The Magus Era

While Ji Hao was performing the blood-offering ceremony, Ji Xia, who had come from the Cold Stream Valley was not the only audience that had been watching this great ceremony from afar.

“Brother, aren’t we a little shameless?” On a mountainside, very far away from the altar and the crowd, under the shades of dense branches and leaves, Di Luo was leaning against a camphor tree’s branch, lazily picked a handful of tender leaves from the branch and threw it into his mouth, and started chewing. “Poor pretty lady, Jiang Yao, the Maguspriestess, her heart must be broken by now...she didn’t get to see us launch the attack...aw, aw, she must be sobbing with a broken heart now!”

Di Sha had been standing inside the shrub wood with a serious face. The erect eye located in the middle of his forehead had turned pure black, no pupil could be seen in it; inside the eye, a dim light was rotating slowly, like a deep whirlpool. With this eye, he clearly saw all the details during the blood-offering ceremony that was being performed by Ji Hao at the moment.

His left hand was covered under the wide sleeve of his cloak, while his fingers were fiddling with a palm-sized, blood-red jade plate.

“Pretty Maguspriestess? My dearest brother, please, do not think anything else about this woman, except our business.” Di Luo’s right hand had carried a small whip, with a hilt that was made of pure gold. He swung his right hand backwards and whipped Di Luo slightly while speaking. “I assume that you can still feel a little bit pain from this newly grown eyeball of yours. Hopefully, this will make you smarter.”

“Remember, Di Luo, the relationship between us and that woman, Jiang Yao, can only be of pure business. You cannot let anything that might affect your decision-making into your mind, never.” Di Sha then turned to Di Luo and said; the dim light rotating inside his erect eye suddenly darted out.

“I have been in charge of the Blood Fang, capturing and selling slaves in this Southern Wasteland, for five-hundred years now, Di Luo, my brother,” said Di Sha seriously, “Whole five-hundred years! I remembered clearly, within this - not very short time - period, the slaves captured from this primitive land and sold by me, are two million and seventy-eight thousand and nine-thousand five-hundred thirty-seven in total.”

“However, within this five-hundred years, the warriors of the Blood Fang, I mean, our own clansmen who had the noble bloodline and those good Jia Clan warriors, didn’t lose even a single one,” said Di Sha while proudly holding his head high, “Although, tens of thousands of those low-life slave warriors had died, while I have been in charge, none of our own clansmen and Jia Clans warriors have fallen during this entire time period. Not a single one!”

“Ah, that’s amazing. My dearest brother, that’s really amazing...” said Di Luo while letting out a perfunctory grin, “I was just saying that, Jiang Yao was a really pretty woman, really, really pretty. She smells so different from any of those girls I know!”

“You damn stupid thing!” Di Sha knocked Di Luo’s head hard with the hilt of the whip in anger, and growled in a low voice, “Do not touch that woman, do not even think about it! And, do not get deluded by her beauty. Di Luo, the fact that I haven’t lost even a single warrior that had the noble bloodline, is because I am cautious and calm enough, more importantly, I am shameless enough!”

“Shameless?” said Di Luo while he looked at Di Sha with a slight trace of shock on his face, “You are saying that you’re very shameless?”

“Just as you said!” Di Sha turned back and looked towards the altar’s direction, which was shrouded by the great fiery light and raging flame that had even reached into the sky, and said, “I promised Jiang Yao to help her and these stupid barbarians she gathered here in order to attack her enemy. But, we have been standing here and watching all the time. We have saved our forces and didn’t do what we had promised her. This is indeed very shameless.”

Di Sha shrugged, then continued, “But, what’s the big deal about being shameless? We didn’t rashly launch that attack, so those horrible big birds couldn’t hurt our people. Not a single one of our noble clansmen, and those loyal, reliable Jia Clan warriors got hurt during this fight.”

Di Sha then sneered, pointing his finger at the direction of the altar and said, “My brother, can you please tell me, if we did exactly as we had promised that woman, and had helped those barbarians and launched the attack stupidly, how many of our people would have died when those crazy big birds showed up?”

Di Luo stayed silent for a while, then nodded and said, “Okay, be cautious, calm and shameless, I have remembered that.”

Di Sha threw a deep glance at Di Luo, sighed and said, “Hopefully, you truly did Di Luo.”

Di Sha then swung the whip towards the bush aside, hit and broke large pieces of branches and leaves, which were tender and juicy. Faint green myron gushed out and emitted a light herbal scent, quickly spreading in the air.

The erect eye of Di Sha closed slowly, then he calmly said, “Last night, I received a transfer command. It said that because of the meritorious contribution I’ve made for these five-hundred years, I will become the new leader of the Blood Moon. In three days I will take all of the slaves that we have gained during this time and leave from here. From that moment on, Di Luo, you will be in charge of the Blood Fang.”

Di Luo took a glance at Di Sha with shock and surprise filled in his eyes, then smilingly lowered his body and saluted to his older brother, and said, “Dear Di Sha, my dear, dearest brother, you should be without any worries. With my lead, the Blood Fang will only become stronger and stronger!”

Di Sha took a deep breath, grabbed Di Luo’s shoulder and said, “I hope so...Di Luo, You must keep in mind, the Blood Fang is closely related to the fundamental interests of our family; you cannot make any mistakes, not even the slightest one, no matter what!”

Then he thrust his left hand out of his sleeve, patted the eye socket of Di Luo, which had been cut out by Ji Hao not long ago, and said with a low voice, “Remember, because of your actuation and boldness you almost got yourself killed in this damn jungle once. This is the first lesson that you have learned from this Southern Wasteland jungle, you must always keep it in mind.”

Loud and sonorous caws came from the altar afar. Golden-red, hot waves of air could be seen spreading continuously towards the surrounding areas. The mountain that Di Sha and Di Luo had been standing on was hit hard by the hot airwaves. Large pieces of jungle quickly dehydrated and withered, some fallen leaves even started burning.

“Let’s go. We’re a bit too conspicuous by standing here.” Di Sha took Di Luo’s hand and quickly went away. While walking, he didn’t stop emphasizing how good the Fire Crow Clan was. “Di Luo, you have to remember that if you want to make a good living in this primitive land, plunder wealth and glory from this land, you have to be careful and cautious, in the meanwhile, don’t forget to gather information as much as you can.”

“For example, amongst those barbarous creatures of the Fire Crow Clan, some people have weirdly great eyesight; even sometimes, from the distance of hundreds of miles away, they can discover the details that ordinary people can’t” said Di Sha seriously, “Therefore, in situations like this, when these plants can’t hide our bodies anymore, we have to leave as fast as we can.”

“You must keep in mind, Di Luo, we came to this Southern Wasteland jungle for only wealth and glory, not anything else! To keep yourself alive, to keep those Blood Fang warriors alive, should be the first principle that you always have to keep in mind after you have become the leader of Blood fang.

“Yeah, yeah…”

Di Luo kept responding. From time to time, he turned his head back and looked towards the altar’s direction, eyes shining with a weird light.

Di Sha then said slowly, “I really wish that I could train you more for a couple of years, then I could leave without any worries. But I don’t have enough time, because I can’t violate the transfer command coming from the Blood Moon. Since the family had chosen you, then I can only trust you on this.”

The brothers quickly left the mountain, went down from the other side of the mountain and met with hundreds of Jia Clan’s warriors, who had been waiting in a deep valley all this time. Then the troops quietly left the valley without disturbing anyone.

Di Sha didn’t notice that Di Luo had been turning his head back and looking at the fiery light afar, with frenzy, proud and bone-deep hatred filled in all three of his eyes.