The Great Worm Lich

Even though there was already no sign of a beast in the vicinity of the Wizard Li tribe, there were still many small bugs that fed on the beast’s blood in the early autumn of the island. These mainlanders were kept here in this jungle, excreting in a deep yet disgusting open-air pit that was filled with fecal worms crawling everywhere and was sleeping on the mud that was covered with leaves at night yet could still maintain a sane mind. Upon seeing this, Zhang Lisheng could not help but secretly admire them.

However, he was in no hurry to get in touch with these mainlanders and inquire about their origins during his first meeting with them. Instead, after diligently withstanding the rising sun and finishing his process of scooping up the soup into the prisoners’ wooden bowl, he left together with the native choresmen who appeared to be nonchalant but actually were ridden with panic inside.

At this moment, a tall, sturdy, and unkempt man with long hair and full dirty tangled sideburns suddenly spat a mouthful of spit onto the young man’s face and cursed, “Human scum! F*ck you, you yellow-skinned monkey…”

As he was cursing so, he looked at the young girls who were imprisoned in the other stone prison and beat his own chest.

With Zhang Lisheng’s body that had transformed four powerful wizard gus and had absorbed two bloodcurdling soul’s beasts, of course, the spat would not hit him at all. Even so, when he saw the sneers on those mainlanders, he suddenly realized where the problem lied.

After leaving the sight of those imprisoned mainlanders’ sight, amidst their laughters, together with the native choresmen who were trembling with fear, who immediately kneeled on the forest floor in trepidation with their heads buried deeply into the soil, Zhang Lisheng quickly whispered calmly to the Wizard Li’s headman who walked up to him, “Looks like we’ve used the wrong way, Tugra. We’re too nice to the mainlanders already. It’s wrong to feed them well but not eating them. Without having experienced a hellish fear, they would not know just how precious it is to see a straw in the ocean where the waves are rolling. Summon a few of the most ferocious chief warriors and pick three of the male prisoners to barbecue and eat them in front of the stone prisons. Oh, just take that brawny who spat on me and his two companions who laughed the loudest just now. In that case, I believe that the mainlanders will not be so carefree anymore when I see them in the noontime later.”

“Yes, Great Conqueror!” After hearing the young man’s bloodcurdling sadistic intention in his calm tone, Tugra kneeled on the ground and answered respectfully, seemingly having forgotten that this man was the person who had just lectured himself about how cannibalism was a bad habit.

Not long after, six native warriors armed with long spears and a black iron saber by their waists riding the giant millispiders appeared in front of the prisoners in the stone prison.

Looking at these short armor-wearing Hellfire tribesmen, whose faces were covered with blood-like red paint while holding sharp weapons with a brutishly menacing aura while sitting high on giant spiders that are covered in purple long hair, there was no more laughter of joy amidst the sorrow in the stone prison.

When the Wizard Li’s chief warriors and the mainlanders stared at each other for a while, and the prisoners were intimidated already, they suddenly commanded their partners to leap up to the top of the stone prison in unison.

They leaned down on the thick ropes that were covering the entire prison and began to stab their spears down, easily stabbing onto both of the shoulders of their three targets, according to the descriptions given by the choresmen. With a swift turn of their spearheads, it lodged directly into their bone seam.

In an instant, the victims’ shrill screams of “AHHHHHHH…” resonated first.

Then, it was followed by the vain shouts of 30 to 40 young men whom a squared-nose, big-mouthed, middle-aged, burly man led in the prison. “What are you guys trying to do? What do you want to do…”

Finally, the shrill screams of bafflement from the other people began to resonate. Even so, this could not stop the six native chief warriors of two in a group to hurl up the spears in their hands briskly. Like fishing, they pulled the brawny man who spat at Zhang Lisheng just now and his two companions to the top of the stone prison.

At this time, the brawny man, whose shoulders were stabbed and lodged with the spearheads being carried up by the native warriors, no longer had the arrogance he put on just now. Howling continuously, the native warriors shattered all of his bones with their sabers and he was forcefully taken out from between the gap in the stone prisons as though he was a worm.

After being cleaned, he was entirely coated with watery spice mud and then thrown into a pile of ignited charcoal. With his face distorted, he painfully gnashed his teeth till they were shattered and continuously drank on the juice while slowly being roasted.

Such horror was completely beyond the mainlanders’ imagination. For this reason, when Zhang Lisheng carried the wooden barrel and blended into the choresmen to send lunch for them, he realized that their spirit had already become poles apart than the ones they had in the early morning.

Some prisoners were kneeling on the ground while muttering incoherently in insanity to themselves, “This is the true cruel nature of the Hellfire people. They are the devil! Devil! No wonder they will send three meals of plentiful food for us every day! No wonder I find the food to be more delicious than the food I ate when I was repairing the library stone step! They want to eat me after feeding me well! No! No! No! I won’t let these devils get what they want! I won’t let them do what they want! I won’t eat! I won’t eat anything…”

Some of them, on the other hand, were glaring at the native choresmen who were sending their meals with hatred in their eyes. Even though they dared not open their mouths to make any provocation, if the rage in their eyes had a temperature, it would have already long burnt these natives on the island into ashes.

