Chapter 176 – Thousand Masks
Translated by Jon and Joycelyn
On top of a branch stood a man wearing hairless animal hide. The process of removing hair required meticulous handling. The green stripes on the hide resembled that of the trees in the forest, as dark and light green colors intertwined. If used in the forest, it would be extremely difficult to spot.
This type of attire wasn’t too uncommon. When the weather warmed up, Shao Xuan found many people wearing these clothes. Rather, the more peculiar aspect of the man was the mask he was wearing.
At first glance, it looked like he had purposely put on a flower-patterned mask. But actually, this mask was a special transformation of a part of their facial bones. The patterns on the mask too were actually a totem pattern induced by their totem’s power.
A murderous aura drifted out, which startled the nearby birds pecking at the rotting meat, making them fly away.
The number of birds camping around the bodies wasn’t small, and when they all flew away, it resembled a black curtain obscuring the corpses.
Taking a deep breath and holding a stone dagger in his hand, Yu subconsciously pointed the tip towards the man’s direction, not knowing when the other side was going to pop out.
At the same time, from a high elevation, the man leapt down. With a flash of lightning, he slashed apart the black curtain, going directly at Yu.
Without any unnecessary movements, Yu felt countless blades flying towards him, although the man only held a single sword. No matter where he went, the swords would always be able to find him.
Yu’s expression stiffened as he felt himself feeling stuck, as if in a bog. Struggling, his body wouldn’t listened to him. When he finally made it out, it was already too late to hide!
At this moment, Yu started to feel regret.
Why had he come to this place? Why didn’t he just leave after shooting the deer? Before leaving the tribe, his grandpa had stressed that it wasn’t good to be overly curious, and when discovering something abnormal, he should stay away!
Perhaps in the next few moments, he too would be like the corpses on the ground, chopped down, becoming food for the flesh-eating birds.
Suddenly, he felt a hand grab his shoulder and quickly pull him back. A sharp blade appeared above his head, clashing with another. The two stone swords were not flashy, and when collided, many fragments broke off them.
In the middle of all this blade qi, Yu’s heart wildly pounded, as he had been given a new chance to live. But he knew that now wasn’t the time to think. If it wasn’t for Shao Xuan, he would already be lying lifelessly on the ground. He couldn’t be of any help just standing there, so he hurriedly moved back a few steps, giving Shao Xuan enough room to fight.
Although the other side’s qi was extremely strong and had easily subdued Yu, for tribe people living in the forest, who dealt with fierce beasts like Shao Xuan, this wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.
Holding the stone sword in one hand, after saving Yu with the other, Shao Xuan put his palm on the flat side of the blade, blocking a sudden attack.
If it was an ordinary stone sword, it would have immediately been broken, but the sword in Shao Xuan’s hand had been given to him by the shaman. It was also the sword that Shao Xuan had taken from the stone worm king’s domain when he found the ancestors. Before he had left the tribe, the shaman had it meticulously polished.
When leaving the tribe, apart from the tooth sword that Old Ke had polished, he had also brought this sword. After going through countless fights, it had already shrunk quite a bit…
From the first impact, Shao Xuan felt strong blade qi passing through the stone sword and settling into his arms. However, he wasn’t too afraid. The totem patterns on his arms even gave him enough strength to strike back.
The two people quickly moves away from each other, and the man flew all the way back to the tree branch he was originally standing on. Carefully observing Shao Xuan from behind his mask, his two eyes were showing doubt and surprise.
Just when Yu had decided to take out the poisonous darts from his bag, the masked man quickly fled, no longer dealing with them.
He let out a sigh of relief after carefully scanning his surroundings.
From the moment the enemy had unleashed the first attack, to Shao Xuan blocking it, till the man fleeing, only a span of breath had passed.
Originally believing that he could defend himself by mastering the usage of frog poison, he realized that he was still soft. Many times, true strength suppressed these skills and there wouldn’t even be any time to react.
Now, thinking back to when he had faced the sword face on, with nowhere to go, his blood froze up and he couldn’t move.
“Scared me to death!” Yu said while gasping for air. He didn’t seem to mind the smelly air, and even if it was worse, it would still be better than death.
“Thank you, Shao Xuan. If it wasn’t for you, I too would be like the people on the ground.” Yu said. He never knew Shao Xuan was this strong, believing him to be an ordinary tribesman. The truth was that he was younger than him, but much stronger. No wonder that before leaving, his grandpa had told him to follow Shao Xuan, not any of the other tribe members. Thinking about it now, that old man had already realised who was strong and who wasn’t. He still wasn’t a match for his grandpa in regards to insight
“Lets hurry up and leave.” Shao Xuan said while looking at the birds circling above them.
