand.

After 'consuming' the prana of the last soldier, Sita flew towards him and him seeing that the last soldier has nearly tuned into coke he channeled all of his pranas in his sword. But this is idiotic, as even Sita's leisure movement speed is so fast that his eyes can't even keep up and he doesn't possess senses as among humans it is only owned by strong and gifted humans.

And this is indeed what happened; as he was holding up the sword continuously filled with his prana and getting ready to strike, he didn't even notice when Sita reached without even touching his sword still in striking position and by the time he noticed only a few seconds of his life was left and he was completely incapable of controlling prana in his body; well, it isn't like setting up defenses would have given him any more than just a few extra seconds of life.

After killing humans soldiers Sita stayed there for a few seconds sensing the alive villagers then again went up the sky; while on the other side, villagers were holding their breath looking at the lightning bolt which they believe is staring at them after killing the soldiers and just as few of weak-willed people began bowing down Sita went up to prevent the still not dissipated clouds from completely disappearing.

On this day Sita met the humanoid intelligent species for the first time and even killed some of them also the only reason others were left alive is that remaining alive villagers didn't have prana in their body and those who had already got killed by the soldiers therefore Sita didn't even consider them someone worth hunting for.

However, in villagers' eyes lightning came down from the sky and saved them from the cruel soldiers, due to this many of the villagers began believing that it was really some Beast God who saved their lives and this thought will continue for many generations to come.

After all, these are just uninformed villagers who don't know anything more than the name of the race named Spirit because Spirits in this world are really beings of legend that even many practitioners don't get to see once in their relatively long life; the reason behind this is that population of Spirit is really small and they don't really like to interact with other races.

That's why these villagers don't know that they survived only because they are weak.

Well, it looks like although the saying 'It is the weak who always suffers' holds true in many places, there are also cases in which it fails...

*****

~Little Tail Village, Planet Gunaduhiri~ {POV Sita}

It has been around 10 years since I met intelligent humanoids for the first time; yes, I learned about year and dates so now it is much easier for me count days and I also learned about time like minutes and hours but I don't find any use of these.

During these past ten years, I have traveled to a lot of places from cities to forests and volcanoes to glaciers and countries to even ... oceans, I never intended to explore the last one though.

Actually, I was forced to escape to the oceans for getting rid of a Leopardkin chasing me while saying things like capturing, absorbing, ascending, or something similar which I didn't really care to even listen to at that time, but I think he wanted to eat me just like I wanted to eat him and did after barely being able to defeat him on the sea where his powers drastically reduced.

Although he was nearly as fast as me and had a large amount of lightning prana, by the time I killed him he didn't have any prana left hence rendering useless the whole long hunt of the only lightning humanoid I found in this new place.

Actually, I never intended to hunt him it was him who attacked me first and so I replied with the same but was quite weak to actually hurt him; therefore, I tried to escape with the intention of getting back to him later on and our chase started at the end of which I managed to kill him due to him exhausting all his prana.

I stopped hunting humans and beastkins long ago as after leaving the first village I found, I encountered many more villages and big villages known as cities further ahead on that path, and it was during my travel in cities I found that hunting humanoids are rather difficult than hunting the beasts of the same strength.

Because unlike beasts in the forest people in villages and cities live quite near to each other, so each time I had to face so many of them that to hunt all of them retreating and coming back was the option I had to choose most of the time; moreover, the amount of prana in humanoids is quite less compared to the that in the beasts.

But the most important reason I stopped hunting humanoids and even reduced the hunting of beasts is that absorbing prana from the clouds is faster and much more efficient, so now I rarely hunt even the beasts.

For the past few years I have been staying near the first village I found which I heard the villagers saying is called Little Tail Village; well, the tail of these Goatkins is really smaller than others, maybe this is the reason behind the name of this village.

And learning from them I also decided to name my clouds; but then a big problem came, I didn't know any good name that suited by clouds. Due to this problem, I was so frustrated that I even thought about talking for the first time and taking suggestions from the villagers; yes, till now I haven't talked to anyone; as for why, because I never needed it, after all, I am sure that neither humanoids nor beasts would let me eat them without resistance just because I started talking; therefore, I never practiced the formation of mouth because it is as useless as the nose.

Just when I thought that I can't avoid mastering the mouth for asking the villagers, I overheard a conversation between a small kid Goatkin and an adult female Goatkin in which she explained the meaning of the word 'home' in complete detail.

So I decided that why should I name it anything else other than Home, after all, Cloud is a place where I can rest without caring about anything else, I can get unlimited food in the cloud, and I like living in the clouds; therefore, now I also own a Home and unlike others, it follows me wherever I go.

So, what I have been doing nowadays? Actually ... I have been living above the Little Tail Village and observing their daily lives; how they interact, how they fight, how they eat, how they produce food, and even how they get born and die; also ... now I sometimes protect this larger than before Little Tail village.

Well, I take action only when villagers look incapable of protecting them, but yeah, I am indeed guarding them now. As for the question 'Why'? Well, there is a rather complicated reason behind this, as I never even thought about becoming a protector after all only the number of beastkins I have voluntarily hunted down is many times over the population of this village.