Some of them had glazed-over eyes as they stared at a certain fixed point, nobody knew what they were thinking about. All sorts of strange things were taking place, but none of them were standing at the edge of the prison while holding a wooden bowl, waiting for the natives to scoop food for them using the long ladle.

After a moment later, seeing that at least one-third of the mainlanders had already mentally broken down, Zhang Lisheng felt that it was time for him to have first contact with the prisoners now. Standing in front of the stone prison, he suddenly said, “This morning when you spat at me, I didn’t stoop down to your level, and now you don’t plan to have any food for lunch? Well, you’re the one who’ll be hungry later.”

Upon hearing his words, a skinny man hesitated for a while before holding a wooden bowl and walked up to Zhang Lisheng before saying in a trembling voice, “You speak Nis? You can speak our language? Which city-state are you from?”

“I’m not from any city-state. I’m from a powerful faraway country at the other end of the ocean. Nis is a language I learned from a ragged-looking but knowledgeable old man when I was on a ship in the sea. In the end, we encountered a shipwreck, and he had become the food of the fish while I drifted to the native’s island.”

“A faraway country? could it be the Frosty Mainland…” The skinny man was stunned for a while before muttering. Then, he immediately snapped back to reality and said, “No, no, this is not important. No matter where you’re from, since you encountered the same disaster with us and drifted onto this Hellfire island, why are we locked in the livestock prison while you’re free staying outside?”

“It’s very simple because I’m a wushu master who can help the little midgets hunt!” Zhang Lisheng curled his lips and continued to jabber on. “When I first drifted onto this island and encountered these midgets, they attacked me on those big spiders, but I managed to defeat them. However, when I saw that there are a lot of them, I didn’t kill any of them and in the end, I managed to win them over. Originally I thought I would always have to hunt together with the hunters but because I’ve sprained my waist yesterday when I was hunting a beast, they told me to help send food for you while recuperating. These midgets will not feed idlers. Speaking of which, I kinda envy you guys. Even though your living arrangement is a little bad and you can’t just walk around freely, it’s nice being able to watch the stars while listening to the insect’s orchestra when you sleep. You don’t have to do anything, but you can just get a full meal…”

“That’s right!” Upon hearing Zhang Lisheng’s words, something seemed to have wriggled the skinny man as his body began to tremble uncontrollably. With his teeth chattering, he said, “You just said yourself that these Hellfire people don’t feed idlers, so why don’t you think they would want to raise us like this then?”

“I’ve never thought about this…” Zhang Lisheng studied the skinny man from up to down and randomly answered, “Erm, could it be that they wanted to make you a hostage, so they can ask for ransom from your family? No, no! It doesn’t look like it. You’re already as skinny as a bone, so I guess you must not have much money as well. I really have no idea… I have no idea…”

As the young man was chatting in high spirits with the prison in the stone prison, a few native choresmen by the side began to point and made gestures with their hands as though they were becoming impatient over the fact that he had talked too much, which of course was in accordance to the Conqueror’s prior instruction.

Upon seeing that the midget, who was jumping up and down in front of him, Zhang Lisheng first put on a fighting gesture in disapproval and then touched his own waist. Then, he pointed at the wooden barrel and made a sweeping gesture.

When he was doing so, he continued to tell the skinny man, “These little odd-job workers even tried to meddle into my own idle business. Don’t they know that I’m originally a hunter and is here to do a few days of odd jobs to recuperate? Other than the order given by the headman to send food from you, I can do whatever I like and whenever I want. They don’t have the right to control me.”

As expected, just like what Zhang Lisheng had said. When he made a few gestures with his hand, even though the native choresman shouted at the young man with a flushed face, he still walked away with the wooden barrel in exasperation with nothing else that he could do.

Staring at the disappearing back of the native, Zhang Lisheng proudly hugged his own shoulders and said to the thin man, “Hehe, looks like we’re both idlers now.”

“You’re different from us,” Upon seeing how the young man dared to oppose the Hellfire tribesman over a small trivial little thing and that he actually gained the upper hand; the skinny man could not help but clench his fist and said, with a heartbroken and melancholic expression on his face, “We’re the ‘cows and sheep’ that the Hellfire people raised. We’ll be slaughtered and eaten after being fattened, but you’re their friend whom they acknowledged.”

“Ha! You’re as skinny as a dry chicken, yet you joke about being slaughtered and eaten after being fattened?” Zhang Lisheng became stunned for a while and chuckled.

The instant his words left his mouth, another lanky woman, whose face had two color tones of gray and white from another stone prison, chimed in a hoarse voice, “It’s not a joke. Hamiro who spat at you this morning, Royi, and Federo have already been grilled and eaten this morning.”

Upon hearing this, Zhang Lisheng became dumbstruck for a long time. Gradually, a horrified expression crept upon his face as he darted his gaze between the two stone prisons while murmuring, “You’re the ‘cows and sheep’… Cannibal… These midgets are cannibals!?”