“Right, it would be better if we are quick.” Said Yu, as he turned around and started running. After a few steps, he turned and went towards the deer.
The poison smeared on the dart was really strong, so the deer was still laying there.
Yu didn’t mind it much and just slaughtered it, and dragged it away as he left. Right now, he just wanted to get away from this place. No wonder the people in the travel team left as soon as they can once they came upon a tribes war. If they did not, they could actually be implicated.
Yu only slowed down after seeing the team resting on the bank and meeting up with the people doing some activities around. Only at this time did he think back about his doubts from before, and he looked towards Shao Xuan: “From which tribe do you think this guy was from? He was incredibly strong.”
Shao Xuan thought about that opponent’s mask and said: “Thousand Masks tribe.”
There was only one of this kind of tribe, Shao Xuan knew. It was also the first time Shao Xuan had seen a tribe that was recorded in the beast skin rolls passed down by the ancestors – Thousand Masks tribe.
The ancestors had recorded that the totem warriors in this tribe would start forming their own unique mask after their awakening. And only after using their totem powers would the bone cover their whole face.
Every member of the Thousand Masks tribe had different masks. Even if they looked similar, there would always be certain little different details; just like there are no faces that looked exactly the same.
In the Thousand Masks tribe, some masks were very ferocious, like an evil ghost, and some were very normal, maybe even looking peaceful; some brought smiles, some brought angst. With thousands of people came thousands of different types of masks. That was the Thousand Masks tribe.
Furthermore, the totem pattern of the Thousand Masks tribe was also that of a strange mask. Shao Xuan had seen it before on the cave’s wall in the Flaming Horns tribe. At the back of the stone room, the mask like totem pattern was exactly the totem symbol of the Thousand Masks tribe.
“Thousand Masks?” Hearing this phrase, Yu did not react immediately. But after some thinking and remembering a few stuff, his face filled up with shock, “Thousand masks tribe?!”
For a Pu tribe member who had always lived at the edge of the tribe, the Thousand Masks tribe was too far away. However, Yu had heard quite a few people discussing the matters of the Thousand Masks tribe. Although these were only rumours, many of which were exaggerated, the fact that the Thousand Masks tribe was a formidable one could not be denied.
“Just how did the people that were killed offend the Thousand Masks tribe? I remember that on the map of the travel team the territory of the Thousand Masks tribe is still quite far from here. If it isn’t a huge matter, they would not come over here.” Yu speculated that what seemed like a tribal war was actually an unilateral massacre.
“Who knows.” Shao Xuan answered absentmindedly.
To be able to get recorded by the ancestors, to be taken to heart, even to be drawn onto the wall at the tribe. No matter how he looked at it, they had to be on the same level as the Flaming Horns tribe at that time. If the difference in strength had been too big, the ancestors would not have had that kind of attitude towards them.
Since Yu had said that the Thousand Masks tribe was a considerably strong tribe here and it had always been famous, had the Flaming Horns tribe that year also been on the same level?
The Shao Xuan now would not be able to know the answer. Thousands of years had passed, some tribes were destroyed, new tribes had appeared; the prosperous had declined, the feeble perished. There were also weak tribes which had become stronger, and some, like the Thousand Masks tribe, had always been powerful. However, now there was almost nobody that remembered the Flaming Horns tribe.
That was a really sorrowful matter. If the ancestors knew about this, they would climb out of their graves, crying. [Zombie apocalypse?]
Not long after Shao Xuan and Yu rejoined the travel team, some guys who were sent to scout by the leaders also came back.
“I heard that the tribe got massacred because they went and stole the Thousand Masks tribe’s crystals, and even killed some of their children. They chased them all the way to their lair, then slaughtered their whole tribe, and extinguished their totem flame.”
“Tch, why did they even dare to provoke the people of the Thousand Masks tribe?”
“Yeah, they were clearly looking to die. When we usually bump into people from big tribes, we won’t even dare to offend them, even if they are a child.”
The thieves had probably thought they were sneaky enough; they had not wanted to bring such disaster to their tribe. Or it was maybe that these guys had thought of the consequences, but greed had made them risk their lives.
Listening to the heated discussion, Shao Xuan also had a different experience. For powerful tribes, even children who did not have any fighting ability, would never be offended outside. Today’s incident did not happen very often, and most of the people had the same thoughts as the travel team members.
That was just how influential a big tribe was. Only hearing the name or seeing the totem pattern made people fearful.