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Chapter 346: (Interlude) Spiritual Springs

"Something\'s wrong," Astralis growled and slowly raised his head. Foliage that had grown on his black scales decorated with silver speckles during his long sleep fell to the wayside as he looked up at the stars. As a peak Nascent Soul level monster cultivating cosmic affinity, he could tell the exact time from a quick glance at the position and brightness of the stars littering the vast cosmos overhead.

"Why have I awakened three years early?" Astralis narrowed his eyes as he verified the date a second time just to be sure, but the stars never lied. He had awoken from his deep cultivation three years too early. Looking within himself, he noted that his beast core was still a few decades from reaching the stage that cultivators called the Monarch Realm, confirming that he had awoken early.

A part of him wanted to shrug off the strange feeling that had disturbed his rest and let one of the other Primal Overlords handle it. I\'m likely the only one to have noticed this disturbance so far, as none of those ancient monsters are as adept at sensing disturbances in Qi as I am. Well, except Zephyrine. Astralis thought, and the image of an ethereal celestial white stag who ruled over them appeared in his mind.

Zephyrine was what every monster strived to become, as she was as intelligent as she was powerful. It had been a century since Astralis had last dealt with her, and his soul still trembled at the memory of when she had flexed a hint of her cultivation at him. Monarch Realm monsters were terrifying existences.

Imagining Zephyrine\'s wrath at him for not investigating filled Astralis with dread. "I guess I have no choice," he said, spreading his titanic wings. His silver claws curled into the rock as he arched his back, and with a gentle leap, he soared into the sky, accompanied by the thundering boom of destroying the mountain he had been resting on.

Without even flexing his cultivation, the clouds parted as if welcoming their king. Feeling the wind rushing past and the starlight bathing his scales, Astralis glided through the night sky, casting a shadow on the land below.

"Before investigating, a snack after such a long sleep wouldn\'t hurt," Astralis\'s lips curled up into a cruel smirk as he spread out his spiritual senses.

The spiritual spring the monsters lived on was divided into undefined levels. Zephyrine\'s domain was to the north, at the dead center of the spiritual spring. Around her were areas controlled by the Primal Overlords, monsters in the Nascent Soul Realm capable of taking on other forms and complex thoughts. They mostly spent their time sleeping like Astralis had, as nobody dared to fight them.

Other than the initial few years of fighting over territory between the Primal Overlords, these areas were usually the most peaceful. Vast swathes of land dominated by single powers where no others dare to venture by sheer virtue of the Primal Overlord\'s natural presence guarding the area.

Meanwhile, the lower levels to the south, which contained Star Core Realm-level monsters with some levels of intelligence, were total warzones. There were factions of like-minded or similar race monsters at constant war over the ever-shrinking land of the spiritual spring. The weaker ones were pushed out and forced into lower levels with less Qi, while the stronger ones dominated the land at the borders to the Primal Overlords regions.

Astralis knew the struggle well, as he hadn\'t always been a Primal Overlord respected and feared by all below him. In a long distant past, from before the last era of ascension, he was a newborn lizard. It had taken a lot of luck, ruthlessness and time to reach the level he was at now.

"What\'s this?" Astralis was surprised to find some life signs within his territory. Although they were near the border, they had definitely dared to step into his area. Tilting his body, he changed his course and headed toward them.

Drakes, and three of them. Astralis didn\'t even bother to conceal his presence and enjoyed how all three looked to the sky in unison as he loomed on the horizon. Total darkness followed, and the shadow of his body blocking out the moonlight came as a prelude to his arrival.

Instead of running, all three dropped their heads on the ground in surrender.

Astralis flapped his wings once, wiping out all trees for many miles. Setting his body down before the three, the ground trembled and cracked beneath him. All three of the drakes were visibly trembling under his pressure.

"I miss the days my food uselessly fought and struggled for survival," Astralis said as he loomed over them, "Though dull, I can\'t say I hate skipping the useless steps and presenting your heads on a platter. Eating around the meat filled with crushed bones was always a pain."

"Lord Celestial Star Dragon—"

"Who said you could speak in my presence?"Astralis moved the faintest hint of his Qi and called upon a star. A beam of starlight struck down, obliterating the drake\'s head and freezing its neck. The drake\'s body stood for a moment before losing strength in its limbs and falling to the side.

Reaching forward with his claw, Astralis picked up the drake\'s body. It was unsatisfyingly small, only the size of a large cow with wings, so it barely qualified as a snack. He gobbled it down with one hearty bite. Feeling a little less moody from being awoken from his sleep after a snack, he decided to humor the drakes who had dared to venture onto his territory, as at least they knew his title and could communicate.

