The Great Worm Lich

Chapter 265: The Dust Finally Settles

The demise of the powerful Pumanra tribe stemmed from Zhang Lisheng’s ruse, and all of this was just the beginning.

The great wizards brought their disciples while holding onto the so-called Shrimp B1 Island’s Aborigine Tribal Distribution Map that the young man forged as they battled the entire night in accordance with Zhang Lisheng’s vision.

In a succession, they killed the spiritual monsters guarding the indigenous tribes in the forest near Tudenan one by one and at the same time, they also destroyed the fighting spirit of the warriors of most of these tribes through brutal means.

These tribes were unable to guard against the attack from the Tudenan tribesmen after going through such calamity, so naturally, they turned to become fruitful and luscious fruits that were carefully plucked by Zhang Lisheng one by one.

Time flowed by slowly in this sorrow-filled jungle on the foreign world’s island. By the time sunlight had finally tore through the dark twilight, Xu Longguo, whose body was tall, could already sense that daybreak was coming even though the jungle was still completely dark, so he said in a grim and exhausted expression, “The sky is going to be bright soon. We’ve already obtained 45 Gold Cores so it’s time for us to stop. Now that we have these, we have something to hand over to the Old G.o.ds already.”

“Your Gate of Death and Gate of Sacrifice have something to hand over so how about our Gate of Life then?” Upon hearing his words, the old fat man with the surname Zhu, who was lucky enough to escape from death, changed his usual smiling and amiable att.i.tude as he asked a question and answered it himself in a low voice, “45 Gold Cores are indeed a lot but if this is compared to the painstaking efforts of raising three elite disciples…”

“Brother Zhu, how many times have we explained that none of us have ever witnessed that self-detonation technique of the Gold Core before? It’s really impossible for us to stop it!” Ouyang Boxiong, who was commanding a black giant centipede that was seven to eight meters long with a height of half a man that was carrying all of the wizards, could only answer in a terrible state. “Didn’t you guys put down your vigilance as well? If we had known about this earlier..”

“The reason we didn’t put on any vigilance was because we were rest a.s.sured! It’s because we thought that the four great wizards and eight elite disciples from your Gate of Death and Gate of Sacrifice would definitely be able to defend the attack of more than ten little demons! Who would have ever thought that you all would actually let those demons rush into the Life-and-Death Circle to detonate their Gold Cores!” The old man with the surname Zhu howled and interrupted Ouyang Boxiong’s words, causing the other party to be speechless right away.

After a moment of silence, Ouyang Boxiong gritted his teeth and said, “Alright, forget it! Let’s drop it! Now that things have already developed to this stage, let all of these be determined by the Old G.o.ds after we’ve returned to the Mountain Gate…”

“But that Zhang Lisheng has also disappeared after being blown away by the self-detonation of the Gold Core. Now that it’s already a problem for us to even leave the island, how are we supposed to return to the Mountain Gate then?”

“Since when has it become a problem for us to leave the island? Didn’t you hear what Zhang Lisheng said? We can get on the civil s.h.i.+p as long as we have the tickets! We can still cope with a few simple words so by that time, we can just seize the lack of crowds and get on the first s.h.i.+p of the day! Wouldn’t it be settled then if we just laugh our ways into the s.h.i.+p? It’d be even easier after we get back to New York! We can just get a taxi and go straight to the Chinese Consulate. When we arrive there, I don’t believe that the government will oust us out just because a few interpreters have died for no reason. All of us are official national public officials anyway!” Yang Tianyun, who had long returned to his human form and who was also riding on the huge centipede’s back, put on the air of a Chinese civil servant and said indifferently.

“If only things would unfold as simple as you said! Sigh! But since now that things have reached this point, we can only take one step at a time! We’ve really been negligent in the things we do! What kind of situation have we ended up with…”

Now that things did not go as well as they planned, the great wizards no longer a.s.sumed the air of being awe-inspiring and after discussing with each other with some arguments, they finally came to the conclusion to remove themselves from the human gathering place on the island.

Shortly after they left, Zhang Lisheng finally captured the fifth tribe in the mountain forest. After completing a night of conquest, he personally led a thousand Tudenan warriors to command the defeated indigenous midgets to carry their collapsed totem pole as they suffered humiliation to return to the vacant tribal land on the edge of the Golden River cave.

Right now, the Tudenan tribesmen, who had already converted to become fishermen, had now picked up spears once again, forcing the prisoners of war, who had about the same amount of population with the tribe, undergo a conversion ceremony to kneel in front of the Tudenan tribal totem pole to dedicate their devout faith.

In front of the totem pole was a pit filled with blood, which was so huge that it was absolutely appalling, that had hundreds of dead bodies and several collapsed stone pillars immersed in it.

There were also hundreds of headless corpses lying on the edge of the pit messily on the ground. The warm blood flowing from the cavity had already flown into the pit and became part of the blood pool.

As the conversion ceremony progressed, when all of the original Tudenan tribesmen saw the tribe’s living faith bringing thousands of prisoners with him as he walked towards them from the distance, they crouched down on the ground to pray in whispers like weeds that were blown by the wind.

Influenced by them, those newly converted Tudenan tribesmen also kneeled on the ground, only a step slower.