And how it came this?

Actually, when I discovered that hunting beasts and humanoids is relatively useless compared to staying in my 'Home', I began searching for a place to stay where nobody would disturb me; however, finding such a place was not as easy as I thought it would be.

Because when I stayed in the sky near any of the big cities, soon humanoids and beastkins would start investigating the clouds, my 'Home', which has been constantly staying near their city; and almost always this ended in a fight in which either I annihilated them and went to a new place or they happened to be much stronger than me and I had to escape to a different place.

I then tried other regions like forests, volcanoes, and glaciers; this even worked for as long as I don't breach the territory of much stronger beasts, who otherwise start attacking me and their response is understandable after all I also hate it whenever someone invades my 'Home' and kill the invaders.

Although these places are quite good for me and even now sometimes I search such places for resting without getting disturbed, I wanted to know more about intelligent race on this planet, and that is when I thought of checking out the first village I discovered after arriving at this place.

Very soon I found this village again and decided to stay here for a few days, and it was during my stay here I discovered that these villagers still remember me and regularly pray to me while giving some ... useless offerings.

Their story of that day goes something like this: 'When barbarians under the Tyrant Human King came here and wanted to destroy our home; we stood up while praying to the Beast God, who generously helped us by sending its Lightning for delivering the divine punishment of thunder on the barbarians.'

At that time I wasn't as experienced as now due to which after hearing about some unknown Beast God, Divine punishment, and other uncomprehensible things I was confused for quite a while.

But now I know that all intelligent humanoids have an awesome imagination but I don't dislike this, after all, it was due to their imagination they even gave me a new name 'Sia'; in their language, Sia means victory.

Furthermore, nowadays ... I have also begun liking this new name of mine, Lightning Spirit Sita-Sia; although, I haven't met a single person till now who correctly recognized my race as Spirit.

So...it all started when a larger and stronger team of human soldiers attacked this village again and quite obviously, I had no reason to interfere again, after all, I had seen much bigger fights and had no reason to steal someone else's hunt especially when hunting either of the parties would have been pretty useless compared to my 'Home'.

But when soldiers began destroying and slaughtering the villagers without even asking for surrender, they started praying to 'Sia', me, for the rescue.

For me, that was the first time someone asked me for help. Before meeting these villagers, the inexperienced me used to believe that one needs to do everything themselves, whether one becomes became a hunter or prey it is only up to them not anyone else; however, in my stay of a few days, I had seen the villagers work together, help each other, and even protect each other.

Also, in every other place whenever I enter a city, town, or even territory of beasts in the forest its inhabitants either run away from me in fear or attack me for whatever reason they might have. However, this is the only place where people don't run away or attack me even if I go near while observing them, and although I never replied, sometimes they even talk to me.

And the very same village was about to be destroyed and was asking for my help, so ... I protected them for the first time.

At that time I wasn't fully recovered and although none of the individual soldiers were anywhere near my strength, there were really too many of them due to which I barely managed to kill all of them before exhausting my prana; but even with all these troubles and danger, I felt happy upon hearing thanks and cheers ... so I began paying more attention to the villagers and saving them.....

*****

~Little Tail Village, Planet Gunaduhiri~ {POV Sita-Sia}

Around a hundred years has passed since I started protecting this village and its inhabitants.

During these years many things happened and I learned a lot of things.

The first of them being I have completely recovered and even become much stronger than I was before coming here.

Then my control over the formation of my 'Home' has drastically increased, as now clouds start gathering whenever I use my lightning although the rate at which they gather is still quite slow and I am working on it.

The next is the difference between my race; Spirits, and other intelligent humanoids like Beastkins. Like I already know from the information that Spirit never get old while the natural lifespan of Beastkins is not even 100 years, and quite contrary to this, unlike Spirits whose birth is a very rare event, Beastkins reproduce quite fast.

Therefore each time upon waking up from sleep I find that many villagers have naturally died and many new ones have taken birth although I slept only 4 times during these hundred years and none of my sleep was for longer than ten years. Just the person holding the position of Village Head head has changed three times in these hundred years.

As a matter of fact, the Village Head isn't the only thing that changed in the village in the last hundred years, even the whole population of the village has nearly doubled.

Also, although I am still protecting this village, villagers told me that my existence has been kept a secret from the outsiders and even to the new Beastkin Kingdom they joined, who pushed the Human kingdom back from further attacking this village. It isn't like I dislike this rather I prefer this more, after all, I don't want to be disturbed in my 'Home'; this village is the only special case for me.

Today I and villagers are going hunting in the forest near the border of the village and this kingdom; these villagers hunt once in three to four months and I accompany them in form of clouds up above with two goals, one is to protect them and two is to get the prana and they get the meat, fur, and other things; these beastkins are really strange as they can't live by just eating prana and has to eat other useless things like meat and plants.

Actually, in the beginning, I didn't use to accompany the villagers in their hunt but once the hunting team got nearly annihilated by a strong beast so I began accompanying them to act as their guard and eating the prana of the hunted beast to at least somewhat compensate the loss in progress due to staying out of the cloud.

