Tuglai arrived before the sea as usual, capturing a fish that he ate in relish, suddenly noticing the horn on his forehead glowing in response before it segmented into two, causing his Nacre quality to spike in response.
As his Nacre evolved, Tuglai could sense his Guardian Beast staring at him from the mountain, smiling upon seeing that the other party too grew in response to his growth.
And that wasn't all, the moment he became a Stage 2 Horned Human, his body began to grow rapidly, now becoming an eight-year-old boy, way stronger than his three-year-old self.
Within an hour, he acclimated to the changes, hunting in the water better as he caught more fishes for the rest of his weaker people to eat.
That wasn't all; only now, after reaching Stage 2 did he notice that his senses had improved, allowing him to notice something that resembled a rice grain in one of the larger fishes he had hunted.
Curious, he slatted its stomach and pried out the rice grain-sized object, noticing that it resembled a pearl somewhat but was more colourful, emanating a rainbow's gradient depending on the angle he gazed it from.
Tuglai thought for a moment before placing it on his tongue, noticing it melt immediately as its essence swerved into his Origin Space, causing his Nacre to grow in both quality and quantity. That wasn't all, he observed the Guardian Beast experiencing mild growth too.
And thanks to that, he was able to harness its power better.
For a normal Horned Human, consuming a Nacre Core only developed their own Mutated Beast. But in the case of Tuglai, consuming a Nacre Core strengthened his Guardian Beast and their connection, allowing him to harness more of its strength.
This meant that by consuming more Nacre Cores, the Guardian Beast would benefit the most, growing to heights unimaginable at a rather quick pace. And depending on one's development, they would be able to harness its powers better.
The best thing of this was the fact that this development wouldn't vanish followed their deaths as the Guardian Beast would still be there.
This would imply that even at Stage 1, their powers would be more evolved as compared to regular Horned Humans, refined in comparison. It would result in a Horned Human with a Guardian Beast being a lot stronger than a regular Horned Human.
There was also the fact that their powers were more all-rounded as compared to the specific nature of the other Horned Humans.
The moment she noticed changes in the Guardian Beast's luck, Xuna understand what had happened, hurrying towards the shore to see Tuglai now resembling a child, "This is absurd."
"I…am strong!" Tuglai grinned in response, leaping into the sea once again as he began to hunt for stronger fishes.
"His growth is startling." Yihan said, feeling competitive as he too was only at Stage 2, despite being a Horned Human for a longer duration.
But, he couldn't ask to fight Tuglai as they specialised in different terrains. The West Guardians were experts of close combat on ground and air while the South Guardians were experts of the sea. They didn't have any common grounds to fight, unless they decided to fight on land. But, that way, they wouldn't be using their advantages, making the fight lack value.
At this point, Yihan sighed, saying, "Our work here is done. This island will sustain itself after this."
The reason he said this was because the in-breeding culture of the village now became their genetic evolutionary trait. Meaning, the South Guardian Village were self-sufficient in all formats, capable of raising their population on their own without any external influence.
And this time, the birthed children wouldn't sport any defects. After all, their Guardian Beast would take care of their natural evolution, capable of altering their genetic material over time.
Though, it wasn't capable of that at the moment, it would surely be able to do so once it grew some more and reached higher Stages.
"Thank you for saving us!" Tuglai and the rest bowed, staring at the figure of Yihan and Xuna that were leaving on their boat.
"Live freely and don't allow any Blight Humans to attack your village." Xuna waved her hands until the island was out of sight.
Following that, she steered it by observing the direction in which the Klock Heads—formed by her luck—stared at. The boat travelled plenty fast, soon coming across what seemed to be a mouth formed by two outstretched landmasses coming close.
The gap at the mouth was barely a kilometre in width, leading into a smaller sea within, enclosed by the landmass on all other sides.
The moment the boat entered the region, Xuna frowned, "Can you feel that?"
