On the snowy slopes of Mount Hakobe, at the outer edge of Vulcan territory.
Macao was still searching for traces of Vulcans, but his expression had turned completely puzzled and frustrated. Ever since Geno left, he had been searching for a long time without finding a single Vulcan. He honestly did not know what to say anymore.
"Ahh, what is going on. I heard there used to be plenty of Vulcans in this outer area. Why are there so few now?"
Macao scratched his head and sighed.
"Vulcans might be low-ranked monsters, but as ingredients they taste terrible no matter how you cook them. As materials for magical tools, almost nothing on their bodies is useful either, so they are not worth much at all."
That was true enough. Vulcans had little value. Most mages would not actively seek to hunt them, which meant that in theory, even in this outer region, there should not be so few of them.
What Macao did not know was that his timing was completely off. Right now was the period when a large number of Vulcans were fighting over territory. The winners earned the right to live in the central region of Vulcan activity, while the losers were driven out and forced to live here on the fringes.
Conditions in the outer zone were far worse than in the central area. The differences were not just in comfort either.
In the heart of Vulcan territory, the land was filled with dense snowy forests and unimaginably huge magic trees. Vulcans could carve out large hollows in those massive trunks and live directly inside them. As for the Vulcans exiled to the edges, they could only make their homes in crude ice caves.
More importantly, the magic fruit that grew on those enormous trees was their most important source for replenishing magic power. Vulcans living on the fringes had to scour the land for substitute magic fruits, which were hard to find and did little to help increase their magical strength.
Most crucial of all, the Vulcans in the central region had mates. Many female Vulcans lived there, and they did not need to fight over territory. They only had to wait to be chosen. The males who lost their battles for territory were expelled from the central zone and forced to survive in this outer belt.
Why did they not simply leave this place altogether? Mount Hakobe was not exactly small. They could easily try moving to other regions.
Unfortunately, Mount Hakobe was not only home to low-ranked Vulcans. Many other low-ranked monsters lived here as well, and higher up in the mountain there were numerous mid-ranked and even high-ranked monsters. Every powerful creature had its own established territory. If a group of expelled low-ranked monsters wandered into the domain of a stronger species, it would be no different from marching to their deaths.
There were indeed places that had not been claimed, but those were all resource-poor areas where only weak beasts and minor monsters could survive. Compared to that, staying here was still the better option.
"Ahh... how long do I have to search before I find a single isolated Vulcan. Maybe I should just go hunt some other low-ranked monsters instead."
Macao felt utterly helpless and was already thinking of changing his target. If Vulcans were this hard to find, and he could not risk entering the central zone, then switching to other low-ranked monsters seemed like his only option.
The problem was, if he changed targets now, it would be hard to explain things to his son, Romeo, when he went back. Saying he had taken down a bunch of Vulcans sounded impressive. But if he threw other monsters into the story, it would not make him seem particularly strong or worth boasting about.
"Forget it, I will keep looking."
Macao shook his head helplessly and was about to resume his search.
Just then, the ground began to tremble.
"Thud, thud... thump, thump..."
"What is that?"
Following the direction of the sound, Macao turned to look and saw that the commotion was being made by Vulcans.
"It is... Vulcans. That is grea..."
He had been on the verge of cheering. He had been searching everywhere for Vulcans, and now they were practically running to him. But when he looked more closely, his mind went completely blank.
"Why... why are there so many!"
He had been hoping for one or two Vulcans. The problem now was that there were far more than just one or two. What appeared before him was an entire herd of Vulcans, charging all over the place as if something terrifying were chasing them.
"...What on earth is going on?"
Macao quickly released his magic. Violet flames burst from his feet and lifted him rapidly into the air.
"How could there be so many Vulcans flooding into this area?"
He frowned and tried to think it through, but nothing made sense.
"Just now I could not find even a single Vulcan, and now they are all rushing here. It should be a good thing, but..."
The Vulcans were running wildly in every direction. If this had been an ordinary mountain instead of a snowy one, the entire ground would probably be covered in flying dust by now.
Floating in midair, Macao looked down at the panicked herd of Vulcans. At first he had thought it was a pleasant surprise. Now he realized it was closer to a nightmare. He could handle one or two Vulcans by himself, but with this many, he had no confidence at all.
