Once upon a time there was a greedy snake.

Chapter 453 For Food

Most of the time, even without extra food, surface races rarely face a true food shortage crisis.

As for the reason, the Seed of Creation had never thought about it before, but now it seems very obvious—whether they are prisoners of war from other races or criminals from their own tribes, they are often part of the food supply.

The winner gets everything, the loser goes to the pot.

Even though the Seed of Creation itself has no concept of civilization, from its perspective of having come into contact with civilization, this method is still somewhat too barbaric. However, it is clear that these surface races also feel that this is not a solution, so no matter how tough the newly born plants and animals are, they will try to process them into something edible.

It might lack in taste, but something is better than nothing. As for using prisoners of war as food, putting aside the risk of infectious diseases, the dangers beyond infectious diseases are extremely terrifying.

This is a classic case that the Seed of Creation heard from these dwarves. It is said that a group of werewolves with sharp claws and fangs, relying on their fearlessness, directly destroyed the city-state of a group of goat-headed people. Normally, these goat-headed prisoners of war would definitely be cooked, since the werewolves were hungry after the war and needed meat to replenish their strength.

And the werewolves did just that; a group of goat-headed people were put into the pots, which were specially made large pots, each large enough to hold two or three goat-headed people.

Then, less than one in ten of the werewolf vanguard died.

It's not fair to say the werewolves weren't careful. In fact, everyone is cautious about anything edible. Even though they were exhausted and hungry and their eyes were practically glowing with hunger, the werewolves still carefully examined the goat-headed people to make sure they didn't eat anything unclean.

However, this was not something the werewolves could decide. Their opponents were not stone pigs with mouthparts on their bellies and brains the size of walnuts, but rather legitimate intelligent beings.

The werewolves knew how to check, and the goat-headed people naturally knew how to hide. In order to avoid being tracked down by the werewolves, they deliberately took the specially prepared slow-release poison before the city fell.

The specially prepared poison evaded the werewolves' keen sense of smell, and the time difference allowed these goat-headed men to bypass the second layer of screening. By the time these goat-headed men were put into the pot, the poisonous blood had already seeped into their flesh. The toxins, which were specifically designed for werewolves, wiped out almost all the werewolf warriors who participated in the siege overnight.

Except for one skinny werewolf who survived because he was often bullied by his fellow werewolves and could never get a bite of meat.

Otherwise, no one would even know about this, simply because those goat-headed people cleared the battlefield at an incredibly fast pace.

It was thanks to this skinny werewolf's revelation of the truth that the other races realized that the so-called ruined city was nothing more than bait from the goat-headed people. They used a city as a price to exchange for one-fifth of the werewolf warriors, and then in turn seized one-fifth of the werewolf land, making a huge profit.

This unique tactic began to gain widespread recognition and even spread far and wide.

The idea that eating intelligent beings is dangerous has gradually become a widely accepted notion. After all, even if mutated plants and animals are poisonous, they are targeted toxins. But when it comes to intelligent beings, who knows what kind of drugs they have taken?

"No wonder..."

I'm starting to understand the Seed of Creation a little better.

No wonder the Ignivas have such a status; it turns out that monopolizing food really means monopolizing everything. After all, every living being, no matter what, still needs to eat.

Without food, death becomes inevitable; survival is the instinct of any living thing, so...

"Wait a minute?" Seed of Creation thought of a direction.

This caused it to immediately withdraw its consciousness from the wooden dwarf's body. Although it wasn't impossible for it to use the dwarf's body to reach the highest point, it was clear that such a speed was still too slow.

It has a faster method by itself.

Some of its roots deliberately rose to the surface under its control, and the trees that grew from these roots began to bear some edible fruits—in order to prevent a scramble, the Seed of Creation even deliberately controlled the amount of food.

Even so, as soon as these roots emerged, three races immediately rushed over.

The first to rush over weren't the werewolves with the best sense of smell, but the goat-headed people. These special races with goat heads and usually squinting eyes were the first to spot these precious plants. But just when the goat-headed people thought they could quickly move these precious foods away, the werewolves followed their scent all the way over.

Although the fruits growing on these trees are not meat, the werewolves have long since developed an omnivorous appetite, and given their blood feud with these goat-headed people, how could they possibly let these nemesis go easily?

While the two sides were fighting for food, a group of bats that had been hovering in the sky suddenly fell down, transformed into human form, and immediately unleashed dozens of spells at the two sides.

Clearly, this is a case of watching the snipe and the clam fight, hoping to reap the benefits as a third party.

However, this fisherman clearly underestimated the snipe and clam in front of him.

The goat-headed people are known for their cunning and ambush skills. When they were fighting the werewolves, how could they not have a backup plan? With just a whistle, more goat-headed people emerged from the shadows. Heaven knows when these reinforcements were called in.

As for werewolves... although they don't have the brains for it, their skin is thick and their lives are tough. After enduring the spells of these bat-men, they were still half alive. Moreover, the wounds all over their bodies did not weaken them, but instead made them even more ferocious.

As the ram-headed cult began chanting, these bat-men could no longer fly. The piercing bleating of the rams paralyzed their bodies, making it difficult for them to even cast spells normally.

Of course, the werewolves also suffered, but they didn't need to cast spells. As warriors, they became even more frenzied when faced with the demonic sounds—and right now, both the goat-headed men and the bat-men were exposed to the werewolves' sight.

In a matter of moments, corpses littered the field.

More deaths meant more reinforcements, a larger scale of war, and even the involvement of more forces. Soon, because of a few trees that could grow non-toxic bread, all the surface races were drawn into the melee.

"How did they start fighting?"

That's not what the Seed of Creation wants; it just wants to control a race first through food.

But the current situation... doesn't seem like a bad thing?

(End of this chapter)