The Great Worm Lich

The native warrior, who decapitated his own head under the totem pole, was none other than Turaru, the first person in Tudenan who successfully accepted Zhang Lisheng’s Gold Core fragment transplant.

In this short span of over one year after he had obtained the spell-casting power, under the favor of the tribe’s Raider, this originally ordinary native warrior relied on his own bravery and pious faith to rise like a whirlwind to become one of the 20 four-feathered chief warriors that had a status only inferior to the headman in Tudenan.

It was precisely because of this kind of luck did Turaru become Zhang Lisheng’s first fanatic believer long ago when the Tudenan conquered Kaqilu.

At that time, this devout believer had already vowed to sacrifice his life to rename the tribe and Shrimp B1 Island to the name ‘Zhang Lisheng’ after Tudenan had conquered the entire island by sacrificing his life so that his living faith could successfully take the most crucial step in becoming the Island God of highest honor of the Hellfire tribesmen’s guardian spiritual monster.

Now that the time had come, he summoned his courage to sacrifice his life without hesitation.

Such devout faith was undoubtedly heroic and moving, but Zhang Lisheng knew nothing about Turaru’s tortuous and touching psychological journey at all. What he saw was one of his most valued Tudenan chief warrior, and he suddenly said that he wanted to rename Tudenan and Shrimp B1 Island into the name ‘Zhang Lisheng’ out of the blue after he descended from the sky.

Then, he kneeled by his feet and kissed his foot instep before suddenly running to the totem pole to decapitate himself.

“T-Tugra, is my eyesight playing tricks on me? This is ridiculous. Why would Turaru suddenly decapitate himself? He has gone crazy…” After being stunned for a while, Zhang Lisheng asked with his eyes widened.

While he was asking those questions, two other native chief warriors with feathers on their heads stood up from the mud and walked up to Zhang Lisheng with their ugly faces flushed with color. After kissing his footprint that he had just left behind, they said in unison, “Great Raider, you’re the only master and the root of the glory of the tribe! Your devout servants, Hedus and Mandoli, will pray to the Heaven and rename the tribe’s name of Tudenan to Zhang Lisheng and address this island in the tribe’s name.”

After saying so, the two young chief warriors stood up from the ground and kneeled below the totem pole like how Turaru did. Stretching out their necks, they pulled out sabers from their waist and cut off their heads backhandedly.

Martyrs appeared one after another. At this time, Zhang Lisheng finally realized that things were not so simple. Lowering his voice, he asked the headman, “Changing the tribe name to my name? This is really weird, Tugra. Is this the traditional ceremony of Hellfire tribesmen?”

“It is, Great Raider!” The Tudenan’s headman crouched on the ground and buried his head deep into the soil as he replied, “This is one of the rarest traditional rituals of Hellfire tribesmen that could only be carried out by the tribal warriors and headmen. Just as what you see, it requires us to pray to God and then decapitate our own heads to pray for the ‘rebirth’ of the tribe with our own blood and soul.”

Tugra’s words were tactful, but after contemplating it, a pang of realization finally hit Zhang Lisheng, and he realized that this bloody ritual in front of him was the process of the Hellfire tribesmen forcing the change of a dynasty.

After understanding it, the young man saw that more and more tribal chief warriors had already decapitated their own heads after kissing his foot instep while he was deep in his contemplation.

Upon seeing that the dozen of heads rolling in a pool of blood did not seem to affect the totem pole, he could not help but ask in a frown, “Tugra, how many tribal chief warriors would it usually need to complete this so-called ‘rebirth’ ceremony?”

“Great Raider, this ceremony is the only Hellfire tribesmen ritual that allows us mortals to pray directly to Heaven instead of the tribal guardian spiritual monsters and gods. It’s impossible for us to know if Heaven will fulfill our wish.” Tugra felt chills on his neck, secretly hating on Turaru who incited this accident out of the blue, but he still continued to answer in a respectful and docile manner.

After hearing so, Zhang Lisheng murmured with a weird expression, “Instead of ‘praying,’ this approach looks more like a soft threat of life and blood instead. If I’m God, I wouldn’t succumb to the will of the mortals even if I have to watch thousands of chief warriors die. Is it even worth it to make such a sacrifice to gamble on an unknown result?”

Tugra swallowed and fell into silence. Summoning his courage, he finally spoke the truth in a whisper with profound meaning, “Great Raider, with your achievements for Tudenan, you should have been honored with a title higher than the Raider a long time ago. However, Heaven has not given His grace after so long so perhaps the tribe’s ‘rebirth’ would be the only solution. Unlike the sacrificing ceremony, such a ‘rebirth’ ritual requires one to sacrifice one’s soul voluntarily as well. Not only that, but the chief warriors and headman whose positions are high and noble in the tribe must carry it out. It’s said to have only appeared in the legend, so I’ve never mentioned this before. Now that it has appeared, it’s worthwhile to take a gamble despite the big price required.”

“Oh, is it so, Tugra? Alright, because of this sentence of yours, I won’t force you to decapitate your head.” Zhang Lisheng thought about it after a moment of silence and sighed. “Let us wait patiently and see whether we’d end up winning or losing in this gamble then…”

Upon hearing the young man’s words, Tugra’s tense body immediately relaxed. Secretly sighing a relief, he continued to explain with worries, “Great Raider, the key to the tribe’s rebirth ceremony is, first, to sacrifice souls voluntarily; second, the correct ‘gesture’ of the ritual prayer. We must cut off our heads cleanly in one slice so the likes of me would not have any effect even if I sacrifice myself under the totem pole.”

