Unedited chapter
21. Meeting His Own Kind
Edgar saw the beastmen, and the beastmen naturally saw him too.
Suddenly seeing a huge snake in the forest, the beastmen were immediately on their guard, but at the same time, their eyes were also full of excitement.
Although the beastmen by now didn’t need to rely on their beast forms to fight for food at the risk of their lives, but they still liked to fight. They even liked to do hand-to-hand combat, not relying on their firearms. Seeing a powerful wild animal right now naturally aroused their deep-rooted warlike nature.
"Boss, this time it's my turn!" One of the beastmen said loudly. In a whizz, he tore open the clothes on his body and turned into an enormous wolf.
While he was tearing open his clothes to be put in the space ring, he was also rushing toward Edgar at lightning speed simultaneously.
Edgar had just come to himself only to find that the man in front him was charging at him. Edgar hurled the fowl held in his mouth aside, and he opened his mouth to try to communicate with the other person involved. Then he suddenly realized that he was a snake now; there was simply no way he could speak. In the present situation, those people would not allow him to think of other ways to slowly communicate with them.
The fowl that Edgar had hurled aside crashed into a tree and fell to the ground; he didn't know whether it was alive or dead. Edgar swung his tail, actually welcoming the enormous wolf head-on. One snake and one wolf suddenly fought for real, locked in a battle.
"Do you think Jeca can win?" The leader of these beastmen has been watching the wolf beastman who was part of their group fight with the huge snake before he turned towards his comrades-in-arms at his side.
They were a garrison of Cas planet. The past few days had been their turn to rest, and they had run into heavy snowfall by chance. It was just now that they could come out and start the winter hunting.
Winter prey was scarce. Of course, their winter hunting was not for the purpose of catching some plump preys. In fact, their winter hunting was to look for savage animals in the forest, shooting and dispatching them for good.
Savage animals could be even more vicious when food was scarce. It also made them more indifferent and uninhibited as they fought. Of course, the garrison could look for savage animals and fight them, but it was unlikely that they could kill those savage animals as they wished. The leader had once fought with a very large tiger, and afterwards, he had ended up giving the wounded tiger some meat.
"Major, although Jeca doesn't like to use his brain, but his fighting power is above ours. He can certainly dispatch a snake like this." A man beside the leader said with a smile, not having the slightest amount of doubt over his words—at this moment, the enormous wolf was gaining the upper hand over the huge snake.
This group of men all had faith in the enormous wolf, but unexpectedly, their voices has barely fallen when the battlefield situation suddenly changed—their eyes could not be more wrong; in a flash, Jeca who has already had the upper hand was actually being suppressed by the huge snake!
The enormous wolf Jeca had turned into was wound tightly by the huge snake, and the huge snake's long-fanged mouth was right at Jeca's throat. If the huge snake opened its mouth and bit down, Jeca’s life might cease to exist.
For a moment, the complexion of some beastmen who stood alongside each other changed greatly. Jeca was an experienced beastman; how could, all of a sudden, he get captured so easily by the huge snake?
Furthermore . . . had this huge snake hidden its strength before? If this huge snake had had the upper hand at the outset, they would certainly have rushed to help Jeca. As a result . . . . At the beginning, the huge snake actually hadn’t fought back in order to lull them. After they had relaxed, it had seized Jeca in one move . . . . Since when was a wild animal so smart?
These people took out their firearms without the slightest hesitation. On their guard facing the huge snake, they unexpectedly made eye contact with it.
The leader did not know why, but he suddenly couldn’t control his hands from shaking. There was some kind of feeling that he could not equal the huge snake. He felt a little chagrined, but when he looked at the men by his side, he found that they were also the same as him. And Jeca, coiled by the huge snake, was already shaking like a leaf at this time.
Most importantly, what was the bloodline of this snake? The men showed a shocked expression. Right at that moment, the huge snake actually did something that none of them had expected at the outset.
The huge snake did not let go of Jeca, but it used its tail tip to write a few words on the ground: “Put the weapons down.”
When they saw the words clearly, the feelings of fear, anxiety, restraint, and constantly wanting to retreat disappeared. The leader of the beastmen suddenly thought of something: "You're a fallen beast!"
Edgar did not nod or shake his head. Only after seeing the other party put their weapons down did he release the wolf beastman in his coils.
The enormous wolf was no longer high-spirited like before. After being let go by Edgar, he lowered his head and gave a low cry before running to his comrades with his tail wedged between his legs.
Seeing this situation, the leader of the beastmen thereupon determined that the huge snake before their eyes had to be a fallen beast. At last, he started to relax.
After a beastman became a fallen beast, he would slowly lose his rationality and would even harm the sub-beastmen. However, there were quite many among the fallen beasts who initially weren’t malicious towards the beastmen or the sub-beastmen.
