The Magus Era

Chapter 72: Straw Dog

“Oy, oy! You little bastard, am I still your uncle?” Qing Ying darted up to Ji Hao and knocked on his head annoyingly.

“Ayaya, you’re my dear uncle indeed! But you wouldn’t be able to help in this anyway, so I didn’t tell you the plan,” said Ji Hao smilingly, then spew the three black ‘thorns of life and death’ out from his own mouth, coiled his hair on his head and stuck the three thorns into his hair.

Qing Ying opened his mouth stunned, like a fish without water, seemingly shocked by Ji Hao’s words and remained silent for quite a while.

The long spear Ji Hao had used just now was stuck in the ground, and the small, three-legged Gold Crow was hovering around the spear, while letting out soft caws from time to time. Although no one was activating the power contained in the spear at the moment, it still continued to emit a great heat, which made it unbearable for Novice Magi to stand at a distance of less than hundred feet from the spear.

“Isn’t this the Spirit Magic Treasure of elder Ji Zhuo?!” Qing Ying jumped suddenly up when he recognized this spear.

This was Ji Zhuo’s Spirit Magic Treasure, at the same time it was also the inherited Magic Treasure of his branch clan. According to the legend, this spear was forged by one of Ji Zhuo’s ancestor, a peak Magus King. The spear’s history spanned over ten thousands of years and had been passed down through the generations.

Within these ten thousand years, Magus Kings, and other powerful Senior Magi had nourished this spear with their own blood; by now, the spear was capable of hearing the owner’s mind and possessed tremendous power. Even Ji Hao who had used it with the power of a Junior Magus, had been able to easily puncture a Senior Magi’s body with it.

As for the three ‘thorns of life and death’, Qing Ying could recognize them even if he had been blinded.

This was Qing Fu’s, his blood sister's, Spirit Magic Treasure, one of the inherited Magic Treasures of the Qing Yi Clan. There were nine of them in total, the three cyan thorns and the three white thorns were capable of saving lives, while the three black thorns were powerful weapons that could kill a man in the blink of an eye.

Ji Hao had just seriously wounded Jiang Yao and Black Water Jiao with these three black thorns, it was obvious that Qing Fu had given the power to control these thorns to Ji Hao.

Which meant, both Ji Zhuo and Qing Fu knew about Ji Hao’s plan, and only Qing Ying had been kept in the dark for this time.

Qing Ying hung the longbow on his shoulder and opened his arms, confused and helplessly circled around Ji Hao while complaining, “Oy, oy, why did all of you do this to me? Who do you think I am? Hao, I am your dearest uncle! How could you not even tell me a word about this?” yelled Qing Ying out dissatisfied, “Where is our family affection? Hao, I’m hurt so bad!”

Ji Hao turned back, narrowed his eyes, grinned to Qing Ying, and said, “Ah, family affection...well, we have so many prisoners here, uncle, you can just pick those young, strong ones, and select thirty-thousand for your clan. I don’t think the Qing Yi Clan have enough slaves, which is why I’ll give you thirty-thousand strong slaves, how's that for our family affection?”

“Whoa!”

Qing Ying let a shout out and suddenly leapt into the air, and flipped in the air for a couple of times. He laughed so hard that even his eyelashes had fallen down. “Yeah! This is the good Hao that I know! Wow, thirty-thousand slaves? This time, our Qing Yi Clan is going to make a fortune!”

Qing Ying went cheerfully away, took his clansmen and began to select his slaves immediately. The allied troops that had besieged the Fire Leopard Clan’s village this time, had gathered the elite warriors from tens of clans. All of these warriors were tall and strong; after taking them back to the clan and taking control of their lives with a secret magic, they would all become slaves of the best quality!

With these thirty-thousand slaves, the Qing Yi Clan could open up at least three extra hunting grounds, and seven to eight mines, they might raise even tens of times more animals. The Clan’s resources would start to grow double, or even triple; the clan’s food storage would be in abundance, newborn kids would grow more healthy and strong.

This was a virtuous cycle, with this opportunity, the Qing Yi Clan could probably even lay their base of becoming a large clan from a small clan.

