The dragon's harem
Chapter 1426: The Horrors of The Tree Never Ends

Chapter 1426: The Horrors of The Tree Never Ends

As Arad kept flying up following the tree’s trunk, he met another of the tree’s horrors. It looked like a featherless bird chick, rotten and eaten by mold and fungus. Five of them lunged at Arad from the bark, and each of them was at least ninety meters long.

"Ah, shit, Rot Chicks." Arad dodged the mad frenzy of the chicks and flew around them.

Those were the chicks of the Terror Bird from before. There is a type of fungus here on the tree that spreads from one living being to another, controlling them like zombies. It first infects small worms and larvae that the Terror Bird catches and brings to its chicks. Those chicks eat the infected food and catch the rot, killing them.

When the mother Terror Bird noticed that her chicks had died, she wouldn’t be happy. She throws them out of the nest. But before they could hit the ground, the mold takes control over them, forcibly awakens their wind magic, and causes them to start flying without feathers or flapping their wings.

The result was this disgusting monstrosity that Arad is facing. The previous kings weren’t certain, but some speculate that after months or years, the bodies of the birds decompose and are infested with maggots, which attract the adult terror birds to repeat the cycle.

The chicks are moving corpses controlled by fungus, but they aren’t undead, which means holy magic is useless against those appalling horrors.

They should be weak to fire and rot curses, since both cause their bodies to either burn to ash or decompose faster, but the tree forbids the use of fire.

That left Arad with one option: find the core of the fungus inside their bodies and tear it off. He can also suck them into his stomach and burn them into ash with a [Ho-white Nova], but look at them, he doesn’t want them anywhere near his stomach. Besides, he doesn’t know if the fungus can infect him or not, so he’d rather not test it.

The Rot Chicks swung their wings like arms and flailed their heads like maces, moving at a disgusting speed and with a mind-boggling agility, as if they had no joints.

Arad had never seen something move like this before, and the best he could describe it with were the words the previous person had already used.

-They move like an erratic, rabid dog that got struck by a lightning spell while trying to bite its tail-

Meaning that Arad doesn’t need to care about trying to predict the monster’s moves or rationalize anything, because they are swinging their limbs randomly, hoping to wound Arad and infect him. One solid hit that leaves a wound should be enough, so they don’t need much strategy.

Besides, what kind of intelligence did Arad expect from a fungus? There is only one fungus smart enough to be feared, and that’s Kino, Merida’s demonic fungus.

Arad swung his claw and ripped one of the chicks in half, taking out the fungus-infested stomach.

Since the chicks ate something that infected them, their stomach is the most likely part to house the fungus’s core.

Arad covered his body with a thick barrier and lunged into the violent storm of the chick’s flailing wings and talons, ripping their torsos in half and pulling their rotten organs out.

If one of those chicks showed up in the world below, it would be a far greater disaster than what a grown Terror Bird would cause, because the fungus would spread rapidly and soon get out of control.

Right now, luckily, Arad managed to destroy the five Rot Chicks swiftly and without getting injured.

He can already imagine how an elvish army climbing the tree might react to those rabid birds, it must’ve been utter chaos and terror as soldiers start getting infected, especially with how aggressive and fast those bastards were.

Of course, Arad had more than one problem to deal with now. Looking at the tree trunk, he could sense thousands of massive ants crawling beneath the thick bark, ready to swarm anything that dared to land.

That won’t do. He needs to find a safe place before nightfall to hide in because gods know that he’ll have the worst night of his life if that thing shows up.

Arad accelerated and started flying up, looking carefully through the thick, golden-brown bark of the World Tree, seeking a safe place. All he could see were ants and more ants, then some more ants. They never end, and he didn’t expect them to. There were probably several massive colonies living in the tree trunk.

"NiCe... FeEt..." Hearing the ragged voice, Arad immediately camouflaged himself with his scales and got as close as he could to the trunk without landing.

It wasn’t that thing, but this one is still a scary enemy. A massive mosquito that’s around twenty meters long, a whole swarm of them. What’s more horrifying? Those things can speak. They listen to other monsters’ calls and use them to lure them into traps.

After getting a taste for elvish blood, the mosquitoes started mimicking what they heard from the elves to try and bait them. Of course, their call was obvious, and none fell for their tricks, but it was still horrifying to hear.

Arad stopped flapping his wings and used gravity magic to fly, silently moving away while keeping an eye on the direction of the voice. Soon, he could see it; The large bugger, the Calling Mosquito.

"Look at it, and I’m not blind, I can see the other of you hiding in the back." Right behind that one mosquito, there was a swarm of them hiding in the shadows and mist surrounding the trunk. The moment the scout finds prey, the whole swarm flies down to suck them dry.

If the scout finds Arad, he’ll have to deal with over a thousand, twenty-meter-long mosquitoes.

Arad doesn’t want anything to do with one of those things, let alone the whole swarm. The previous kings had always kept a monster corpse sealed within a storage magic item to throw down and bait the swarm away from the army, but Arad doesn’t have any of that. He has monsters inside his stomach, but those are his food; he won’t be giving it away to the buggers.

If he could use fire, he would’ve already incinerated the whole swarm, but sadly, he can’t. Those lucky mosquitoes, they should thank the World Tree for not allowing him to use fire.

But, it’s Arad we’re talking about. No mosquitoes shall escape with their lives. If he can’t use fire, he’ll use ice.