Chapter 1116: Rift Valley Base
Meng Chao estimated that, compared with his previous life, there were at least hundreds of thousands of rat people who were doomed to die.
Although at the beginning, the panicked escapees were still lost in the depths of the vast gra.s.sland, like a plate of loose sand...
As long as the general direction was right and they gritted their teeth and headed north, they would always be able to meet up with more and more companions.
It did not matter even if they ran out of the mandrake fruit that they carried with them.
Compared with the clan warriors, the biggest advantage of the rat people was that they were not picky eaters.
Whether it was wild gra.s.s, tree roots, or vegetable seeds, they could temporarily feed the rat people until the day of victory.
Just like that, Meng Chao and Ice Storm mixed in with the wave of fleeing rat people. After walking north for three days and three nights, they finally saw a new transit camp that could accommodate up to ten thousand rat people temporarily.
The walls around the camp were tight.
The elite soldiers and generals guarding the camp also had a strong fighting spirit that was not inferior to the warriors of the Blood Hoof Clan.
With tens of thousands of rat people gathered there, even the regular battle groups in the Blood Hoof Clan would not be able to easily crush them.
Meng Chao finally had a good sleep.
He saw the Big-horned Rat G.o.d again in his dream.
In the previous dream, the majestic and murderous Rat G.o.d had become kind-looking this time, and his body was filled with a warm smile.
Amidst the flowers, applause, and bright sunshine, Meng Chao received the Rat G.o.d"s approval and blessing.
In a trance, it was as if there was a voice congratulating him for finally pa.s.sing the arduous trial and officially becoming a member of the Great Horn Army.
After waking up, Meng Chao heard countless excited cheers and excited cries around him.
He knew that all the rat people had the same dream.
This was naturally the doing of the priests of the Great Horn Army.
The Great Horn Army seemed to have gathered a large group of spirit experts who were good at sneaking into dreams and bewitching people.
Using the blessings in the dream, they firmly tied all the rat people to the Great Horn Army"s chariot.
In the shortest amount of time, they had trained these mobs who could not see any hope into true warriors who dared to fight against their former masters.
It was worth mentioning that even the achievements of Meng Chao and Ice Storm had become propaganda materials for the Great Horn Army.
Through the mouths of old bear skin, round bone club, and the others, the Battle of wiping out the heavy armored cavalry had spread across the entire sunken gra.s.sland.
Every batch of rat people who arrived at the transit camp had heard a completely different but equally exaggerated version.
Some of the rat people swore that they had been on the scene at that time and see the Big-horned Rat G.o.d appear from the b.l.o.o.d.y clouds with their own eyes. They stretched out their hands and sent two heavenly soldiers and generals to the human world in a crushing manner, cutting the insufferably arrogant armored heavy cavalry into two halves and burning them into ashes.
Some rat people spat on the ground and said that when they saw the Rat G.o.d"s emissary, they could summon magma from the ground with a light cough. With a snap of their fingers, icebergs rose from the ground, and those majestic centaur warriors were scared sh*tless by the Rat G.o.d"s emissary. They could not even stand up.
Some people even surmised that it was because of the Rat G.o.d"s deterrence that their pursuers did not dare to be presumptuous.
Otherwise, with so many rat people scattered across the gra.s.sland, they were obviously the easiest target to attack. How could they have escaped to this place so smoothly?
The priests from the Great Horn Army listened to the rat people"s words with smiles on their faces. Naturally, they would not deny it. Instead, they went with the flow and calmly took all the credit for the Rat G.o.d"s head.
Following that, they led the rat people, who were completely convinced, in praise of the Rat G.o.d once again.
Meng Chao had no intention of competing with the Big-horned Rat G.o.d for the credit.
After all, based on the development of his previous life, even if the Big-horned Rat G.o.d was majestic and unexcelled...
He was still a skeleton in a tomb that was about to be defeated and destroyed.
It was a pity that there were millions of rat people.
All the non-humans that they entrusted to them had to be buried with their false beliefs.
After resting for a day and a night in the transit camp, bandaging and treating their injuries, and replenishing their supplies, the rat people continued to set off.
Even though everyone had received the recognition of the Big-horned Rat G.o.d in their dreams and became glorious soldiers of the Great Horn Army, their treatment did not seem to be much different from the past.
They still formed hundred-man teams in a muddle-headed manner and did not have the time to train. They did not know the general of their army and only focused on walking forward.
Their weapons and equipment had not been upgraded. Many of them were still holding wooden sticks that were inlaid with the fangs of ferocious beasts.
Even the food was not entirely mandala fruit.
Instead, the mandala fruit was mixed with gra.s.s roots, leaves, and rapeseed. It was boiled and mixed at the same time. After it was mixed into a paste, it was wrapped in huge leaves and sent into their mouths with their eyes closed.
To be honest, this kind of food was much less delicious and nutritious than the delicacies cooked by the rat people in their own homes during the prosperous era.