"With so many Vulcans, there is no way I can deal with them alone. I should figure out what happened first."
Macao was not completely lacking in self-awareness. No matter how badly he wanted to hunt Vulcans, he knew there was no way he could take on a whole herd. Better to let go of his obsession for the moment and investigate what was driving them into such a panic.
"Alright, that is what I will do."
He glanced around, then dropped down in a direction where no Vulcans were charging through and began moving quickly toward the direction the herd had come from.
...
After Macao had been walking for some time.
In the central region of Vulcan activity, within a dense forest of snow and ice, massive ancient magic trees towered in every direction. Their branches were heavy with golden magic fruit.
Geno's figure stood on the snowy ground, shrouded in the stench of blood and killing intent. All around him, the corpses of Vulcans lay scattered and piled across the ice in every direction.
Very few of the bodies were intact. Severed arms and legs were everywhere. Some Vulcans had been separated from their heads, some had only a single arm remaining, and some were reduced to nothing but a solitary head.
Through the shafts of sunlight filtering down from the sky, one could see that Geno's eyes were still glinting with a blood red shine, a crimson cross pattern spinning in his pupils.
It was the mark of the Annihilation Eye being activated.
The Annihilation Eye was one of the divine, or rather demonic, eyes Geno had received from Legend of the Legendary Heroes. When activated, crimson cross-shaped patterns appeared in his pupils. It could directly absorb the power in the atmosphere to raise the limits of his physical body, and it could also devour magic, as well as human or monster flesh, to strengthen his body further. It was a terrifying cursed eye, the extent of its power truly fearsome.
The low-ranked Vulcans Macao had seen earlier on the outskirts of their territory were fleeing in panic precisely because they had witnessed the horror of Geno's Annihilation Eye in action, and had scattered from the central zone in blind terror.
Their magical attacks were meaningless against Geno while he was under the influence of the Annihilation Eye. Instead, their magic was absorbed by him and used as fuel to make him even stronger.
As for attempting to fight him with brute strength, that was an even worse idea. Geno's speed was so great that the Vulcans could not even blink before their bodies were torn limb from limb.
Faced with such a monster, the Vulcans who had originally wanted to eat Geno ended up doing nothing but fleeing for their lives.
"So these are the Vulcans Macao risked so much to defeat nineteen of, only to be possessed by the twentieth. They are far weaker than I imagined."
Geno had watched the anime. He had never seen exactly how Macao fought the Vulcans, but he had seen Natsu's battle with them. Back then, Natsu had suffered quite a few setbacks before finally managing to defeat the Vulcan-possessed Macao.
"Is it that Natsu is just too much of an idiot, always fooling around, or have I already become so strong that I cannot even gauge my own power anymore?"
"I barely used the Annihilation Eye at all, and in just an instant I have already wiped out over a thousand Vulcans?"
Geno muttered to himself as he casually flicked his right hand. The scattered Vulcan corpses on the ground were drawn toward the black mist emanating from his palm.
The dismembered bodies gradually faded and crumbled into nothing as they were swallowed, while Geno's own body felt only the faintest hint of improvement, so small it was almost negligible.
He had not bothered to thoroughly devour all of their flesh. Before the process had gone very far, Geno had already given a quiet shake of his hand and withdrawn the devouring black mist.
"What a pity they are all low-ranked monsters. Even with so many of them, it looks like they are still far inferior to a single high-ranked Icefang Snow Wolf."
As for that Icefang Snow Wolf he had defeated earlier, Geno had been too lazy to devour it at all. Now, looking at this endless sea of low-ranked Vulcans, he had originally thought that with enough numbers, they might at least bolster his physical strength a little.
He had not expected these low-ranked monsters to be so utterly worthless. Devouring them had almost no benefit to him.
"If it were a whole group of mid-ranked Vulcan Queens, maybe they could increase my physical abilities by a fraction of a fraction of a percent."
"But it seems there are not many Vulcan Queens here at all."
"Still hiding?"
The forest around him was dim, and the gigantic magic trees blocked out much of the light, yet Geno had long since sensed what was lurking nearby.