And today isn't a lucky day, even for me, because I sensed a beast slightly stronger than me roaming outside its territory in the outer region of the forest; but the troublesome part is that it has also sensed us and is coming near; well ... actually not towards me but towards the villagers because I am in the clouds above the forest, but I need to protect the villagers.

So, I instantly went down and stopped in the path of villagers, who stopped moving forward upon watching me suddenly appear in front of them.

By this time villagers also know that I don't like to talk or ... from their point of view I am incapable of speaking, I don't know and don't really care; therefore, they understood that I am stopping them from going any further in this direction and began retreating while saying something I didn't bother to listen because I am more focused on the beast that is speeding towards the villagers and now also me.

And very soon, that villagers weren't even able to get out of my sight, the beast chasing after them appeared before me. It is a greenish-black ... I guess a cheetah, as I still don't remember the characteristics of all the species; also sharp wind and sparks of flame around it along with the nature of prana my senses have perceived inside it are telling me that this beast has the dual attribute of wind and fire, now this is going to be a challenging hunt...

Well, it isn't like I don't enjoy hunting strong beasts; still, in the case of beasts stronger than me added to it possessing rare dual attributes I would prefer starting with a fatal sneak attack; anyway, in this case, at least villagers won't die with me keeping this beast busy in a head-on battle.

After appearing in front of me the beast stopped as it should have sensed that although I am weaker than it in raw power, the difference isn't that big and my speed much faster than it as in the time it took to appear here, not even a thousand meters, I traveled miles to get here in front of it from the clouds; and I am also not attacking it and waiting for villagers to get further away otherwise, they might get caught up in our fight as I am really bad at holding back in fights.

"Roar."

Well, humans and beast sure do love to speak uselessly, it isn't like a hunter will stop hunting and prey will stop resisting just because of some words from the opposite party ... sometimes, it is really difficult to understand thoughts of other...

*****

~Little Tail Village, Planet Gunaduhiri~ {POV Sita-Sia}

Villagers have made a ... temple? for me at the center of the village. Well, I don't find much difference between a temple and other houses in the village except that this temple house is for me and no other villagers live here but they do come here regularly for cleaning the place and making requests to me.

Actually, that dual attribute cheetah, for some unknown reason, was really bent on hunting the villagers and just refused to confront me; but when I blocked it again and again from following the villagers because even while being stronger in raw power its speed is much slower than me, it finally began attacking me with reckless abandon.

Both of us went all out, that cheetah because of rage and me because even though I was sure of escaping, that cheetah might have followed the villagers through smell and reached the village. It really wasn't easy to kill that beast as its wind barrier was quite effective against my lightning but I still managed to kill it just on the brink of exhausting my prana.

However, because both of us went all out, I heard villagers saying, the commotion created by us attracted the attention of nearby villages and word got out that Little Tail Village is protected a strong artifact.

That's why they built in the name of some Beast God and began spreading the word that it is the temple of Beast God that protected the village, I don't know how effective this was but since no one came to disturb the village I am alright with whatever they do; just, I hoped that the temple should have at least been capable of making me sleep there comfortably...

*****

~Little Tail Village, Planet Gunaduhiri~ {POV Sita-Sia}

Humanoids really like fighting uselessly among themselves; just around 200 years ago when I first saved this village, I heard that a war was going on between human and beastkin kingdom and occasionally when I leave the village each and every time I have encountered two or more countries fighting.

Most of the times I don't quite get why humanoids start so many wars; after all, unlike beasts humanoids don't like eating each other, there is more than enough land for everyone to make their home, and they can get enough food by hunting beasts from the forest so there should be no need to kill a humanoid similar to them.

But they kill among themselves and this time I heard it is about something like this Beastkin Kingdom wants to conquer the nearby Human Kingdom because Human is a lower race so why did they fight to conquer a nearby another Beastkin Kingdom? So, I finally came to the conclusion that Humanoids just like snatching things from each other as I have seen something like this happening multiple times even in the Little Tail Village but on a much smaller scale.

And in this war, even some of the residents of this village are also participating as they said something about this village becoming much bigger and is now declared as a town so they need to send some of the residents to become soldiers.

I understood that it is because of me protecting the village indirectly some of them are forced to leave their home and fight a war but if I stopped protecting them won't they would have died long ago.

Really ... the lives of humanoids are so difficult to understand.

*****

~Little Tail Town, Planet Gunaduhiri~ {POV Sita-Sia}

War is already over and villagers working as soldiers also returned but more than half of them died on the battlefield as according to the returnees although the Beastkin Kingdom won the war their looses were quite big.

Still, even with all these, I decided to continue protecting the people staying in the Little Tail Town; and if they wished for me to leave them alone ... I will ... do so.

Although the town lost quite a few of its residents, the returned soldiers solved one of my long time problems.

What problem?

Actually, quite a while has passed since the temple was for my residence, although useless, sometimes I do go inside the temple; therefore most likely over time residents here began forgetting that the temple was built just to coverup my presence, and I was never and will never be some 'Heavenly Punishment Messenger Sia' of some Beast God, who is also most likely non-existent.

