Chapter 50: The Lion Clans

N’bayé in her lion form lay at the end of the cave where light could barely reach. She was cuddled with her limbs tucked in and her head resting on the floor.

She looked disturbed as if she had something weighing on her mind. Her eyes would occasionally glow brightly before becoming normal again.

She also looked different from before, her rune marks were now more spaced out and well-placed. The glow they emitted was dimmer than before and the lines were more precise.

N’bayé was thinking about the knowledge she had gotten from Kael. It would be a lie if she wasn’t shocked by the information.

Kael wasn’t just a slightly special lion, he was a very special lion whose existence was very crucial to the lion race.

But that wasn’t all, the information she got about the lion subspecies was also a lot. Many things she had never heard of before were mentioned.

Most of all was the use of magic. There’s a saying that the more you know, the more you realize that you don’t know much.

Now that N’bayé had all this information, she realized that she didn’t really know much about magic and was just using it in its most basic form.

The more she thought about it, the more a look of obsession clouded her eyes.

’But Kael… I didn’t think the knowledge he would give would be this heavy. And there’s the matter of his existence which matters a lot to us lions.’ N’bayé thought with a frown.

’This would change my original plans. There’s still ten years left to decide though.’

Just then, two lionesses walked to N’bayé. The cave was big enough for forty lions to hoard themselves within so it would be hard for two lionesses to bump into each other accidentally.

These two were coming to her with a purpose. It surprised her a bit as most of the lionesses barely came close to her in the past two days since she joined the pride.

The bond between the eight lionesses was such that it would be hard for another lioness to join out of the blue and expect to be treated the same way.

The two lionesses that were coming were Katari and Nalii. Nalii’s vibrant green fur really made her stand out but in the forest, it sometimes acted as a form of camouflage.

Her horns were growing out fast, looking like short black antlers that grew backward.

Katari had her usual indifferent and cold gaze, it was now at a point where she was not aware that she made others uncomfortable with how she looked at them.

"Greetings N’bayé," Nalii said warmly while Katari remained quiet.

"Hello Nalii, how are you doing?" N’bayé asked nonchalantly, not putting any significance to her words.

"I’m good, thanks. We just hunted down two deers and we were wondering if we should bring you some." Nalii seemed to be truly interested in sharing the kill.

"No thanks, thanks for asking though," N’bayé said, choosing to respond politely to Nalii’s kind words.

"Really? We haven’t seen you eat something these last two days." Nalii’s brows furrowed with suspicion in her mind.

"Don’t worry about me, I can go a week without feeling hungry as long as I eat enough and don’t expend my energy." N’bayé shook her head.

"Oh," Katari finally said.

"Well, okay then," Nalii said, her ears dropping beneath her black antlers. Both she and Katari turned to leave and N’bayé was about to resume her thinking, oblivious to their inner thoughts.

"N’bayé, can I ask for something?" Katari suddenly turned and asked in a cold voice. Nalii also turned back, seeing that Katari had decided to ask.

"What do you want?" N’bayé asked, she had guessed that these two did not come just to share their meat with her.

"Back then, you mentioned coming from a clan. You also seem to know a lot about this clan thing. We would like to know more." Katari asked as she sat down, as if she knew N’bayé was definitely going to answer her question.

"So, you want to know the next direction our pride could be going next, right?" N’bayé chuckled as she too sat up. Her form towered over the two lionesses as she looked down at them.

"Yes," Nalii said, most of them had already gotten used to N’bayé’s large size by now. "We want to learn so that if there is any way we can assist my son in attaining more power, we would be more useful."

"I see," N’bayé muttered, "Okay then.

A lion clan is usually made up of more than one pride with one of them as the dominant pride that leads the other prides.

Lion clans are usually formed when the numbers start to matter. To govern a large territory, a pride leader needs more than just his consorts.

Let’s take Kael for example, he seems to have no intention of allowing a male to enter as a pride member which is not unusual.

But if he wants to govern all this territory by himself, with just you guys, he’s going to find it hard. Even if you guys reach a power level where your roar can cover vast amounts of land, there will still be more land that it cannot cover.

What Kael needs to do is delegate to other prides who will be subservient to him.

In most cases, these subservient prides are in some way related to the dominant pride.

Maybe the pride leaders are sons of the dominant pride leader, maybe brothers, given that these pride leaders are males of course.

The blood ties serve as an added layer to ensure loyalty and interest alignment.

This way, the dominant pride leader and his consorts would not have to do everything by themselves.

Another thing is that in many regions, the lions automatically assume the position of royalty and would kill anything and anyone who dares to show sovereignty over them.

Within the clan, their titles are very guessable. The dominant pride leader is called the king, while his consorts are just called the king’s consorts.

A subservient pride leader is called a prince and his consorts are called prince’s consorts.

In some extremely rare cases, the clan may be led by a female. She would be called a Queen. And if the subservient pride leader is a female, she would be called a princess.

But this is extremely rare and I have only heard of it happening once.

Anyways, as long as it’s a lion clan, it would be considered royalty irrespective of the gender in charge.

The clan I came from was not particularly powerful. The king and some of his consorts were at the same level as you guys when I left while the princes were just ordinary lions.

I was born in one of the princes’ pride and I stayed there until I luckily evolved to the next level and awakened my lionheart.

I was not like the king or his consorts who had shiny claws and teeth. I was smarter and I found it hard to settle for being the king’s consort, so I left.

I told myself that if I didn’t see much of the world, I would return. That is until I managed to kill some high-level beasts and evolved to my current level.

As it is, I am too intelligent and too strong to be okay with becoming that king’s consort.

Kael is the first lion I know to match me in terms of intelligence, and maybe strength in the future…"

N’bayé noticed that she was deviating from the main subject and paused. Nalii and Katari listened attentively to every word she said.

"If Kael wishes to form his own clan, it’s not impossible, but he would need subservient lions.

Maybe you guys should work on giving him children, don’t you think? After all, there would be no need to expel children away from the pride if he intends to create a clan."

Hearing N’bayé’s words and how casually she was saying it, Katari and Nalii instantly looked like they had swallowed a fly.

N’bayé saw their expression but acted like she didn’t care. From the way they behaved, she could gather that Kael had not touched them sexually, not once.

"What can we do in the meantime, to help build the clan? The thing is… the thing is…" Nalii stammered.

N’bayé shook her head, "So he hasn’t made any advances." She said.

’But he was looking at me strangely when both of us were at the clearing,’

"I don’t understand Kael much, but in the meantime, we should focus on improving your strengths and also expanding our territory.

Unfortunately, if we want to do that, we have to eliminate a lot of problematic figures in this mountain."

As N’bayé said that, her eyes emitted lights of mystery and intelligence.

Katari looked carefully at N’bayé. She just couldn’t find the power in her heart to trust this lioness.