When they crossed the river, many children of the tribespeople were still young. Four years have passed, some of them were now totemic warriors.
Knowing they were headed towards the other side of the river, the sadness in the hearts of the Flaming Horn tribespeople who once lived there disappeared.
The whole time they walked with heavy hearts, worried about their future. Their homeland was no more, where could they go?
But now, they could finally relax.
If they couldn’t go back to their homeland, they could go back to their other homeland!
For the whole Flaming Horn tribe, the location in Fearsome Beast Forest was their homeland but for some of them, the location right across the river was the homeland in their hearts.
Even with so many changes, with the banks nearly unrecognisable, they could still identify the places they were so familiar with.
That was it, the true homeland for some of them!
Ao, Da, Gui He and the others were getting excited at the thought of heading back.
“Chief! Are we... are we heading back?” someone asked
At the sound of the words ‘heading back’, some of them couldn’t help but smile.
Ao also couldn’t help himself. With a smile, he said, “Yes, we’re heading back.”
“Ughya!” Someone made a weird sound.
“Haha! Let’s go back!!”
Some young warriors jumped excitedly. They thought they were moving to a foreign place. When they left, they were still kids but now they had already been on hunting trips for two years.
Looking at their excitement, Zheng Luo and the rest were much calmer. They never lived there before so anything they knew about the place was through the other’s stories.
“Is that where you all lived before?” Asked Zheng Luo. “Who knew that things would end up like this!”
The forest there wasn’t part of Fearsome Beast Forest. It still had king beasts roaming and many other unique species around. Zheng Luo and the others didn’t feel scared, instead they looked at it in anticipation.
“What a great place!” Duo Kang commented after scanning the area once. Although he hadn’t quite seen the full area, he knew with his years of hunting experience that this would be a great hunting area! The area across the river had a sense of danger to it, it was exhilarating!
“There are beasts there!” Duo Kang was itching to get there.
For these hunters, hunting was like breathing to them. Once they had to stop for a while, they would be itching to get back at it.
After he heard what Duo Kang said, Fu Shi smiled and asked him, “You can smell the beasts all the way from here?”
“Of course! It’s similar to the Fearsome Beast Forest!” Said Duo Kang with pride.
Fu Shi smiled and didn’t say anything. He looked to Shao Xuan, “Can you smell it?”
Shao Xuan stared at the river bank, his gaze heavy, “Yes, I can feel the beasts.” He paused for a while and added, “The smell is familiar.”
Shao Xuan dropped his voice as he spoke. Caesar looked across the river and whined.
Caesar’s whined awakened the tribe members that were deep in their fantasies.
“Even Caesar remembers this place.”
“Of course, that was where he grew up.” Mai couldn’t hide his smile. He remembered that some of the enslaved animals stayed here too so they were probably also happy to be back to their old home.
However, Shao Xuan didn’t think that way though. Before he said anything, Ao asked Fu Shi another question.
“Didn’t you go over to take a look?”
After all, the two banks were now closer to each other without the great river there. Shao Xuan also saw the crocodiles peacefully resting on one side so that meant there weren’t any other dangerous beasts around.
Fu Shi smiled at the questions. “When such big changes happened, we made plans to go over. We knew there was a tribe on the other side so the tribe wanted to go over and introduce ourselves, maybe offer some help too.”
There were obvious signs of human activity there. Structures that were clearly manmade. After the disaster passed, no human was in sight so the Drumming tribe tried to go over and see what was up.
Hence, they sent over a team. They rode on crocodiles because they weren’t sure if there was anything dangerous to humans in the river. It may be something crocodiles aren’t afraid of but might be dangerous to humans.
“After that, just as we got onto the shore, we spoke to them, but then we were chased away,” sighed Fu Shi.
“Chased away?!” Ao raised his voice. His two eyebrows were lifted up, “There was someone there?!”
The few hunt leaders thought, ‘Was there someone faster than us? Did they snatch our land?’
They could negotiate if it was some other place but this was the homeland for half of the Flaming Horn tribespeople!
No matter what, they would fight for it, if that didn’t work they would kill!
This wasn’t any other fight for land, this one was personal!
Seeing that the Flaming Horn warriors were gearing up for a fight, Fu Shi quickly said. “No, we weren’t chased out by people, it was the beasts.”
“Beasts?”
Without the protection of the fire seed, the beasts had started to roam around the area. The Flaming Horn people didn’t back down. They weren’t going to share their land with beasts!
“What were they like?” asked Ao.
Some warriors grabbed their swords until Fu Shi said, “It’s just one. A large eagle. It was a fierce one. It comes by every day to guard the place.”
“Eagle?” Ao was silent. Flying animals weren’t easy to kill.
“Look. It’s back!” A Drumming warrior shouted.
“Ah, why is it flying here?” Fu Shi exclaimed. Wasn’t it just guarding the other side? Why is it coming over here? Why is it getting faster?!
The warriors from both sides grabbed with weapons.
“Wait, don’t attack. It’s an old friend!” Shao Xuan quickly stopped them.
“Old friend?” Ao hadn’t come around yet.
Caesar looked up and howled happily up at the sky. As the figure in the sky got closer, Caesar’s howl changed in tone.
Huh? Upon closer inspection, it was much larger than anticipated.