“Ah, is it…” Zhang Lisheng casually remarked. While the Tudenan’s Raider and Headman were quietly whispering to one another, over 20 chief native warriors sacrificed their souls and lives.

These powerful warriors were all Super Hellfiremen whom they had successfully transplanted with the Gold Core fragment, and there were only slightly over 2000 of them among the millions of Tudenan population. For this reason, even though Zhang Lisheng’s mouth continued to shut tightly, he still could not help but feel a little anxious about the growing number of sacrifices.

Fortunately, since tonight was the night Tudenan got on the right track by digesting all of its fruit of victory after occupying Shrimp B1 Island, in the absence of foreign enemies on the island, the tribe can cope with this sacrifice with the greatest cardinality with all the tribal chief warriors gathered here at their ‘homeland’ to celebrate.

Time passed by slowly, in the midst of the river of blood, that appeared to be dazzling under the illumination of the firelight, and the bewitching excitement of the shouts of praising madness that continued to go on loudly despite shouting themselves hoarse, the loyalty that was originally just about 80% in the hearts of the chief warriors rose to the maximum level of 100%. More and more Super Hellfiremen died under the totem pole.

50, 100, 150, 200…

The increase in the number of death gradually became numbing. After over 300 Super Hellfiremen’s heads had fallen onto the ground, Zhang Lisheng gritted his teeth and remarked, “Tugra, 15% of the spell-casters in the tribe have gone for no reason like this. I really hope that this sacrifice is worth it…”

Then, he shut his eyes to lessen his anxiety by not witnessing it.

Tugra, who was kneeling, immersed himself in blood at the feet of the young man and sneaked a look at the corpses that had stacked up like mountain-high under the towering totem pole that penetrated the clouds 30 to 40 meters away. Gradually becoming pale, he said panic-stricken, “Great Raider, Heaven loves the Hellfire tribesmen. He will listen to the prayers of the powerful Hellfire warriors who shout out with their lives and souls. Yes, he will…”

The headman’s words made Zhang Lisheng’s heart jolt. From a civilization perspective, the Hellfire tribes were indeed lucky for being able to live in endless succession for tens of thousands of years and occupying a rich island chain with a land area of over 10 million square kilometers as their habitation.

If Shrimp World No. 2 really had a ‘master’ of an extraordinary existence who rose above the ordinary, then it would not be an exaggeration to say that the Hellfire tribesmen were under the care of this ‘master’.

Casting aside all the others, just the fact that the Emperor Molasses would fall upon the Hellfire Archipelago area every several decades and beget tens of thousands of spiritual monsters to become their guardians alone was already enough to explain everything.

“The Heaven loves the Hellfire tribesmen…” The more Zhang Lisheng pondered over it, the more he felt that it made sense, prompting him to mutter to himself, “Now that I think about it carefully, the Heaven does indeed love all of you, Tugra. Could it be that the spiritual monster, the tribal totem pole and the tribal book of history are actually the arrangements made by some powerful beings with a profound power? The key lies in the spiritual monster. Without those strange creatures, the Hellfire tribesmen would not have been able to become the overlord of the archipelago, anyway. Spiritual monster, spiritual monster… the spiritual monsters are willing to protect the Hellfire tribesmen and what they’re after is none other than the power of faith. Power of faith…”

After contemplating for a long time, he could not find any connection between the spiritual monster as well as the power of faith and the foreign world’s overlord; the young man rubbed his brows and no longer pondered over it. Instead, he recalled his intention of returning to the Tudenan through the night this time of how he planned to utilize the Hellfire tribesmen’s power of faith using the methods of the Witchcraft’s Gate of Sacrifice.

Despite being in the same branch of witchcraft, the Gate of Sacrifice and Death were poles apart from each other. After becoming the wizard of a Gate of Death, the wizard would first refine the wizard gu as an assistive power and then absorb the wizard gu into his body so he could become a Grand Wizard when he underwent Resurrection and store the power in his body.

A wizard of the Gate of Sacrifice, on the other hand, would refine his own soul and strengthen his own consciousness to devour a beast’s soul using his own soul so he could transform into the beast using profound witchcraft methods. Then, he would choose some ancestral wizard or ancient god to pray to so he could obtain the omniscient power of the god he prayed to after he had resonated and had his mind infused. The wizard power that he obtained during cultivation would operate in his soul.

These two had completely two different systems; one of them pursued the surging mighty power in one’s body while the other one pursued the mighty power in the soul. When Zhang Lisheng just got the secret cultivation method of the Gate of Sacrifice in China, he already realized that his Rank-8 Wizard’s wizard power of Gate of Death could not resonate with the Gate of Sacrifice’s inheritance. However, because of the limitation of the environment, he did not focus his mind entirely to study it, but now that he finally recalled it, he could not help but enter a deep ponderation.

Just as the tribal Raider let his mind running wild everywhere, the tribal totem pole that was immersed in the pool of blood of 400 to 500 Tudenan’s strong warriors finally began to show signs of tiny cracks.