Prime Originator

"Huh?" Aria gasped before asking with surprise, "How did we get surrounded so suddenly? Where did they all pop out from?"

"Under the ice," Leon stated.

After Aria heard his answer, she glanced down with surprise. However, she couldn't tell anything simply by looking at the ice surface.

It was semi-transparent, but it didn't reach very far before turning completely white. As such, Aria couldn't confirm whether hollow spaces existed under the thick ice.

Nevertheless, since Leon already said the Winter Cats came from under the ice, a large hollow space must exist.

Even so, she did not see any entrances on the way back to shore.

"I don't remember seeing any holes along the way. So it's rather strange that we would be surrounded by Winter Cats so quickly and so subtly," Faelyn mentioned her doubt.

Leon smiled and said, "That is because you completely missed all of them along the way. There's actually quite a lot of them. You can even say they are like rabbit holes."

Aria suddenly thought of something.

Since they had arrived straight at the edge of the frozen sea, they had been making their way their south back to the shore.

She had seen numerous frozen waves, big and small ones, along the way. However, she had only seen them from the backside and never the front side.

After Aria glanced back towards the north, she immediately spotted the holes hidden right under the cover of the frozen waves.

"No wonder we didn't see them on our way back to shore," Aria uttered, prompting Darlene and Faelyn to glance at the northern sea direction as well.

After seeing the openings under the frozen waves, they understood the situation.

"Well, it doesn't look like the rest of the Winter Cats are looking for a fight—at least, not yet," Leon uttered before he unpinched the Winter Cat's neck and returned its freedom.

In that instance, the Winter Cat ignored the remaining pile of sea monster meat. It circled around Aria, Darlene, and Faelyn's feet before hopping off to join the other Winter Cats in the distance.

The group noticed the small Winter Cat stopped in front of an adult-size Winter Cat and meowed.

"I wonder what the Winter Cats are saying to each other… What do you think, son?" Elizabeth sought Leon's opinion.

However, Leon didn't understand any cat language. Thus, he couldn't give a precise answer.

"The little one is probably informing its parent about how much good food we have, probably…" Leon replied before adding, "Now is probably a good time to bring out more of the goods. They all look hungry."

"We have to feed them all!" Aria said with strong conviction as if she had just found her life's purpose.

Seeing so many hungry Winter Cats, Aria felt compelled to feed them all.

She immediately unloaded large amounts of sea monster meat into the empty ice surface in front of her, forming a giant mountain of sea monster meat.

Shortly after, Aria drew her Tier-7 Divine Sword and sliced up the mountain of sea monster meat into numerous smaller pieces.

The seafood was quickly prepared, more than enough for each Winter Cat to grab a few pieces of themselves.

However, none of the Winter Cats approached the sea monster meat even if they were starving.

"Aren't they hungry?" Faelyn wondered.

"Looking at how skinny the adult Winter Cats are, there's no doubt that they are starving. However, they are waiting for their leader's command," Leon stated while scanning the tribe of Winter Cats.

Before long, his gaze locked on a Winter Cat, whose body was riddled with scars and missing patches of fur, and assumed it to be the leader of the tribe.

It might look weakened, but its aura was certainly a cut above the rest. Furthermore, the nearby Winter Cats were all giving it undivided attention.

Even so, its strength was surprisingly around Early Paragon.

Leon wasn't sure if the tribe leader of the Winter Cats had unlocked its spiritual wisdom. However, he still uttered, "Please accept our gift and feed yourselves. The sea monster meat is safe to consume."

Shortly after, the leader of the Winter Cats approached the sea monster meat and took a bite before the rest of its tribe members.

Only after deeming the sea monster meat safe for consumption did it signal the rest of the Winter Cats to eat.

"Meow!" the leader of Winter Cats cried.

In the next instance, the Winter Cats in the area all rushed towards the sea monster meat in a frenzy, competing among themselves for more sea monster meat.

It quickly became a chaotic mess.

However, after the leader of the Winter Cats growled, the frenzy died down, and the Winter Cats became more organized.

They grabbed as much sea monster meat their mouth could hold before moving on for the next group of Winter Cats to take their share.

As that happened, the leader of the Winter Cats approached Leon's group.

"I know not why you came to our tribe nor why you are willing to part with such a large amount of precious food. However, I, Monarch Blizzardpaw, thank you for the generous gift," said the leader of Winter Cat Tribe.

Monarch Blizzardpaw's voice was surprisingly aged like an elder in his first thousand years. Evidently, it had lived for quite some time before even the last Cataclysm erupted.

Nevertheless, before anyone from Leon's side could respond to the intelligent Paragon-level Winter Cat, the little Winter Cat from earlier returned to their side.

The little one circled Aria's feet and rubbed its cheeks against it, causing Aria's heart to melt.

"Ah, you are so precious!" Aria exclaimed after picking the little Winter Cat and rubbing her cheeks against its soft white fur.

"It seems Snowhisker is quite fond of you," Monarch Blizzardpaw calmly said to Aria, but he was inwardly surprised.

Monarch Blizzardpaw didn't expect uncontrollable Snowhisker to be so well-behaved and attached to the humans in such a short time.

"So your name is Snowhisker," Aria beamed while looking at the little Winter Cat.

"Meow!" Snowhisker responded.