Chapter 911: Totem Warrior
Leaf struggled to stand up.
However, his injuries were too severe. Just as he puffed up his chest, he felt the world spinning around him, and he stumbled backward.
Fortunately, he waved his hands wildly and caught hold of something hard.
It was the thigh bone of a totem beast, a polished black bone blade, and it had been inserted diagonally into Uncle “missing front teeth’s” chest.
Leaf remembered that Uncle “missing front teeth” had great skill in playing the bagpipes.
He could carefully select the widest and softest leaves on the mandrake tree that were covered in golden fur, then slowly roll them into bagpipes.
After that, he would place the bagpipes of different lengths side by side and placed them by his mouth. When he narrowed his eyes, he could play countless beautiful sounds.
Although he was missing his front teeth and spoke with a mild lisp, he still looked a little comical.
However, the melodious bagpipes of the uncle with missing front teeth were more pleasing to girls than any words of love.
Even the bagpipe tune that Leaf played for Anjia on the night the mandrake flower bloomed was taught to him by the uncle with missing front teeth.
Now, however the uncle with missing front teeth was also dead…
Just like all the aged and weak rats.
The blood gushing out of Leaf’s forehead kept pouring into his eyes.
He pulled out the bone blade with force.
The bone blade was huge and heavy.
When this totem beast was alive, it must have been a colossus that was more than ten arms tall.
Moreover, the bone blade had metal fillings, which made it look like it had sharp teeth, increasing its lethality.
The rat people were not qualified to use metal weapons.
According to the Turan people’s tradition, metal weapons were condensed from the souls of their ancestors. It was the most sacred gift to the warriors of the clan who had glorious blood flowing in their veins.
The rat people who had the blood of unclean and cowardly traitors in their veins were not qualified to defile the Holy Metal with their dirty paws.
In the past, metals had been found near the village, whether it was raw ore rich in spirit energy or relics of ancient wars with complicated structures and divine power.
They had all been sent to the main city where the Blood Hoof Clan was situated—Black-corner City—just like the mandrake tax.
Furthermore, every piece of metal, especially the relics, had to be carefully wrapped with mandrake leaves. Any rat person who dared to touch it would have their eyes gouged out and their hands cut off by the elders of the clan.
Hence, before today, Leaf had never known that a weapon embedded with metal was such a heavy thing.
Although he was the same as his brother and his height far exceeded that of an ordinary rat person…
He was still underage and different from his muscular brother. He was more like a thin bamboo pole with long arms and legs.
After barely waving the bone blade twice, Leaf felt that he was seeing stars, and he was panting heavily.
His movements caught the attention of a Minotaur warrior.
The warrior turned his head and glanced at him indifferently.
Leaf’s heart froze instantly.
It was a ferocious face.
With three iron rings on his body and a nose that spewed white steam, the Minotaur warrior’s face was divided into two distinct parts.
The left half of his face looked like it had been gnawed by the most ferocious totem beast. It was densely covered in dozens of wounds.
His overlapping scars were like a nest of wriggling poisonous centipedes. The Minotaur’s eye, which was the size of bronze bells, had been swallowed by the scars. There was only an iron eyepatch over his eye socket—it had been fixed directly onto the skull with rivets!
The huge horn on the left side of his forehead was also broken from the middle.
However, its owner did not use bones or metal to repair it. Instead, he had polished the broken stubble to make it even sharper, as though this broken horn had a great origin and symbolized supreme glory.
The right side of his face was relatively intact.
However, his right eye that contained infinite ferocity, coupled with the ferocious smile on his face, were more creepy than the scar and broken horn on the left side of his face.
Even so, none of this was the reason why Leaf’s heart froze.
He recognized this face.
This Minotaur warrior was the one who threw the first torch dipped in mandrake resin at Leaf’s hut!
Leaf’s mind went blank.
The image of his mother holding mandrake stew with a smile appeared in his mind.
He would never be able to drink his mother’s stew…
Forever…
“Arghh!”
Leaf felt an endless amount of strength from G.o.d knew where. With a roar, he raised the bone blade high up and charged at the broken-horned Minotaur warrior.
The Minotaur warrior exhaled a ball of scornful steam from his nostrils.
He did not dodge or run away. He watched Leaf’s clumsy attack with great interest.
It was as if he wanted to know whether this little b*stard, who had despicable blood flowing in his veins, would be able to successfully charge at him, or whether he would get carried away with the heavy bone blade and eventually trip up.
However, Leaf only took two steps before someone grabbed him by the waist and threw him far behind.
The bone blade, which was filled with sawteeth, was also s.n.a.t.c.hed away.
It was his brother!
Leaf could not believe his eyes.
He remembered that his brother had clearly been besieged by two Blood Hoof warriors in the battle earlier. He had suffered at least dozens of slashes and fallen into a pool of blood and flames.
His brother was also the only villager in the entire village who could enjoy the “glory” of being besieged by Blood Hoof warriors.
His brother was covered in wounds, and his forehead was badly burnt.
In his wounds that bloomed like flowers, one could vaguely see bone.
