The Magus Era

Large amounts of white ashes were drifting in the air. More than a half of the Fire Leopard Clan’s village was shrouded by these ashes.

Contained within these white ashes were the bone ashes of those offerings that had been burnt by the Gold Fire Crow’s flame, and ashes of soil and rock. Every single particle of these ashes contained a wisp of the remaining hot power, which had come from the Gold Fire Crow’s soul. While people were walking through these ashes, these particles clashed against each other and burst out large pieces of fire sparks along with popping noises.

The Fire Leopard Clan’s people were cleaning their village, dealing with the dead bodies of the enemies and their own perished clansmen. A Large group of clansmen were walking through these white ashes, which made the entire village seemed as if it was shrouded by a raging fire; the glowing red fiery light even shone upon the vast jungle around.

“Woo~woo~yo~”

A mumbling sound came from the jungle. It were Treeman and the two friends of his. The three of them walked slowly into the jungle, which had been burnt out earlier; following behind them were a large group of small spirits of trees and flowers, who were drawn near out of themselves.

Treeman and his two friends had tried very hard to shrink their bodies into the most miniscule size they were capable of; each of them were carrying a huge booze-vat with their branch-like arms; on one hand, they were gulping the booze contained in the vats happilly, on the other hand, they were busy at spreading seeds of all kinds of plants towards the burnt soil, which was still hot. All three of these old trees were slightly drunk, even their feet staggered while walking, and stepped everywhere with their gigantic bodies, which made those small spirits of trees and flowers near their feet scream out in fear.

Under the cliff, inside the half collapsed meeting room of the Fire Leopard Clan, Ji Xia was sitting near a bonfire with his legs crossed, while he was munching a large piece of grilled beast meat that was emitting a thick aroma.

Being grilled and sizzled upon the bonfire was a horned gorilla-bear, the mount belonging to a Ghost Clan’s Senior Magus. This horned gorilla-bear was a senior level beast, the poor thing was found badly wounded after the fight, but those Fire Leopard Clan’s Maguspriest did not want to spend any of their precious medicines on this beast. Thats why they decided to clean and skin it, then grill it and treat their honoured guests with it.

“Hao, since you have gained the approval of our ancestors’ souls, makes what you just did not wrong.” Ji Xia finished more than a half of the grilled beast, satisfyingly patted his own belly and said. “Although Abba had never bullied those poor little clans with our Fire Crow Clan’s power, but since they besieged us at the first place, then there’s nothing more to say about it. They all deserved to die,” continued Ji Xia while a slight beam of cold light flashed across his pupils.

Ji Hao was holding a booze-vat, drank a few mouthful of liquor that was emitting a strong scent contained in the vat, then wiped the liquor which was dripping down along the corner of his mouth.

“Haha, Abba, when I saw you flew over like rocket, I thought you were going to stop me from performing the offering-ceremony,” said Ji Hao while glancing at Ji Xia. After that he knocked the vat hard against the ground, and said with a muffled voice, “Abba, Amma said that sometimes you have been softhearted!”

Ji Xia wanted to remain the stateliness of a father, so he made a serious face and sniffed, said, “Softhearted? I was concerned about the overall situation and the clan’s benefit. You know, I, your Abba...”

“Ah, Abba, you’re so wise and brave, such a real man who has never gone soft, always seeking revenge for all kinds of invasions...” Ji Hao interrupted the long speech which was about to come out from Ji Xia, and said, “Jiang Yao had driven all these clans and attacked the Fire Leopards clan, and Jiang Xue was her helper; Abba, what do you think about this?”

Ji Xia paused for a second, slowly put his vat down, seemingly lost deep in thought.

Jiang Yao was Jiang Bo, the Master Maguspriest of the Bi Fang Clan, his daughter, and Jiang Xue was the daughter of Jiang Shu, an elder of the Bi Fang Clan. Jiang Yao was badly injured by Ji Hao and had fled away; unless she wanted to trigger a real war between the Fire Crow Clan and the Bi Fang Clan, she would never tell anybody about the fact that she had driven all these clans and attacked the Fire Leopard Clan.

