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The night was slowly approaching and the sun was moving down the horizon, the skies were clear, it would be a beautiful starry night, and even the moon was big tonight, with the natural moonlight, the battle might be quite good for the lizardmen, or so thought Larzak, the chief of the Black Fangs, as he slowly made his way back to his tribe's settlements after having watched the sun slowly descend below the horizon.
The coldness of night did not brough him the usual tranquility he once felt. It didn't made him think that it was time to move back to his house, enjoy a nice meal with his family and then sleep with peace on his mind that there would be better days ahead. Instead, he felt a chill run down his spine and the coldness of the night felt more bone-chilling than ever before. It didn't helped that he was a lizardman, a cold-blooded living being similar to other real lizards.
His mind seemed troubled, the man was thinking about many things as of now, but one of the things that had him worried the most was the prospects of the near future, no, of the present that is about to unfold. The night only meant one thing within his mind; the fight was about to begin. The Scaled God had not allowed him to fight, and he would not fight, he had left his men to their own fate now, despite his hesitation, he could not do anything.
This was the first time since he was a child that Larzak had ever felt this powerfulness on his life, since those times when he was humiliated by his older brother and kicked out of the small tribe that the Black Fangs once made, ashamed and weak, he had to survive however he could in the cold, unforgiving, and deadly jungle. Many times he had close encounters with death, but in every encounter he survived, he grew stronger, his mind and his instincts were sharpened, and he became a stronger man.
His brother had defeated him by the traditions of his old tribe, which he had completely abolished as he slowly unified the tribes when he was a young adult. This rules stated that when a family had more than two same sex siblings, when both reached an age of maturity, both would have to fight, the one that was defeated would be forced to the outside world, and was only allowed to come back if he could be strong enough to defeat their brother or was already a young adult that could help the village… This harsh law that condemned to death one of the younglings was made due to necessity.
The Black Fang tribe in those times was going through incredibly tough days, the tribes in the deep layers of the jungle were in constant wars against one another for resources, the monsters outside were incredibly ferocious and the food they could gather and capture was limited due to these powerful monsters. But if that were the only case, it wouldn't had been as bad. The thing that stopped them from living as freely were the Beast Kings, they were the kings of certain beast tribes that dominated the jungle, taking over large territories and resources for themselves, leaving barely anything for the hungry lizardmen.
Because of the fear of provoking these powerful Beast Kings capable of slaughtering entire tribes, who only acted if they were provoked, the lizardmen had to not approach their territories and live with whatever was available in the "free territory" which had a limited amount of resources. Small creatures were often hunted by the beasts, leaving barely anything for the lizardmen to hunt or gather to eat, as they had not been able to develop agriculture or cattle due to the conditions in which they lived, they began to grow desperate over time, big tribes sustained by the bountiful resources of the land before the overpopulation of Beast Kings began to split up into many different tribes, led by leaders with their own ideals.
These leaders with their own ideals created their own separate and small tribes, and many of them designed their own ruthless rules to keep their populations small so they wouldn't end up exhausting their limited resources. This was a reason why pairs were strictly prohibited from having more children than the one they had at first, and when they ended having more due to their own passion which they could not contain at the time of heat, they had to make their children fight if both were of the same sex when the two reached maturity, which could often take a year or two for the fast-growing lizardmen.
This was a reason why the young lizardman was thrown to the wild in such times, out of necessity and desperation, as the tribe had no more food to feed another mouth anymore. He understood this well, although he still felt frustration over his own powerlessness, and also that his brother had acted so ruthless against him despite having taken care of him this entire time. Larzak learned in those times that without strength he would never be able to accomplish anything on his life. He worked harder than anybody, surviving, adapting, and ultimately hunting. Developing his double element magic, he defeated powerful and enormous beasts, and satiated his hunger by devouring their plentiful flesh and even using their mana cores to make rough concoctions by pulverizing them into dust, mixing them with water and tree sap, and boiling them into a hideous elixir that could increase his mana capacity and regenerate it faster, although he had to adapt to it and had many fevers in such times…
In those times, Larzak was a young boy that slowly grew bigger as he hunted and devoured, until the moment of truth when he provoked the rage of a young Beast King, fighting to the death for seven days and seven nights against the beast. In such battle is where he gained the many scars across his body, and the missing tip of his tail that never regenerated back.
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