Completely unaware of truth as well as my thoughts, they began praying and making wishes to me. And I completely do not know what to do with their ... strange wishes.

Some wished for money; although I never tried to earn money and neither needed it, even I know one needs to do some work for earning money; what good would be making wishes to me, isn't it just plain begging to someone who is literally poorer compared to every other humanoid and I have no plans of doing business.

Some wished for power; I was completely confused about this because I get stronger by eating my only food, prana, but if humanoids eat too much of their food they get fat, slow, and weak; therefore I experimented by trying to give my lightning to one of them and ... that person died, and I never tried this again.

Some, no many wished for good health; this one comes in large quantity and is even more confusing because although I know the meaning of the word sickness, I really don't know what sickness feels like and why it occurs after all till now I have never gotten ill; and I already know that it definitely isn't a good idea to give other the only two things I have, prana and lightning, which might be the reason for me not getting ill.

Some wished for killing other people; initially, I thought that I can finally fulfill someone's wish, but ... how can I find the target just by their name, and in the rare cases I got other details I completely failed to recognize the right person among so many people or the target was from Little Tail Town itself and I obviously won't kill the ones I protect, if they want to kill among within the town they should do it by themselves because I don't interfere in internal fights; therefore even I am ashamed to say that in last hundred years I only managed to kill six correct targets.

These are just some of the common wishes, I had also heard quite strange ones that just made it impossible for me to guess the reason behind why they are making those wishes to me.

Wish to travel all around the world; then do it, why are they asking me...

Wish to live in Capital City; so, just do it I won't stop you.

Wish to befriend Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Demons; so ... I still don't get why are they asking me instead of doing it themselves.

Wish to see my future; well, I don't even know if doing this is actually possible.

Wish to swim with Leviathans; although I don't like the idea, do as you wish as long as you don't bring those distasteful disgusting ... useless lower water creatures inside this town.

And these are just a few of the strange requests I have gotten and I failed to do even one of them properly; due to this I even thought about practicing the simulation of the organ named mouth but later discarded the idea upon understanding that these people won't stop easily.

But now, the residents who have returned after working as soldiers began explaining to the rest of the town that this temple doesn't contain any messenger of God rather it must be some kind of strong weapon or artifact kept inside the Temple that is keeping the town safe.

This really made me wonder, do all humanoids have such a weak memory that they even forgot who I was in just a few centuries; well, not like it really matters to me what they think of me, anyway in the first place they have never known about my true race, Spirit, and this at least drastically decreased the amount strange request I receive each day.

Besides this new theory about my identity, there is one more thing that attracted my attention; more than half of the returning soldiers have prana inside their body; however, for me, this is also something without any significant importance because I don't want to hunt the residents of this town and even if I did hunt all of them the pitifully low amount of prana I will be getting from them is pretty much insignificant.

*****

~Little Tail Town, Planet Gunaduhiri~ {POV Sita-Sia}

Quite a few years have passed since the war ended and during these years both the size of the town and the number of people with prana inside them has significantly increased.

Although I have met and hunted a lot of humanoids with prana in them, I never got to know how did humanoids managed to prana inside them because I always thought humanoids can only eat plants and meat but can't eat prana.

But now I have seen soldiers eating prana but not through their mouths rather through their body or what people call skin and they even began teaching may of eating prana to quite a few other town people.

Also, I have heard that the Head of the town has invited some Sect people, who ... if I understood correctly, basically teach people how to efficiently eat prana.

And these Sect people would be arriving in just a few weeks.

________

Today I heard something ... strange, and I ... absolutely ... absolutely didn't like it.

The town's people want the younger generation to join the Sect but they know there is no one in the younger generation who is good enough to be chosen by Sect's people.

So the Town has planned upon giving a big gift to the Sect people but the town doesn't have anything good enough for Sect people.

So one of them suggested: "How about the artifact Sia in the Temple? I mean ... our town is already strong enough to deal with the beasts from the forest and the hunting team also doesn't need protection anymore, but ... if we gift this artifact to the Sect, unlike us they might be able to use it, ... and in return, our town will get the protection of Sect supported by Royal family and the younger generations will receive the chance of becoming practitioners and further supporting our town."

And many others ... agreed, claiming that my small capabilities are now ... useless to them.

But I believe in them; even if they forgot how I am not some dead artifact but living lightning; even if they forgot how I saved their village from being annihilated, multiple times from both beast and people; even if they forgot ....

They would not trade me like some useless item ... right?...

_________

After that idea was proposed, I didn't try to listen to them again because I don't want to ...

And today those Sect people have arrived in the morning, to be greeted with a big celebration by the townspeople.

But now, from the clouds, I can see that most of the townspeople have surrounded the temple, and Town Head is bringing the Sect people towards the temple.

This should be the usual showing the temple to guests, and like always, I just need to observe them from up above in clouds.....

So why are they letting those Sect people break the temple?....

Although this temple was built for me by the town, weren't they used to call this my home?

