Chapter 146: Chapter 146: The Giant

“Chang Xia, here’s the salt!” Yadong called out loudly.

At his voice, everyone turned to look back toward the dense forest.

They saw Yadong carrying a basket on his back, Shankun with a vine-woven hamper, and Elder Yami leading the rest of the tribe, each person carrying a weapon.

“Senda, what happened?” Yami asked.

Senda rubbed his forehead and explained, “After Pukang killed the anaconda, he went berserk. I just managed to subdue him and had Maple Leaf and the others feed him a few bowls of snake soup…”

At this, everyone’s eyes widened.

Elder Pukang went berserk.

Even the fearless totem warriors behind Elder Yami couldn’t help but want to back away.

No wonder.

Elder Pukang’s “fists of love” were infamous for their power.

Getting hit by him hurt like hell.

No matter how you tried to dodge, you just couldn’t escape.

“Come on, don’t just stand there. Build a stove, find some rocks to grind into a stone pot, Elder Pukang is starving. We need a few more people to help process the snake. Nan Feng and I will help Chang Xia make the soup,” Maple Leaf said, taking charge.

“Yadong, Shankun, go dig up some cogongrass roots.”

“Stewing the roots with the snake meat and pork will help get rid of the gamey taste.”

Quickly, Maple Leaf got everyone moving. In this world, nothing was more important than feeding a hungry Elder Pukang.

If they didn’t fill him up, who knew how long he’d torment them.

At her words, no one dawdled. Following Maple Leaf and Chang Xia’s instructions, they split into groups—some building a stove, some grinding a stone pot, others cleaning the snake. Not a single person was idle.

In the distance, Chenrong and Kongshan were dragging the anaconda over.

Chang Xia had just finished laying out the seasonings and was adding salt to the cooked snake soup when she suddenly felt as though the sky had gone dark. Startled, she turned around and saw the anaconda looming beside her like a mountain.

“Holy crap—” Chang Xia blurted out.

She’d thought the snake looked huge from afar.

But up close—

Huge didn’t even begin to describe it. Chang Xia couldn’t find the words.

The anaconda was forty or fifty meters long and three to five meters thick. Chenrong and Kongshan had just dumped its body in a heap, and it looked like a mountain—or, if you walked around it, more like a long, winding wall.

At that moment,

Chang Xia finally understood why her tribe had always stopped her from leaving the settlement.

The prey she’d seen in the tribe before was child’s play compared to this. The truly gigantic beasts, she guessed, were always butchered and divided up on the spot, never brought back whole. Things like black-horned cattle or wild boars probably only counted as “medium-sized” in the eyes of the tribe, so they’d bring those back for butchering.

“Scared?” Maple Leaf teased.

Nan Feng grinned mischievously, waggling her eyebrows. “There are plenty of beasts in the forest just as big as this anaconda! Chang Xia, do you still want to go into the forest?”

“I am a little scared, but looking at this anaconda… I want to go into the forest even more! This is just too exciting!” Chang Xia said, her voice trembling with excitement.

Her beast form was barely the size of a single scale on the anaconda.

But staring at the massive snake, Chang Xia’s heart pounded—not with fear, but with exhilaration.

The Twilight Forest really was fascinating!

“I told you, you can’t scare her,” Maple Leaf said, poking Nan Feng’s forehead with a laugh.

It was obvious—Chang Xia was born with a big heart.

That was the most basic quality for a totem warrior.

If you let fear take over when facing a beast, you’d only put yourself in danger in the forest.

“What’s the story with this anaconda?” Yami asked.

She sat down next to Elder Pukang, glanced at him, then turned to Elder Senda for answers. Why would an anaconda show up in a small river? Still, the sudden appearance of so many snakes in the forest now made sense.

As a giant serpent, the anaconda can command other snakes.

Most of the snake swarms that appeared in the dense forest were summoned by the anaconda from elsewhere.

Now that the anaconda is dead, the remaining snakes have all dispersed.

However, just the ones that Changxia and the others killed earlier probably number in the thousands, and collecting them all will take quite some time.

“My initial guess is that it came from the Wei River. After all, you know the source of the Wei River is in the Moonwatch Mountains. There aren’t any anacondas living in the Wei Mountains themselves—anacondas prefer hot, humid forests, while the Wei Mountains are shrouded in mist and miasma all year round, and the temperature is quite low. The climate here isn’t suitable for anacondas to thrive; even the snakes here are mostly venomous ones.”

Elder Senda spoke calmly, his gaze lingering on the wounds covering the anaconda’s body.

He repeated what Chen Rong had said earlier, emphasizing that wanderers may have entered the Twilight Forest. The cold season had just ended, the earth was awakening, and it was clear the wanderers had begun to move as well.

Every year, there are wanderers who enter the Twilight Forest.

Still, Elder Senda hadn’t expected the Heluo tribe to encounter them in such a way.

“Later, send someone to Sacred Mount Kana to inform the shaman about the anaconda and the wanderers. Have the shaman pass the news about the wanderers to the Snake Tribe. As for this anaconda, let’s consider it a thank-you gift to the Snake Tribe.”

In the distance, Changxia and the others listened to Elder Yami’s instructions, feeling as if their eyes had been opened to a whole new world.

These days, even asking for a thank-you gift was done in such an unusual way.

“Agreed,” Senda said, very pleased with Yami’s decision.

He and Elder Pukang were of the same mind: since the anaconda had fallen within the Heluo tribe’s territory, it rightfully belonged to them.

Whether it was the anaconda’s meat, oil, or skin, all of it should go to the Heluo tribe. If the Snake Tribe dared to come knocking, they wouldn’t mind paying a visit to the Snake Peak tribe in the Moonwatch Mountains themselves.

Come to think of it, it had been a long time since the Snake Tribe had invited the Black Panther Tribe to the Moonwatch Mountains.

If the Snake Tribe did extend an invitation this time, the Black Panther Tribe would be more than happy to accept.

Changxia glanced at her suddenly excited tribespeople, exchanging bewildered looks.

Elder Yami hadn’t said much, so why were Maple Leaf and the others acting as if they’d been injected with adrenaline, all fired up?

“We damaged quite a few spots—what a shame,” Yami said with regret.

Senda replied, “That’s only because I reacted quickly. If I’d been any slower, Pukang probably would have smashed the anaconda to pieces.”

Looking closer, several wounds on the anaconda’s body seemed odd.

Elder Yami glanced at them and realized those strange wounds were likely the result of Elder Pukang gnawing on the anaconda while it was still alive.

That brute was clearly a madman.

Eating raw meat—he acted more like a wild beast than a civilized person.

“Does Changxia know?” Yami asked softly.

Clearly, she was worried Changxia might be frightened. After all, Changxia had been so well protected by the tribe that she was a bit naive in some ways.

Senda shook his head. “Maple Leaf and South Wind kept her away from it.”

“Good!” Yami nodded. “Maple Leaf and South Wind did well this time. Changxia is gentle by nature. We need to let her get used to things gradually, not overwhelm her all at once, or she’ll be scared.”

Changxia had no idea that this was how her tribespeople saw her.

“This soup is delicious—better than the last batch!”

“Changxia, have another bowl!”

Soon, Elder Pukang’s shouts echoed over the little river.

When he was hungry, Elder Pukang was not only greedy but also irritable. That’s why Elders Senda and Yami sat close to him—to prevent him from lashing out at others.

Watching the busy tribespeople rushing about, Elder Yami was glad she’d brought enough people. Otherwise, they really wouldn’t have been able to handle all the work.