After passing through the door made of giant totem beast skeletons, rows of scarlet war flags were placed in front of them.
Four blood hoof prints were arranged on the four corners of the war flags, representing the Turan, centaur, wild boar, and barbarian elephant people. These were the four strongest settlements of the Blood Hoof Clan.
There was a broken skull in the middle, symbolizing the Blood Hoof Clan’s bravery. They would definitely trample all the barbarians who believed in the holy light in the north into pieces.
The captives who passed through the rows of war flags and escaped from the Bison River were deeply shocked by a huge mandrake tree. They couldn’t help but gasp.
Leaf had never seen such a huge mandrake tree.
Compared with this mandrake tree that was at least dozens of arms, no, hundreds of arms tall, the so-called “tree kings” on the cliffs of their hometown were just babbling children.
Normally, this mandrake tree that even a dozen Turan people could not carry with their arms was able to bear a lot of fruits. It should be enough for the entire village to eat for half a year, right?
But now, there was not even half a yellow fruit on its lush tree crown.
Only colorful flowers were blooming and spreading out rainbow-like spores in the air.
The trunk and branches of this giant tree were covered in red and green, wind chimes made from the bones of totem beasts.
When the wind blew, it made a small but ethereal sound, as if it was the command and call of the ancestral spirit.
In front of the giant tree, there was an altar built with the bones of totem beasts.
It used the most ferocious and exquisite skull of totem beasts. On top of it, there were naturally complex and mysterious totems that contained mysterious power, faintly emitting a suffocating aura.
More than ten priests of the Blood Hoof Clan were wearing wooden carvings with totem beast oil and metal powder smeared on the surface. They were wearing colorful masks and armor. They were dancing in front of the giant tree and carrying out a solemn and complicated ceremony.
Leaf knew that a mandrake tree of this scale could be called a “Soul Tree.” It was the resting place of the ancestral spirits and was often used to sacrifice and create totem pillars.
Many of the Blood Hoof warriors who had returned from their capture piled up some particularly large and strong rat people corpses in front of the Soul Tree.
Leaf saw that the Minotaur warrior with broken horns had a serious expression on his face. He held up the corpse that his brother had carefully preserved with the mandrake tree’s juice with both hands. Step by step, he walked to the front of the soul tree and placed it down gently.
Leaf’s companions recognized the identities of the few corpses.
They were all rat subjects who had put up the most tenacious resistance during the capture operations in the past few days. They were especially brave and strong.
As a result, they had won glory for themselves and gained the favor of the Blood Hoof warriors. Through the Blood Bestowing Ceremony, they had become a member of the Blood Hoof Clan.
Of course, just like their brother, they were all corpses.
The priests who wore huge masks and looked like human-shaped totem beasts sang and danced around the square-shaped pile of corpses for a long time.
All the Blood Hoof warriors and prisoners of the rat race paid their highest respect to the brave ones with the most pious attitude and prayed that the ancestral spirit could open the gate of Sacred Mountain and bring these brave warriors back to the Hall of Glory.
“Die!”
Suddenly, one of the oracles held a long spear in his hand and stabbed at the pile of corpses with his eyes wide open.
The other oracles also waved their extremely exaggerated and sharp magical artifacts and hacked at the corpses, cutting them into pieces.
“Brother… has received his glory…”
Leaf opened his eyes wide and searched carefully. Finally, he found his brother’s corpse in the messy pile of corpses.
Seeing his brother’s disfigured and messed up appearance, Leaf heaved a long sigh of relief and revealed a knowing smile.
The people of Turan sacrificed the most tragic sacrifice for the highest glory.
Lying on the sickbed, struggling to survive, and finally dying in one piece was the most shameful, the saddest, and the dirtiest way to die.
Dying in such a cowardly manner, it was impossible for an unbound soul to pass through the gate of Sacred Mountain and return to the Hall of Glory where the ancestral spirits were.
Only on the battlefield, challenging an opponent who was far more powerful and terrifying than oneself, and being killed by the opponent in the cruelest way, was the way of death that every Turan envied and pursued.
The higher the position of the opponent, the stronger the strength, and the more brutal the killing methods, the greater the glory that the dead would receive.
Originally, the rat people were not qualified to enjoy such a magnificent death.
But the Blood Hoof Clan generously bestowed them with the same glory as themselves.
These priests who wore huge masks and waved exaggerated magical artifacts, played the role of the ancestral spirits and ancient totem beasts.
Stabbing the bodies of their brothers meant that they were defeated and died tragically in the battle to challenge the ancestral spirits.
This was the best way for the Turan people to die.
All the captives were moved.
Even though their hometown had just been burned down by the Blood Hoof warriors a few days ago, their relatives and friends were all slaughtered.
This grand sacrifice had slightly worn away the hatred and hostility in their hearts.
