The Magus Era

From a long distance away a great fire could be seen and the scent of blood hung oppressively in the air.

Ji Hao was standing on a large tree, hiding behind branches and leaves while looking at the valley miles away.

This valley was the resident place of the Fire Leopard Clan, and it had an ideal location to live in. In front of the village a winding river was passing by, supplying plenty of water to the village; behind the village was a steep cliff, which was thickly strewn with thorns and surrounded the valley from three directions.

At the moment, the village of the Fire Leopard Clan had already been breached. The cabins and cottages that were distributed randomly in the valley had all been set ablaze; black smoke rose high and reached to the sky.

Inside the valley over ten thousands of dead bodies were scattered in a state of disarray and judging from appearances, they were all clansmen of the Fire Leopard Clan. Hundreds of crimson blood-crocodiles, each being tens of feet long, were lying on the ground and were feasting on those bloody bodies.

At the back of the valley there was an area that was abundant with thick thorns, creating a natural barrier that upon first glance was impassable; a winding trail was hiding amongst those dense thorns, secretly leading to the top of the cliff behind the village.

At the top of the cliff, there were numerous Fire Leopard Clan’s people huddled up on the ground; some kids were crying and wailing.

A tall flagpole, made of beast bones, was standing erect at the end of the trail; tens of fire-red leopard tails could be seen tied to it, fluttering along with the wind. Sharp howling came from those tails and tens of faint red phantoms of leopards, each being nearly one hundred feet long, were darting around through those highly poisonous thorns, each spewing large flaming sparks and black smoke from time to time.

“The banner that carried the ancestors’ souls of the Fire Leopard Clan!” murmured Qing Ying, who stood beside Ji Hao looking at the tens of feet high flagpole, “it seems that the Fire Leopard Clan’s Maguspriests became desperate. Unless facing a deadly danger no one would dare to disturb the peaceful rest of their ancestors and call them out to fight.”

“Whoo~ Whoo~”

An odd reedy shouting sound could be heard. Hundreds of muscular Blood Crocodile Clan’s warriors were trying their best to throw the torches in their hands into the clump of thorns, attempting to burn those annoying thorns out and open up a broad road, leading to the top of the cliff.

However, to deter their actions, tens of phantoms of fire leopards were flashing around inside the clump of thorns. Whenever branches were emblazed, these fire leopards could be seen darting over instantly, opening their mouths and inhaling every single fiery spark into their open maws. Those Blood Crocodile Clan’s warriors had thrown thousands of torches made with beasts fat towards the clump of thorns, but failed to burn clear even a little bit of it.

Large groups of short, green-skinned, bulging-eyed and frog-like men were waving their exquisite blowguns, loudly cursing towards the Fire Leopard Clan’s people on the cliff top. These were the Ghost Frog Clan’s people.

Nearly a hundred captured Fire Leopard Clan’s women were pressed down on the ground by these Ghost Frog Clan’s warriors; besides each of these women were a group of Ghost Fog Clan men waiting impatiently. These women were struggling and crying desperately on the ground, their voices caused all of the Fire Leopard Clan’s children on the clifftop to start wailing and screaming.

“Cowards of the Fire Leopard Clan! We’ve slaughtered your clansmen, we’ve burned your village, and we’re playing with your women!” shouted a Ghost Frog Clan’s warrior, whose skin was thickly dotted with fist-sized pustules and was riding on a poisonous ghost frog tens of feet long, “Look! The skins of your women are so white and tender, haha! A lot whiter than our Ghost Frog Clan women! Are you gonna watch them tortured to death by us?”

“No!”

Following the raging growl, a sturdy man whose body was covered in the blood of his missing left arm and presumeably some enemies, jumped up from among the few hundred Fire Leapord Clan’s warriors remaining by their ancestor’s tailed flagpole. He rushed fiercely down along the trail filled with anger and hatred.

The Fire Leopard Clan warrior who had ran down the nearly seven miles long trail was gasping heavily, and waving his iron axe, hacking towards the nearest enemy.

Tens of Ghost Frog Clan’s warriors raised their blowguns together. Along with the swishing sounds, tens of black poisonous thorns were blown out and proceeded to deeply embed themselves in the Fire Leopard Clan warrior’s body. The venom on the black thorns quickly spread, the body of the Fire Leopard Clan warrior immediately began to swell, and countless pustules were emerging from his skin within the span of few breaths. The Fire Leopard Clan’s warrior could only stagger less than ten steps forward before collapsing, his sturdy body hitting the ground heavily.