Since they don't me to have a home in the town, ... I ... will ... leave.....

But as I was about to start moving my clouds, 'Home', towards the forest, I heard what they were discussing.

"There is no so-called mysterious powerful weapon here, not even an iron sword...."

"Are you trying to deceive us? I doubted from the start, an artifact capable of protecting a wold town can't be owned by a small countryside town like this."

"No, please believe us, we would never even dream of lying to the esteemed practitioners, Sia comes to save us each time we are about to die ... Yes! Each of you make it look like you are in danger and call for Sia to appear....."

Then many townspeople voluntarily came forward and some even pointed their own weapon at themselves and began shouting.....

"Save us."

"I am about to die..."

"Sia..."

...

Is this what they think of me? What do you all take me as? A stupid slave tool, that can be discarded at any time but even then you all still try to trick and use me?

I immediately left the clouds and went to the ruins of my, no, their town temple because I need to ask...

__________

As the Sect people were still surprised and even frightened by the sudden fall of lightning from the sky, the townspeople became happy most likely because I, their tool slave, has appeared in front of them.

Till now although I never practiced stimulating the voice box, this time I formed it with everything I have because ... there is something I want to ask...

".....Why...."

Due to doing it for the first time, I can't even properly form words I wanted to say ... but, somehow few of the townspeople understood what I wanted to ask; at first, upon hearing me speak for the first time Town Head's face had an uneasy expression and after glancing at the Sect people he replied with the same festive expression.

"Now, you are too weak to be useful to us anymore, but don't worry, these esteemed practitioners will make proper use of you..."

One of Sect people interrupted him with apparent fear and desperation in its voice.

"Hey you bastard, you might have a death wish but don't drag us ..."

Village Head and Sect people were in some disagreement but I didn't have any desire of caring about it because I was thinking about what I just heard.

Even though I guarded this town for centuries, I was discarded because of being weak.

Even though I cared about their safety instead of having a proper sleep even once, I was discarded because of being weak.

Even though I used to put guarding them above increasing my strength, I was discarded because of being weak.

Even though I nearly died so many times while protecting them that I have already lost the count but still didn't leave them, I was discarded because of being weak.

Even after helping and saving them time and time again they only thought of me as their slave and now they are trying to make a deal over me because I am weak.

Even the other residents of town think of me the same way otherwise they wouldn't have come forward to put on a show for calling me because I am weak.

Yes, I am weak after all I have met many beast and humanoids that are much stronger than me, but ... you all forgot where you all stand on this ladder of power.

So, I shall make you, ... you all pathetic lowlives remember your standings in front of me.

*****

{POV 3rd Person}

It is said greater the love and attachment greater is the hate and grief when it ends.

Something similar also happened here.

Because Sita-Sia left the land and people it has been protecting since understanding the meaning of word protection.

Leaving behind the town in ruins and flames even though the reason this town became so big and prosperous in the first place is mainly Sita-Sia.

Becoming the reason for a ruined town, where not even a single animal can be found alive although people in this town were alive in the first place because of Sita-Sia.

From the town, one can see that the black thunder clouds which used to cover the town for most of the time in the past few centuries are leaving it, only this time to never return again.

And just a few days after this, Sita-Sia got awarded with a new name for the third time; the name being 'Valden', Valden the Village Destroyer, based on some old legend about a psychopathic murderer named Valden.

Now a piece of news is rapidly spreading: Valden, claimed to be a natural disaster, a lightning storm, that has mysteriously gained intelligence, and it has quite an irritable and bloodthirsty nature because just a few days ago it completely annihilated a rapidly growing town along with practitioners working under the Royal family because Valden was just displeased with that small town.

*****

{Inner Region Of A Dense Forest, Planet Gunaduhiri~ {POV Sitasia Valden}

It has been more than a thousand years since I left that detestable village of humanoids.

And the first thing I did after leaving is to find a suitable place to not get disturbed and take proper sleep, which I haven't been able to do in a long time because I know that the life of those weaklings is really short and if I really slept every humanoid I had ever known in that town would have naturally died by the time I woke up.

And upon waking up, I found that sleeping is quite crucial because the amount by which the capacity of my prana increased is completely incomparable to the growth I made while protecting the village after making a complete recovery.

Well, my sleep was also longer than nine hundred years nearly reaching a thousand years; I found this fact a few days later when I came across a human city, where I didn't stay for a long time and left along with my soon after learning the date as I just ... didn't feel comfortable staying above the city of humanoids.

Since then I have been wandering from forests to glaciers to deserts, any place where humanoids haven't built their homes and aren't occupied by water because even with all my experience and despise towards humanoids, I hate and loathe aquatic creatures the most; each time I come across an aquatic creature I just feel a strong urge of hunting it, no rather than hunting I plainly desire to kill all of them and ... I do kill them each time I came across an aquatic creature.

As of now, I am checking the habits and lifestyle of different types of beast and animals because even though I know many things about the lives of humanoids, I never got the do the same with beasts and animals; well, some of the beasts are capable enough of discovering me even if I stay in clouds and they are on the ground also some of them even fly up above to try driving me out of their territory.

