Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Although Zhang Lisheng’s words were understated, its meaning was still bloodcurdling enough to send chills down one’s spine if one would carefully think about the words.
These words made Allison’s footsteps become heavier. Unfortunately, now that they entered the jungle, they were not far away from the Tatania tribe, otherwise the natives would not have lived a fishing life at all. No matter how slow her footsteps were, the beautiful black female officer soon saw the cruelty of the conquest ceremony of the Hellfire civilization.
The Tatania was built around a huge clear water pool. The originally neatly arranged dwelling was now filled with many burning and collapsed tree houses.
The tribesmen of Tatania, which had been annihilated, let go of the weapons in their hands as they stood absent-mindedly by the pool that they had been living on, surrounding a collapsed totem pole on the ground that had been cracked from its root as they stared ahead in a blank expression.
Beside the stone pillar was a dirt pit that still had traces of wetness. It was apparent that it had just been dug.
That pit was about several hundreds of meters wide in diameter with a depth of more than ten meters. Right now, its bottom had already been completely covered by blood and corpses. Some of the beheaded heads were casually thrown to the edge of the pit like a ball, with their eyes wide and teeth bared as they looked unyieldingly up at the sky.
On a woodland that had been cleaned and tidied up not far away from the heads lied a number of corpses that received completely different treatment. The natives’ bodies were so clean that there was not even a spot of mud on it, those were the bodies of the Wizard Li warriors who were sacrificed in the war of conquest.
As an intelligence officer born in a military family and had served in the Middle East in the early days of the army before being stationed in the troops of a foreign world’s island, Allison, who had meticulous observation, stable mentality and great affinity, had an extremely high psychological quality. Even so, when she personally witnessed such a hell-like scene with her own eyes, her legs trembled so much that they could barely support her own weight.
The slaughter was still going on. Several hundreds of Wizard Li warriors riding on giant spiders were holding spears and stabbed the shoulders of Tatania’s captives from time to time before hoisting them up high from the ground to throw them into the pit. At this time, there would naturally be a soldier who would dexterously cut off the captives’ heads and throw their bodies into the blood pool.
“C-Can I borrow your shoulder for support, Mr. Lisheng?” The black female officer’s spirit had already been taut to the limit but her residual rationality still told her that this was not the right time to show her good sense of justice. Shutting both of her eyes, she panted rapidly for a while, as though she could not breathe, and when she felt much calmer, she turned to Zhang Lisheng and held onto the young man’s shoulder before asking dryly.
“Of course,” Zhang Lisheng smiled and replied. “I’m happy to serve you, Lieutenant Allison.”
“Thank you, Dr… Erm, you don’t seem to be afraid of this massacre scene?”
“Afraid? Ha! If you were also a biologist who pursues the dissecting of various animal bodies on the experimental platform as pleasure, you wouldn’t feel scared at all. Besides, this could not be called a massacre. All those dead people are voluntarily killed.”
“What?” the female officer exclaimed in shock. “The dead are voluntarily killed?”
“Oh, looks like your panic has taken away your keen observation, Lieutenant Alison,” Zhang Lisheng said with a smile. “Look at how those Wizard Li warriors would talk to the natives before sending them flying. They’re asking the Tatania tribesmen whether they’re willing to give up on the tribe that has already perished or convert to become a member of the Wizard Li tribe. If they’re willing to convert then everything would be just fine. If they’re unwilling to convert, then they would need to be beheaded.”
“Oh, I see,” Allison nodded and did not comment how idiotic those Tatania tribesmen were for not lying. She had witnessed and heard too many cases of self-bombers in the Middle East so she knew just how terrifying the brainwashing power of religion could be.
When the two of them were speaking, the cleansing ceremony was already nearing the end. The Wizard Li tribesmen began to command the converted Tatania tribesmen to push their former totem pole into the blood pool.
“Dr., Sweltman hopes to take a look at Tatania’s tribal book of history before it’s destroyed. I wonder if this is possible or not?” When Zhang Lisheng was looking at the scene with great gusto, Someril suddenly quietly walked up to him and asked.
“Madam Someril, please make such a request earlier next time. The ceremony cannot be interupted once it has started.”
“I’m sorry, I have not been thoughtful enough. In that case, is it possible to do so next time?”
“I’ll talk to the chief warrior in charge of the army. There should be no problem,” the young man answered after a moment of ponderation. The instant his words left his mouth, a peculiar sound suddenly resonated in his ears. It turned out that the Tatania people, who had surrendered, had already thrown their former ‘faith symbol’ into the muddy pool of blood.
The stone pillar was pushed into the pool and a Wizard Li’s chief warrior, who had four feathers on his head, also threw the thick and huge Tatania tribal book of history into the blood pool. At once, a series of shrill cries reverberated in the air without warning, as rolling black smoke gushed out from the totem pole and the tribal book of history.
