Chapter 297 - The first shot
In the northeast side of the alliance of human clans’ main camp, at the crossing of two rapidly flowing rivers, was an over ten miles in radius alluvial island.
The island was covered in thriving plants and great numbers of water fowls had built their nests on this island. Showering in bright, beautiful starlight, one could see those tiny, fluffy baby birds were tremblingly flapping their small wings and playing with their brothers and sisters, in those huge bird nests that were built in the vast bulrush woods.
In the center of the island there was an area, about a mile in square, were all the bulrushes had been cleaned up, exposing the pure black soil. Seven thatch cabins were built in that area, in a circle, forming a small-scale military campsite. Old bronze oil lamps were lit up in each cabin. Creepy, spooky flames were dancing on those weirdly shaped old bronze lamps, making the entire island look dark, green and scary, as if ghost were living there.
In the middle of the circle formed by the seven cabins, was a small altar, which was built with the bones taken out from the bodies of ten different kinds of wild beasts.
During the daytime, Taisi had made an exquisite, six-feet tall straw doll himself, which now was placed right in the middle of the altar, with a string of black jade slip worn on its neck. Two twisted, ancient style characters were embossed on the jade slip, ‘Ju Xiu’.
Inside the body of the straw doll, where the spine was supposed to be located, there was an exquisitely crafted arrow that was thickly embossed with countless spell symbols, struck straightly and firmly. This arrow was the same one Ju Xiu had used to attack Ji Hao that day on the battlefield. A slight trace of her power was still attached to this arrow, which would form the main medium of the dark curse Taisi was about to cast.
Ji Hao was wearing a long black cloak and crossed his arms in front of his chest while silently watching Taisi’s movements.
“Nailhead Seven Arrows Book…I’ve heard about it in my previous life, but it was a legend…Never thought that I would be able to see the real thing here. This creepy thing even made the stone sword let out screaming-like buzzing sound, it should be a naturally formed treasure as well, even possibly, it was one of those legendary treasures, formed along with this world?”
At the thought of this, Ji Hao couldn’t help but sense a strong wave of numbess from his scalp. During all these years, Taisi and Shaosi had been bullied by quite a lot of people in the Magi Palace, but if people knew that, except those terrifying curses that Taisi could do, they also had been carrying the Nailhead Seven Arrows Book around, with such a legendary powerful treasure, would those idiots of the Southern Wasteland Society and Great Dark Ocean Society still dare to bully them?
“A faint wisp of power will do just fine.”
Taisi was now wearing a weird-looking, black cloak. Both his eyeballs had turned completely dark and the bone cane held in his hand was emitting a high-pitched, weeping-like noise that could make people feel cold and terrible.
“For ordinary dark curses, the exact time of birth of the targeted person is usually required. It would even be better if we could get a wisp of her hair or a drop of her spirit blood, but now, with this Nailhead Seven Arrows Book, the inherited magic treasure of my family, which was powerful enough to twist the fate of an entire clan, we can cast the curse with that faint trace of power. As for the name written on the jade slip, that’s only for convenience,” said Taisi.
Taisi was so excited that he was even trembling the whole time. He then chuckled with a low and creepy voice and said, “Hmmm, let me think about it, how should we let her die? Should we make her suffer more or less? Hm, should we slice her into pieces, s-low-ly, or…knock her down right away? Hm, ah ya ya, too many choices!”
Ji Hao couldn’t help but quiver when looking at Taisi, who now looked like a total psychopath, and said carefully, with a very low voice and a polite tone, “In order to enrage Di Sha and the other army commanders and make them suspect each other at the same time, we can only do it in a relatively cruel way, but over a longer period of time. She can suffer pretty badly, and end up in a quite terrible shape, anyway…”
Taisi turned around and stared at Ji Hao right in the eyes with his pair of purely dark and completely lusterless eyeballs. That pair of emotionless eyes made Ji Hao feel as if someone had poured a bucket of ice into his clothes, and waves of goosebumps immediately rose on his body.
At this moment, Taisi seemed to have completely turned from a human being into another kind of creature. He was now more like some mysterious, dark kind of creature that had existed since the beginning of this world. A creature that had been coexisting with this world all the time, and would live to immortally, isolated and beyond all the other creatures, cold and emotionless.
Even though Ji Hao had always been a brave and fearless person, being stared by Taisi made him feel quite terrible and uncomfortable.