"Yeah…" Yihan pinched his nose, able to observe faint corruption emanating from the sea water, "Theis is a faint stench here. So, this is corruption."
"Yeah, it's still faint here." Xuna said, "You'll observe stronger concentrations in a Blight Human though, so be careful."
Her rope slithered like a snake into the water, grabbing hold of a fish as she yanked it out of the water, frowning as she stared at it, sensing a rice-grain sized Blight Core, "This Blight Core is bigger than the Nacre Cores I've found."
It was troubling because the Blight Core only originated from a random fish in the sea. There were millions of such fishes there.
This meant that the fishes with Blight Cores were developing faster in comparison to the fishes with Nacre Cores.
"Wait…" Yihan spoke all of a sudden, motioning for her to remain silent as he closed his eyes, focusing on his ears as he slowly picked up the sounds of people fighting. Though, judging based on the sounds, one side was getting slaughtered.
"Let's observe the situation first." Yihan said as he tied the boat to a boulder on the shore before accompanying Xuna as the two rushed past the sparse vegetation, hiding behind a home as he peeked out, observing the situation at play.
…
"Archers! Come into formation! Keep raining arrows on those bastards!" A soldier shouted, taking up charge as their commander had already been killed.
He thrust forth with a spear, piercing a vine that was climbing up the fort wall. The fort was a pretty small one where the lord of the group of villages lived. So, it wasn't fortified enough to last against an army for long.
The vine struggled for a moment before extricating itself from the spear head, lashing out at the soldier who defended with a shield, grunting in response.
"Hahaha!" The sounds of a man's laughter resounded as he stood thirty metres away from the fort walls, creating a mini hut type cover using vines that jutted out of the ground. His vines created tunnels that lead up the fort walls, allowing his soldiers to climb up through it easily and reach the top of the walls.
As for the defending sides, they were already on the losing end, losing more men than they killed.
The Blight Human was at Stage 2, having the power to control vines. His vines took time to grow in size, but once they did so, he was unstoppable. Any damage the vines sustain would heal over time thanks to their blinding vitality.
Moreover, thanks to their simple structure, it was just a matter of them growing new vines by absorbing nutrients from the soil.
Arrows slammed into the vines that formed the hut, failing to penetrate through. Even the ballista only managed to pierce through the defence before losing all power, failing to touch the Blight Human.
"See, this is the power of Blight Humans." The Blight Human smirked, playing around with the head of a Horned Human that he had killed, "Horned Humans are weak."
His hands glided over the Horned Human's head when vines jutted out of it like grass, absorbing all the fleshly mass in the form of nutrients before falling to the ground, revealing a pure skull behind.
pαndα-noνɐ1,сoМ The Blight Human stared at the plain Horn, "He was only a Stage 1 Horned Human. But still, he wouldn't have been my match even if he reached Stage 2."
In the current world, Stage 3 was the strongest, with the commanders of the Fornol Empire at this Stage, followed by the strongest from other allied Kingdoms.
As for the Royalty of the Fornol Empire, they had already attained the peak of Stage 3, with the Empress on the verge of attaining Stage 4, or maybe she had already done so.
But in sharp contrast, the strongest among Horned Humans were only at Stage 2, with none reaching Stage 3 yet. This sharp contrast caused the Blight Humans to possess a sense of superiority as during the initial clashes, they managed to win most, if not all battles against the Horned Humans.
Bam!
The vine crushed the skull as the Blight Human grabbed the horn, one that hadn't been crushed, "The horn of a Horned Human is tremendously tough."
He then grinned, "This will be my souvenir. It's not much, but eventually, I'll boast my collection to the rest in the military."
Started by the Royalty, the Fornol Empire developed a tradition of showcasing the horns of Horned Humans. It was said that the Empress personally wore earrings carved out of the horns of a Stage 2 Horned Human that she hunted.
So, it became a fad in the Empire, making the horns of Horned Humans a prized commodity.
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