"Speak, why have you come here, drakes?"

"Lord Celestial Star Dragon," The left drake growled in barely comprehensible draconic compared to the last one who had spoken in the common beast tongue. "We have come on behalf of your daughter."

Astralis\' laughter boomed across the land. "My daughter, you say? You\'re going to have to be more specific. I have as many children as there are stars in the sky."

"Nymeria, my lord." The other drake answered in the common tongue. "We came to seek your help—"

Astralis reached forward and crushed the drake under his claw with a satisfying crunch. Coming into his territory and speaking to him without making an effort to learn draconic was an insult. The common tongue was based purely on conveying concepts through grunts. It was the way weaklings communicated.

"You are supposedly under my daughter, yet talk to me in the common tongue?" Astralis mused as he licked his second snack off his claws, "Nymeria though, mhm. I believe I had her with a human. Does she allow you to speak the common language in her presence, drake?"

The remaining drake groveled even harder, "While proud of her dragon lineage, Mistress Nymeria understands that draconic is the hardest language to master, so she allows the common language to be spoken in her presence, my Lord."

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Astralis huffed out his nostrils. This displeased him greatly, and this drake\'s draconic language was barely passable. It was rather unpleasant and grating to his ears.

"So, why have you trespassed into the domain of a Primal Overlord? You know such an act means certain death, do you not?"

"Yes, my Lord. However, Nymeria was desperate. Something has gone terribly wrong in the spiritual spring—Qi is leaving quickly. Hoards of beasts have attacked her land, pushing her to the border. She hoped to call upon your might in this time of need, so she sent us here."

"Call upon my might?" Astralis had never heard something so laughable in all his long years. Dragons were prideful creatures at the peak of power. To admit defeat and call upon their daddy for help? Laughable! Those weren\'t the acts of a dragon at all!

"Her cowardly human side must have led her to believe I would honor such a request. It\'s just her luck that I was awakened by another disturbance; otherwise, I would have struck her down myself if you had awoken me." Astralis placed the tip of his bloodied claw on the bowing drake\'s forehead. "I suppose I can overlook her cowardly request just this once, as she sent me three drakes for breakfast."

"Three, my lord?"

"Yes." Astralis put some strength into his claw and skewered the drake\'s brain, silencing it. "Three dared to trespass, so three will die." Astralis\'s bloodied lips curled as he picked up the drake and dangled it overhead. It swung from his claw as he opened his maw wide and let the corpse slide off and drop into the abyss of his throat.

Licking his lips, he felt mildly satisfied as the Qi from the three Star Core drakes traveled through his spirit roots and was absorbed into his beast core. Hunting other monsters usually resulted in spending more Qi than he gained, but this had been an easy meal courtesy of his dear daughter.

While waiting for his beast core to settle and picking bones out of his teeth, he thought about the information the now-dead drake had provided.

Qi is leaving the spiritual springs? If Zephyrine\'s prediction was correct—and she is never wrong—that shouldn\'t happen for another three years. Even when the process does start, it takes months or sometimes years. Yet, by how the drake spoke, it seemed like the process was happening so quickly that it sent the monsters into a panic for higher ground. It\'s almost like a reverse beast tide, where the beasts don\'t want to leave for the next spiritual spring yet, but the Qi-rich land is rapidly shrinking.

If that was true, it was a problem. The cultivator sects built along the leylines sometimes put up a resistance, so the Primal Overlords preferred to let the weaker monsters wipe them out so they didn\'t have to waste their precious Qi. If monsters fought each other or formed a sparse beast tide along the leyline, the cultivators might be able to fight back and cull their numbers.

Who will I eat then if all the monsters die? Astralis sighed as he spread out his wings once again. This was a strange and unprecedented situation, which could only mean one thing: it would be a pain to solve. While the Primal Overlords could sometimes come together and work toward a common goal, they were still selfish monsters at the end of the day, driven by greed. Unless something threatened all of their peace or Zephyrine made a move, they wouldn\'t work together.

Astralis soared into the sky toward his region\'s border. Iguess I\'ll see if I can handle it myself. But to think one of my children reached out to me for help. Nymeria may be half-human, but I remember her as one of my more capable children despite her mixed bloodline. What a bold child to call upon me.

Lost in his thoughts, he soon arrived at the border; sure enough, it was chaos. Innumerable monsters from different factions surrounded a crude fortress city built into a towering mountain. Qi flew around like it was free as hundreds of drakes fought off the monsters clawing their way up the sides of the mountain.