Amidst the whispering prayer with some strange rhythm, the tribal headman walked to Zhang Lisheng’s side and devoutly kissed the instep of his foot, before saying in an excited and hoa.r.s.e voice, “70,000 p-people… Great Raider! The population of the Tudenan has already exceeded 70,000 people! I-If we successfully convert all these prisoners of war, I’m afraid the tribal population will stand a chance in reaching 150,000 people… 150,000 people…”

150,000. This figure was only the population of two to three counties in the eyes of Zhang Lisheng, who was born in the Western Sichuan Province, one of China’s most populous provinces, but it was already an unimaginable figure in the eyes of Tugra.

“The population of 150,000 is about five times the number of the original population of Tudenan!” Zhang Lisheng lowered his head to look down at the indigenous headman who seemed to be unable to catch his breath and said calmly, “Hurry up and complete the conversion ceremony so that you can return to the normal fis.h.i.+ng activity of the tribe! Otherwise, the Tudenan tribesmen will start to be hit by famine!”

His voice seemed to have some kind of calming charm as it made Tugra’s surging emotions calm down gradually. After answering with a “Yes, Great Raider,” he stood up and walked towards the tribesmen not far away that stretched out as far as the eyes could see.

In the end, when the sun rose to the center of the sky, the Tudenan population was fixed at 151,670. Not only that, even though the totem pole only increased in height by three to five meters, its diameter had become several times thicker than before.

However, the tribe did not transform to become an ‘iron knife’ tribe. Zhang Lisheng also did not further obtain the good name of ‘Conqueror’.

After the completion of the conversion ceremony, in the huge bark house enshrining the Tudenan tribal book of history, Tugra kneeled on the ground as he described the current tribal strength to Zhang Lisheng, “Great Raider, we’re already the most powerful tribe within a radius of at least 100,000 steps! n.o.body will dare challenge the Tudenan’s majesty anymore! This is all thanks to you…”

“Enough, Tugra! It’s not the time to be complacent right now! Is the tribal fis.h.i.+ng activity back to normal already?” Zhang Lisheng stopped Tugra’s praise and asked.

“It has already returned to normal as per your order, Raider. Adding on the hunting grounds of the extinct tribes around us, we have plenty of food sources. You can be rest a.s.sured.”

“Good!” Zhang Lisheng nodded.” However, after the situation is stabilized, all of the adult men of the tribe will still have to be divided according to the proportion of five fishermen to two warriors. From then on, only the elite warriors with ‘partners’ are allowed to be sent to battle.”

“Yes, Raider! I think the warrior selection from the tens of thousands of people would only be able to be completed after more than 100 days! By that time, the giant millispiders will also be fully grown already.”

“Very good, Tugra! Now, go summon Naroru, Menrug, Shancho… I want to see them!”

These more than ten people that Zhang Lisheng named out were those chief warriors who were much older, wiser and braver in Tudenan who had two feathers stuck on their heads.

Tugra was stunned for a moment but as his train of thought s.h.i.+fted, he began to understand the reason why the Raider asked for them.

In accordance to the normal ratio of Tudenan that had been expanded to become 15,000 people, the number of elite warriors possessing partners would also be increased to become approximately 19,000 people.

Other than the 4000 warriors who had been divided between the three chiefs possessing three feathers and himself, the remaining 15,000 newly added elite warriors would most likely be led by these fifteen lucky people.

The scene that took place next was just as expected by the Tudenan headman. After he summoned Naroru, Menrug, Shancho and the others to the bark house, Zhang Lisheng said a few encouraging words before ordering his men to bring a pile of brightly colored feathers to him. Then, he stood up and personally put a feather on the head of the chief warriors. “I’ll hand over the elite warriors of the expanded tribe to all of you. During the warrior selection, all of you will follow the orders the third feather is given to you and will alternately select the chief warriors and the soldiers under your command in order of precedence. After you’ve compiled your team, you’re not allowed to make any change anymore, understood?”

“Great Raider! Your command is the order that I’ll pursue with my entire life!” The chief warriors who had three feathers on their heads crouched on the ground and answered with grat.i.tude.

When Zhang Lisheng saw their sincere wors.h.i.+pping, he nodded with satisfaction. “Stand up, do what you should do!” Then, he stepped out of the bark house.

The spring breeze was warm. Under the gentle breeze, the young man, who felt that he had successfully completed the tribe’s expansion through somebody else’s hands, breathed a long sigh of relief as he felt that the burden on his shoulders seem to have been unloaded.

In fact, it was very hard for him to endure. Following behind the six great wizards who had been tricked by him and counting the time and route to pick the fruits almost felt as though he was walking on wire above a volcano.

If he had miscalculated and took a wrong step, he would have ended up with an unforeseen disaster.

However, now that he had succeeded, he looked around the tribe that had become very different with a relaxed heart. The feeling of having a foundation being rooted into the ground made Zhang Lisheng feel that everything was worth it.

“Unfortunately, those wizards yesterday were too hated by the aborigines so most of the negative emotions had been consumed by them already. Otherwise, maybe I’d have been able to complete half of my Rank-7 Wizard’s cultivation progress,” he muttered regrettably as he pondered to himself. “Now, I don’t even know whether they’ve gotten on the s.h.i.+p or not so just to be safe, it’s better for me to wait till night before I sneak back into the gathering place…”

All of a sudden, his deep thought was interrupted by the roar of a monster.