Chapter 516
Mixed Feelings
The warrior rushed forward to tend to the injured Caesar. The medics followed behind the front line during the attacks and were currently rushing around healing troops.
Caesar recognised the warrior as his own team so he didn’t reject the treatment.
The ground was filled with carcasses, many of which were missing limbs. The bite marks were obvious on them. Sounds of sticky footsteps were heard as the men stepped on the half-dried blood. The smell of blood was pungent enough to induce vomit.
Shao Xuan’s nerves calmed down, the pulling force he felt was getting stronger as his energy drained out of his body. He walked to Caesar and wiped the blood flowing from its eye. The bite mark from the beast was obvious.
After taking a look at Caesar’s injuries, Shao Xuan patted it and said, “Lucky you’re still alive.”
He ignored everything on the floor and sat down right there to look at the battlefield.
The medics were trying their best to save the injured. The totemic warriors of the tribe have strong recovering powers, as long as they can bear through this moment, they can live past this.
Not too far from here, the phorusrhacos fell to the floor, belly facing the sky. It’s two legs were wrapped in herbs and animal skin, it wasn’t sure whether the injury was serious but there was still a lot of blood flowing from the many cuts on its body. A medic was tending to it.
From what Shao Xuan could tell, the beasts had varying degrees of injuries and not necessarily in a better state than Caesar. Their opponents were ruthless, there was no way they could come out of this battle smoothly.
Luckily, the beasts had recovering powers comparable to the totemic warriors. Caesar could recover in a few days but that eye of his was a lost cause.
Shao Xuan patted Caesar’s blood-stained fur again. “You did well.”
Caesar bopped his nose against Shao Xuan and rested on the ground.
As Shao Xuan was observing the battle, the warrior tending to Caesar glanced at him from time to time.
The warrior was curious.
He heard that the fire seed of Wanshi was extinguished by the Grand Elder’s fire seed!
How did the Grand Elder extinguish it? It was a pity that they were too far away from the fire pond to see what happened. The flame being grey in colour didn’t help. They could only feel the flame slowly dying out.
Dusk was soon arriving, the three hunt leaders brought their man back. They pursued long and far but they couldn’t catch up with the slave masters so they headed back.
In the Washi tribe, other than the people of Flaming Horn, there were some other prisoners of war brought back by the Washi tribe. Other than that, there were no living Wanshi people.
With the demise of Wanshi, some prisoners of war had no idea what to do next. Those that wanted to leave had left. Those that wanted to stay could do so with the other travellers from the Flaming Horn tribe. Of course, it was in exchange for their labour. It was a known fact between them that any wavering loyalties would not be tolerated by the Flaming Horn tribe.
The children and women of Washi had left a long time ago, before the battle started.
“We spotted an underground cave during our pursuit. The children and women of Washi were probably kept there for safety but when we found it there were no living people there anymore. There were dead bodies of some old people. They were probably killed. No women and children. Oh, there were also some dead slaves. The rest was probably taken away by those slave masters,” said Gui He to the two heads.
The members of a defeated tribe are prisoners of war. In the hands of those slave masters, they were definitely going to be slaves. As soon as they were, it would be hard for them to escape.
There were no Wanshi people with totemic powers on the battlefield. Only a few managed to escape the attacks from the Flaming Horn tribe. The slave masters didn’t grab as much, the smart ones already wiped out the elders from the tribe earlier on.
The Wanshi tribe was now history.
Fei Ji, the leader of the tribe, killed himself with a sword to his neck when the fire seed was extinguished.
The Wanshi Shaman fell into the pond and puked blood as Shao Xuan turned to leave. Using the power of the fire seed had exhausted him. He had a chance of living if the fire seed was still in existence but with it gone, he was like a gas lamp that ran out of gas, useless and dead.
Chief Zheng Luo quietly listened to the three hunt leaders’ reports and thought to himself. Today the Wanshi fire seed is no more. Those that escaped the hands of Flaming Horn would only become travellers with no home or slaves. If that happened to Flaming Horn… How could Flaming Horn reach that point anyway?!
“Maybe, it is a good thing that the original fire seed disappeared,” sighed the chief.
This was the first time they experienced a battle like this, the first time they saw the impact of a destroyed fire seed to a tribe. With the evolution of the fire seeds, there were now ways to prevent something like this happening to the fundamentally weak fire seed.
Humans generally lean towards advantageous improvements.
Maybe, one day, the tribes here would change too. The original fire seed, just like the other side of the sea, may become history.
In the forest, the shaman and the others were headed back to the tribe. They hadn’t processed that everything that just happened was real.
How long has it been?
They were prepared to stay in the cave for a few days but they are now headed back as soon as they got here?
The battle was over?
Not just the tribesmen of Flaming Horn, the travellers with the tribe were also shocked. That arrogant Wanshi tribe was no more? Many of them even had a plan to flee if they thought the situation got worse but they got the news that it was a done deal. In a few days, they would move to the area to start building houses and planting crops. Wanshi’s land was now Flaming Tribe’s.
Burying the dead, healing the injured, taking over the land, resettling the travellers, planning the forest land, the tribe was busy. Flaming Horn also took over all Wanshi’s treasures. After so many years of looting, Wanshi accumulated quite a collection but now it was all Flaming Horn’s.
Without the threat of Wanshi, the Flaming Horn tribe naturally expanded their land. The forests were large but it wasn’t suitable for agricultural use. There were many wild beasts too so too large of a land would be hard to protect too.
While they were hard at work, the news of Wanshi’s demise spread to the other tribes.
The leader of the Mang tribe couldn’t believe it when he first heard the news. He was told that the slave masters were chased out of Wanshi and were headed towards other places, someone went to the Wanshi tribe to take a look and confirmed that it was occupied by Flaming Horn tribesmen now.
There wasn’t a reason to not believe now.
“Is it really extinct now?”
Huang Ye couldn’t believe it. How long has it been since Flaming Horn came back? They really said “If you can do it, we will do it”, and they really did it!
This was unimaginable!
If they lost but their fire seed survived, they could always revive their tribe! Ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years… As long as the fire seed was there, there would always be hope!
But this defeat was different. Not only did Wanshi lose the battle, but they also lost their fire seed too. This was the worst kind of defeat, there was no way to make a comeback!
With that in mind, the head of the Mang tribe and the shamen felt a chill down their spine.
The Flaming Horn Tribe just achieved that.
“How long did it take for Flaming Horn to defeat Wanshi? Why didn’t we receive news about it?” asked the tribe leader. As soon the Flaming Horn fire seed was acting weird, they sent people over as lookout. They were to inform the tribe when Flaming Horn started a battle.
In a soft voice, with much pain, the man said, “Ha-half a day…”
“What?!”
Everyone on sight jumped from their seats.
“Half a day?!” The tribe leader couldn’t believe his ears.
“Yes, that was what the lookout said,” the informant nodded his head.
Half a day, Wanshi tribe… A tribe that survived for hundreds of years, was gone?!
Cold sweat was forming on the tribe’s forehead, after much thought, he said to Huang Ye, “Go to Flaming Horn and see how they are doing. Verify the news!”
Huang Ye had mixed feelings, he just came back from the Flaming Horn tribe and he had to go again?
Other than the Mang tribe, the other tribes, even those in the grasslands received the news. Ever since the fire seed of Flaming Horn was acting up, they already got the attention of the other tribes so the news of the victory in battle travelled fast.
Hence, as Huang Ye packed his things and headed to the Flaming Horn tribe again, he met Gu Zhi and Qiu Gu who were on their way to the Flaming Horn Tribe again like him. The three sighed as they saw each other.