Chapter 253 Make Mountain Tigers Great Again
The Mountain Tigers’ settlement at the Vierlin Plains.
The current chief of the Mountain Tigers was Taiga Roar.
He was of ordinary nonhuman bloodline, having no special ability like Hyaena, King of the Hyena-men-but the Mountain Tigers tribe would all defer to his rule and control.
In return, Taiga had certainly proved through his actions that their confidence was not misplaced, with the tribe doubling in population over a brief dozen years.
Moreover, he had both money and power which he spent to learn domesticating livestock and plantation, providing their tribe with sufficient-even excess food despite the doubling of the size of the tribe.
Afterward, he would summon his fellow tribesmen to train during fixed hours every single day. With years of persistent and unyielding diligence, their physical form improved to the next level, making them even more of a threat even though they were already ranked amongst the top few of nonhumans!
If not for the appearance of an irregular being in Swordtail Grayclaw who in turn elevated the Grayclaw tribe far above all other nonhumans, it would have been the Mountain Tigers calling the shots over the Vierlin Plains and not the Grayclaws.
However, the tribe also thought that Taiga’s behavior had become unusual recently.
*
*
*
It all began half a month ago when they were opening lands for farming as usual, when some of the Mountain Tigers had uncovered the major portion of a tomb beneath ground.
There was no telling who owned the tomb-it appeared to have been raided before as well, with various symbolical funerary items that should have been placed around the entombed gone. Moreover, the tomb itself used to be quite profound solely by the looks of what was left of it, and the funerary items innumerable, although what was left now were merely withered skeletons.
Still, the skeletons were very complete and didn’t seem to be disturbed, and must have been buried alive with the tomb’s owner after being knocked unconscious and then suffocated.
And what all those skeletons surrounded was a single stone coffin.
There were many scratches over the coffin. The grave robbers before must have tried very hard to open it to steal whatever funerary items that were inside.
But it was clear that they didn’t succeed since the coffin was still tightly shut.
In addition, some of the tribesmen noticed that the skeletons lying around were clearly different from those buried together with the tomb owner.
Could the grave robbers have activated some trap and couldn’t leave the tomb?
Be that as it may, Taiga still attempted to have his tribesmen open the stone coffin-which failed as well. The lid of the coffin was like a single rock, it wouldn’t open no matter how they would try to pry it open.
Trying to smash it apart didn’t work either. They had tried everything from rock to war hammer, but the stone simply stayed unaffected no matter how hard they tried to strike it.
At first, Taiga had given up and had no intention to keep fussing over the stone coffin. He ordered his tribesmen to carry it away so that it wouldn’t remain there and keep affecting their crops.
But days later, the coffin opened by itself.
The person inside didn’t resemble nonhumans at all, but he bore a strong resemblance to male humans.
Taiga was surprised by him and thought that he was an undead being, only to find that he was still self-aware.
Although he couldn’t speak at first, he completely mastered the human tongue in just three days.
The man who awakened from the stone coffin called himself a n.o.ble of the night but kept his name unmentioned. Still, it appeared that his name was Vlad, and a descendant of darkness that survived from ancient times.
From the paleness of his skin, Taiga had a feeling that he might be a vampire.
Human academics had discussed the essence of vampires for a long time. Some believed that they were undead while others believed that they were a form in which devils manifested-along with a few who theorized that they were the descendants of an ancient race called the nightstalkers.
Be that as it may, vampires were symbols of bad luck to nonhumans and encountering one was nothing to be pleased about.
It was fortunate that Vlad displayed his worth
– he could study the details in the blood of the Mountain Tigers, and then energize the ancient power in their bloodline by using his own vigor.
And now, there were already three warriors who had activated their ancient bloodline in the tribe. they were the Saber-Toothed Tiger Warrior, the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior, and the Ancient Imperial Wrath Tiger Warrior!
While those three still wouldn’t match Swordtail in power, they could maintain the Mountain Tigers’ legacy and a foundation they would strengthen upon!
Meanwhile, Vlad the vampire returned to his stone coffin to continue his slumber, but he told Taiga that fresh blood would restore his power even quicker just before he slept.
Nonetheless, Taiga was still too cautious about the enigmatic vampire to care about his words.
He believed that the Mountain Tigers had already cemented their place as the second strongest nonhuman tribe, and were surprised when the King of the Hyena-men, a pinnacle of his own kind suddenly appeared in the
scene.And that was also when the third ancient bloodline warrior screwed up.
Untamed and ruthless, the Saber-Toothed Tiger Warrior failed in his bid usurp Taiga as tribal chief and left the tribe, seemingly having sworn fealty to Swordtail Grayclaw. Soon afterward, he died in a fight at some unknown place, and the totem of the Saber-toothed Tiger Warrior shone after much difficulty vanished from the Tigermen’s bloodline once again.
On the other hand, the Roaring Blaze Tiger Warrior’s heart would rise in temperature to critical levels and therefore couldn’t move freely. All he could do was train in an underground bas.e.m.e.nt and he hadn’t shown up for quite some time.
Only the Ancient Imperial Wrath Tiger Warrior could be considered normal, and he was selected by Taiga himself as the next chief.
Having only one out of the three ancient warriors able to move normally clearly wasn’t what was planned. Besides-whether it had been a coincidence or fate, the world seemed to progress to an age of upheaval and opportunity after winter was over, and many beings who usually take their time coming out of their lair were all using that opportunity.
Taiga’s anxiety about the future grew as problems arose both from the inside and the outside. He hence pinned his hopes on the ‘plug-in’ of his tribe.
In other words, the vampire!
Disregarding all his misgivings about the vampire and ignoring his tribes’ protest, Taiga began gathering all kinds of fresh blood and poured them into the stone coffin. He hoped that it would revive Vlad as soon as possible and help him awaken the hidden power of even more of his tribesmen, so as to make the Mountain Tigers great again!