“Hehe, the more cruel and merciless, the better? Ji Hao, we have the same taste regarding this,” said Taisi. He now sounded extremely cold hearted, even inhuman. Excitedly, he turned back around slowly, and opened that black small book and placed it on the altar.
Along with a series of paper ruffling noises, countless pages of the black book instantly rose into the air and merged quickly into an enormous, opened black scroll painting, then slowly wrapped around the straw doll standing on the altar.
Shaosi was standing silently at the side with her eyes narrowed. She was focussed on the tiniest of changes in the facial expressions of Yu Mu, Feng Xing and Ji Hao.
Seeing all three of them showing absolutely no intention of being greedy for the Nailhead Seven Arrows Book, her face became much more gentle and relaxed than before.
In the main camp of Di Sha, right in the middle of that metal city, was a small-scale palace, inside which, Di Sha, Di Suo, Di Mo and Ju Xiu were sitting in the middle of a broad hall with luxurious decorations, surrounded by large groups of elite commanders of the Yu Clan and Jia Clan.
There were groups of human young girls, who were only wearing thin silk dresses, and looked frightened at these non-human race people. While being yelled at by a few non-human race slaves, these girls carried exquisite jade trays, continuously bringing well-cooked food and delicious wine into the hall.
Waves of thunderous laughters burst out from the hall now and then. Although they had only temporarily pushed the human armies back, in the eyes of these proud and arrogant non-humans, this was a sign to ultimate victory. Now that the four armies of the Blood Moon had joined hands, the human armies would be unable to fend their attacks off.
“Cheers! For the victory!!” Di Sha raised a glass of wine and yelled out loud.
“Cheers!!”
All those commanders and deputy commanders of the Yu and Jia Clan also raised their glasses and drank the wine. Some of the Jia Clan commanders who were excited and thrilled even took off their armours and tore apart their own clothes, showing their bronze coloured muscular chest and shouted aloud.
“As long as we have this metal city of mine, those weak stupid barbarians will never, ever be able to break through our defence!” said Di Mo proudly, “I traded this giant treasure from those bloody vampires of the Xiu Clan with all the wealth I had accumulated over five hundred years. You know what, the defensive power of this portable, large-scale battle fort is equal to one percent of the main defensive power of Liang Zhu City!”
All the commanders of the Yu and Jia Clan, including Di Sha, exclaimed shocked.
The Liang Zhu City was the capital of the Yu Dynasty. The city’s main defensive power was extremely and flabbergasting great. Even if thousands of Divine Magi attacked simultaneously, they wouldn’t be able to break through it. If the defensive power of this metal battle fort had reached one percent of the Liang Zhu City’s main defensive power, it meant that as long as they had enough amount of magic crystals in storage as energy supplies, this metal city would allow them to ignore any kind of attack launched by Magus Kings. In another words, with enough magic crystals, no matter how many human Magus Kings would be sent over here to launch their attacks, this city would never be broken through.
“It’s, really a good treasure!” Di Sha looked at Di Mo and grinned, however, his jealousy was quite obvious, the savings of a whole five hundred years? That’s…really… you bastard! Thought Di Sha.
Back on that small island, Taisi carefully pulled the tiny arrow that matched with the Nailhead Seven Arrows Book, open, and shot out a tiny arrow towards the straw doll on the altar.
Followed by a slight clapping sound and while being stared by Ji Hao, Man Man, Shaosi, Yu Mu and Feng Xing, the arrow missed the target.
The arrow had been shot from less than three zhangs distance from the target and yet Taisi had managed to miss it!
The face of Shaosi darkened instantly and her hand subconsciously gripped the handle of one of Mang Man’s hammers.
Seeing this, Taisi quivered and hurriedly picked the arrow back. This time, he carefully aimed at that straw doll for quite a while, then with extra ginger liness, he shot out the arrow once again.
Slightly, this tiny arrow pierced into…three inches lower than the straw doll’s lower abdomen. Such an embarrassing body part.
Inside the luxurious hall in the metal city, Ju Xiu, who had been laughing happily, suddenly let out a screech. She then fell onto the ground from her seat, holding her own lower belly with her hands and began to twitch her body madly while screaming herself hoarse.
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SR’s note: Taisi..you didn’t!!! XD
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Edited by SecondRate
Translated by XianXiaWorld