However, the rat people who survived the disaster did not complain too much.
That was because the priests had already said that the difficulties were temporary.
As long as they could escape from the sunken gra.s.sland, they would definitely be able to replenish their best equipment in the camp in the north and enjoy the big fish and meat.
Such a belief encouraged the fugitives to continue moving forward.
Along the way, countless people fell behind.
However, there were also a small number of people who could follow the footsteps of the priests and officers.
Of all the fugitives, they were naturally the ones with the strongest physique and the toughest character. In a sense, they were also the ones with the best luck.
Meng Chao and Ice Storm were among them.
It had been ten days and ten nights since they stepped into the sunken gra.s.sland.
They finally drilled out of the boundless green sea and entered the border between the Blood Hoof Clan and the Gold Clan, which was filled with thousands of ravines.
Since the underground was filled with spirit veins and spirit energy was constantly seeping in, compared with Earth, the geological structure of the Other World and the regional climate were extremely unstable.
It was very likely that there was a mountain peak that reached into the clouds next to it. The mountain peak was shrouded in clouds and snow all year round.
At the foot of the mountain was an abyss that was filled with the howling of the cold wind. In the abyss, there were streams of magma that flowed freely and converged to form a burning river.
The great Rift Valley north of the sunken plains was such a barren land with barren mountains and rivers.
The terrain here was as if it was ruthlessly kneaded and trampled by the G.o.d who created this world. It became fragmented and unbearable to look at.
In the depths of the huge Rift Valley, it was like the veins of leaves, and it extended into the ground through countless small, meandering crevices.
As long as they could solve the problem of food, forget hundreds of thousands of people, even if a million soldiers wanted to hide there, it would not be difficult.
Moreover, because the environment there was too harsh, it did not have much strategic value to the Blood Hoof Clan and Gold Clan.
The higher-ups and powerhouses on both sides rarely looked here.
No wonder the Great Horn Army could be nurtured there silently, setting off a storm that was about to engulf the entire image of Orchid Lake.
At this time, hundreds of troops had already arrived at Rift Valley. They followed the meandering crevices in Rift Valley and formed a thin and long red line.
As they gradually went deeper into the bottom of Rift Valley, the sky was gradually compressed by the cliffs on both sides, as if the earth was closing above their heads.
Meng Chao was very puzzled. Where were the priests and officers of the Great Horn Army taking the fugitives? The farther they went, the more desolate it felt. No matter what, it did not seem like a place that could support an army of a million.
However, after going deep into a cave and advancing about seventy to eighty meters underground, Meng Chao"s vision suddenly became clear with accompanying refreshing cold wind.
It was an underground cave with an unimaginably vast s.p.a.ce.
No, it was more like a magical world that was parallel to another world rather than a "cave."
Looking ahead, one could not see the walls or the roof of the cave. There was also no damp, stuffy, and rotten smell that ordinary caves could smell.
Moreover, it was unknown what kind of magical minerals were contained in the rocks that made up the cave. They naturally emitted faint fluorescence, bathing the cave in milky-white light all year round.
The light, which was like a hot spring, moistened the exhausted bodies of the rats, making everyone feel comfortable all over. The pain and weariness disappeared without a trace, making them feel indescribably refreshed.
"The concentration of spirit energy here is so high!
"It"s not inferior to the grotto-heaven paradise in the depths of Monster Mountain Range around Dragon City!
"Such strong spirit energy will certainly activate the extremely vigorous vitality!"
Meng Chao was secretly shocked.
As expected, they saw countless shining creatures that looked like moss, vines, and fungi in the corner of the cave.
All kinds of strange fungus umbrellas and flowers competed with each other, forming a bizarre underground ecosystem.
Many crops obviously had traces of artificial genetic modification, bearing large and full fruits. The strong fragrance stimulated the nose mucous membranes of the mouse people, making everyone"s index fingers move and their gastrointestinal tract squirm endlessly.
When the mandala flower bloomed, the mandala tree would no longer bear fruit for the next ten to twenty years.
These underground creatures became an extremely important source of food.
Apart from that, Meng Chao also found several giant tablets that were neither gold nor wood around the underground ecosystem. They had been eroded for tens of millions of years but remained undamaged. They were engraved with cuneiform characters.
The black giant monuments were carved with golden runes. Colorful, viscous light was flowing on their surfaces.
Meng Chao focused his spirit energy on his retina and his cone cells to activate his super vision. He discovered that the parts of the giant monuments that were exposed to the ground were only one-tenth of their total length.
Nine-tenths of their length was inserted deep into the ground, where the spirit energy was densest.
Meng Chao suddenly realized that the giant steles were like giant "straws."
Digging deep into the ground where the spirit energy was densest and absorbing the spirit energy into the cave was the only way to create such a flourishing underground ecosystem.
It was obvious that such extraordinary technology was not the work of the Great Horn Army.
It was the creation of the ancient Turans, even more ancient beings, tens or even hundreds of thousands of years ago.