"Hello, my name is Jeress. I’m a lion race beastman." The leader of the beastmen took the initiative to issue a greeting. He was a soldier who participated in battles. In the past, he had even seen with his own eyes a comrade-in-arms at his side get wounded in the battle and become a fallen beast. Thus, besides not having much prejudice against the fallen beasts, he also sympathized with them a little.
With Jeress being like that, it was only natural that the other beastmen at his side were also like that. As for Jeca . . . he, unexpectedly, was unable to defeat a fallen beast who had lost his beast core. He felt extremely humiliated. Basically, he did not want to change into a human shape and did not want to speak. He even tucked his tail tighter and lowered his head, hiding behind Jeress’ body.
Edgar wanted to say hello to these people but soon gave up. He was willing to swing his tail in front of Shu Shu, but he was not in the least willing to do such "folly" in front of these beastmen. The snake tail moved, and he ended up writing down some words on the ground: "There’s a little sub-beastman in the forest. You take him away."
There was a sub-beastman in the forest? There was actually a sub-beastman staying in this dangerous place? Jeress and the other men turned pale with fright. But Edgar has already turned his body to the direction he had come from and slithered away. Having slithered a few paces, he turned his head around to pick up the fowl that he had thrown aside a moment ago.
On the way back, Edgar was slightly distracted. In the previous fight, he had suddenly discovered that the set of cultivation methods the little sub-beastman had taught him was far more powerful than he had imagined.
He had been an eight-star beastman and the strongest one among the young generation of the Beastman Empire. But after losing his beast core, his strength had been greatly reduced. Even if his strength had recovered a little, at most he would have been three-star. And just now, that wolf beastman was a four-star beastman.
This kind of four-star beastman, although it was unlikely for Edgar to go so far as to suffer a defeat with his current physical condition and fighting experience, but it was also impossible for him to effortlessly win like that. However, after he had utilized the power within his body, he had obtained an overwhelming victory almost instantaneously.
He became stronger, but unfortunately, he was just a beast now.
The thing Edgar encountered clearly wasn’t Shu Shu whom he knew.
Shu Shu was attired in thick animal skin. He was building a snowman and then a snake beside it not far from the cave mouth .
After he was done, he was all sweaty from the double workouts, so he simply pulled down the animal skin headgear he was wearing. At this time, he suddenly felt that there was something wrong with him—he built a snowman because he was fond of it; for what he built a snake, ah!
One foot stamped on the snow snake's head, creating a hole. Shu Shu smiled, feeling pleased with himself, and continued to trample on the entire snake thoroughly.
As he was trampling on cheerfully, he heard some sound of movement and saw the huge snake appear with a fowl held in its mouth.
Remembering that he has just trampled on the “Big Snake,” Shu Shu had some guilty conscience. He turned his eyes away and tried to shift the subject: “Big Snake, you caught a fowl and came back, ah. Wait for me to make you a beggar’s fowl to eat . . .”
He still hasn’t finished speaking the words when he suddenly saw a wolf run out from behind the huge snake’s body and stare at him stupidly. After that, several men also appeared.
Humans! Shu Shu saw those people, and his eyes couldn't help showing a happy expression. But soon after, his complexion instantly paled.
He still had the hamster ears! He would be taken for a monster by these people!
After they knew he was a monster, wouldn’t they send him into the laboratory and locked him up? Wouldn’t they dissect him? Or simply burn him to death here and now?
Shu Shu was stiff from head to foot. He stared at those men and did not dare to move at all.
Jeress and the other men came with the fallen beast. When they arrived here and discovered that there was indeed a sub-beastman in existence, they were all startled.
Anyway, this little sub-beastman looked really cute when he walked on the snow bridge . . . .
No matter if it was Jeress or the other men, their impression towards the little sub-beastman was very good. At the moment, they could see that the little sub-beastman was scared . . . . Jeress kicked at Jeca’s body that was still on wolf form: "Quickly change back!"
When the little sub-beastman saw the huge snake, he greeted the huge snake in a language they couldn't understand. Later, they saw him showing a scared expression. It totally couldn’t be because he has been scared by them. It had to be Jeca the wolf who has scared him!
Jeca who had been staring at the little sub-beastman in wonder was kicked, and only then did he come to himself. He changed into a human form and took his clothes out .
"Monster!" Shu Shu looked at Jeca, pleasantly surprised. This man was actually not a human but a daemon!
He finally saw someone of his own kind!
The fear on Shu Shu's face faded away, and he looked at the wolf beastman intimately: "Are you also a daemon?"
TL’s note:
埃德加 (Āi dé jiā) = Edgar [confirmed]
杰卡 (Jié kǎ) = Jeca?
杰尔斯 (Jié ěr sī) = Jeress?
If you have a better/the right translation for the name, please tell me.