Although except for a few none of the beasts I encountered were intelligent ones, I like the instinctual nature shown even by the intelligent beasts much more than the rational behavior of intelligent humanoids.

If beasts dislike each other or if a dispute occurs they directly fight there isn't any planning or deception in their actions, also it doesn't mean beast are complete idiots as they know about the importance of sneak attacks and retreating; but I like this free and nature of theirs.

"Kriiiiiiiiik....."

I was lost in thoughts when I heard the familiar voice I have been hearing last few days which also reminded me it is about that time, and indeed soon enough my senses also picked the expected familiar beast flying towards me.

Although I don't know the exact name of this beast's species, I know this bird belongs to the falcon race and I am pretty sure that this one is actually an intelligent beast; unfortunately, our vocabulary is completely different so even though it screeches in many different ways, I only managed to recognize only one type of screech which I believe is used for telling me to leave its territory.

Our meeting was also a sort of, interesting I guess? After waking from sleep I discovered that my strength has become multiple times, that long sleep was really worth it, so being somewhat overconfident I began exploring the forest while occasionally hunting the beasts to my liking without being afraid of anything.

And that is when I intruded the territory of this falcon, who discovered me soon enough, and like any other beasts in the forest with disputes, we started fighting.

But very soon enough we discovered that both of us are equally matched; well, not exactly equally matched, to be honest, I am a little weaker; but if the fight is within the clouds I have full confidence in killing it however this falcon can do the same to me outside the clouds.

Therefore very soon we both discovered neither of us can easily deal with each other because once this falcon goes out of the cloud I can't defeat it and for driving me out of its territory that falcon needs to enter my clouds where it can't defeat me.

So after exhausting ourselves in the first fight, after screeching at me a few times that falcon retreated to its tree and I retreated back in my clouds but my clouds still didn't leave its territory then we both began recovering; and since then that falcon has been daily coming at the same time of the day to fight and drive me away.

So, to not hear its long speech spoken in the language of screeches each time before starting and to let the fight start I also left the clouds and began speeding towards that falcon.

I also accompany that falcon each time in the fight because I want further to increase my strength, strong enough that nobody can even think of treating me like that detestable town did to me, strong enough that no one can call me weak again because I clearly know that I am weak compared to the many out there.

*****

{Inner Region Of A Dense Forest, Planet Gunaduhiri~ {POV Sitasia Valden}

It has been a few thousand years since that falcon made me learn that I can't get overconfident in my strength as I will always find some stronger than me.

And since then I have further increased my effort in growing stronger; however, suddenly my rate of growth began slowing down quite a bit, and I am just not getting what to do for continuing growing stronger; it has already been around a couple of millennia since I have been in this state and now my growth has almost stopped but I still haven't stopped trying.

Although my progress has now almost stopped, it doesn't mean all my efforts have been in vain because even with the speed of a turtle race I reached the threshold of executing the technique for getting a permanent shape for my body made of lightning.

I have received this technique from that and even tried to execute it before but failed due to not being strong enough; however, now I have the strength and prana to use this method and get a permanent shape for my body.

What body I have chosen?

Well, it wasn't easy for me to choose because I can actually get whatever shape I want my body to be; whether it is a snake, a snake with wings, a snake with a humanoid torso, a human with wings, or a snake with human torso and wings; I can choose whatever I want to become.

If I had come across this choice a few millennia ago without a doubt my choice would have been humanoid and preferably a male, because humans and beastkins believe that males higher status and strength compared to females.

But now humans have become my second last choice; second-last? Well, my last choice has always been, is, and will always be aquatic creatures; so much so I might prefer never getting a permanent body shape.

Why I am after getting a permanent shape even though I would never be able to change it again?

Although this won't directly affect my strength, once I get a fixed shape I won't need to bother diverting my concentration for continuously simulating eyes and ears in the middle of a fight and I can even include the mouth, voice box, and nose in that body; moreover, all of these organs along with my body shape will get regenerated by itself as long as I have enough prana.

My final Choice? A female one-horned wolf.

Although I tried many times, in my current shape neither beast nor humanoids are willing to have a friendly relation with me; beasts don't associate with me because they are not used to have a friendly relationship with anyone other than their own race, and in some cases, not even their own race.

And in the case of humanoids, it is me who doesn't want to associate with them also it isn't like I can do it even if I want to because upon after encountering me more than a couple of times quite a few people started calling me with a new name Valden and are terrified of me, something from the ancient legends of 'Valden the Village Destroyer' which I didn't even bother checking it out.

Therefore I thought of becoming a race that lives in a group, hunt in a group, and ... care for the group; and wolves have all of these qualities. The group of wolves or how humans call it the pack of wolves hunt as one and live together also the whole pack care about each of their members because more than once I have seen the whole pack desperately fighting a much stronger enemy because it killed or even severely injured one of the wolves from the pack.

Now, why 'one-horned' wolf? Because in the forest I am in at the moment there are many packs of wolves but most of them are one-horned wolves so after making my body that of a wolf it will be easier for me to find a pack for joining.