The black smoke rose into the air and fluttered in a swaying manner to the pile of naked corpses of Wizard Li warriors, whose body had been wiped clean using fresh water, by the side.
Under the slightly pale sunshine of early spring, the black smoke gradually corroded and transformed all of the dead bodies of the Wizard Li warriors into thick cutin. In the open air, the liquid cutin quickly formed and solidified to become a short yellow and blue stone pillar of two to three meters tall.
After the totem pole successfully solidified, the Wizard Li warriors riding the giant millispiders began to brandish their weapons and shouted orders at the defeated foreign Hellfire tribesmen to walk up to kneel and worship at it. As more and more people kneeled in front of the stone pillar, it gradually grew longer and longer.
Looking at the Wizard Li totem pole that was growing bit by bit, Zhang Lisheng, who had not felt the divine power flowing in his body, had a flash of joyful smile on his face.
At the same time, the Wizard Li warriors suddenly sensed the god’s protection to have returned to their bodies. The newly converted Tatania tribesmen, on the other hand, could also obviously sense that they had become different from before. When they crept up from the mud in surprise, and moved their bodies that was more powerful and agile in bafflement, they could not help but exclaim in surprise.
At this moment, the attitude of how the Wizard Li warriors were treating these converts had also completely changed. Even though the scene was still slightly chaotic and confusing, they only watched everything silently without showing any signs of anger. They understood that their tasks had temporarily ended and it was time for those selected tribal dwelling headman to put on the show.
The orderly division of labor made the Wizard Li’s war of conquest become extremely efficient. After Zhang Lisheng became a true ‘god’, the divine power that he could provide for the war also allowed such efficiency to be more sustainable.
After more than a month of tedious conquest, even though the young man could only use it in secret, his understanding of the divine power that he mastered had still managed to become different from before.
First of all, he realized that before he had occupied a certain Hellfire island, the range of his divine power was closely related to the size of the totem pole.
For example, when he first conquered the Tatania tribe on Scorpion Island, he realized that the divine power in his energy gradually disappeared if he was about two to three kilometers away from the chimney-like totem pole. however, now that the division army had conquered about one-half of the island, the young man could faintly feel that the scope of the divine power that he mastered had already shrouded the entire island.
Secondly, other than being able to use soil and water as a medium to give strength, courage, endurance, and tenacity to his believers, Zhang Lisheng found that he could also create powerful creatures as he wished using soil and water.
Unfortunately, the loss of such an ability outweighed the gain during battles. This was because the young man also found that he would have to deplete his power of faith when he used the divine power. The more power of faith that he used, the more apparent the effect of the divine power that he casted.
The amount of power of faith depleted creating an uncontrollable soil creature with a short lifespan was actually about the same with supporting 40,000 to 50,000 Wizard Li warriors to have a big heartfelt battle with their powers enhanced. This was certainly not desirable.
When Zhang Lisheng first learned about the relationship between divine power and the power of faith, he had once regretted it very much, thinking that he should not have granted all Wizard Li tribesmen the three increases for no reason. After that, he finally understood that the essence of these two were like sheep and wool.
Using his divine power on his believers was like feeding the ship. Their belief in himself was like the wool collected from sheep. As long as the feeding was moderate, there would only be gain and no harm.
In fact, since the young man granted his believers long-term gain, the piety of the Wizard Li tribesmen had indeed increased greatly. There were more numbers of fanatic believers as well.
Unfortunately, no matter how pious their faith was and how powerful their divine power’s gain was, it was still impossible for him to turn his warriors into a killing machine that never needed to rest. After madly plundering territory for more than 30 days, the Wizard Li tribesmen finally stopped the footsteps of conquest. At this time, the long tail of the scorpion, that entrenched the Hellfire sea region and more than one third of its body, had become their hunting ground.
In a huge hot spring cave of a foreign tribe in the frontmost of the battle line that had just been captured, Zhang Lisheng was soaking in the hot water, stretching his body comfortably. Hundreds of Wizard Li four-feathered chief warriors were kneeling respectfully beside the hot spring with their heads stuck closely onto the slippery wet ground.
“The number of casualties and injuries of 235,751 is an acceptable figure,” the Wizard Li’s god grabbed a wild fruit from the wooden tray in front of him and put it in his mouth, before saying with a satisfied expression. “Even though the death rate was slightly higher than the last conquest, the Scorpion Island is still the third largest island in the Hellfire Archipelago. It’s impossible for us to occupy such a huge island by catching our enemy off guard. The obstacles we’ll encounter in the later stages of the war will inevitably increase.”
“Your wisdom is enough to illuminate the entire starry sky, Great Majesty!” A short native at the frontmost line of the kneeling chief warriors, whose head was also lowered with his body crouched entirely on the ground, said respectfully. “Almost 40% of the men under my command who died only lost their heads in the few recent battles. The Scorpion Island tribes that we encountered in recent days no longer have a population with less than 200,000 people.”