Fortunately, his blood had already dried up, and his wounds had been cauterized by the flames. His flesh and blood had also contracted tightly as a result.
Now, the only thing that supported his brother’s burly body, which was no less than that of the Blood Hoof warriors’, was anger and hatred. He brandished the serrated bone blade and pounced on the broken-horned Minotaur warrior.
Driven by boiling anger and hatred like magma, his brother rushed up to the Minotaur warrior in two steps.
The Minotaur warrior remained indifferent and looked down on him.
He did not even bother to turn his body around completely.
It was as if it did not matter if the bone blade was in Leaf’s hands or his crazy brother’s hands.
But the Minotaur was wrong.
When his brother raised the bone blade to its limit, a crackling sound suddenly came from his body.
His elder brother’s skin seemed to be dyed red by blood and flames. Then, it was torn apart.
Under the torn skin, muscles were expanding at a speed visible to the naked eye and shining with a metallic l.u.s.ter.
His elder brother, who had always been strong and lacked the appearance of a rat, suddenly became even larger than a Minotaur warrior. He was like a mad war elephant.
The speed of the bone blade’s slashing also increased by three to five times in an instant. The whistling of the blade resembled the shrieks of all the villagers’ ghosts.
…
Picturesque Orchid Lake was a place of glory.
Since ancient times, countless sacred and tragic wars had taken place between the mountains, the plains, and the swamps.
There were also countless war relics scattered under the cliffs and between the lofty mountains. Hundreds of tributaries from the Turan River, which bared their fangs and brandished their claws, had rushed into tens of thousands of blisters and the great swamps.
Leaf and his brother possessed a secret.
Exactly five years ago, they had discovered a cave in the depths of the children’s “secret base.” In the deepest part of the cave, there was a gap, and in the deepest part of the gap was another cave.
Piles of crisp bones filled the cave, and they were blown into ashes with a sneeze.
The cave walls were covered in drawings of humans and beasts. Each drawing depicted strange postures, and there were many earthworm-like arrowheads between their chest, abdomen, and limbs.
Was it not strange that there were at least hundreds, or even thousands, of murals left there?
Plus, their colors were still bright and beautiful as if they had just been painted.
The other children, like Tutu, had also seen the mural.
However, they did not react or were not interested.
Leaf and his brother were deeply attracted by the mysterious power contained in the mural.
Even after they returned home, they would lie on their hammocks made of mandrake leaves. When they fell into a deep sleep, they would dream of the mural coming “alive.” One by one, shiny human and beast figures would dance and jump in front of their eyes.
Such a strange dream continued to appear for five whole years.
As a result, Leaf and his brother had obtained some different and mysterious… abilities.
Unfortunately, their abilities would not be effective at times. It was like an illusory, fragmented dream.
Earlier, no matter how much his brother beat his chest and roared, he had been unable to awaken his ability.
Right now, his brother was using his ability to a level that Leaf had never seen before. It was extremely powerful!
“Ahhhhh!”
His brother let out a crazy battle cry.
Leaf clenched his fists tightly. His mouth was dry, and his tongue was parched. He was filled with antic.i.p.ation for his brother, whom he trusted so much, to create another miracle.
Even the fierce-looking Minotaur warrior widened his single eye slightly. “The Steel Body technique?” he said in surprise.
Crack!
The bone blade hacked into the Minotaur warrior’s left shoulder. The two-finger-deep wound hit the Minotaur warrior’s bone, creating an explosive sound of clashing swords.
However, that was all.
The Minotaur warrior did not dodge or run. It was neither appropriate nor proper. He took his brother’s blade head-on.
Despite that, his brother risked his entire life. It was like lightning and thunder. Leaf’s heart surged with excitement when he saw the blade. Unexpectedly, even the opponent’s shoulder blade did not shatter.
His brother gritted his teeth and gripped the bone blade tightly. Every muscle on his arms swelled to the point of exploding, trying to pierce the bone blade deeper.
However, the Minotaur warrior only tightened his shoulder muscles, completely locking the bone blade and his brother’s strength.
Only then did he slowly turn around.
His expression changed from that of disdain to seriousness.
“Even though you’re executing it all wrong…”
The Minotaur warrior spoke to his brother in a low voice unique to the Blood Hoof Clan, “I still salute you for your courage. You’ve used battle to wash away the shame of your ancestors. May the sacred ancestral spirit grant you strength and help you seize greater glory!”
After he said this, the tattoo on the Minotaur warrior’s body began to shine.
It was like a mural from the dreams that Leaf and his brother had. It possessed a strange vitality as it danced wildly.
There was also a sticky substance that looked like a bronze solution being secreted from the pores under the tattoo.
It quickly condensed into an even bigger, stronger, and more ferocious beast-shaped armor outside the Minotaur’s body.
If the Minotaur warrior’s body had originally been a combination of a bull’s head and a human-shaped body…
Armed with the mysterious armor, he was now like a bronze rhinoceros standing on its hind legs.
“Totem warrior!”
Leaf widened his eyes and shouted crazily in his heart, ‘This… This is the legendary totem warrior!’