Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3164: Truevils

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Realm Of True Evil

Standing on the black-sand beach, I watched Mama Truevil subdue the hatchlings as they tried to climb over one another in their attempts to, as far as they were concerned, play with me.

From my perspective, however, their idea of playing involved ripping me apart and defiling whatever remained.

Seeing that, I felt even better about ordering Mama Truevil to burn the mangled remains of my previous body in the lava rather than feeding them to her hatchlings.

I had shortened True Evil to Truevil. I didn’t bother giving them a proper racial name because, according to the Dark Races, these creatures had never been given one until they chose one for themselves. They believed that naming them would somehow give them greater intelligence and strength.

It sounded absurd at first, but then considering that divination I did with Karl and Clown Mask had led me toward my goal in the Realm of True Evil without much obstruction and harm, I was beginning to believe in those things.

Truevils were incredibly powerful, yet primitive, almost like Neanderthals compared to the civilizations of the Myriad Realms.

The Dark Races’ greatest nightmare wasn’t the Truevil as they existed now. It was the possibility of them becoming intelligent and entering the Myriad Realms.

The Dark Races had created the Demon Merchant Code and had destroyed countless realms across the Myriad Realms, yet they were still terrified of these primitive creatures because they understood what would happen if Truevil ever developed the intelligence necessary to organize and leave this realm.

And honestly, I didn’t need much imagination to understand why.

Since entering this realm, I had encountered more Ruler-class existences than I could remember seeing in all my previous explorations. Even the forest growing across this turtle shell contained trees that had reached the Ruler class.

That was why I wanted to take the entire damn shell with me.

If ordinary vegetation could reach the Ruler class in this environment, I couldn’t help wondering what level the oldest and strongest Truevil had reached.

These creatures were practically inexhaustible, capable of surviving for absurd lengths of time and accumulating enormous reserves of energy. An army entering this realm would be throwing itself into a meat grinder that never ran out of power.

I couldn’t imagine anyone in the Myriad Realms being stupid enough to invade this place.

Just then, the hatchlings suddenly shouted at their mother before turning around and sprinting deeper into the island.

I looked toward Mama Truevil. I had her let them go. If they wanted to run deeper into the island and bring more Truevil here, I wasn’t going to stop them.

Yes, there was a tiny settlement of true evils on the shell island.

Now that I knew even Truevil were vulnerable to the World Calamity Seed, I had far less reason to be cautious.

The only thing I needed to worry about was encountering something genuinely powerful, perhaps a Truevil that had reached the peak of the Ruler class.

According to Mama Truevil, there were three other adults on the island, all females. The four of them had discovered the island together and divided it into separate territories, with each female claiming a section for herself and her eggs.

Their hatchlings, however, were free to roam across the entire island.

The adults were not.

Yep, Truevil were extremely territorial.

That alone explained why the Dark Races didn’t dare launch a full-scale invasion despite the Truevil’s primitive civilization. An invasion would give these creatures a common enemy and force them to unite against an outside threat.

Their territorial instincts weren’t limited to defending physical boundaries, either. They had no concept of sharing food supplies, hunting grounds, or other resources. The truce between the four females existed only because there was currently enough for all of them.

And it was temporary.

Once their hatchlings matured, the females and their newly grown offspring would inevitably fight over possession of the island.

Assuming there was enough food and enough resources to sustain everyone, that conflict might wait until the hatchlings became adults.

If the island ever ran short, however, the fighting could begin at any moment.

One had to remember what kind of creatures Truevil were.

They had survived the collapse of their realm’s ecosystem through cannibalism. If starvation pushed them far enough, they would eat one another without hesitation, even if it meant eventually turning on their own offspring and overriding whatever genetic instincts normally prevented them from harming their young.

Under normal circumstances, that wouldn’t necessarily have been a problem. The island could easily support another dozen adult Truevil.

The hatchlings were the real problem.

They were practically gluttons.

Their absurd appetite allowed them to accumulate the energy and nutrients necessary to mature at an astonishing rate. In fact, their growth could progress faster than the time it had taken them to hatch in the first place.

With four mothers and an entire generation of constantly growing hatchlings competing for the same ecosystem, I could already see how quickly a peaceful arrangement could turn into a feeding frenzy.

For creatures labeled as True Evil by Dark Races, the Truevil were surprisingly more maternal than most of the Dark Races I had encountered.

It reminded me of how the ancient Greeks called Egyptians, Persians, and other foreign peoples barbarians simply because they belonged to different civilizations and followed customs the Greeks considered uncivilized.

But that comparison was entirely wrong here.

The Truevil were not only primitive, but unlike those historical examples, they actually deserved the title of barbarians.

Their approach to parenting was brutally simple. It was similar to how birds eventually pushed their chicks out of the nest. The difference was that Truevil didn’t just push their young out of the nest.

The reason these female Truevil traveled all the way to this secluded island to lay their eggs together was simple.

The males liked eating one another’s eggs.

A secluded island provided the females with a safer place to lay and hatch their eggs, away from wandering males that might otherwise devour them. It also explained why several females had chosen to settle here together despite their territorial nature.

For the moment, their shared presence offered their offspring a measure of protection.

Once the hatchlings grew older, however, that protection would disappear.