novelraw Chapter 248: Bai Long's [Dynamic Niche - Upward and Downward Insults] Theory
Chapter 248: Bai Long's [Dynamic Niche - Upward and Downward Insults] Theory
The weather had been brutal lately.
The sky was swallowed by heavy gray-white, the clouds hung low as if ready to collapse, and the snow did not fall so much as slash sideways, like a soundless rage, howling as it tore at trees, rock, and frozen earth. The distant ridgelines had long since disappeared behind the curtains of snow, leaving only vague silhouettes.
The centaur and ogre guards stationed at the Abyssal Rift felt the strain clearly—vision obstructed, body heat draining. They hurriedly erected makeshift tents to shield themselves from the blizzard, but their combat readiness was still affected.
White Dragon Trixie, however, stretched her wings in contentment and circled comfortably through the storm.
As a typical cold-aligned creature, this weather suited her perfectly.
Feeling the bone-piercing chill, she even thought her mind was sharper than usual, as if her intelligence had risen.
"Less than forty years until I gain my freedom."
The thought flashed through Trixie's mind as she completed a graceful aerial roll.
She enjoyed the thrill of flight while pondering future choices: "When that time comes, should I stay with the thriving Molten Iron Tribe or leave and develop on my own?"
This major decision about her future sent her into deep thought.Each option had pros and cons.
Among all the dragons, Trixie's current status was about as low as it could get.
Years ago, she had been second in strength only to Garoth. But as time passed and those young dragons matured into adolescents, her standing slid to the bottom; now she ranked only slightly above those common underlings.
What grated on her most was the endless verbal humiliation she suffered whenever she encountered red dragon Samantha.
"White-scale freak," "white-skin beast," "white-colored animal"—those derogatory slurs aimed at White Dragons were reinvented by the red dragon in every possible permutation.
Some of those insults weren't even traditional dragon epithets.
Trixie couldn't fathom how Samantha, with such limited mental capacity, managed to invent so many humiliating terms.
If she chose to remain with the Molten Iron Tribe, Trixie knew she would likely continue to endure such abuse.
On the other hand, the Molten Iron Tribe was in a booming golden age. As long as she followed the rules set by the Iron King, she could reap substantial rewards and many benefits.
After careful weighing, the White Dragon leaned toward staying.
She had had enough of the desperate days when treasure meant animal bones and stones.
"Besides."
Trixie spun happily in the air, thinking: "Garoth once asked me whether there were other hidden hatchlings or young dragons in the convergence lands."
"The Molten Iron Tribe plans to emulate the Blue Dragon Community and adopt young dragons."
"With new hatchlings and adolescents appearing, my ecological niche among dragons will rise. I can humiliate those hatchlings and young dragons. Even if they look down on me when they grow up, they won't be able to say it aloud; they'll have to endure my bullying."
Over the long experience of both being discriminated against and discriminating against other dragons, Trixie had come to understand one thing.
An ecological niche is not fixed; in fact, it is constantly shifting.
If she faced the Ignas brothers, her niche would plummet to the very bottom, becoming the group's object of scorn and trampling. But if ordinary hatchlings and young dragons were present, her niche would soar—she would become a fearsome near-mature great evil dragon. Even if those hatchlings and adolescents despised her, they would not dare voice it and would be at her mercy.
"Even Garoth."
"When he faces a mature Silver Dragon, or an even stronger legendary creature, his niche will fall."
Trixie continued her line of thought.
"Come to think of it, even legendary powerhouses, even deities, cannot escape this dynamic niche theory. A lower-tier god facing a higher-tier god would be humbled, not towering as they seem in the eyes of mortals."
Trixie brightened with revelation: "In this world, unless you are the one supreme being, all creatures will be humiliated by stronger ones and will, in turn, humiliate weaker ones."
"No one is inherently nobler than another."
"Any insult toward me is essentially the strong humiliating the weak; it is everywhere and I don't have to care."
