The Era of Gods

Chapter 446: Chapter 446 The Divided Natives

Lin Xiao was well aware that his interest was intentional, and he was purposefully looking for something to do.

When they both arrived together to run this base, she was fully prepared to follow her boyfriend’s lead from the moment they entered the Void. After summoning the Clan, she directly handed over her clan’s command to him.

Such a smart, cute, lovely, and pretty girlfriend made him cherish her all the more.

That morning, Lin Xiao was having breakfast with his girlfriend, eating some of the unique fruits collected from this dimension.

Suddenly, a red warning light lit up at the entrance of the dining room. He took a few bites, stood up apologetically, and said,

“You keep eating, I’ll go handle this.”

“I’ll come over in a bit.”

She gave an OK gesture. Lin Xiao had only walked a few steps out the door when he saw Feather Snake, the deputy captain of the Marine Corps, hurrying over. Seeing him emerge, he said in a low voice:

“The second squad to the north just sent a message; they’ve discovered a human indigenous tribe with a population of just over ten thousand. This tribe seems to maintain the most primitive hunting methods and has transcendent warriors similar to knights, as well as a number of wizards common to many dimensions. Traces of deities were also found within the tribe.”

“Transcendent warriors? How strong are they, how many are there, and to what extent is the strongest one?”

Lin Xiao asked calmly and unhurriedly, his expression unchanged.

By then, they had reached the end of the corridor. He placed his hand on a crystal on the door; the crystal lit up, and the metal door opened silently. The two entered the bridge.

Even though a base had been established below, he and his girlfriend still lived on the safer battleship most of the time.

Feather Snake approached the console and summoned a holographic screen which quickly displayed an image. Turning to Lin Xiao, he said:

“According to observations, this human indigenous tribe has a population of about ten thousand and is still in a very primitive tribal state. On average, the individual physical constitution of the tribe members is stronger than that of humans from many worlds. They have a unique and extremely powerful totem system, and based on current observations, the strongest tribal warrior observed is at the Rank 6 Transcendent Level in constitution and strength, and some possess various strange abilities.”

At that moment, the drone footage showed a tribal warrior, his upper body bare and covered with fierce totems, crouching silently on a tree over thirty meters tall. When a black Fierce Beast agile like a leopard but nearly four meters long, stealthily crawled beneath the tree, the warrior jumped from around twenty-five or twenty-six meters high with a spear in hand.

The Fierce Beast dodged swiftly and pounced in turn.

And as a result, after the warrior threw aside his broken spear, he fought the Fierce Beast with his bare hands, eventually overpowering and killing the beast on the ground with sheer brute force.

Through the footage, it was observed that as he exerted force, the fierce totem on his body emitted a faint red glow, forming a Giant Beast phantom that clung to him, overpowering the Fierce Beast.

Then… The tribal warrior tore open the blood vessels in the neck of the Fierce Beast and began to drink the blood in large gulps.

The focus, however, was not the blood-drinking. As he bit and drank, the totem on his body seemed replenished and grew brighter. The totem phantom let out a silent roar and sucked out a shadow resembling the Fierce Beast’s Soul directly from its body. Lin Xiao recognized this as the extraction of the Fierce Beast’s Soul.

“What a sinister technique!”

Devouring the essence and Soul of the Fierce Beast, it was clear that the warrior’s totem grew brighter and his physique became even more robust.

This method of extracting and devouring Souls was very wicked, on par with the methods used by the Undead Mage. However, in primitive societies, there was no concept of good and evil, only survival. For the sake of becoming stronger, drinking blood and extracting Souls was nothing.

However, for Lin Xiao, this was not good news. With such a fierce opponent, a head-on conflict in the future would likely be troublesome.

Of course, the alarm that morning was not raised because this tribe was discovered. The mere discovery of a tribe wouldn’t trigger an alarm. The main reason was that the scouting team discovered that the tribe appeared to be splitting up, and their direction of travel seemed to be towards the base.

Splitting up means that the tribe would divide into two or more groups due to population growth and when the nearby food production could no longer support the tribe. They would migrate to new places to establish new tribes.

Given that the tribe lived in the jungle, surviving only on collecting wild fruits, fungi, hunting wild animals, and fishing in rivers, their food production was limited, hardly enough to support the survival of over ten thousand clan members.

Truth be told, the ability of a tribe to sustain over ten thousand people just by gathering wild fruits and hunting the surrounding animals indicated the richness of the island’s forest resources.

Now it appeared that part of the tribe that was splitting off might move in the direction of the base, which was highly likely to lead to conflict. Preparations needed to be made early.

Lin Xiao thought for a moment, rubbing his chin, and prepared for both eventualities.

One plan was to send a team to continue scouting to confirm whether they were really heading towards the base.

Another hand was naturally preparing for battle, and if it was truly decided to come this way, battle preparations had to be made.

