Chapter 166 – Witch Sisters
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Lin Ming put away the spatial ring, and poured some true essence into his Flame Essence to cremate Huo Gong. However at this moment, a flash of flame blazed out from Lin Ming’s hand.
Lin Ming was shocked.
“Oh.”
He saw that the flame had taken on a deep garnet color, and snakes of flames seemed as if they were the petals of a blooming lotus flower. Obviously, his flames had taken on some of the characteristics of the Red Lotus Demonic Inflammation.
Even with such a tiny surge of flames, it still created a whistling heat wave that flooded the area like a soaring tide of fire. Lin Ming was stirred. He took a sharp steel dagger from his spatial ring and passed it through the flames. In only a few breaths of time, the edge of the knife had actually turned red as it softened, and finally melted into a lump of liquid steel.
Lin Ming was elated; the new flames that he conjured were on a much higher level than those of the lava fire flames. Although the burning lava was hot, it still wasn’t enough to melt steel.
Lin Ming waved his hand and a wisp of flame fell onto Huo Gong’s corpse. With a chichi sound, Huo Gong’s corpse was quickly enveloped by this dark red flame. Since this flame was easily able to melt steel, its effects on a human body could be imagined. In a mere moment, Huo Gong had turned into ashes, without even a bone remaining.
Lin Ming casually shook his sleeve, and a cool breeze blew away the ashes. The corpse was gone without a single trace.
After all this, Lin Ming began to search for the Penetrating Rainbow spear that he had thrown. This spear had been at Lin Ming’s side through thick and thin. Although he didn’t have much use for it these days, he still wasn’t willing to discard it just like that.
However, to search for a spear in the vast forest was easier said than done. Fortunately, Lin Ming had already used the Penetrating Rainbow spear for some time, and his true essence had been repeatedly poured into it, so there should still have been a residual trace of true essence within the spear.
Lin Ming was able to follow this small trace of true essence. Finally, amidst a pile of weeds, he found the Penetrating Rainbow spear nearly completely submerged in mud.
After taking back the Penetrating Rainbow spear, Lin Ming began to formulate a plan on how to deal with Ouyang Dihua.
Regardless of whether it was power or influence, Ouyang Dihua had the advantage in all fields. If he returned to the Seven Profound Martial House like this, he would easily lose, and might even be killed by Ouyang Dihua.
“Strength. I have to grasp more strength, and then return to the Seven Profound Martial House to get revenge for what happened on this day!”
Lin Ming simply decided to stay in the Southern Wilderness. Here was a good land to gain experiences and grow.
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The Southern Wilderness was 100,000 miles long and 100,000 miles wide. It was located southwest of Sky Fortune Kingdom.
The land here was not in the sphere of influence of the Seven Profound Valleys. There were no countries in the Southern Wilderness. Rather, there were individual tribes that were scattered around.
The mainland referred to these tribes as groups of barbarians, and thought that they lacked ethics and ate birds and animals raw.
It was true they had different moral principles; however, it was false that they ate birds and animals raw.
The people of the Southern Wilderness would often marry close relatives. To those that lived in the mainland, this was an outrageous and sacrilegious affront to their sensibilities.
The girls of the Southern Wilderness were extremely bold in their choice of clothing. They often only wore animal skins or thin linens to cover their most vital parts. With such simple dress, there wasn’t much that was hidden, and it often caused those watching to fall into daydreams.
The girls of the Southern Wilderness were the healthy color of wheat. They were mostly tall and slim, with slender and fit legs. Daggers were tied to their legs by animal skins, and they wore ivory jewelry fashioned from the bones of vicious beasts on their neck and wrists; there was a certain exotic charm to this.
Lin Ming had already been in the Southern Wilderness for five days. He had walked south from the forest for the entire time, and had finally seen his first Southern Tribe.
In those past five days, Lin Ming had killed almost 100 vicious beasts on his way there. Where he was now was only at the southern edge of a great mountain rage. The vicious beasts here were not ranked too highly; the strongest vicious beast he had encountered along the way was only equal to a Bone Forging stage martial artist.
This sort of vicious beast posed no threat at all to Lin Ming.
After walking through the wild forests for such a long time, Lin Ming finally saw the telltale smoke signs of human civilization. Lin Ming let out a breath in relief and didn’t say anything else. He was simply tired of the diet that he had been eating these days. Except for the vicious beast meat, there were only wild fruits. The most notable problem was that there was no salt, so everything he tasted was bland.
This tribe probably had little more than 1000 people.
As Lin Ming walked into the tribe, he suddenly felt a wave of exotic and adventurous wind.
Here, there were huts and tents, large and small. All the pointy tents were embroidered with fascinating designs, such as vicious beasts, totems, mythical demon lords, and phoenixes.
Between the tents on the road, there were traders wearing southern clothing and carrying bamboo poles. They sold a wide variety of products, such as fine bone jewelry, handmade knives, bows and arrows, rare animals skins, bird feathered hats, and so on.
Of the southern people that Lin Ming encountered on the way, most of them had training in martial arts. In the Southern Wilderness, the forests were thick with vegetation and thorns, and vicious beasts eternally haunted the lands. The people of the Southern Wilderness often had to fight with vicious beats, and gradually, over time, this caused the physical strength and martial arts cultivation talent of the southern people to generally be better than those of the mainland.
As Lin Ming was looking for a vendor to buy a few jins of salt, he saw a young, slim girl, about 16 or 17 years old with a smiling face as radiant as a flower beckon to him. She pointed to herself, and then pointed to inside of her tent.
Lin Ming was momentarily stunned before he snapped back to reality. The social customs of the Southern Wilderness were very open and lax. Regarding marriages, besides important people of clans and tribes, it was simply not fixed for ordinary people. They would often implement a sort of ‘walking marriage’ matriarchal system society.