Then why female and not male? Well, although species of wolves don't really care much about genders like either of the male or female wolf can become the leader of the pack, I personally noticed that in most of the races whether it is humanoids or beasts females can build friendly relationships much easily compared to their male counterparts.

That's why now I am in the clouds up above the part of the forest I have been looking after as my territory for the last few years so others won't easily disturb me while I complete the relatively long process of fixing my body shape permanently.

*****

{Some Unnamed Forest, Planet Gunaduhiri~ {POV Sitasia Valden}

Many millennia have passed since I completed the transformation and became a horned wolf; from then on I have wandered around in search of a way to further increasing my strength and this time I even ventured into vast seas and oceans as well as big empires of humanoids.

And quite obviously, during my travels, I have faced a lot of battles; I lost in some of them and that too quite badly in a few of the cases while I also won in some of them with quite a few ending in overwhelming victories.

Although all these battles and traveling didn't really help in increasing my raw power rather now it has completely stopped growing, due to so many battle experiences my combat strength has significantly increased; therefore in the last few millennia I have been actively seeking other strong creatures to get more experience.

Today also is such a day as I am going towards a big human city because I have previously sensed a person nearly as strong as me used to live in that city. Although a long time has passed from a humanoid's perspective and only one sleep for me, there are chances I might find someone strong there.

But, suddenly I sensed a very strong creature which is speeding straight towards me.

I stopped in tracks because I sensed that its aura has already locked me and its speed is also comparable to me if not greater so if a fight occurs I have to give my everything because escaping is out of option.

As I was waiting for that strong creature to arrive, very soon my senses picked another very strong creature speeding towards at even much faster speed and multiple auras have simultaneously locked at my position; and as I suspected, soon enough the owners of these auras also began entering the range of my senses. And these strong creatures are really large in number, by large I mean hundreds if not over thousands of them.

Just what happened while I was asleep?

Although I know that people don't like me and me seeking their strong ones for fights and eventually killing them didn't really help with increasing their opinion about me, most likely due to their short life humanoids used to forget most of my actions while I slept; therefore so many strong ones targeting me at the same time is first for me.

Why I am sure they are targeting me? Well, till now no one has really come to with friendliness, whether it was beast or humanoids.

Soon enough, one by one they began arriving in front of me, and to my great surprise they stopped outside my clouds also none of them attacked me and even withdrew their aura lock on me.

However, my surprise wasn't because of their non-aggressive behaviors rather it is because of who those creatures are; at the first glance they have a variety of shapes, from snakes, cats, rabbits, lions to humans, elves, beastkins; however, unlike the original race their shapes belong to their whole body is composed of different elements like wind, earth, water, fire, and even lightning.

Even though I met these creatures for the first time, I didn't need confirmation from anyone to understand that these creatures belong to the same race as mine, Spirits; although I am weaker than each one of them, I have seen my reflection and I look quite similar to them, a one-horned wolf which although looks real at a first glance, upon looking even a little closely one can easily discern that it is composed of purple-black lightning.

But still, I was thinking of a way to confront them and get out of their encirclement alive because although our race is the same and none of them is showing any clear hostility, I am still not sure whether all of them have come to me with or without any desire for a conflict.

"We thought we lost you."

"It is good to see you doing well."

"You grew up quite a bit....."

To my surprise, they actually know me but ... I don't have any memory of them however soon I guessed where they should have met me, the place filled clouds and lightning where I used to live previously before being thrown out here, after all, my race is same as them, Spirit.

And my guess proved to be true when one of the bigger Lightning Spirit in the shape of the leopard came forward as I still remember the prana from its body; this Leopard Lightning Spirit is the 'food' I tried to eat long ago and till now I haven't found anything or anyone else containing such a large amount of lightning prana and that too in such a highly concentrated state.

Also, just behind that Lightning Spirit, I sensed the familiar wind prana coming from a Wind Spirit in the shape of a considerably humanoid girl surrounded by green wind currents.

I didn't know what to do at this time and was about to ask them when the Leopard shaped Lightning Spirit spoke first.

"I am Lightning Spirit King, Ramman; you might not remember me but it was me who found you first and gave you the name Sita... Unfortunately, I failed to fulfill my duty of guiding and keeping you safe as the King of Lightning Spirits..."

This Leopard-shaped Lightning Spirit is indeed the 'high-quality food' I encountered a long time ago but was unable to eat, just I didn't think it was also a Spirit like me; anyway, it doesn't matter now after all even if I can consume it, eating prana has long ago stopped increasing my strength.

Just as I was trying to form the words another voice reached me from a humanoid female shaped Wind Spirit.

"Your Majesty Ramman, it wasn't your fault, if not for you even our home planet would have been destroyed by those deceitful creatures let alone if not for your contribution in that war how many unborn Spirits would have continued being murdered. It was my responsibility and my own desire to protect Sita but I failed all your expectations ... I always regretted my incompetence. But now seeing you safe and even getting the fixed elemental shape has greatly relived me."