However, Ji Hao had killed Jiang Xue cruelly in the battle, which might be a bit troublesome.

While Ji Xia was thinking, a caw came from the air, along with which, a gust of gale started blowing towards the ground, and a cold hoarse voice pierced into Ji Hao’s ears like steel needles.

This voice was incomparably hoarse and ice-cold, filled with a weird and evil power that would make people quiver. Ji Xia and Ji Hao frowned and stood simultaneously up from the ground. The vats placed aside their feet cracked all together and liquor seeped out in streams.

An elderly man, who was as tall as Ji Xia but extremely scrawny, even looked like a stick, walked inside with stiff steps, and growled out with a very cold voice in the meanwhile, “Ji Xia! You have to give us, the elders of our Fire Crow Clan a reasonable explanation! Do you still remember your responsibility? You’re only responsible of guarding the Cold Stream Valley and protecting the mine there...Who gave you this right and nerve to do this...”

Before the elderly man finished his speech, Ji Hao took a deep breath and rudely interrupted him.

“Ah, the elder Ji Fang, is there any problem about my Abba coming here? My Abba just ran a ’nine suns above the sky’, the blood-offering ceremony, and our ancestors were very satisfied with that. Are you saying that my Abba was wrong? If so, did you just say that our ancestors were wrong?”

The elderly man stopped talking and was stunned. He was choked by Ji Hao’s words and didn’t know how to respond for quite a while.

At that moment, another resonant caw came from the sky above. Followed by a swishing sound, the ground slightly shook. Someone had leaped down from the air and had almost shaken the half-broken Fire Leopard Clan’s meeting room into collapsing.

Ji Zhuo darted in with big steps, laughed out loud and pressed his hand on Ji Fang’s shoulder, then said loudly, “Ji Fang, you have always been so impatient ever since you were a little kid. You just couldn’t calm down, look, you got yourself embarrassed in front of these kids again!”

Ji Hao clearly saw that Ji Zhuo’s five fingers had violently pitted into Ji Fang’s shoulder; he even heard the creaking sounds made by Ji Fang shoulder bones while being pressed by Ji Zhuo with a great power.

Ji Fang’s face was badly twisted, his originally pale face had now even turned blue.

“You’re too impatient, Ji Fang...You probably haven’t heard the message from the Ancestral Temple of the Holy Land yet; our ancestors had delivered their will to all of the Maguspriests, and said that they were very satisfied with the blood-offering ceremony today. Our ancestors also said that Ji Hao is a good kid!”

“What did you say?!” yelled Ji Fang with a twisted face.

“Our ancestor said that we did no wrong,” Ji Hao put his mouth near Ji Fang’s face and said coldly, “Abba took our clansmen here from the Cold Stream Valley, beat a bunch of stupid people who came from a bunch of stupid clans, and had exaggerated opinions of their own abilities, then offered those stupid things to our ancestors through the ceremony. Our ancestors are very satisfied, so what Abba did was all great!”

Ji Fang closed his mouth and never let a single word out.

In the Southern Wasteland clans, the truth can be this simple and crude - As long as one had gained the satisfaction of their ancestors, then all that he or she had done would be right. However, normally, ordinary clansmen couldn’t even come near the Ancestral temple of the Holy Clan, except during the decennial and centurial worship ceremony. Only if someone used the secret, ancient ceremony like Ji Hao had did, would he or she probably wake the ancestors’ souls up, and gain their favour.

Ji Fang was now ragingly cursing those people who had told him to come in his head. When those people urged him to come to here and question Ji Xia in anger, they didn’t mention that Ji Hao and Ji Xia had even bribed the ancestors!

Ji Zhuo threw a deep glance at Ji Hao, then laughed delightedly and said, “Although our ancestors had delivered their will to our Maguspriests, Xia, you should still go back to the Gold Black Mountain and describe every detail of this fight to those elders and Maguspriests in the Holy Land.”

“Oh, and the Master Maguspriest, Ji Kui has already announced on behalf of our ancestors, that all those clans that had attacked the Fire Leopard Clan are our enemies.”

“Hao, you will be responsible for wiping them all out!” continued Ji Zhuo.