Why are they all gathered here at my border? Fights here are normal, but never on this scale.

Spreading out his spiritual senses further, Astralis made a disturbing discovery.

The spiritual spring... was gone. What should have been a hundred miles of Qi-rich land was barren like the Qi-deprived lands between the leylines. This wasn\'t just a \'disturbance\'; something

had sucked the area dry of Qi, and he could see the edge of the spiritual spring moving in closer. Soon, even his own region would be at risk of vanishing.

If that were to happen, he couldn\'t move deeper as that was Zephyrine\'s territory. He would have no choice but to move on to the next spiritual spring earlier than intended and once again waste Qi fighting his fellow Primal Overlords over the best cultivation spots.

I wonder if the other Primal Overlords also have this situation on their borders. Astralis thought as he confirmed with his spiritual senses that his daughter was residing in the city. Was this city hers? Either way, as a Primal Overlord, he could go as he pleased, so he dived down toward the mountain. He needed answers, and while he did not want to help his daughter directly, his presence here was bound to assist her.

Before hitting the peak, his body shapeshifted into a smaller, human-like form, as his usual body would crush this city under his weight. Bombing through the mountain and all its crude runic enhancements, he stopped in a large chamber. Cracking the stone where he landed, he stood within a cloud of dust and checked that his shapeshift had been successful.

He stood over two meters tall, with silver scales instead of skin, a meter-long tail, two smaller black folded wings against his back, and claws sharp enough to impale stone. He also had dark hair with star-like sparkles flowing down his back, complementing his bright silver eyes and calm, ethereal presence.

Astralis had crafted this secondary appearance from his Nascent Soul, which was something almost every Primal Overlord had done. Their large monstrous forms were sometimes inconvenient, especially when interacting with smaller monsters in their makeshift cities.

Smaller forms were also sometimes easier to fight in. Being a city-sized dragon made him a rather large target on the battlefield, and using weapons looted from the cultivators was difficult without appropriately sized hands.

A human girl with silver serpentine eyes and a small horn jutting from her forehead rushed into the room. She only had scales running down the sides of her body like armor, but another could tell from a glance that she was half dragon. She paused a reasonable distance away and dropped to one knee.

"Father, I am honored by your arrival," Nymeria said in fluent draconic. It was like music to his ears as it flowed so beautifully compared to the grunts of the common tongue.

"Mhm. I see you have kept up your studies over the last century. Though you still have a slight accent from the human language."

Nymeria smiled weary, "I apologize for my failings, Father, and I hope my subordinates weren\'t too much of a bother."

Astralis smirked and picked at his teeth, "They served their purpose to quell my mood."

"That\'s... a relief." Nymeria bowed her head again, "Father, I know it\'s presumptuous of me, but I find myself in dire straits. The spiritual spring suddenly began shrinking over the last month, leaving the beasts nowhere to go. Now, they are at the base of my mountain, and I find myself cornered. In respect for you, Father, I dared not step into your domain and protected it from these vile creatures."

"So you called on me—a foolish mistake," Astralis said, putting his claw under his daughter\'s chin. Forcefully raising her head, they locked eyes. He could see and smell her fear. "Did you think us sharing blood would give you the right to seek my help? My dear daughter, I hope you understand the cost of calling on me."

"Father, please... I was desperate." Nymeria begged, "I didn\'t want to die."

Astralis leaned in closer and hissed through his teeth, "You should have just died. A dragon\'s greatest pride is their own strength. Calling on me disgraces yourself as a dragon and my name."

"Father, I was wrong," Nymeria cried, switching to the human tongue in panic, "I shouldn\'t have—"

Astralis kicked her in the stomach, sending her flying across the room and smashing into the far wall, making the whole room tremble. If this were any other day, he might strip her cultivation and feed her to the horde outside. But this was a strange set of events that he couldn\'t blame her for not foreseeing.

So, the spiritual spring began to shrink rapidly a month ago. How interesting.

"Primal Overlords, awaken from your slumbers." A voice carried by the winds that Astralis recognized all too well as Zephyrine tickled his ear and sent a shiver down his spine. Whenever she had something to say, it was never good. "The Beast Tide has begun three years early. Prepare to move south toward the next spiritual spring and have my area prepared. That is all."

"So it\'s time to move," Astralis clicked his tongue. Irritating times and pointless fights lay ahead.

Astralis spread out his wings and soared into the sky once more. Flexing his presence, the monsters froze up before they all began to flee in fear toward the Qi-less lands to the south. If he could get these monsters moving, he could beat the other Primal Overlords to the next spiritual spring and get set up for his next sleep.