In the blink of an eye, the once hard and sturdy body of the Fire Leopard Clan’s warrior, became a mere puddle of black pus-like blood, slowly flowing everywhere.

“You stinky frogs! Save the body! My babies haven’t eaten enough yet! Such a nice piece of meat and you wasted it!” shouted a Blood Crocodile Clan’s warrior angrily, who was wearing blood-red leather armour and holding a pair of heavy swords.

In the valley, large groups of Blood Crocodile Clan and Ghost Frog Clan’s warriors raised their heads, while laughing to the sky madly and rampantly.

Ji Hao, narrowed his eyes, and easily enveloped the entire valley, which was about tens of miles in radius, with his spiritual power.

He perceived that there were around a thousand Blood Crocodile Clan’s warriors in the valley, while the number of the Ghost Frog Clan’s Warriors was twice that, with about two thousand. None of these warriors were at the same level as Senior Magi or Maguspriests; the most powerful warriors were the tens of Junior Magi of the Blood Crocodile Clan, where as the Ghost Frog Clan had only around ten Junior Magi in their ranks.

For either the Blood Crocodile Clan or the Ghost Frog Clan, the ancient creatures they worshipped - the blood crocodile and ghost frog - were far less powerful than the three-legged Gold Fire Crow; therefore, the bloodline power they gained from these ancient creatures was a lot weaker than that of the Fire Crow Clan’s people, the percentages of Senior Magi and Junior Magi of their warriors were also much lower!

“Just this amount of people? When did those trash of the Blood Crocodile Clan and Ghost Frog Clan become so fearless?” Ji Hao sneered, he quickly connected this event with that of couple of days ago where Di Luo and his underlings tried to trap him. These incidents had the strong feeling of being a scheme.

“Uncle, tell our people to prepare!” Ji Hao raised his right arm, waved forward and shouted out, “Let’s kill all of these damn dogs!”

Treeman stepped out of the jungle and stood beside the river. He stamped his feet hard on the ground and deeply rooted himself into the ground with these two thick roots of his, his body expanded quickly and soon swelled to his original size.

A nearly two thousand feet high, gigantic three stood beside the river, drawing the rich nutrients from the river water; meanwhile, his roots were quickly stretching underground. Within the span of only a few breaths, his roots went across the river, that was hundreds of feet wide, quickly approaching underneath the Fire Leopard Clan village.

“Kill!” growled Ji Hao in a low voice.

“Kill!” agreed Treeman, letting out a roar along with Ji Hao; the dark, colossal treehole-like mouth of his opened, spewing enormous amounts of cold air.

Thousands of arm-thick black roots darted out from the ground, piercing towards those Blood Crocodile Clan and Ghost Frog Clan warriors like poisonous snakes. There were so many of roots thrust out from the ground that they covered nearly the entire valley. The Blood Crocodile Clan and Ghost Frog Clan’s warriors all felt like even the sky was darkening.

“Enemies!” shouted the Blood Crocodile Clan’s warrior holding two swords.

The sound made by roots piercing through human bodies could be heard. The bodies of hundreds of the weakest Blood Crocodile Clan and Ghost Frog Clan’s men were punctured by the roots of Treeman; those long roots carried their bodies and rose high into the air. Large amounts of blood splashed down and to the warriors fighting it was as if the sky was raining blood.

“Whoo~ Hoo~”

Reverberant roars came from the jungle. Two thousand Fire Crow Clan’s warriors, riding on their contracted beasts, rushed out of the jungle; approaching the river, all of their beasts roared loudly and mightily leapt across the river, proceeding with great momentum to rush into the burning Fire Leopard Clan village.

The Blood Crocodile Clan and Ghost Frog Clan’s warriors shook their weapons fiercely, chopping through the tree roots piercing towards them one after another.

They were shouting and screaming in panic and horror, looking aghast at those Fire Crow Clan warriors who flew across the river and were rushing towards them.

In the next moment, hundreds of arrows swooshed through the air, piercing their throats and sending them flying backwards; blood gushed out of their mouths in a crimson torrent.

The Fire Crow Warriors rushed into the crowd of the Blood Crocodile Clan and Ghost Frog Clan’s warriors while they were all flurried, and raised their weapons high, and knocked groups of enemies down; those Blood Crocodile Clan and Ghost Frog Clan’s warriors were killed as same as grass before a wildfire; it was as if they had even forgotten to resist.

“Oh god! Why are they here!” The Blood Crocodile Clan warrior holding the pair of swords screamed out.