She had achieved an almost philosophical conclusion.
Since everywhere was the same, she might as well stay with the Molten Iron Tribe—after all, the dragon population here would increase, and while she would be humiliated by stronger dragons, she would also have more opportunities to vent by humiliating weaker dragons.
"When the Molten Iron Tribe adopts more hatchlings and young dragons, my niche will keep rising."
"Heh. Then only a few above me will be able to humiliate me, but the number of dragons beneath me who can be humiliated by me will multiply."
Having figured this out, Trixie felt particularly light and content.
She soared more freely through the sky, dancing amid the wind and snow.
Just as she reveled in that pleasant sensation, a deep horn blast penetrated the heavy snow from afar.
Trixie immediately ceased circling and turned her sharp dragon eyes to the ground.
That particular horn signal meant only one thing—the Abyssal Rift had spawned demons again.
From above, she could see the guards around the rift quickly converging from all directions, and in the center of their circle, the once-pristine snow was rapidly taking on strange black-purple patches—an obvious sign that Abyssal miasma was seeping into the Material Plane.
Unlike the ordinary guards' tension, Trixie felt a surge of excitement.
From experience, this rift had never produced truly powerful demons.
More importantly, in the current extreme weather she could fight far stronger than usual.
"Time to let these demons taste humiliation!" The White Dragon licked her chin with her long tongue, then beat her wings fiercely and dove through the storm, dragging the hurricane down with her.
Boom!
With a sudden quake of the ground, the Abyssal Rift ripped open like a wound torn by an invisible giant hand, its exposed depths glaringly revealed.
Countless quasit poured forth like spurting blood.
These goat-sized, winged low-tier demons shrieked with excitement the moment they touched the main world's air.
Next came the manes—creatures with twisted torsos and limbs, grotesquely disproportionate.
They were followed by dretches, their skin covered in pustules and bulging cysts, exuding a reeking stench.
As the demons emerged en masse, their presence thickened the Abyssal miasma.
Wherever the demons went, snow rapidly melted and the earth rotted into sulfurous scorched soil. The surrounding air seemed stained dark; the boundary between the two worlds blurred here.
Ice Wall Technique!
The White Dragon reared her head and roared, a dragon-song spell.
With the sweep of her wings, ice walls shot up from the ground, splitting the demonic tide into segments and leaving only a single channel.
Elvy beat her wings and rose into the air at the same time.
She drew her bow; holy energy coalesced along the recurve bow into solidified arrows, which she loosed toward the center of the demonic swarm.
Whoosh—boom!
The high-temperature holy energy detonated into massive spheres of light, consuming and reducing those demons whose attributes were countered into gray ash.
The expanding Abyssal miasma was purged and evaporated.
Manes and dretches—unable to fly and trapped by the ice walls—were funneled through the remaining channel in panic, and were slaughtered by the prepared ogres and centaur warriors.
The quasit beat their tiny wings and surged into the air.
Thwack!
The centaur marksmen's arrows fell like rain, accurately cutting down quasit that tried to leap over the ice walls; almost every arrow struck its mark.
Trixie, meanwhile, focused on the elite among the quasit.
Clang!
With a crisp collision, a quasit elite—much larger and more muscular than its kin—reacted quickly and turned to knock away an incoming arrow with a small short blade.
But in the next second, a gust slammed in.
The White Dragon's body enveloped the quasit elite; her claws shot out, snatching it up and crushing it in an instant.
"Abyssal crawler! Tremble in fear!"
The great dragon laughed arrogantly.
Humiliating and slaughtering small demons always brought satisfaction to the White Dragon; the killing desire rooted deep within her was satisfied.
After that, the battle tipped heavily in favor of the defenders.
As time passed, demons were killed one by one.
Before long, thousands of demon corpses littered the ground; their black blood stained the earth, and from above it looked like a stubborn ink blot on a white world.
