Fire root swamp
"Before I forget, why is Regalo called a Thunderbolt Willow and not a Mouse Willow?"
Da Morte's system replied, "It is because he has climbed a level higher in his species evolution ladder! The same applies to his siblings!"
"Right, his siblings are also Thunderbolt Willows."
He began meditation and was soon lost in inner peace.
Regalo wasn't interested in cultivating. Instead, he watched over his guardian. If a Mouse Willow got close to Da Morte, he would scare it off. After a while of scaring off a few Mouse Willows, no other Mouse Willow dared to come close.
Three hours went by. Da Morte was still cultivating.
His system interrupted him, "Regalo demands feeding! Feed Regalo now or he will suffer from a seizure!"
"What?" He said after snapping out of meditating.
His system repeated the information.
"F**k it! Are all Mouse Willows so demanding and annoying? Can't I have some peace?" He complained to the sky.
Regalo roughly caressed Da Morte's left arm.
He said with irritation, "Fine, we will go search for food."
He asked his system, "What do Thunderbolt Willows eat?"
"Thunderbolt Willows eat fire roots like Mouse Willows!"
He spoke openly to his system, "Do you think that the Shepherd Willow has available fire roots?"
Regalo growled at him, as if to warn him.
"Regalo says that going to ask the Shepherd Willow for fire roots is a bad idea! That would be trying to overstay our welcome!"
Da Morte looked scornfully at his demon pet ward and said, "So you are saying that we should leave the hill top and find fire roots?"
He looked away and scoffed, "F**k! I hate parenting." He asked his system, "Hey, can I return to the hill anytime I want?"
"If you don't come back with trouble anytime you return, you are always welcomed!"
"Is that what the Mouse Willow said?"
"Technically, yes!"
"Great! Regalo lets go and find you a meal. I may also find some for myself."
Da Morte and Regalo descended from the hill. Da Morte was an intelligent bookworm. He had read books that recorded the kinds of vegetation, terrains, demon pets and their characteristics. From those books, he knew that fire element creatures like Mouse Willows don't stay far from their food source.
Some hours ago, when the Shepherd Willow had granted him permission to stay on the hill, he saw a Mouse Willow return with a fire root.
Fire roots looked like sprouting onions. The fire root bulb was as big as a table tennis ball.
Da Morte and his demon pet walked for almost two kilometres before they could find their targets. They found a fire root swamp. Unfortunately, the swamp was being guarded by a band of yelling-centaurs.
The "yelling" in yelling-centaurs referred to the raging flames that burned all over their bodies. The burning flames made every yelling-centaur seem like they had the same face.
The swamp was under attack by a swarm of 3 foot long red-quetzalcoatl. The swarm had seven hundred and twelve members. The red-quetzacoatls were fire element demon pets.
The swarm of red-quetzacoatls and the retaliating yelling-centaurs were all normal class demon pets. But the attacks from the quetzacoatl swarm were more powerful than those from the yelling-centaurs.
The yelling centaurs lost a bunch of fighters. The quetzacoatl swarm noticed the situation and wanted to capitalise on the advantage. They unleashed attacks that were more aggressive.
The yelling-centaurs lost courage to continue fighting and fled into the swamp. From a kilometre away, Da Morte and his demon pet watched the fight.
If one looked far into the swamp, one could see that there was a central fire root. The fire root was distinctive from the rest because half of its bulb was above ground and its bulb was enormous. That fire root's bulb diameter was half a kilometer.
Da Morte activated his long range vision to see what was around the central fire root. He could feel fire-based qi emanating from the fire root. He saw a yelling-centaur meditating close to the fire root. He instantly knew that something was off about that yelling-centaur.
A fire ball from a quetzacoatl hit the central fire root bulb. The fleeing yelling-centaurs stopped, then turned around and gasped. The quetzacoatls were surprised and confused by the behaviour and had to stop their attacks to look around for what went wrong.
The yelling-centaur that meditated close to the central fire root got up. He conjured an enormous fireball and fired at the quetzacoatls. It blew away fifty quetzacoatls. The fifty quetzacoatls died from the attack. All the other quetzacoatl were angered, and they faced the yelling-centaur.
The yelling-centaur fought the swarm. It attacked them with hails of fire from the sky. Hundreds of quetzacoatls were scorched to death in minutes. Fire root plants in the attack range were the collateral damage.
Da Morte gauged the yelling-centaur to be a noble class demon pet.
There were more than a hundred quetzacoatls left. They tried to fight smart, so they formed a formation and attacked in an aggressive pattern. Their plan worked immediately. Their attacks forced the yelling-centaur to create a fire-based force-shield to defend it from their attacks.
The quetzacoatls tried to go round him and attack his vulnerable sides, but the yelling-centaur repelled them with violently dissipated fireballs.
The quetzacoatls were forced to attack from the yelling-centaur's front side. The attacks forced the yelling-centaur to occasionally go backwards. But in truth, the yelling-centaur was leading the swarm away from the swamp.
After minutes of fighting, the yelling-centaur and the swarm of quetzacoatls were outside the swamp.
Da Morte said to the open, "Those a**holes messed with the wrong centaur. Regalo! Shield!"
A split second after Da Morte finished his speech, the yelling-centaur unleashed an AOE flame attack. The flames scorched everything within 1.2km.
The shield Da Morte instructed Regalo to make was lifesaving. The shield saved Regalo and his guardian from the flames.
Da Morte asked his system, "What grade is Regalo?"
"Regalo is on the brink of entering the eight tier!"
"Good," he replied with a sinister voice, "Regalo is soon going to have a taste of combat experience like his mom."
BOOM! BOOM! Two unexpected indigo-coloured fireballs blasted the heroic yelling-centaur who was still catching its breath.
"Nice one, Regalo!" Da Morte complimented his demon pet.
He and Regalo charged at the yelling-centaur.
The yelling-centaur crashed-rolled on the ground. His body burned from indigo flames, which hurt it. It yelled bitterly, and his normal body flames returned.
Da Morte integrated with the Mouse Willow fire spirit. His fire element power increased tremendously. He launched a massive fireball at the yelling-centaur. The yelling-centaur saw the attack and it lifted its left arm with its fingers pointed at the sky, thereby redirecting the attack to the sky. The fireball exploded in the sky.
Regalo was in a perfect position to attack, but he didn't. He waited for the yelling-centaur to switch attention to him, and then he attacked with a fireball from his tail. The yelling-centaur replied with its own fireball to cancel Regalo's. Unfortunately, Regalo's attack was too powerful. His attack cancelled the yelling-centaur's fireball and went forward to blast away the yelling-centaur.
Da Morte celebrated, "Woohoo!"
Regalo saw his guardian was pleased, and he howled at the sky in pleasure.