“All of our adult warriors were transferred away by the Gold Black Mountain,” growled the Fire Leopard Clan warrior hoarsely. The man had tens of serious injuries on his body, and even a few bones were chopped broken. He had struggled to the Cold Stream Valley with only a sliver of hope in his heart.
“Only three hundred weak warriors were left in the clan! The enemies from the Blood Crocodile Clan and Ghost Frog Clan are many! Many!” the man shouted.
He grabbed Ji Xia’s arms with a pair of bleeding hands, gnashed his teeth and cried, “Ji Xia, the great leader! Help my clan! Save my clansmen! We are the largest branch of the Fire Leopard Clan; half of all the old ones, children, and women of the entire Fire Leopard Clan are within our branch!”
Ji Xia frowned and said resolutely and decisively, “the Fire Leopard Clansmen are our brothers and sisters! If there’s anything happening to them, we have to help! The Blood Crocodile Clan and Ghost Frog Clan are just a bunch of dogs of the Black Water Serpent Clan! We can easily crush their heads!”
“Abba, the mine of the Cold Stream Valley is highly important. You have been ordered to guard this place, you can’t just leave the valley and lead the troop to fight. Abba, I’ve already grown up, I can fight for our Fire Crow Clan as well. Abba, this time, let me go.”
Ji Xia gaped stunned, while looking at Ji Hao from head to toe.
Ji Hao held his head high, puffed his chest out, looked Ji Xia in the eyes, and said, “Abba, though I’m young, I’m much smarter than lots of the uncles in the clan. Besides, I’m a Junior Magus already! I’m even more powerful than many uncles in the clan!”
The nearby standing Fire Crow Clan warriors looked at Ji Hao with complicated expressions in their eyes.
It had been only half a month, but Ji Hao’s power had been improving as fast as a fire arrow. While kids his age were still training at the most basic level of Novice Magi, Ji Hao had already become a Junior Magus, much more powerful than most of the ordinary clansmen.
In the Southern Wasteland, becoming a fifth level Novice Magus would make a man qualify to fight in battle as a Magus; If one made it to the Junior Level, then he or she would become a core warrior, that the clan could rely on.
“My boy, Hao, how old you think you are? But...you wouldn’t get yourself hurt, Abba trusts you in that!” Ji Xia slapped his own head and laughed out aloud, “Hao, my good boy, though you’re still a kid, you act like a grown man!”
“Ji Ying, Ji Lang, Qing Ying! The three of you are to take two-thousand Fire Crow Clan warriors and one-hundred Qing Yi Clan warriors and go help our brothers of the Fire Leopard Clan! Blood Crocodile Clan and Ghost Frog Clan...how dare these trash touch our territory! The Cold Stream Valley could use more mining slaves! Go capture some strong men alive!” shouted Ji Xia out, with a deep breath.
In the Southern Wasteland, once the leader gave the command, all the warriors could get ready to fight as fast as possible, without any hesitation or delay. Only after a quarter of an hour, two-thousand elite warriors rode on their contracted beasts, directed by the wounded Fire Leopard Clan warrior and rushed into the jungle along with sharp whistling noises.
The situation was urgent. Under Ji Hao’s arrangement, three four-tusks mammoths were running in front of the troops as vanguards, crushing all those towering trees in their way, opening a broad and flat path for the troops.
“Two hours, uncle. We only need two hours to get to your clan!” Ji Hao sat on the fat bear’s back, and talked to the Fire Leopard Clan warrior sitting behind him, “do you have any idea about why the Gold Black Mountain transferred your warriors away?”
The Fire Leopard Clan warrior shook his head without any clue. Such things had never happened before. The Southern Wasteland Jungle was highly dangerous; all the clans had to keep their vigilance towards not only sneak attacks from their enemies but also to the threats from all kinds of wild beasts living in the jungle.
