Samuel Clark took Henry Clark and three tribal barbarian warriors out of the village, following the mountain stream down the valley. They wanted to see if yesterday’s flash flood had washed anything good out from the deep mountains. Unexpectedly, it was Ethan Brooks, who hadn’t returned all night, that ended up with the biggest haul.

This black-scaled beast must weigh at least three thousand jin. After pulling it out of the water, carrying it was extremely difficult—let alone having to cross several mountain ridges to get back to the village. Samuel Clark told one of the warriors to hurry back and call for more people.

“You disappeared all night just to drag this thing back? Couldn’t you have come back first to let us know?” Henry Clark had worried all night when Ethan Brooks didn’t return, only to find out he’d spent the night outside for the sake of this dead beast.

“The flood washed it all the way to Wild Horse Creek,” Ethan Brooks said, catching his breath and struggling to sit up.

“……” Henry Clark smacked his lips for a long while before finally saying, “You really don’t care about your life.”

He knew the banks of Wild Horse Creek were within the Black Mountain tribe’s territory. If Ethan Brooks had come back to report first, the black-scaled beast might have already been discovered by the Black Mountain tribe. Still, he couldn’t imagine how the frail Ethan Brooks had managed to drag this black-scaled beast through the water for twenty or thirty li.

※※※

The people of the Black Python tribe had lived among the mountains since childhood. The seasoned barbarian warriors could traverse the mountains even faster than apes.

After a while, the warrior who had gone back to report returned with six or seven others.

Henry Clark saw that those who came with Grandpa Edward Clark were all important figures in the village, which made him even more certain that the black-scaled beast Ethan Brooks had dragged back was no ordinary creature.

“Heavens, it really is a black-scaled Jiao. The Black Python ancestors are blessing us!”

Unlike the tall and burly warriors of the Black Python tribe, Edward Clark, the tribal shaman, was a shriveled, skinny old man. Usually calm and composed, even he lost his composure at the sight of the black-scaled beast lying dead on the riverbank. His voice trembled, and his withered hand, like a chicken claw, gripped a bone staff polished smooth with age, shaking with excitement.

A black-scaled Jiao?

On Earth, terrestrial creatures with scales were rare, but in this world, there were many scaled beasts.

Ethan Brooks had even seen a giant scaled bird in Python Fang Ridge, which could tear a four- or five-thousand-jin wild bull to pieces with a single claw.

Still, Ethan Brooks never expected that the black-scaled beast he dragged back would turn out to be a Jiao!

The “Western Wilderness Chronicle” only briefly described the Jiao beast as “bull’s head, horse’s body, blue-gray scales, strength like a flood dragon.”

Young Jiao beasts had blue scales, which darkened with age, but almost no one had ever seen a Jiao with jet-black scales. Who knew how many years this one had survived in the depths of Python Fang Ridge?

And who could have imagined that this black-scaled Jiao would be struck dead by lightning deep in Mount Tu, then washed down by the flood?

Truly, the will of heaven is unfathomable, the power of heaven unpredictable!

“It really is a black-scaled Jiao?” Samuel Clark had suspected it might be a Jiao beast, but hearing his father Edward Clark say so made him hesitate. He asked, “Does this mean our Black Python tribe can hold another beast feast and ancestral soul ritual?”

Edward Clark calmed himself a little from his shock, grinned, revealing several missing black teeth, and said to his son Samuel Clark:

“Thirty years ago, you were all too young to remember. Back then, the Black Python tribe held a beast feast and soul ritual after hunting a young blue-scaled Jiao. This Jiao’s head is half gone, but these hooves, these teeth, and the naturally patterned scales—do you think I could be mistaken?”

Edward Clark then turned, took two Black Python pills from his robe, and pressed them into Ethan Brooks’s hand, saying, “Ethan Brooks, you’ve done a great service for the Black Python tribe this time. How should Grandpa thank you?”

Ethan Brooks scratched his head in embarrassment, smiling as he waved the two Black Python pills in his hand. “This is more than enough!”

Although the Black Python tribe was not a cannibalistic barbarian tribe, they would not casually take in outsiders of unknown origin.

The harsh living conditions and years of tribal bloodshed had made them extremely wary of outsiders.

Even three years ago, when Ethan Brooks looked only about ten years old and completely harmless, the Black Python tribe’s own children were starving—how could they have had the resources to take in an outsider?

Most of the tribe had wanted to drive Ethan Brooks away and let him fend for himself. It was only the shaman Edward Clark who insisted on taking him in, against everyone’s objections.

How could such kindness ever be repaid?

In these three years, apart from not teaching him the tribe’s martial arts due to ancestral rules, Edward Clark had taught him to read the tribal script and identify herbs, always with great care.

Ethan Brooks and Henry Clark both called Edward Clark Grandpa, and in truth, he had long regarded Edward Clark, Samuel Clark, and Henry Clark’s family as his own.

Even though he deeply longed to learn the Black Python tribe’s martial arts, he would never use his achievements to make demands or put Edward Clark in a difficult position.

“It really is a Jiao beast!”

The other Black Python tribe leaders who had come with Edward Clark still remembered the soul ritual held after capturing a young Jiao years ago. Even though this black-scaled Jiao on the riverbank had half its head sheared off by lightning, it was unmistakably a Jiao beast, and they could barely contain their joy.

Edward Clark knew that Ethan Brooks longed to learn the Black Python tribe’s martial arts, but seeing that the other leaders were unwilling to pass down their secret arts to outsiders, he sighed inwardly. No matter how precious, two Black Python pills could never compare to the value of this black-scaled Jiao beast.