Once upon a time there was a greedy snake

Although the weapons were rather crude, they were still usable. If our ancestors could use these things to hunt wild animals hundreds of years ago, they could certainly do it if they tried.

"But... we can't defeat those mages with just this."

In an old tree hollow in the Holy Mountain, a young Ignis man gripped a bone knife tightly in his hand.

The sound of leaves falling came from afar, the sound of mages leaping among the treetops. Those mages were searching for all those like him who dared to blaspheme into the holy mountain. As soon as they saw one, they would immediately fire a fireball into him, turning him into roasted meat for the wild beasts of the mountain to devour.

Perhaps it is because they eat so much roasted meat that the saber-toothed tigers or cave bears in the mountains are all so fat.

"So what's wrong with letting me have a couple of bites?"

The young Ignis gritted his teeth.

In this day and age, getting a full meal is no easy feat. The area around Ignis City is now filled with the ranches of those mages. Anyone who dares to touch the bison, antelope, or mammoths will surely be fiercely hunted down by these mages. Perhaps there are some unclaimed territories in the distance, but whether it's the raging waves to the east or the miasma jungle to the south, the people of Ignis will only die a gruesome death if they go there.

As for the north... that's the territory of the frozen giants. The royal family is quite happy to send young hunters north to fight those giants and plunder their spoils.

However, this young Ignis man had returned from the north.

Having experienced it all firsthand, he knew very well that it wasn't like that at all.

Killing giants can indeed yield a reward, but when faced with strong giants that are each twice the height of an Ignis, hunters without magical powers often need three to five people to work together to take down a single giant. Even if they risk their lives and finally manage to kill a giant, the spoils from the giant are not enough for the five of them to share equally.

Moreover, the mages providing support from the rear will also take a cut of it.

Despite the fact that the battle was going quite smoothly and the Ignis had successfully repelled wave after wave of attacks from the giants, those on the front lines were getting thinner and hungrier with each battle.

This made the young Ignis instinctively sense that something was wrong.

When he told his fellow hunters about this strange situation, they were naturally faced with a fight to the death.

It should have been a silent ambush, but when they arrived at the ambush site, what awaited them was not a tranquil valley, but giants who had been waiting for a long time. It was an extremely fierce battle. Several hunters around him were smashed into mincemeat with their clubs. Only he noticed something was wrong at the first moment and managed to escape with his agile skills.

But even if he escapes, will he have a way to survive?

It's obvious he can't go back to Ignis City. The royal family will kill him as soon as they see him, a deserter. As for outside the city... those areas are all pastures for mages. If he goes there, he'll only be burned to ashes by fireballs.

The only place that can keep him alive right now is this sacred mountain of the Ignis.

But now, even if he wanted to live in seclusion deep in the mountains, it would be impossible.

The mages have caught up with him and have even discovered his whereabouts.

Whether he was a poacher or a deserter, it meant that the mages would definitely kill him and leave him without a complete corpse.

"Is there really no chance of survival at all?"

Hearing that the mages were rushing towards the tree hollow, the young Ignis had no choice but to run at full speed once again.

Fireballs exploded one after another behind him, and towering trees collapsed one after another. The intense heat almost ignited his hair, which made him run even faster.

"I just want to live... I just want to live!"

The young Ignis shouted at the top of his lungs.

Immediately afterwards, he plunged into a cave not far away.

Upon seeing this scene, the magicians who had come to pursue them couldn't help but laugh.

As members of the Ignivas family, although their ancestral rules forbade them from entering the sacred mountain, who among them hadn't secretly sneaked in when they were young? They all recognized the cave in front of them; it was clearly a dead end.

This poacher has actually walked headlong into a cave. What else could it be but courting death?

"Since he has already chosen his own grave, let's give him a quick death."

As the mage spoke, he clapped his hands together in front of the cave.

A scorching heatwave swept through the cave, and even the mages on the treetops in the distance could feel the heat from the flames.

"It seems our good brother has made further progress in his understanding of magic."

Feeling the intense heat and seeing the cavern trembling slightly from the fire, the mages nodded in agreement.

"With that kind of strength, they should be able to participate very soon... Hmm?"

It was at this moment that the magicians suddenly felt that something was not quite right.

Burning it with flames... would that make the cave shake so violently?

"Also, where does this wind come from?"

A mage noticed something amiss.

It was an abnormally strong wind, neither blowing from the top of the mountain downhill nor from the bottom of the mountain uphill, nor even from inside the cave out, but rather from outside the cave into the cave.

The cave seemed to be absorbing everything around it, and the intense storm made it almost impossible for several mages to stand.

Immediately following was a deafening roar.

"Achoo!"

The all-encompassing gale returned once more, tearing apart all vegetation. The few mages who had frantically tried to escape were smashed against a giant tree in the distance, coughing up blood, their faces pale, barely breathing, and clearly not going to make it.

However, in this life-or-death moment, they witnessed an even greater horror.

The earth trembled, the mountains crumbled, and everywhere you looked, the ground shook.

It was at this moment that the enormous snake head burst forth from the ground.

A pair of vertical pupils scanned everything in the world.

Chapter 15 Breakfast is very important

Du Yi should have slept a little longer.

Perhaps because he ate too much while he was awake, his molting took an unexpectedly long time this time—but that was fine for Du Yi, since he had never calculated how long it would take for him to molt once.

Besides, this kind of thing doesn't require calculation; he just needs to get a good night's sleep and wait for the new skin to form.

But this time, his sleep was interrupted.

It felt like something had crawled into his nostrils, and a gust of hot air had even blown in. He had originally planned to just ignore it and continue sleeping, since similar things had happened before—but this time, the hot air just kept going, and it was even burning hot.

So, under the constant itching, Du Yi tilted his head back and sneezed.