Five days later, Lin Xiao looked at the image of the massive native force exceeding four thousand people, as well as the vanguard team that was about ten kilometers away from the base and approaching, and he knew that war was inevitable.

It was quite ludicrous—these natives had no intention of exploring in advance to find a suitable place before migrating; they just packed up and headed forward right after the tribe split.

Fortunately, no signs of a totem were detected within this tribe, hence it was guessed that the tribe had only one totem and would worship a new one after the split.

For instance, if the leader of the new branch tribe died, they would be worshipped as an ancestor; by absorbing the Power of Faith over a long period, they would gradually gain the authority of a totem and become a new totem.

Alternatively, if an exceptionally powerful leader emerged within the tribe, capable of shielding the tribe with overwhelming martial strength, they would gain the faith of the tribal members while still alive, thus becoming a totem during their lifetime.

This kind of totem was more powerful than being Divine Enthronement posthumously, but also harder to achieve.

Eight days later, Lin Xiao, with a look of speechlessness, glanced at the image displayed on the screen and exchanged a similarly speechless look with his girlfriend; he spread his hands with a wry smile and said,

“They can even get lost like this…”

The reconnaissance team had sent information that this tribe, which had split off from the previous one, had got lost on the way.

Yes, lost. They turned here and there en route and headed toward the center of the island, now dozens of kilometers away from them and getting further and further away.

Well, to be precise, their initial target was not them. It was only at the beginning that they headed in their direction—a few tens of kilometers distance with a slight deviation is quite normal.

In the following period, a small squad of Thunder Wings kept an eye on them, making sure they were moving further away from the base, heading toward the center of the island. Lin Xiao breathed a sigh of relief only when he was certain of this and reverted to the previous state.

Then, about a month later one day, while Lin Xiao was discussing with his girlfriend which kind of defensive array to design for the base on the giant platform with a two-hundred-meter diameter at the center, he suddenly heard the long sound of a horn coming from afar, a warning signal from the patrolling teams around the base.

Over the course of more than a month, the original exploration teams had already ventured deep into the island, leaving only a few small patrol teams around the base, generally patrolling back and forth within ten kilometers of the base.

The sounding of warning horns signaled that powerful enemies had entered within ten kilometers of the base.

After all, with the strength of the patrol teams, the regular hunting teams of the indigenous tribes were no match for them, and there was no need for an alarm.

Lin Xiao swiftly soared into the sky, and several Star Spirits quickly converged towards him; one called Isaiah promptly cast a spell, forming a water mirror in front of him that displayed the scenery from ten kilometers away.

As the image formed, Lin Xiao was surprised for a moment since it didn’t show the previous tribe approaching them again, but two tribes at war.

To be precise, a stronger tribe was hunting down the smaller tribe that had split off earlier.

The stronger tribe had over five thousand members, all robust warriors, while the smaller tribe had just over four thousand people, mostly women and children, many injured, with fewer than a thousand combatants who were fighting and retreating, continually losing warriors.

Had it not been for the forest terrain restrictions, they would likely have been surrounded and wiped out on the plains.

Lin Xiao quickly scanned the water mirror, pausing as he looked in a certain direction.

The image showed a gaunt old man with a necklace of bone teeth around his neck, clutching a skull that emitted a faint black aura. The old man lifted the skull, muttering words, and shortly after, sprayed a thick green breath onto the skull. The skull seemed to come to life, its pupils brightened—one pupil emitting a thick black aura, the other a thick green.

The old man stretched out his hand and pointed forward; the skull’s eyes released intertwining black and green auras, forming a misty, poisonous snake that shot towards a brave warrior on the battlefield in the distance.

The black and green vaporous python hit the target, and the warrior was swiftly entangled by the black python. With a roar, the warrior’s totem glowed with blood, morphing into an exotic beast biting at the black python.

However, the black python quickly swelled in size, transforming into a giant maw that swallowed the warrior whole, totem and all.

Yes, swallowed. As the green and black aura that formed the black python returned to the original state inside the sorcerer’s skull, the sturdy tribesman had turned into a corroded, hole-riddled skeleton.

Then, another wizard took out a Bone Flute, entwined with a cyan bone snake, its mouth aligning with the flute’s.

This wizard blew into the tail of the snake, and black aura emerged on the surface of the Bone Flute, becoming denser quickly until a black snake shadow as thick as a finger flew out, swelling in the wind and soon turning into a twenty-meter-long giant snake. It landed on the ground, roared, and charged into the battlefield.

More wizards used Magic Artifacts to summon a large number of poisonous creatures onto the battlefield, met by an equally large number of poisonous creatures summoned by the opposing wizards.

A powerful warrior from the split tribe activated a totem resembling a Flying Dragon, then astonishingly merged with it, transforming into a nearly twenty-meter-long giant flying dragon. With a lofty chant of unintelligible words, it spewed a large ball of dark green poison which exploded among the enemies, instantly poisoning a large number of tribe warriors without totems.