Chapter 375: Northern Tribesmen
= Bing Province, the Northern Region of Aves Continent =
On the mountain top, countless corpses of skeleton beasts, rotten monsters, and dead zombies ruined the beautiful and tranquil scenery.
The mountain peak was several thousand feet above the clouds while the top area of this mountain range was as flat as a road. Someone had paved the mountain range, turning the top area into a large disk-like flatland.
At the center of the Bing Mountain, a former pylon tower of Liu Bian had collapsed.
A giant monster with one eye and Jia Shan stood next to each other, gazing at the ruined tower, which had been destroyed by their hands.
"Thanks for your help," Jia Shan sighed as he looked at the broken shadow element crystal on his hand in pity.
"No, thank you. Without you, my clansmen would have been slaughtered by those death knights."
The cyclop warchief, Xia Dun, faintly smiled and nodded at Jia Shan. Then, he turned around to check the state of his tribesmen.
Over a thousand corpses of cyclops had already been organized and transported to the lower hills for a proper burial. Most of them were elders and women, who couldn't defend themselves against the sudden emergence of an undead army from the tower.
Xia Dun made a mistake when he first came here. As he sensed that the mysterious tower continued to produce shadow element Qi, he gathered his clansmen to build a city around the tower, hoping to strengthen his people with this rare elemental Qi.
Everything seemed fine for several weeks. Many weak cyclops quickly adapted to the elemental Qi in the air, though many children had to stay at the foot of the mountain as they couldn't handle dangerous elemental Qi.
But last week, a portal to the shadow plane suddenly appeared on top of the tower. Many undead monsters also rushed out and began slaughtering his clansmen.
A massacre ensued.
Xia Dun and elite cyclops did their best to rescue all remaining tribesmen from the undead monsters, but he lost so many people because of several death knights, who were without a master.
Fortunately, Jia Shan, Ma Ping, and several elders from Siren City showed up. They swiftly defeated the undead monsters without saying or asking anything in return.
From Xia Dun's point of view, these people were strange and sketchy. He still vividly remembered that Jia Shan and Ma Ping hated demons. But now, he couldn't sense killing intent or see the usual disdain expression on their faces.
On the contrary, Xia Dun felt like they got used to mingle with demons because of their relaxed demeanor. The light in their eyes was also without hate or ill-will toward the cyclops.
"Alright. Now that the tower in the rumor is busted, I think we should have a heart-to-heart talk," Ma Ping led the conversation and confronted Xia Dun, who was once an enemy in the previous war. Yet, the elder was calm.
"Oh, sure."
Xia Dun also had cool-headed. He guided them to a ruined house and arranged a set of table and chairs to sit down.
Jia Shan, Ma Ping, and Xia Dun sat around the table, gazing at the other party.
Ma Ping smiled and got to the point, "I'll get to the point. My clan would like to propose a peace-treaty between Siren City and the Cyclop Tribe."
"Siren City?"
Xia Dun had heard about the place when the cyclops were still staying in Mountain Goose City. However, he didn't know about the miracle spring water and what Miaomiao had been doing.
"I heard Siren City is at war with Yuan Shaoqing and Wei Huang. Is it going to be alright without your help?"
"Of course, we're worried, too. But we have gathered several experts to defend the city, so they should be fine… for now."
Ma Ping referred to Zhao Bao and Lu Fengxian, who could singlehandedly kill 7th-stage cultivators with ease. However, they were concerned if they could handle 8th-stage cultivators and several armies at once without their help.
Xia Dun nodded as he got the general idea of what Ma Ping wanted to do, "So, you're looking for an additional ally, right?"
"Not exactly, but I guess you can say that."
"But humans and demons are enemies. Even if we make peace here, I see no benefit from it. I also don't want to join or help you since we've just survived the monster raid. We're not in a condition to start another big fight."
Ma Ping shook his head, "You misunderstood me. We don't want you to help Siren City. In fact, we just want you to stay wherever you want but the battlefield near our city."
"Hoh?" Xia Dun raised his only eyebrow, "I see. You just want to make sure that no one will attack you or your city during the war or after the war. Am I correct?"
"Yes. That's our intention."
Ma Ping and Jia Shan had been acting under the instruction of Lu Fengxian, who had assumed control of Siren City in Miaomiao's stead.
The ex-immortal sent them to negotiate with Liu Xuande and every city lord near Yeet City, bribing them for a peace treaty and a trade agreement so that they could survive after the war.
Defeating and repelling Yuan Shaoqing's forces was not everything. After the war, they had to be ready to recuperate from the losses, repair the structures, and strengthen the city defense.
After all, post-battles were the most vulnerable time for armies, which had participated in the bloodbath - Any smart 3rd party could easily raid them when their guard was down and kill everyone within a night!
Xia Dun bitterly smiled and nodded, "Fine. That's our intention anyway. We have no time or manpower to start a fight, so we'll just stay here as you've asked."
Ma Ping heaved a sigh of relief, "That's settled then."
"But," Xia Dun glared at Jia Shan and Ma Ping.
"Hmm?"
Xia Dun straightened his back, "After you go back, never tell anybody about my tribe or our current location."
"Oh, sure. No problem."
Ma Ping and Xia Dun concluded their peace talk without a document signing ceremony or a covenant pact since they were short on time.
After Ma Ping and Jia Shan got Xia Dun's words, they led their followers to the east, heading for the next destination.
As soon as the humans left, Xia Dun returned to his duty, helping his men cleaning the battlefield.
While Xia Dun was busy piling zombie corpses down the mountain, several cyclop tribesmen approached him.
Another cyclop, who was still in his human disguise form, was the leader of this company. He carried a heaven-grade longbow behind his back while he dressed like a military general in a blue uniform.
