The Herb Garden at the Foot of the Mountain
The herbalist was laying on the ground, while his blood trickled from his lips, his rough hands gripping the calf of one of his fellow villagers with desperate strength.
“These are mine… my herbs! You can’t take them—!”
“Yours?” The lean man sneered, kicking at him to break his hold.
“Is this mountain yours? This is our territory! You dare steal from our herb garden—the one we worked so hard to plant!”
The herbalist refused to let it go. To him, this garden was his family’s lifeline.
“Liar! These are mine—don’t touch them—!” He coughed violently.
The other two men laughed as they uprooted the herbs. Finally, the herbalist released the lean man’s leg and lunged at them, shielding the two most valuable plants with his body. No matter how they kicked and beat him, he wouldn’t yield.
When the white serpent arrived at the garden, this was the scene it witnessed:
The familiar herbalist protecting his plants.
Three men cursed and beat him.
Stealing his herbs?
So it had misjudged him. But was violence really necessary over a few common plants?
At first, the serpent merely observed.
Then—
The lean man’s face flushed red with fury, veins bulging. He raised his heavy chopping knife—meant for clearing brush—and brought it down on the herbalist’s back!
The blade wasn’t sharp, but the force alone split flesh. Blood gushed.
The other two men froze in shock. They were simple mountain folk—murder had never crossed their minds. The lean man’s madness terrified them.
“What are you afraid of? No one will know!” the lean man snarled, trying to drag them into his crime. “Are you with me or not?”
“Y-you—!”
“Spit it out!”
“Behind you—!”
The lean man instinctively turned—
A rush of foul, reptilian stench assaulted his nose.
Then—agony.
His throat pierced, his windpipe crushed in an instant.
A snake’s strike is one of the fastest in nature. In the blink of an eye, it can attack four times. Studies show that during a lunge, a serpent’s body endures 30G of force—thirty times the acceleration of gravity. In comparison, even the most elite fighter pilots black out at 10G.
The white serpent’s front fangs—folded against its upper jaw when not in use—snapped forward, sinking into flesh. Muscles around its venom glands contracted, injecting toxin.
Its venom wasn’t potent, but a bite to the neck was always fatal.
The lean man’s eyes bulged. He clawed at the serpent, body convulsing. Within five breaths, he collapsed, venom already reaching his brain.
No medicine could save him now.
Releasing the corpse, the serpent turned its gaze to the other two men.
They screamed, stumbling over themselves in their panic, vanishing into the forest within seconds.
The serpent didn’t pursue.
This was his first time killing a huma
Yet it felt nothing—no guilt, no turmoil. Just the same indifference as when it killed prey.
Twenty years in the wild had eroded his humanity.
The herbalist stared at the white serpent in terror.
Only now did he remember—this was no benevolent spirit.
It was a predator.
The serpent coiled its tail around the dead man’s ankle and dragged him away.
Somewhere in the mountains lay a forest dotted with two-meter-tall ant colonies. Those insects would appreciate fresh meat. If a few thousand ants died from residual venom, even better—their overpopulation was a nuisance.
Eating humans?
Too repulsive.
At the ant colony, the serpent pushed the body against the mound.
The vibrations sent the insects into a frenzy. A black tide surged out, engulfing the corpse.
From a safe distance, the serpent watched.
Flesh vanished.
Bones emerged.
Then even the skeleton disintegrated.
A life, erased before its eyes.
By noon, it returned to the herb garden.
The herbalist was quieter now.
From then on, his eyes held fear when he looked at the serpent.
His words dwindled to silence.
Perhaps he thought the white serpent had eaten the lean man.
The serpent didn’t care.
As the weather cooled, migratory birds from the north brought rare liveliness to the forest.
The herbalist harvested his matured plants and left.
The garden withered.
The serpent resumed its solitary life, cultivating daily.
As its practice deepened, its need to hunt lessened.
Snakes could go weeks without food. Normally, it ate every ten to fifteen days.
Now, it stretched to twenty.
A blessing for the local prey.
Each dawn, it cultivated.
At sunrise, it rested.
If its body grew too cold, it basked in the sun.
Time flowed like the mountain streams.
The next year, the herbalist never returned.
Slowly, the forest reclaimed all traces of human presence.
The area became the serpent’s exclusive domain.
Other beasts ceased challenging it.
The wildcat observed from afar before leaving.
The eagle abandoned its hunts—five meters was too much even for it.
The only one truly worth celebrating was the honey badger, who had fled overnight.
That tenacious little demon had once harassed the serpent for five kilometers, biting and refusing to retreat.
Only by diving into a pond had the serpent escaped.
But when the serpent reached five meters, the badger vanished without a trace.
Not so fearless after all.
The herbalist returned only once, glancing at the abandoned garden before leaving.
The serpent didn’t know that rumors were spreading beyond the mountains:
“A giant white serpent spirit lurks in the peaks!”
“It wears a rooster’s crown!”
“It devours men whole!”
The area became shunned.
Villagers loved supernatural tales—fox spirits hoarding gold, ghosts haunting ruins.
Now, new stories emerged:
“The white serpent swallows clouds at the summit!”
“It transforms into a dragon during thunderstorms!”
For the common folk, these myths became entertainment.
For the serpent, they were just background noise.