It had also aroused their impulse to join the Blood Hoof Clan and win the highest glory.
The long ceremony finally ended.
The priests poured the totem beast oil over the pile of corpses that were like mud and burned them into ashes.
Then, they buried the burning ashes of the Warriors under the soul tree.
All the Blood Hoof priests and warriors were facing the soul tree and prostrating on the ground. Their bodies were trembling as they chanted.
“Are they praying to the ancestral spirits to let the mandrake tree bear fruit again?”
Leaf turned his head with difficulty and asked his partner behind him.
His partner’s village was near the Bison River, not far from Black-corner City.
He knew a lot about the Blood Hoof Clan and the rules of the warriors.
Leaf vaguely felt that what had happened in the past few days had something to do with the blooming of the mandrake tree.
When the mandrake tree was not blooming, it was desperately growing fruits all the time. A single mandrake tree could fill up a family of seven or eight people.
At that time, the days were carefree and everyone was smiling. Even if the elders of the clan went into the mountains to hunt, the main reason was not to obtain food, but to prove their strength, wisdom, and courage in front of the totem beasts.
But all the mandrake trees bloomed at the same time.
The fragrant and beautiful mandrake flowers made the whole world look like a fairyland.
But the mandrake trees that bloomed no longer bore fruit…
Not even a single fruit.
Leaf heard his mother curled up in the hammock in the dead of night, silently sighing and sobbing.
He knew that it was not only his own family, but even the mandrake fruits stored in the village were becoming fewer.
Even if the Blood Hoof warriors did not massacre the village.
Before long, the last mandrake fruit in the village would also be eaten.
At that time, they would either starve to death.
Or, the villagers would do a hundred times more cruel things to each other and to other villages that were also hungry and desperate than the Blood Hoof warriors.
This was the rule of the glorious era.
Leaf knew that the glorious era meant war.
But he naively thought that the reason for war was that everyone had no food to eat.
As long as the mandrake tree could quickly bear fruit and everyone could fill their stomachs, they would be able to pass the glorious era and return to the carefree, peaceful “era of prosperity,” right?
But this partner looked at him as if he was looking at an idiot.
“The mandrake tree will no longer bear fruit.”
The partner said, “Before we win greater glory for the ancestral spirit and use the blood and corpses of more powerful enemies to nourish the mandrake tree’s roots, half or even more of the Turan people will die, the mandrake tree will no longer bear fruit.
“These old men are not praying for the ancestral spirit to let the mandrake tree bear fruit quickly.
“On the contrary, they were praying to the ancestral spirits to make the mandrake flower bloom more, bloom bigger, and bloom brighter.
“The bigger and brighter the mandrake flower blooms, the greater, more spectacular, longer, and more tragic the war to come.
“Only the warriors of Turan could seize more and higher glory from the bloody battles that were both grand and long.
“It must be known that before the mandrake flower bloomed this time, it had already passed through a full ten palm years of the prosperous era.
“The peaceful and prosperous era is a good day for us rat people, but for the clan elders who carry the totem power on their backs, they’ve been holding it in for a long time!
“According to the elders in our village, from the time their grandfather, grandfather’s grandfather, grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather, they’ve never encountered a prosperous era that lasted for a full ten palm years.
“After the prosperous era of a palm year is the glorious era of a palm year.
“After two years of prosperity, there will be two years of glory.
“It’s always been that way.
“But no previous era of prosperity has lasted more than three or four years.
“Now that we have just passed the longest and longest era of prosperity, the longest and longest era of glory will definitely follow. There will be a war that will be the biggest, biggest, and biggest. Of course, the elders of the clans want to seize the highest, highest, and highest glory in this war!”
So that was the case.
It was a war of a grand scale, holy, and glorious, unprecedented in history.
Before this, Leaf did not have much of a concept of war.
After all, most of the rat people were timid, and there was plenty of food that they could pick at will.
The only thing he had encountered that most resembled a “war” was nothing more than a conflict between Mountain Foot Village and Half Mountain Village over a very large and beautiful mandrake tree, which involved more than a hundred people.
However, after burying his brother, completing the sacrifice, and continuing to advance.
The scene in front of Black-corner City, however, was like a totem beast that was wearing iron armor and charging over fiercely. It made Leaf’s eyes, brain, and soul feel the heaviest impact, and he instantly understood the meaning of “war.”
He saw tens of thousands of Minotaur warriors. Even if they were not as strong and fierce as the one who killed his brother, they were not much different.
All of them exposed their strong muscles, showing off the metallic luster and gorgeous tattoos on their skin. They waved the huge axes and spiked clubs that were made of the leg bones and tailbones of totem beasts, and were filled with sharp metal teeth. They walked with deafening footsteps that shook the earth and mountains, they set out from the Minotaur fortress in all directions and gathered at the foot of Black-corner City.