Fixed Elemental Shape? Is it talking about my One-Horned Wolf shaped body? Though I don't regret taking this form, I took this form due to the impulse of joining a pack of wolves; however, due to the strong appeal of the same, I completely forgot those wolf beasts aren't idiots who can't even discover the difference between me and a real one-horned wolf.

So after failing in multiple attempts of joining the wolf pack even after learning the habits and howling of wolves, I gave up the thought of gaining companions and continued traveling as well as becoming stronger alone.

Also, how can these Spirits speak so fast; because once again Ramman spoke before I even got to form the words. Maybe, they have practiced using their voice organ for a long time but isn't the voice organ completely useless in fights?

"Reva, everyone here is well aware of efforts you have put in the war for us Spirits even with your non-militant nature and, although many millennia have passed, we have once again found Sita, who has grown up and can now return with us; so you should also forgive yourself."

Return with them? When did I agree?

"Not. Return ... Stay. Here."

I know that my language is broken but everyone here understood my meaning and all of the Spirits, who I think were quite excited and cheering, suddenly went silent and looked at me; maybe confused at or questioning my decision.

And ultimately, the Leopard shaped Lightning Spirit King even asked it.

"...Why do you want to stay on this low tier planet? In our search for you, although saddening, we have come to know that ignorant beings on this planet think of you as a calamity and an enemy of all beings which is to be exterminated; while if you return with us there won't anyone that might endanger you and although I am a Spirit King, none of the Spirits have ever been forced or will be forced to follow my words. You will be free, free to even leave us in the future whenever you want... So, will you return with us?"

Isn't the reply to this quite obvious? So I used my voice organ to instantly reply with already prepared words.

"No. I.Stay."

To be honest, I am very tempted to agree and go back to my birth planet filled with black clouds, thunder, and lightning...but, I can't and, I won't, because I don't want to experience those feelings again, the feeling I experienced when Little Tail Village stood up on the side opposite to me and wanted to sell me as a chip for their benefits.

And now that I think back, me taking the shape of a one-horned wolf along with a feminine voice was also nothing more than a stupid and desperate attempt to have some companions. However, in thousands of years, I have already concluded that working alone is much better than joining a group that might try me hunting me at any time.

Although I don't need to tell them this, they are making a mistake that I need to correct because of them being Spirits like me. So, I again used my voice organ to tell the quieted spirits.

"Sitasia. Valden."

Watching the still silenced spirits, I guessed their confusion and continued.

"Name ... My. Name. Sitasia. Valden."

Soon the presumably surprised Leopard-shaped Lightning Spirit came out of its shock and spoke.

"Courage, Victory, and presumably a Cataclysm? Quite a unique name you have chosen for yourself."

After a short pause, it continued.

"Very well then, Sitasia Valden, we will respect your choice but ... do remember that no matter what part of your name you choose as the path to be taken or even follow an entirely different one, you can always come back home and have your place among us."

Although I didn't understand some of the parts, it clearly relived me that they are not forcing me to go with them because I clearly can't contend against even one of them let alone around a hundred of Spirits here.

*****

After that discussion with the Lightning Spirit King, I stayed here and the Spirits returned.

However, sometime later I found out that not all of them returned, like that humanoid wind Spirit named Reva along with quite a few other Spirits stayed behind.

And when I asked them the reason for staying behind, one of them replied.

"Actually, this planet is owned by us Spirits, it is just we never bothered to look anywhere outside the home planet; it was due to this that we got news about you only when I came here and tried to interact with local lifeforms out of curiosity. At first, they tried attacking but were just too weak, and upon interrogating them afterward I got know about you."

"As for why we stayed here...Well, anyway we are free so we decided to stay and look after you as well as simultaneously look over this planet, after all, we have left this planet unused for quite a long time so much so we never knew you were so near us."

Now, I can't force them to go back and leave me alone so I asked them to fight me for increasing my fighting capabilities.

Although I already knew they were quite strong, only upon fighting them I found that the gap between our raw strength is big enough to make me incapable of hurting them even if they don't fight back.

But still, they have a lot of experience in battles which they are willing to teach me without anything in return. So, for the last few months, I stopped looking for other creatures and fought other Spirits whenever a chance arises.

Today also I fought against a hateful water Spirit and lost miserably as even though it didn't attack me actively and tried convincing me that water isn't hateful, I didn't fall for it continued fighting without even bothering to reply just like Reva taught me but in the end, my prana got exhausted and I lost without being able to inflict any recognizable damage.

After the battle, it asked in a tone that for some reason almost sounded like begging to me.

"Why aren't you replying?"

Since the battle is over I answered as a matter of factly.

"Fight. Not. Speak ... Enemy. Fights and Speaks. Means. Deceitful Enemy."

After a short silence, it asked again.

"Who told this to you?"

And I replied.

"Reva."

Then it spoke in quite a low tone and flew away.

"Okay then, you should rest and recover. And, I just remembered I need to have an important conversation with Reva."

While I decided to sleep and recover for the fighting again against one of the Spirits here while thinking that I should look for an earth Spirit next time, but completely unaware that as soon as I slept a silver-white portal appeared near me and sucked me in, nearly causing the Spirits to start another war.