When a man and woman met in a situation that they were attracted to each other, then the man would spend a pleasurable night at the woman’s sleeping place, and then he would leave at dawn the next day. If there was a child, then the bride’s family would raise the it.
This was the first time that Lin Ming had encountered such a thing. He awkwardly waved his hands with some embarrassment. He did not plan to leave a child in the Southern Wilderness and then wash his hands of any responsibility.
The young girl’s face was colored with disappointed, and she bitterly pulled down the tent’s curtain.
Lin Ming was dumbfounded; he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
At this moment, Lin Ming felt something. He noted that not too far away, were two girls and two men.
The two men looked to be 30 or 40 years old. One was bald, and had very hard and ferocious features. He was big and tall, and carried a 10 foot long mace on his back.
The other man was just the opposite. He was thin and small of build, and he wore leather armor. There was a small axe on his back. His face was lean and sunken, not unlike a monkey.
What caused Lin Ming to be surprised was that these two homely men both had an impressive cultivation at the peak Bone Forging stage.
It was quite unusual for two Bone Forging stage martial artists to suddenly appear in a small tribe with only a thousand people.
Lin Ming’s gaze shifted to the two girls. Although these two girls were only around 14 or 15 years old, their cultivation was already at the Viscera Training stage.
To Lin Ming, this was even more startling.
For a 14 or 15 year old to reach the Viscera Training stage, this degree of success could only be achieved by a junior of an aristocratic family in the Sky Fortune Kingdom with at least a superior fourth-grade talent.
For two girls with at least a superior fourth-grade talent and two men at the Bone Forging stage to appear in a small tribe with a thousand people was just too irrational.
“Perhaps these two are also outsiders…” Lin Ming guessed.
While Lin Ming noticed these two Bone Forging stage men, they also noticed Lin Ming.
They bald guy sent a true essence sound transmission to the monkey-face man, “Big Brother, this boy is at the Altering Muscle stage. He meets our requirements.”
The monkey-face man nodded and replied with a true essence sound transmission, “How lucky. It seems that this boy is also only 15 or 16 years old. With such a cultivation at his young age, he is probably the son of some large aristocratic family. This little boy is inexperienced and arrogant; it will be easy to make him swallow the bait.”
“Hehe. I’ll go up and call him. Once the matter is finished, we’ll kill him. There are definitely many good things on his body. After we steal all of them, then us brothers will have all the benefit.”
“Mm. Wait until he’s out of here before we talk to him. If we are seen by others then it will be bad. This boy surely has some sort of powerful background. If we are discovered by them then it will be the end for us.”
“Alright. I know.” The bald man licked his lips, a bit impatient.
The monkey-faced man also licked his laps. He turned to the two girls behind them. Speaking to the older girl in front, he smiled and said, “Miss Na Yi, we will rest for tonight in this tribe. I’ll have to trouble you to guide us again tomorrow. Rest assured, as long as we find the Sorcerer’s Holy Land, I shall release you and your little sister. Of course, if you plan on playing some dirty trick on us, then, haha, don’t blame us for being rude. You may or may not know, but a pair of witch sisters will sell for a very high price in Huoluo Nation.”
The monkey-faced man smiled deviantly, and the young girl named Na Yi could only stare at him. Her eyes were cold like the ninth layer of the abyss, and her little sister Na Shui’s face whitened.
If it were just Na Yi, then she would have no fear to fight to the death. However, now she had her little sister with her, so she had no recourse but to submit to these two wicked men.
Of these two girls, one was the elder sister, Na Yi, who was 15 years old. The younger sister was named Na Shui, and was 14 years old. These two girls were originally the tribal witches of the Southern Wilderness.
Most Southern Tribes were matriarchal societies. The supreme power of these tribes was a woman, known as the Witch Queen.
Most of the clans and tribes of the Southern Wilderness believed in the faith of the Sorcerer. The Witch Queen was considered the messenger of the Sorcerer, and thus was also the tribe’s greatest leader.
A witch was a candidate for the next Witch Queen.
A Witch Queen was not a hereditary position. For witches to be chosen, there was a very complex set of rules.
Two girls were identified as witches at birth. If no accident happened, then they would enter into the Sorcerer Holy Land when they were 16 years old and inherit the sacred inheritance of the Sorcerer’s mysterious power. Then, according to the Sorcerer’s decision, one of the two witches would be chosen as the successor, and become the next Witch Queen.
However, when Na Yi was only 14 years old, her tribe had been wiped out by a rare great flood of vicious beasts.
In the Southern Wilderness, there were countless vicious beasts. Occasionally there would be massive riots of these vicious beasts that would form into a vicious beast flood. In a large scale beast flood, there might possibly be as many as tens of millions of vicious beasts. It was enough to completely annihilate a tribe that was even millions of people strong.
After Na tribe had been decimated by the beast flood, there was simply nothing left of the tribe; and not even 10% had survived.
At that time, the nearby Fire Worm tribe had taken advantage of the fact that they were ruined to launch an attack. The Fire Worm tribe believed in Shamanism, so they had different tribal beliefs. Not only that, but they also had many conflicts of interest, and there was always friction between the two.
Since the beast flood had already weakened Na tribe, they were unable to resist the advancement of the Fire Worm Tribe. As a result, Na tribe experienced a complete genocide.
However, the two sisters Na Yi and Na Shui were the hope of Na tribe. Before the outbreak of war, they had already been sent off. But they had left the wolves just to enter the tiger’s den. The two sisters had been kidnapped by the bald man and the monkey-faced man.
Their goal was simple. It was Na tribe’s Sorcerer Holy Land.
