The rain turned heavier than before. Thumb-sized, transparent raindrops fell down from the sky, clapping loudly against the ground.
The sticky mud accumulated on the ground had already reached a foot in depth. In the mud, large vehicles had been moving forward with some solid difficulties. Animals which were pulling the vehicles ceaselessly let out muffled breaths. Sometimes, they would be dragged a big half step backward by the heavy vehicles after they made two steps forwards.
Ji Hao stood on top of a carriage, glancing at the dense and thick layer of rain clouds in the sky, then at the troop which was trapped by the mulch and moved slower and slower. Afterward, Ji Hao locked his fingers together and wielded his hands towards the sky. Following his moves, a human-head sized fireball swooshed up into the sky, exploding in the air thousand-meter away from the ground.
A thunderous boom vibrated the entire area with a radius of a hundred miles. Ji Hao boosted his power up and shouted, "Pitch the camp right here and take some rest. Cook some ginger soup to dispel the cold. Especially women and children, settle them down first! Patrol squads, keep a high vigilance!"
All people in the migratory troop sighed in relief simultaneously. Facing such a strong rain, powerful ones like Junior Magi and Senior Magi surely feared nothing, but ordinary civilians and those children were nearly frozen by the ice-cold rainwater. Their whole bodies were stiff, and they couldn't even breathe smoothly.
Supplies carried on those large vehicles were untied. Large numbers of wooden and bamboo sticks were taken out and huge tents were quietly set up. People dug a ditch around a tent to drain the water away, dried and hardened the ground inside the tent with magic, and thus, a commodious tent was quickly set up.
Under the lifted curtains, bonfires were blazing while large clay jars were filled up with boiling rainwater. Big pieces of ginger, wild spring onions some herbs that could dispel the cold and strengthen human bodies were thrown into the clay jars, along with some large meat pieces, bones, and salt. In no time, a dense, attractive scent spread out.
Ji Hao stood on top of the carriage, looking around. Tens of hundreds of different-sized tents had stood up among this large migratory troop. All the children and women had been settled down first.
Those young and strong people had been working hard in the rain. They built fences and drove that large livestock into the temporary beast pen.
Patrol squads moved around the entire troop more and more frequently. Some Magi temporarily transferred from Magi Palace cast magic around the campsite, split the ground and opened up ditches. The bottoms of those hundred-meter wide, five-hundred meter deep ditches were thickly covered in sharp rocks, because of which, ordinary beast herds and attackers couldn't even approach the campsite.
Constructional components which were custom-made in Pu Ban city were taken out. After a series of clangs made by craftsmen in the campsite, over a hundred, five-hundred-meter tall watchtowers stood up all over the campsite. Hundreds of archers climbed up the towers, vigilantly looking around while chewing solid foods.
Heavy footsteps came from a distance. Yu Mu carried that huge pot of his on the head, rushing over with big steps.
This fatso had been growing huger and huger in shape. His foot heavily thudded against the ground and caused thunderous booms that sounded like a bomb exploding, splashing mud everywhere. Along with this earth-shaking series of footstep, Yu Mu reached the carriage speedily, then violently shook his own body, making layers of his fat flip and send water drops zipping out from his body.
"Ji Hao, something's happening in the front! Feng Xing already took a batch of people to go over there!"
"Something interesting?" Man Man excitedly leaned half of her body out through the window of the carriage and asked. Before Yu Mu answered, she leaped out from the window, carried her pair of hammers and rushed to the front side of the troop with big steps.
Swoosh! Man Man rushed swiftly under the heavy rain like a dashing dinosaur, leaving a five-hundred meter long clear trace behind her body.
"Shaosi, Taisi, you two stay and keep an eye on the campsite!" Ji Hao patted hard on the ceiling of the carriage and said. Afterward, a watery mist rose from under his feet, carrying him as he flew forward fleetingly.
Zhamu, who now was covenanted in loyalty to Ji Hao, gave a long shout and quickly gathered a few patrolling squads that made over two thousand warriors. They all mounted on their battle beasts and closely followed Ji Hao. After they went through a certain distance interval, Zhamu would release a resonant growl each time, hearing which warriors in the campsite would brace themselves up.
When Feng Xing was scouting in front of the troop, over ten people rushed over in bad shapes. Before they approached, Feng Xing pulled his longbow open and released three arrows in a row, deeply striking on the ground, three feet away from the feet of a man who was running in the front.
"Do not come close! Enemies or friends? This is Earl Yao's troop, are you trying to attack Earl Yao?" Feng Xing shouted in a harsh tone and with a strong voice. Meanwhile, the light cavalry behind him had already pulled out their long spears, preparing for a battle.
Ji Hao had offended quite a lot people back in Pu Ban city. He even beat Wuzhi Qi up in the celebration banquet. Who knew what that crazy violent monkey would do?
Therefore, during the journey, except Ji Hao, Po, Man Man and Taisi, all the others had been extra cautious and careful. Any sign of disturbance would cause them to overreact.
The faces of those people had already turned deathly pale because of the desperate running, and just now, they were all startled by the arrows suddenly released by Feng Xing. One after another, they staggered and fell into the mud. A man rolled on the ground for a few times, body covered up in mud then finally raised his head like a drowned mouse, screaming in a shrill voice:
"Help, help! My God! How on earth can they be our clansmen?! They're even more brutal than the cruelest devil!"
"Lord, save our clansmen! Please save us!"
Those people screamed and wailed hoarsely, crying and begging Feng Xing for help.
Feng Xing immediately released an early warning signal to the troop. Meanwhile, cyan light sparkled in his eyes while he measured these people with his eyes. These over ten people were not too powerful, the strongest man among them was only at the early stage of the level of Junior Magi.
Feng Xing slightly turned his head and listened intently. A gale roared across while faint cyan-colored air swirls emerged by Feng Xing's ears. The mysterious power contained in his bloodline was activated, with which, Feng Xing could clearly hear anything within the area that had the radius of over ten miles, even in a thunderstorm like this.
The sound of wind and rain, the claps made by small beasts when running across the muddy ground, except for all these, nothing sounded wrong.
"Who are you? What happened?" Gripping the longbow, Feng Xing nipped an arrow with his fingers, pointing at the strongest man among these people, and asked.
"Lord, we are people of Earl Ji! The leader of our clan is the youngest son of Earl Ji. In this great war, our clan leader and all powerful warriors of our clan had fallen in battles. Now, our clan leader's brothers are trying to murder his son, our young leader, then snatch his territories and clansmen!"
Feng Xing's look turned weird. A man fell in battle and his brothers joined hands, trying to kill his inheritor and snatch his territories and clansmen? Such things were not rare in the Midland and four wastelands. However, in Pu Ban city, the core area of the humankind government, people usually handled things reasonably. Around Pu Ban city, this was the first time for Feng Xing to hear about something like this, that was actually happening!
"This place is not so far from Pu Ban!" A cyan beam of light abruptly flashed across Feng Xing's eyeballs as he said, "How many are your clansmen?" The middle-aged man spread his hand and responded bitterly, "Lord, we are divided into nine clans, thirty-seven villages, over a million and two hundred thousand people in total!"
Feng Xing's eyelids shook, then he glanced backward.
Behind him, breaths of those light cavalry warriors clearly became a lot heavier than before.