Before, when the Qing Yi Clan would fight together with the Fire Crow Clan, even if there were enemies caught during the fight, the Fire Crow Clan and other dependency clans would take the majority of them; the Qing Yi Clan would occasionally get a few hundreds of slaves, which could already be considered extremely lucky.

But this time, Ji Hao had given the Qing Yi Clan thirty thousand strong slaves with only one word. Qing Ying was so excited that even his feet started staggering while walking, as if he was badly drunk.

In the jungle, which was shrouded by waves of hot air, large groups of warriors had dropped their weapons and were kneeling down on the ground. All of their faces were deadly pale, hardly looking like humans. Hundreds of Fire Crows were hovering in the sky, flying across the air near the ground from time to time, and brought up air streams with great heat, completely destroying the last little bit of fighting courage in these warriors’ heart.

Hundreds of Senior Magi from tens of clans, along with tens of elders and Maguspriests who had lead the troops, hunkered down aside; all of them had the same deadly pale face that were not even human like.

They had been deluded by Jiang Yao, attracted by the rewards that Jiang Yao had promised them, used all of the elite forces of their clans and set a trap here, which were designed for Ji Xia and his son. However, they couldn’t even imagine that Ji Hao could counterplot, and had directed this great show.

Tens of big, middle, and small scale clans within thousands of miles around had their elite warriors gathered here. At the moment, only groups of old and weak people, women and children were left in their villages. In the Southern Wasteland jungle, a clan that had lost all of their elite warriors could hardly survive even for half a month.”

Everyone was worried, and were cursing the damn, crazy woman, Jiang Yao.

At the same time, some of them had started throwing glances at Ji Hao from time to time, thinking about if there were any means to save themselves and their clans from this dangerous situation.

Not very far from these Senior Magi and Maguspriests, were tens of Fire Leopard Clan’s Maguspriests and elders busy with something.

Tens of newly captured Beasts’ throats were cut open, their blood was mixed with the powder ground by gold, jade and other mineral stones and made into sticky, blood-red liquid that was emitting a strong sense of magical power.

Fire Leopard Clan’s Maguspriests and elders were excitedly painting on the ground with this blood-red liquid. Blood-red spell symbols were painted down on the flat ground one after another, all of these spell symbols were continuously releasing strong power, that made people feel hard to even breathe.

In the middle of these spell symbols, an altar had been built by tens of huge beasts bones. Around the altar was a hundreds of feet long Gold Fire Crow totem that had been painted with blood.

Black Water Jiao, who had been badly injured and lied on the ground, fixed his eyes on these elders and Maguspriests who were busy around the altar.

The Black Water Serpent Clan and the Fire Crow Clan were archenemies, they had been fighting against each other for hundreds of years, and therefore, they were all very familiar with powers and sorceries of each other. When Black Water Jiao saw that those elders and Maguspriest were about to finish with the totem and the altar, his face suddenly went as pale as a piece of paper.

Abruptly, Black Water Jiao screamed out in hoarse voice, “Ancestral soul offering ceremony! You are going to offer us to your Fire Crow Clan’s ancestors’ souls as oblations!”

Along with Black Water Jiao’s voice, all of those captured Senior Magi and Maguspriests screamed out aloud simultaneously. They stood up in fear and panic, desperately yelling and cursing towards Ji Hao. However, after they had let only a few words out, a faint cyan light flashed through the three black thorns of life and death that was stuck in Ji Hao’s hair. After that all those Senior Magi and Maguspriests had fallen back on the ground.

“You’re right. All of you are oblations!”

Ji Hao looked at Black Water Jiao, spread his hands and said helplessly, “Or, how do you think I made Mr. Crow convince that many of his friends to come and help me?”

All of the Fire Crows hovering in the air cawed towards the sky together, and the three-legged, Gold Fire Crow totem painted on the ground suddenly blazed, starting a raging fire.

------------------------------------------

Translator note: Straw dogs were often used ceremonial object in ancient China, therefore, the chapter title is referring those poor warriors who had been offered to the Gold Fire Crow during the ceremony.