The wardens wiped blades on the snow to clean off demonic gore.
These low-tier demons hadn't inflicted many fatalities on the elite guards, but while fighting and dying they continuously released Abyssal miasma. Their blood had both corrosive physical properties and a psychological effect.
The wardens' actions became lethargic, and occasional flashes of violent emotion crossed their eyes as they struggled to repress the rising evil urges.
Elvy exhaled softly.
She had noticed the odd behavior of the other wardens before; this was not the first time.
Continuous combat against demons made warriors susceptible to Abyssal corruption, even being assimilated into demonic offspring and turning to slaughter former comrades.
The solution was to pull corrupted guards back and rotate in fresh ones.
After time, the recovered guards, tempered by Abyssal exposure, would have tougher wills.
But at that moment, the placid Abyssal Rift suddenly erupted with a renewed surge of miasma.
Two enormous, gaunt wings feathered with blade-like black plumage unfurled from the rift. A gray shadow flickered, and a grotesque demon unlike the others emerged into the storm.
It stood about five meters tall, with a hooked beak lined with serrations and deep-red compound eyes, small horns crowning its head.
Its skeletal frame and scales resembled a vulture, its feathers a mix of dark green and ash-black with exposed, pus-filled skin between them.
A sulfurous oil seeped from its body, vaporizing into a putrid steam on contact with the air.
A flomo demon—also called a vulture demon—appeared.
Whoosh—its wings flashed, and it instantaneously teleported behind an ogre. Its gaunt, razor-sharp talon struck into the ogre's thick neck skin, killing the guard with a single blow.
With the arrival of this vulture demon, many two-to-three-meter vulture demons burst from the rift and scattered in all directions, and more quasit, manes, and dretches surged out to form a demonic tide.
Five powerful vulture demon leaders flew out one after another.
This time the demons attacked with ferocity.
The appearance of the vulture demons shifted the battle.
Trixie and the centaur Elvy scanned the vulture leaders—creatures of incredible speed that could teleport—and felt a chill in their hearts.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Three vulture leaders focused on Trixie, zooming around her at high speed and leaving a sky full of afterimages.
Multiple strikes!
Ripping attacks!
The leaders' assaults hit the White Dragon. The first strike shattered her ice armor, the second tore through her scales and left a gory laceration with blood streaming.
The dragon roared and struck back.
But these demons were not weak; at equivalent tiers they were stronger than most beings. The three vulture leaders attacked in concert, repeatedly teleporting, using putrid cloud and fear cries, and pressed Trixie down.
Two other leaders targeted Elvy.
The winged centaur's pegasus bloodline and noble holiness both attracted their malice and their desire to brutalize her.
Whoosh!
An arrow Elvy fired was dodged as a vulture demon rolled its body aside.
Another leader dove from the flank and closed in. Elvy drew her greatsword, infused it with magical energy, and slashed hard, cleaving the demon and spilling its blood.
But before she could press the advantage, a cold wind struck her back.
Another vulture leader had teleported behind Elvy. She barely evaded but still felt the talons rake across her torso, sending sharp pain through her. The wound was torn and reeked of rot; like the White Dragon, she bled profusely.
One-on-one, she was not afraid of a vulture leader.
But now she faced multiple foes, creatures with extreme mobility, and the fight turned perilous.
"Sweet flesh, delicious souls."
"I've been dying to taste them."
The demons licked their bloody claws and emitted hoarse, cruel shrieks as they lunged again.
"You crawlers think you have the upper hand? Prepare to die."
Faced with the sudden disadvantage, Trixie did not lose her head in rage.
She smiled coldly and decisively crushed the emergency message stone hidden beneath her scales.
To her, although these demon leaders seemed dominant and were insulting and bullying her now, once far stronger reinforcements arrived the situation would reverse. She need not be outraged by temporary humiliation.
This would be the best proof of her newly realized "dynamic ecological niche" theory.