Chapter 36

“New home? What do you mean?”

Alice had not understood what Hopper had said. As the spider silk fell from her head, her vision continued to recover.

The scene in front of her completely overturned her understanding of the ‘nest’.

The first thing she saw was the ‘walls’ that Hopper had erected with spider webs and reed poles.

The walls divided the open space into several ‘areas’.

In each area, there were many strange ‘creations’ made of calamus and calamus leaves.

The ground was not wet soil, but a ‘carpet’ made of reeds.

Looking at the nest made of reeds and calamus combined with spider webs.

Alice, who could not understand at all, muttered to herself, “shouldn’t a spider’s nest be a pile of spider webs and silk

“Who told you that a spider’s nest must be like that?”

Seeing Alice looking at the scene in front of her, she was a little dazed.

Hopper began to ask questions, trying to divert her attention.

Then he lowered his head and untied the ball of spider silk on her body that was dyed red with blood.

“It’s my father. He’s the king of our stone-scaled lizards.”

Hopper found that when Alice answered this question, her emotions sank into the sadness that he was very familiar with.

It was as if she was recalling some things in the past, so she continued to ask questions.

“Oh? So, in that case, you’re still a princess?”

“Yes, in the past…”

“What about now?”

“…”

By asking questions and guiding her emotions, Hopper was in the process of stitching up Alice’s wound.

He had a rough idea of the distribution of power in this swamp.

For example, the source of the upper reaches of the swamp was the waterfall that Hopper jumped down from.

The tide-summoning boa race, which liked to be clean, occupied the clearest water area.

The tide-summoning boas were naturally unique. They were able to occupy the waters that were coveted by most of the monsters for a long period of time.

As for the strength of the tide-summoning boas, it could be seen through the color of their scales.

The lighter the color, the stronger the strength. Hence, a mechanism similar to ‘last man standing’ appeared.

After the end of the ‘Molting’ that represented the increase in strength several times a year.

The darkest group, which was also the weakest group, would be attacked by the powerful tide-summoning boas.

They would be expelled from the clear waters.

This would ensure that the overall strength of the group would not be dragged down.

As for the expelled tide-summoning boas, they could only develop in the middle and lower reaches.

In this process, they would inevitably have fierce conflicts with other groups.

The first to be affected is the blue-spotted frogs, which occupy most of the middle reaches of the river.

However, contrary to the tide-summoning boa, they like to live in muddy swamps.

So, whenever the tide-summoning boa, which likes to be clean, tries to clean up the middle reaches of the river polluted by the blue-spotted frogs, the ‘native’ blue-spotted frogs jump out to stop them, and the result is a fight.

The individual strength of the tide-summoning boa was far superior to the blue-spotted frogs.

However, the number of tide-summoning boas that were eliminated each year was limited.

Compared to the entirety of blue-spotted frogs that lived in the swamp for a long time, even if one of them could fight ten of them, in terms of overall combat strength, it was still a huge disadvantage.

Moreover, being eliminated meant that they were the weakest group of tide-summoning boas.

Therefore, the tide-summoning boas that were eliminated had been squeezed out of their limited living space by the blue-spotted frog monsters, the dominant species in the middle.

As new tide-summoning boas were eliminated every year, the gap between them and the blue-spotted frog monsters was shrinking.

Although their overall numbers were still far from the blue-spotted frog monsters, the previous tide-summoning boas had mutated after adapting to the dirty water.

Their originally dark gray scales had brown spots or patterns on them.

Not only did they gain a strong poison resistance against the blue-spotted frog, but the corrosive nature of their acid secretion had also been strengthened.

This resulted in the overall strength of the mutated rotten teeth boa gradually catching up to the blue-spotted frog after their numbers were replenished time and time again.

After several exchanges, the number of deaths and injuries began to increase.

The blue-spotted frog clan was obviously aware of this problem.

After weighing the pros and cons, the blue-spotted frog clan proposed an alliance with the rotten-fang boas.

Alice did not know anything about the alliance.

She only knew that after that, the blue-spotted frogs and the rotten-fang boas began to expand their territory downstream.

As for the stone-scaled lizards, they lived near the waters downstream.

After the already muddy waters were polluted again, the stone-scaled lizards, whose living environment was constantly being squeezed, did not choose to retreat.

They started a big battle with the blue-spotted frog and the rotten fang boa.

Alice’s father, the king of the stone-scaled lizards was surrounded by the blue-spotted frog and the rotten-fang boa in that battle.

Not only was he heavily injured, but he was also poisoned. His wounds continued to corrode and fester.

There was no way to treat him, and he died painfully a few days ago.

The children of the stone-scaled lizard king were not strong enough to convince the public. Therefore, the burden of leading the stone-scaled lizards to resist the invasion of other races temporarily fell on the shoulders of Alice’s uncle Lawrence.

When Alice, who had the epic-level evolution, the ‘Stone-scaled Dragon’, grew up, she would lead the stone-scaled lizards and blow the horn of the counterattack.

It was also because Alice was evolving toward the epic-level monster, the Stone-scaled Dragon.

It allowed her ‘spirit’ attribute to be far higher than other stone-scaled lizards, and she could communicate with hope through spiritual communication.

“It’s all sewn up. If you move around and open the wound again, I won’t care anymore.”

Hopper said as he admired his masterpiece. Under the perfect stitching of his spider silk.

He believed that the wound on Alice’s body would be completely healed in a few days.

This was also thanks to Hopper’s constant conversation with Alice, who was immersed in memories, during the process of stitching up the wound, to divert her attention.

It allowed her to try her best to avoid the situation where her muscles tightened due to the pain, making it inconvenient for her to stitch up the wound.

Moreover, after all the wounds on Alice’s body were completely stitched up.

Hope had also gotten quite a lot of information that he needed. At the same time, he also solved some of the doubts in his heart.

“No wonder every time I see you these three days, you have a sad expression on your face. So it’s because your father passed away…”

“Thank you, benefactor. I will definitely pay attention to the location of the wound when I make my move.”

Although the wound was still hurting faintly, Alice knew that she was out of danger.

At the same time, she also realized that this big spider was not hostile towards her.

Therefore, she no longer called Hopper ‘big spider’. Instead, she brought up some questions that she had been holding back for a long time.

“Oh right, I still don’t know how to address you after chatting with you for so long. I can’t keep calling you my benefactor, right?”

Upon hearing Alice’s words, Hopper nodded without hesitation.

“That’s true. You can just call me master.”