Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
In the city of Hope, in the center of the Desolate Labyrinth, there was a conference room.
“We’ve been here for six days. When can we have your confirmation?!” One man’s hair was organized with a white bone ornament. He had a burly figure like a raging bear and was sitting upright on the sofa. Behind him were two young men who looked badly battered. They had a close resemblance to the man on the sofa.
The young man swallowed his saliva and said quietly in his heart, Actually, they can drag this on for a few more days.
He’d enjoyed the past few days so much. For the first time, he had seen girls with fair skin. They were so gentle that the group of shrews in his tribe couldn’t compare to them at all.
A tinge of displeasure flashed through the eyes of the strong man that looked like a bear. He was one of the members of the council of elders who had been ordered to come and form alliances with the Earth Star Colonists from the Ancestral Land.
But those from the Ancestral Land were too cunning to give him a formal reply. Every time he grew angry, those people would continue to smile with their thick skin and nod their heads at whatever he said. They would reply to him with responses like, “Yes, yes, you’re right. That makes sense.” They were just like those from the Poison Marsh Tribe of the Seven Kings Tribe—cunning and sly.
He had taken his son and representatives of several other tribes. When he looked to his left and right, the seats beside him were empty. Those guys were either drunk in a tavern or lying in bed with a group of women; they had indulged in pleasure and forgotten their duties.
“The war could break out at any moment. The Clam God guarding Earth Star may leave at any time. Those from the Mutated Tribe kill without batting an eye. Our ancient tribe is here to help you. We’re from the same origin and share the same ancestors, so I hope we can resist the Mutated Tribe together. I believe that your ancestors would be relieved to know that you’ve chosen to help us out.”
“Your Excellency is right,” the diplomat replied sincerely, looking into his earnest eyes. He was filled with good faith. “In fact, we’ve been seriously considering what you’ve said, but our opinions haven’t been unified. However, on the whole, most people still hope to form an alliance. During this period of time, we’ve been persuading those who were against the idea. After all, this will involve the fate of hundreds of millions of our people. We hope you’ll be a little more understanding.”
Pi Kuang nodded, and his annoyance and impatience calmed down quite a bit. After all, there were hundreds of millions of people involved, and his tribe was just over eight million. The trouble was understandable, since so many people were involved.
At the same time, Pi Kuang was a little envious. They had so many people, more than 300 million, when even the top three tribes didn’t have that many. Moreover, everyone on Earth Star was talented.
There were no restrictions on the number of children they could have in their tribes, but health care, education, monsters, and diseases kept the population from rising. Sometimes a terrible plague could greatly decrease a tribe’s population; only one in ten would survive.
The plague there wasn’t an ordinary plague. Sometimes, it was orchestrated by a powerful Poison-type demon. On other occasions, the plague was transmitted from familiars or monsters.
Monsters could also be infected with diseases or the plague, because many of the familiars in the tribe were of the same kind due to the tribe’s inheritance. Therefore, in that case, the outbreak of a contagious plague would spread rapidly.
Sometimes a powerful demon invading a tribe was a calamity, its repercussions enough to kill countless people. Hence, the smaller the tribal population, the more difficult it was to increase its population. A lower population also suggested a lower number of monster trainers, making it increasingly hard to defend against all kinds of natural or man-made disasters.
That was also the fundamental reason why the tribal population hadn’t been able to go up for so many years. Of course, when the population had only reached seven or eight million, tens of millions of people would cause a series of livelihood problems. Those were the problems that made it difficult for the populations of larger tribes to rise after reaching a certain threshold.
That was also the rationale of the ancient tribe who had come to find those from the Ancestral Land after they learned that they had left Earth Star. The talents of the Earth Star Colonists were so dreadfully strong that they were even a little afraid of them!
Moreover, their population was large, and if they were given sufficient time to develop, the Earth Star Colonists might be able to rank above all the others, including Pi Kuang’s tribe, so even if the Earth Star Colonists left Earth Star and escaped to the Black Fog World, the ancient tribe had to take advantage of the opportunity to drag them onto the battlefield together when Earth Star Colonists hadn’t yet flourished. They wanted the Earth Star Colonists to be caught in the chaos caused by the war. If the Earth Star Colonists’ tribe was destroyed and the ancient tribe could accommodate the homeless population, that would be the ideal scenario.
Pi Kuang urged, “As soon as possible. I want to see results by tomorrow. If you can’t finish it by tomorrow, I’ll help you resolve it.” Pi Kuang spoke word by word.
“I’ll help you resolve it” held a great significance. Everyone knew what measures he was going to use to resolve the issue.
The day before, Pi Kuang had received the news that the elders sent by the tribe to other large colonies of Earth Star had basically completed their tasks. The large colonies had signed war covenants with his tribe. Now, all was left to deal with was the Huaxia Tribe.
The tribe was also urging him to fulfill his task within three days and return. In due course, extraordinary and extreme measures could be taken. He felt that he was already very open to persuasion and gave the Huaxia Tribe a lot of leeway.
After all, he was a noble monster trainer at the Saint tier. It was unheard of that he would speak to those insignificant nobodies politely. If he hadn’t heard that Gao Peng had a good relationship with the High Priest of White Dragon Tribe, he would have resorted to violent means.
After that, Pi Kuang got up and left. His son, who had been standing behind him, kept up with his father obediently. As they walked farther and farther away, Pi Kuang knocked the young man on the back of his head from time to time. He hit and cursed, “Women, women, women is all that’s inside your head. You rejected the marriage I found you in the tribe and came over here to fool around. When you’re back, get married quickly. I want see my grandson next year!”