After sneezing, Du Yi couldn't fall asleep. Although he was still a little sleepy, the fog in his mind didn't stop him from taking a look around. It was this turn of his head that caused some stones to fall off his head.

"Looks like I slept for a while... I remember that I was only covered with dirt before."

Du Yi's gaze followed the stones downwards.

Then he saw several figures lying on the ground.

The figures were all dressed in neatly sewn robes, each made from the skin of a saber-toothed tiger or cave bear. The style of these clothes was rugged yet exquisite, and even in Du Yi's eyes, their design was quite remarkable.

But now, these clothes are covered in vomited blood, and the person wearing them has already turned white-eyed and is completely dead.

"Ah this."

After glancing at the wounds on the corpses, Du Yi roughly knew the cause of death of these people.

His sneeze just now seemed a bit too forceful.

This single sneeze actually killed all of them.

Fortunately, one person seemed to have survived the blow, but his attire was quite different from the others—compared to the well-dressed corpses, the man, dressed only in animal skins, truly resembled a savage.

Furthermore, the animal hides on his body looked as if they had been singed by fire, turning them pitch black, like charcoal.

But this wild man was the one with the strongest vitality. Not only did he survive, but he even raised his head and looked at him.

Judging from his trembling appearance, he was clearly terrified.

"Sigh, I remember telling the Radiant One a long time ago not to let cowards in, it was for their own good... Did the Radiant One not tell his son?"

Shaking his head, Du Yi stopped thinking about these questions. After all, he couldn't think seriously about them right now—he had just woken up and was still hungry, so anything he came up with under these circumstances was bound to be bad.

Following his usual practice, Du Yi planned to fill his stomach first, then stretch his body before engaging in any thoughtful matters.

So he pulled his entire body out of the ground, which naturally caused another earthquake. However, the fallen trees saved Du Yi some work in finding fuel.

"Then it's about finding a few mammoths... How many mammoths can I eat in one meal now?"

With that in mind, Du Yi headed deep into the mountains to begin his hunt.

Behind him, the young savage covered in animal skins also forced himself to stand up and followed.

----------

The young Ignis gripped the bone knife tightly in his hand; for a moment, he thought he was dead.

When he was trapped in the cave by flames and his body was being scorched by the heat, he thought his life was probably over. But with a sudden gust of wind and a dizzying sensation, he actually survived the earthquake.

Yes, he survived. Not only did he survive the scorching flames, but even those who came to hunt him down, those royal mages, all fell to the ground, turning into corpses scattered everywhere.

"What... happened?"

The young Ignis looked on in disbelief; it all seemed like a dream to him.

It was clearly a deadly trap, but in the blink of an eye, it was all resolved?

"Could it be that I am actually dead now? Was all of this just a hallucination I had before I died?"

The young Ignis once thought so.

But then he learned the reason for it all.

Simply because he saw the enormous snake head overlooking the entire world.

"This……"

Under the gaze of those vertical pupils, the young Ignis felt as small as an ant, as small as a flea!

"After all, this is the great serpent god."

The young Ignis took a deep breath.

How could the great Serpent God not remember? After all, every year during the coldest part of winter, the royal family would send out magicians to collect offerings from every household to the Serpent God. Although they were nominally offerings to the Serpent God, the young Ignis had heard some rumors from his comrades on the northern battlefield, saying that those offerings were not actually offered to the Serpent God, but were instead moved into the royal family's treasury.

Does the Snake God really exist? Nobody knows. After all, all they can hear are the legends passed down from ancient times. Nobody has ever actually come into contact with the Snake God, or even seen it from afar.

But, now...

"The Serpent God...it's actually real!"

His eyes lit up.

So, after casually snatching a bloodstained robe from the corpse, the young Ignis followed the giant serpent's path.

He wanted to seek help from the serpent god. If it was the serpent god, it would surely be able to help him. As long as the serpent god was willing to pardon him, even royalty could no longer call him a deserter or a poacher. He could even tell the serpent god about the evil deeds committed by those magicians on the front lines, so that the serpent god could severely punish those traitors and his comrades would not have died in vain.

"But if you want the snake god to help you... just talking about it won't work."

Perhaps because they felt a little safer now, the young Ignis people had regained some of their rational thinking.

"We still need to find some prey to use as offerings... just like the annual harvest festival."

With that in mind, the young Ignis found a sturdy branch, then tied his bone knife to it, making a makeshift spear.

After that, he followed the footprints on the ground and chased after a saber-toothed tiger in the distance.

Chapter 16 A Snake Swallowing an Elephant

Long, long ago, hunting saber-toothed tigers was a very difficult task.

Well, it would still be quite difficult even now, but it's clearly not as hard as it used to be. Back then, to hunt a saber-toothed tiger, without the help of mages, it would take at least ten warriors taking turns throwing spears at the beast to wear it down.

But as the war continued, the Ignis's combat skills became increasingly sophisticated. Like this young Ignis, a skilled hunter who had returned from the front lines, he had the confidence to challenge a saber-toothed tiger with just a spear.

"Just slide down when the saber-toothed tiger pounces, and raise the spear. The tiger's weight will allow the spear to pierce it."

The young Ignis thought so.

Of course, this was not some unfounded conjecture. On the battlefield in the north where he fought against the frozen giants, he had used this method of feigning weakness to kill the giants who thought they had victory in their grasp on several occasions.

Now, he was facing nothing more than a saber-toothed tiger.

Upon witnessing the saber-toothed tiger being gutted by a spear, the young Ignis felt a great release of the resentment he had been suppressing during his days of hiding and fleeing.

"I can still do some things."

Exhaling a breath of stale air, the young Ignis removed the bone knife from his spear, preparing to process his prey, taking the fattest parts as offerings to the serpent god.

But at that moment, his movements froze.