[Why are you staring at me?] The dark fae tilted her head to ask.

[No reason, let me know if you feel any more pain.]

The dark fae nodded before zipping away to Typhon, and I stared around at the gathered snakes as more were getting up after their injuries had been healed.

It was simply astonishing to watch those that had been hurt not long ago, moving around again.

As for the few who remained unconscious, I instructed them to be moved somewhere more comfortable.

The worst of their injuries had gone, and I was sure they would wake up soon enough after their HP and SP recovered.

As for the healers, Europa was coiled around Lyra in a protective circle, but he had since fallen asleep and now the two were nestled together, their spotted patterns indistinguishable from each other as they slept.

I drew closer to examine them, but their steady breathing told me they were just exhausted and would recover soon.

I was extremely pleased with their efforts, so I asked the rest of the nestlings to leave them undisturbed.

While the nestlings regrouped, Typhon interrogated all the captains to find out what happened.

From the looks of their faces, there didn't seem to be much good news, and as they went away, I grew even more anxious of the absence of Ophelia. It was unusual of her not to come out and greet me first.

Typhon came up to me, but instead of telling me what was wrong, he led me down to one of the rooms below.

Inside, the captains were observing something with awe.

There were some bloodstains on the floor and when I looked around, I found Morgana.

She was wounded and bleeding, but she didn't seek treatment, instead she stared proudly at something white and fuzzy in the middle of the ground.

I approached it, but I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking at.

The creature was as large as Typhon, strikingly beautiful with an elongated body that coiled around like a snake.

However what confused me the most were the large plumes of feathery wings rising from the creature.

They sprouted along its back, sweeping the ground with their long feathers, causing a light breeze.

Through their gaps, I glimpsed two pairs of white horns, before the wings swept over the creature's serpentine body to hide it from view – as if it were an involuntary reaction to my presence.

There seemed to be more than one pair of wings across its long body. Some large, and others small, but they all seemed to work in sync, as they moved in tandem to shield the creature whenever anyone got close.

I counted at least three pairs, all pearly white in colour, along with the bright iridescent shimmer that made its scales almost glow.

I could already guess who that was and Morgana's proud and blissful expression as she watched the creature confirmed my guess..

It seemed Ophelia had evolved.

She still seemed to be unconscious and I didn't want her evolution process to be interrupted. So I quietly backed away, which led to Ophelia's unsettled wings to calm down as well.

I sighed. Was I pleased?

Was I pleased?

Of course!

But I wasn't happy with my nestlings' careless actions.

It occurred to me that she was upset with me for only taking Typhon along, but I did not expect her to go out of her way to expedite her own evolution.

It was pretty, and she radiated a strong aura, but her evolution was one that would have happened regardless. But now that it did at the expense of the other nestlings, I had to say I was disappointed with her.

Morgana was clearly injured, and when she came forward to speak, Typhon glared at her in anger. For whatever reason he was not pleased with her and when I asked him why, he responded with a single word.

[Reckless.]

His sharp hiss made Morgana draw back in fear and while I agreed with him, I didn't have all the details of what had happened yet, so I left Ophelia to recover on her own, instructing Morgana to go and get some rest, after feeding her a [Healing Potion].

We made our way back up to the injured snakes, where the corpses of all the dead scorpion creatures were being gathered to use as food. I knew Ophelia would be ravenous when she woke up, so I kept the body of the huge ape aside for her to consume.

All the other corpses were taken away and the injured nestlings were placed in empty spots to rest. As for the crater at the entrance, it would have to wait until I get my [Dimensional Box] back before I could fill it with debris.

Soon the order in the cave returned to normal, and I called for every captain to gather before me.

Artemis looked like he really wanted to explain what happened, so I called the dark fae over to listen in and relay their words.

According to him, it all started when Cygnus went out scouting for prey. He stumbled upon a group of seven scorpion creatures in the forest and they surrounded him to attack.

Being equally quick on their feet, he couldn't properly outrun them and there were too many to fight off, so he managed to lure them far away and it was only due to his speed that he managed to escape.

But unfortunately, they proved persistent and tracked his scent which made them learn the location of their cave.

The group attacked shortly after and every nestling had to rally around and defeat them in the underground tunnel where there wasn't much freedom of movement.

But due to how easily they found their cave, Ophelia feared a second attack, and so she followed Cygnus out to where he originally spotted the creatures, and then traced their scent back to find their den.

It turned out they lived very close to their cave and Ophelia decided to observe them for a while.

And while she waited, she saw several more groups leave the den to hunt and more returning with prey. Which made her realise, the absence of the ones they had killed would be noticed sooner or later.

She feared another group would be sent after them, or that the entire colony would storm their cave to find out what had happened. So she organised the nestling into teams to attack each group as they left the den, hoping to eradicate their numbers.

And they were greatly successful at first.

While Ophelia uses her compulsion to cause confusion, sometimes killing them within their teams, and other times forcing them to flee separately. Artemis arranged for those that survived to be lured into an ambush, where they were picked off one by one.

Because of their superb sense of smell, each snake was instructed to disguise their scent either with dirt or water so that the kills would not be traced back to the cave, and so far everything went according to plan.

They were able to kill many groups of the creatures, and were disguising their scent in the lake in order to return to the cave, when they stumbled into an even larger version of the scorpion creature, four times as big, with a pitch black stinger coated in deadly poison.

The snakes fought fiercely, but they couldn't overcome it even with their numbers, because it had the other smaller scorpions support as well. They tried to retreat, but they feared they would be followed, so Ophelia and Morgana chose to delay it, while the other teams fled.

In the end Morgana had been stung by one of the smaller scorpions, but Ophelia was able to deal enough damage to the large one, to make it stop chasing them, and only then were they able to retreat.

But unbeknownst to them, their battle had been witnessed by a large ape creature up in the trees, and it followed them back, before storming their cave.

It blasted through the entrance, and wreaked havoc by throwing rocks, injuring many snakes in the process.

To stop it, Ophelia had to use her compulsion repeatedly, slowing down its attacks before ordering the rest of the snakes to attack at once.

But it was so strong that it took several attempts to get near it, leading to so many injuries. Eventually they were able to attack it from all sides and bring it to its knees.

No matter how powerful it was, it could not withstand the poison coursing through its system after being bitten so many times.

And finally, Ophelia dealt the finishing blow which led to her evolution.

I listened patiently to the entire report translated by the dark fae, despite brimming with anger on the inside.

I thought my captains were smarter, but they had risked a war with two different groups of monsters all because one of them had been attacked. How could they do something so stupid?

Who knew how many of the ape creatures had noticed our location? Just because only one of them had attacked, didn't mean there weren't others watching from above.

Also the scorpion creature den they had found.

Would the creatures take the deaths of so many of their members lightly? The large one that found them had probably been sent out to find out why none of the other groups had returned.

And it survived, which meant they now knew who had attacked them!

I couldn't begin to think how I would diffuse the situation to stop the two creatures from reducing my newly built cave to rubble.