When they watched Pi Kuang and his son leave and their voices had faded, the diplomats and several senior government officials sat on the sofa with a sense of helplessness. That feeling was like the Qing Dynasty when facing the invasion of the Eight-Nation Alliance. They had the intention to kill their enemies but were incapable of saving the desperate situation.
They were filled with indignation, but it could only be transformed into a raging frustration. But when their rage transferred into cold reality, it instantly turned into a tiny and insignificant flame under an iceberg.
The disparity in strength was too big; it was even impossible if the enemy put up a desperate fight.
“Do you really want to cooperate with that ambitious and greedy bunch?” one of the senior officials wrote on the paper.
“Let’s wait,” another wrote.
“Gao Peng.” The last one simply wrote Gao Peng’s name.
“Uh…” At last, there was only a faint sigh resonating in the conference room.
Could that man really bring them hope? The more they came into contact with the enemy, the more desperate they were. Gao Peng was only a monster trainer at the Overlord tier, even if he had achieved a breakthrough to the Saint tier in a short period of time… but the enemy’s tribe still had a Quasi God.
With a sigh, they didn’t know what to say, but there was really no other way.
…
Squared World.
“Hasn’t Pi Kuang returned yet?” The elders of the Tribal Alliance were discussing how to deal with the mutated. However, not everyone was back yet, and thus the people who came back earlier were hanging out and talking in low voices.
Suddenly, Lei Wu, the Saint-tier monster trainer from the Ominous Thunder Tribe, raised a question with a chuckle at others’ misfortune.
He had also been dispatched to seek cooperation with a force from Earth Star, but his method was much simpler and harsher. He had summoned his Saint-tier familiar and its Thunder Smash Area had blossomed in the sky. The purple Thunder Smash Area was full of wild thunder, his Saint-tier familiar right in the middle. It had looked as if the God of Thunder had descended.
The aura of the Saint-tier familiar made all the familiars in that tribe kneel on the ground. Everyone looked at him in awe. His strength, which was above everyone else’s in the tribe, was key for him to accomplish his task easily.
“Haha, looks like Pi Kuang is getting old. He’s taking so much time for such a simple task,” Lei Wu hollered.
“So what if you accomplished such an easy task a day or two in advance? Why are you proud of accomplishing a task that could be done by any monster trainer at the Saint tier?” The patriarch of Divine Bear Tribe sneered at Lei Wu. “Don’t tell me the guys from the Ominous Thunder Tribe were reduced to having to rely on such an easy task to show off? Are you going to show off that your child is able to walk when he’s a year old?”
“Ha.” Lei Wu smiled coldly, but this time he no longer replied to the man from the Divine Bear Tribe.
People from other tribes brought over their chairs and waited at the side to watch the quarrel. The conflict between the Divine Bear and Ominous Thunder Tribes was nothing new. The two tribes were always in conflict ever since they were in the Ancestral Land.
Their fine tradition had been maintained even in the Squared World.
As soon as the two tribes encountered each other, the people of the two tribes would definitely quarrel. Their petty quarrels could range from “my tribe hunted and killed a Saint-tier monster” to “my wife gave birth to triplets.”
“All right, stop your nonsense. We’ve just received the news that Earth Star had an unusual reshuffle, and the Clam God is about to be revived.” Outside the hall, three people walked in side by side, and an old man with a white beard and brows who stood in the middle stopped the conversation; he was the patriarch of the White Dragon Tribe.
Although the other two were Quasi God monster trainers, they weren’t the chiefs of their respective tribes, so in a sense, their statuses were lower than that of the patriarch of the White Dragon Tribe. Hence, for the time being, the White Dragon Tribe’s patriarch was assuming the role of person-in-charge.
“Put Pi Kuang’s issue aside for a moment. The revival of the Clam God is going faster than we thought. Previously, we had estimated that it would take a month, but from the recovery pulse of the Clam God, it’ll be completely awakened in a maximum of five days.”
The air froze in the hall, and the fear of an imminent war enveloped them. Everyone became serious. Compared to the imminent appearance of the Mutated Tribe, Pi Kuang and the issue with the Huaxia Tribe were insignificant.
The Ancestral Land had a population of more than one billion people, and all the remaining tribes except the Huaxia Tribe had signed war covenants with them. If they removed the three or four million people of the Huaxia Tribe, they still had a population of more than one billion.
“We can’t allow this war to spread to our rear. The battlefield has to be Earth Star!” emphasized the old patriarch of the White Dragon Tribe.
“Understood!” The problem wasn’t affecting a single tribe. All tribes were closely related and interdependent on each other. When one of the tribes was in danger, the others would be at risk too. Thus, everyone was serious about it.
“Before the Clam God is revived, we need to fix our front line… it’s a good thing that those from the Ancestral Land left. We’re going to fight the mutated head-on! Ze Yuan, your Poison Marsh Tribe is best at fostering Poison-type familiars. Give them a big one!”
“Rest assured. As early as half a year ago, I let the young ones in the tribe produce poisons and capture toxic creatures.” Ze Yuan was an old man as thin as a bamboo pole that was balding in the middle of his head. He gently brushed a white snake in his palm. The eyes, teeth, and tongue of the white snake were entirely white; it lay obediently in Ze Yuan’s hand.
However, in the presence of other Saint-tier monster trainers, they couldn’t help showing a trace of fear when they saw the white snake.