He was Xia Yuan, Xia Dun's brother from a different mother.
Xia Yuan's disguise form was a stout middle-aged man with a messy beard and tanned rough skin. He looked like a barbarian, who had been living in a jungle for his entire life. His human appearance also had two eyes instead of one.
"Brother Dun, what did the humans come here to do?"
Xia Dun turned to look at his younger brother. Upon seeing the complex expression of Xia Yuan, the former snickered, "They're struggling to survive like us. What else?"
"Survive?"
"Yeah, survive."
Xia Dun bitterly smiled as he compared Ma Ping's struggling to their tribe's current state. Their tribe ditched Wei Huang's alliance on their own as they didn't want to become Kishin Douji's underlings. And now, they paid the price for their risky freedom.
Still, because of the talk and Xia Yuan's current disguise, Xia Dun had an inspiration.
"Say, Yuan."
"Yeah?"
"Should we discard our cyclop form and live like a human forever?"
"YOU WHAT!?"
"I want to change our surnames and our human transformation appearance, so nobody can recognize us. I want to form a human clan… No. Several human clans!"
Xia Yuan had a deep frown on his face, not understanding what his brother wanted to do.
As for Xia Dun, he started laughing and voicing his thoughts out loud.
"We should start with our new surname. First off, how about we combine a human's surname with ours and turn it into a compound surname? We have been using our savior's surname "Xia" for years. How about we add a suffix to that surname and turning them into another word?"
"…"
Xia Yuan and other cyclops stared at their tribal leader, wondering what he was planning.
Little did they knew, their tribal chief had changed his surname to "Xiahou" and began adjusting his new human transformation appearance.
The Xiahou Clan had emerged that day.
…
At the northeast of the Aves Continent, another demi-human clan had occupied a wealthy prairie, the clean northeastern coastline, and the beautiful silver beach. Many wild beasts and muscular stallions lived there along with the demi-human clan.
The Silver Prairie at the northeast of the continent was one of the forbidden places for humans. But now, Ma Ping's party wanted to enter it and negotiated with the landlord.
While flying, Jia Shan glanced at his friend, wondering what Lu Fengxian had planned for them, "Who's our next target?"
The corners of Ma Ping's mouth curved down as he was nervous about the next place, "Silver Prairie's Gongsun Clan."
"G-Gongsun!? Those horse-fucker freaks!?"
"Yeah, them."
Jia Shan's face suddenly lost color as he thought of the appearance of Gongsun clansmen, who had merged with monster beasts for the sake of their evolution and their dao.
His stomach churned as he imagined how these clansmen reproduced. He had goosebumps just by thinking of these HORSEMEN and HORSEWOMEN.
"We're not going to provoke them, are we?"
"We have to use our trump card this time," Ma Ping sighed and took out a small bottle of spring water from his spatial ring.
Jia Shan glanced at the bottle and nodded, "I see. Are we bribing them or are we baiting them?"
"We're going to instigate them to move against Yuan Shaoqing's home base this time. Be prepared…"
"That's… going to be tough."
"It's necessary. We can't let Yuan Shaoqing attack us freely without a consequence. He and his clan need to pay, and their destroyed asses were the price!"
…
Two days later, Ma Ping, Jia Shan, Hua Xiong, Ma Shoucheng, and Pang Lingming, reached the most dangerous prairie of the northeastern land.
As soon as these experts entered the airspace border, ten flying HORSEMEN surrounded them, pointing their silver spears at their necks, ignoring their strength difference.
These LITERALLY HORSEMEN didn't ride a horse. Instead, they became one with the horse, and they were always naked.
Centaurs, the half-horse half-human creatures, were the local population here!
However, they were not the children of Greek Gods or mythical creatures. Instead, these centaurs were children of a few insane humans, who fell in love with the monster horses in the region to the point that they were sexually attracted to them.
Whatever they did or whatever they conceived several hundred years ago, everything was recorded in the history books of this continent as the most perverted act of all time.
The Gongsun's clansmen stared at Ma Ping and his company, shouting at them as if they were drill sergeants of a military boot camp.
"THIS AREA IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED!! STATE YOUR NAME, YOUR ASSOCIATION, AND YOUR PURPOSE, INFERIOR HUMANS!!"
The voices and the tone of their captain might be intimidating. However, what scared Ma Ping and others the most were their long and erected penises, which were even bigger than Miaomiao's.
Secondly, the muscular physique of both their human and horse parts was similar to Fogan and others. Having their anus violated by these crazy centaurs would be extremely traumatizing.
Moreover, they lewdly grinned as they ogled Ma Ping and everybody's buttocks!
This was the major reason why this place was listed as a no-man land. After all, every man was a woman in the eyes of these perverted centaurs.
Ma Ping raised his hands. Despite him being stronger than these 5th-stage horsemen, he decided not to resist.
Otherwise, his virgin anus would have been annihilated by the monstrous horse dicks! He would be shitting in auto-mode for centuries had it happened!
"I'm Ma Ping, an envoy from Siren City. We wish to seek an audience with the great master of Silver Prairie for a business deal."
Ma Ping gave one of the centaurs a bag of 100 essence cores as a bribe.
The centaur captain opened the bag and checked the content. Upon seeing so many essence cores, he nodded and waved his hand.
"MAKE WAY!!"
The centaurs pulled back their spears and formed ranks, lining in a single file as if they were forming a parade.
They would have looked impressive without their erected horse dicks, though.
The centaur captain winked and licked his lips, gesturing Ma Ping's group to follow them. He also didn't forget to twitch his long penis, seducing the group and showing off his sexiness.
Everybody's faces lost color. They glanced at Ma Ping, their ringleader, if they made the right decision.
Ma Ping bit his lower lips and gulped, "Let's go."
"…"
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