Usually, when the Gold Black Mountain transferred warriors from other clans, they would always leave enough warriors to make sure that that the clan could protect itself. But this time, nearly all of the thousands of the elite Fire Leopard Clan’s warriors were transferred away by the Gold Black Mountain, leaving only three hundred of the weakest warriors to guard the clan. This was equal to murder in the Southern Wasteland. However, the Fire Leopard Clan, as a loyal ally of the Fire Crow Clan for thousands of years, had still sent all their warriors out without any hesitation.
“Heng Luo, can you bring us more companions?” While Ji Hao tightly grabbed the hair of the fat bear and leaned his body, he shouted at Heng Luo, who was riding a red leopard and running side by side him, “powerful companions! Those weak and small ones will be useless!”
Heng Luo raised her longbow high, dark-green hair fluttering behind her. She opened her mouth, and uttered a silent call towards the sky.
Circles of air-ripples could be seen in the sky, spreading towards the surrounding. Soon, long and reverberant roars came from the surrounding jungle as one fell, another rose. The branches and leaves ruffled because of gusts of strange winds, which blew out of the jungle. A short while later, some strange and mysterious silhouettes appeared on both side of the troops, and forwarded with the troops at the same speed.
These silhouettes had shapes similar to beasts, however, their bodies were all wrapped in a weird, dense fog, and couldn’t be seen clearly. They were not ordinary living creatures, neither ghosts; they were some mysterious and powerful beings, produced by the natural magical power, and nourished by the life force energy of the jungle.
Only Heng Luo, the guard and soul of the jungle, was capable of calling these mysterious and magical creatures out. In fact, many of the gods, worshiped by small Southern Wasteland clans, were these kind of beings.
Stone was sitting on a four-tusk mammoth’s back, raised its gigantic fist, while slowly punching his own chest in a strange rhythm. The loud and clear punching sound resounded through the jungle within hundreds of miles radius. Soon, the same impassioned, loud punching sounds came from the mountain, tens of miles away.
“Brothers...I heard my brothers!” murmured Stone, “Hao, I found...three of my...brothers, more...powerful than me! Hm...they asked me...about what booze...is, and...and how does the grilled...meat taste like!”
“Hahaha! Tell them! Tell them that they’ll have as much as booze and grilled meat as they want! Tell them the meat is really delicious! They can even come and live with us, the Fire Crow Clan! My Abba and Amma are the most hospitable people in the world!” Ji Hao grinned from ear to ear. Magical creatures like Stone were extremely rare amongst the entities in this jungle, but Stone called three of them out in one go...what a surprise!
Stonemen's thoughts were as simple as a piece of paper; if you only have enough booze and delicious meat, seducing them becomes the easiest thing.
Years ago, after having a bowl of wine and a piece of honeycomb of Ji Hao, Stone became Ji Hao’s best mate and shielded him hundreds of times when Ji Hao hung around in the jungle.
Treeman was also sitting on a four tusk-mammoth’s back; if he would move by itself, it would very slow. He glanced at Stone, who was very proud at the moment; not to be outdone, Treeman also raised his branch-like arm, and released countless green light spots from his arm. Those light spots were drifting profusely and disorderly, towards the surrounding forest like a group of butterflies.
The four-tusk mammoths didn’t slow down. They were running forward like hurricanes. About half an hour later, the forest in front of them suddenly shook, the earth trembled and the mountains swayed. Two gigantic, ancient trees, which didn’t look different from the other nearby trees, suddenly opened their green-flame-like eyes, and slowly pulled their roots out of the ground; their long roots quickly coiled together into four ‘legs’.
Ji Hao was totally stunned. Is the old tree planning to slaughter the entire jungle? thought Ji Hao.
He remembered that the body of Treeman himself was no more than a thousand feet, but these two ancient, giant threes were nearly double the size of Treeman, which implied that their power must also be double than that of Treeman!
“Whoa~~ Let’s go get them all!” Ji Hao let out a long roar, and waved his fist excitedly in the air.
The black, huge ape, who was following the troops and leaped through the branches all the time, sniffed scornfully, stood down on a huge three, and uttered a great and sonorous howl.
Less than a minute later, the same sharp howls came from the distant forest.