"Great True Dragon, are you thinking about how to deal with the ordinary ogre warriors?"
Every species occasionally produced anomalies. Ugga Bonecrusher possessed intelligence no less than that of ordinary humans, far surpassing that of typical ogres. He was perceptive and guessed Garon's intentions.
For Ugga Bonecrusher, the past few days had been like a dream.
First, his brain had short-circuited, and he had provoked a true dragon, about to meet a miserable end in its belly. Then, unexpectedly, he discovered that the true dragon didn't kill him but, to the ogre's utter astonishment, learned Giantish in just a few days and even gave him a chance to replace the two-headed ogre...
He had been going crazy wanting to become the leader, so naturally, he wouldn't let go of such a good opportunity.
Moreover, submitting to a true dragon, even an immature one, wasn't a shameful thing.
Garon nodded calmly. Seeing Ugga Bonecrusher's hesitant expression, he said in a deep voice, "If you have any ideas, just say them."
He had already seen Ugga Bonecrusher's difference from ordinary ogres and didn't underestimate his brain.
Ugga Bonecrusher nodded happily, then thumped his chest, confidently saying in a muffled voice, "Ugga knows Serra's hobbies and habits and can lure him out of the tribe."
"As long as the Great True Dragon can kill Serra, all the ogres in the Bonecrusher Tribe will become your loyal servants."
Garon looked at Ugga in surprise, thinking what a good double-dealer he was.
To become the leader, he was willing to sell out the entire tribe to a dragon.
"If that two-headed ogre knew his tribe had such a double-dealer..."
Garon shook his head, mourning for the two-headed ogre.
After pondering for a moment, Garon asked for more information about the two-headed ogre, then had Ugga Bonecrusher point out the general direction and location of the Bonecrusher Tribe. He told Ugga to stay in the Ice River territory temporarily and not run off. Then, with a flap of his dragon wings, his figure disappeared into the vast night sky.
In the air, Garon looked down at the Ice River territory, which had already turned into a black dot, then retracted his gaze and flew towards the Bonecrusher Tribe.
He hadn't left any restrictive spells on Ugga Bonecrusher. Garon didn't know any spells yet, and he hadn't restricted Ugga Bonecrusher's movement, only verbally telling him to stay in the Ice River territory.
This was also a test to see if this ogre truly wanted to use Garon's power to become the tribe leader.
If he was really smart enough, Garon would still see him staying in place when he returned to the Ice River territory.
Otherwise, Garon would have to find a way to destroy the entire Bonecrusher Tribe instead of subduing it.
Whoosh...
Thousands of meters high in the sky, the whistling of the cold wind never stopped.
Without using magical abilities for assistance, adult dragons could fly at full speed for several days. If they controlled their speed, they could continuously fly in the air for half a month. By gliding with the high-altitude air currents to save energy, they could even fly for an entire year if they didn't mind the monotony.
This terrifying endurance was because dragons had a powerful heart as their power source.
A dragon's heart had four huge ventricles that pumped ceaselessly, providing a constant stream of power to the dragon's body.
Because of the dragon heart's strength, some scholars who studied dragons even described that if hard rock was placed in the heart of an ancient dragon, the dragon heart could crush it into powder with just one beat.
Garon's ten-meter wingspan was fully extended, gliding through the air currents, so his speed wasn't very fast.
He was just a young dragon, and he couldn't fly at full speed for several days yet. To maintain enough stamina to deal with unexpected situations, Garon chose the most energy-saving glide. Although the speed was much slower, it was more stable, and Garon wasn't in a hurry.
Due to the unique environment of the polar night, the extreme northern ice field was constantly shrouded in darkness, making it difficult to discern time.
However, Garon had an excellent sense of time and space, and was sensitive to the passage of time and changes in space, so he wouldn't misjudge the time.
He looked down and saw a peculiar small sunken basin.
The ice field basin was bowl-shaped overall, and within it, scattered small black dots were faintly visible.
True dragons had super-distance vision. As long as there were no obstacles in between, with a little concentration, they could see scattered snowflakes thousands of meters away.
Garon looked intently and clearly saw that those small black dots were simple and crude houses, casually piled up with stone blocks. There were also strong and sturdy ogres surrounding campfires with large iron pots set up, distributed around.
Yellowish thick soup bubbled and rolled in the large iron pots, and occasionally, limbs of unknown ice field beasts could be seen floating, looking quite terrifying.
Although named ogres, these creatures didn't only eat humanoid creatures.
They ate anything weaker than themselves, any living thing they could hunt. Some ogres in deep mountains and old forests might never have eaten humanoid creatures in their entire lives.
In the very center of the Bonecrusher Tribe, in a large stone house with several layers of animal hides laid on top, looking rather unusual, a three-meter-tall ogre was devoutly praying to a wooden spherical black sculpture, chanting words.
Its dark and rough skin, the characteristic black sclera and white pupils, were no different from other ogres.
The only completely different thing was that it had two heads close together, one large and one small.
Both heads had their eyes slightly closed, praying to the sculpture.
Suddenly, the two-headed ogre seemed to sense something and abruptly opened its eyes.
The eyes of the large head flashed with a light more intelligent than the eyes of the small head.
It picked up a slender staff from the weapon rack in the house, along with a large spiked club stained with congealed blood, strode out of the house, and looked around suspiciously.
After finding nothing unusual, the two-headed ogre looked up, all four eyes simultaneously looking at the high night sky.
But apart from some inconspicuous clouds, only the vast starry sky remained in its wide field of vision.
"Leader, what are you looking at?"
"Is there food in the sky?"
An ogre approached and, imitating the two-headed ogre, looked up sharply. After seeing nothing, it asked strangely.
Blue light flowed in the eyes of the two-headed ogre's large head. It continued to stare at the night sky and only retracted its gaze after a few minutes. The two heads looked at each other, then shook their heads and said, "Nothing, just a slight illusion."
After speaking, it returned to the stone house, put away its weapons, and continued its devout prayer.
As the two-headed ogre prayed, in a world invisible to ordinary people, strands of black mist like threads extended from the sculpture, touching the two-headed ogre's body like tentacles.
Each touch made the two-headed ogre's body tremble slightly, and the devout expression on its ugly face became even more intense.
High in the sky, Garon was surrounded by a cloud of dim, lightless mist that seemed to merge with the night sky. Seeing the two-headed ogre rush out of the house and suspiciously look around in his direction, his heart tightened.
"This two-headed ogre is not weak. It can vaguely sense me even from this far away."
If not for the spell-like ability Cloud Mist Spell he had mastered after his last hibernation, Garon estimated he would have been exposed.