Chapter 253 The Orc's Setback
Tang Fan had regained consciousness the day after Cao Mao had distributed his divine pills.
At first, he was shocked when he had found himself in this strange city. But when Ma Moxi explained what had happened to Xuan City, Tang Fan understood why his friend brought him here.
Although Tang Fan didn't know what had happened to his father and his friends, he was appreciated that Ma Moxi had rescued him from the chaos.
Still, he was confused about what Ma Moxi had been doing. Moreover, he was surprised by this friend's current strength and his rich cultivation resources.
After that day, Tang Fan had been staying at Ma Moxi's residence, absorbing the rich Qi in the air like other cultivators, hoping to lose weight. But today, he came out as Ma Moxi had asked him to join the others.
'What is that tower and who is the lord of this city? I guess I should ask Moxi when he's free.'
…
Currently, the pylon tower was 95% finished. The construction progress was smooth, and it would only need a couple days to complete everything.
Ma Moxi pointed at the tower, "Isn't that tower great?"
Pao Luo nodded, "Of course! All the Qi comes from the tower, right?"
"Correct. However, there is one thing that you should take notes of," Ma Moxi grinned. "My boss, aka your REAL BOSS, is a demon. His name is Cao Mao, and he is the grandson-in-law of Wei Huang, the demon overlord of Mountain Goose City! Some of his wives are also demons, and his kids are orcs and oni. If you value your life, don't mess with them. Oh, by the way, all girls in this city are his wives. Don't bother pursuing them, or your head will roll."
"…"
Aside from Pao Luo and Tang Fan, the men's faces paled as they regretted that they had picked the wrong organization to serve.
Pao Luo nodded as he liked his choice. He had seen many human cultivators committing atrocities and crimes, and he had seen the so-called demon worshipers saving innocent children. Several demons in the wild only minded their own business and avoided trouble. Yet, human cultivators proactively hunted them to the last men.
The social was too twisted, and Pao Luo hated being with a hypocritical human organization. He had tried to join ranks with Wei Huang, but everyone from Mountain Goose City rejected him because he was too weak.
But now, he found another demon clan to serve. Pao Luo was delighted.
Meanwhile, Tang Fan didn't care about racial discrimination, demonic beings, or politics. He innocently blinked his eyes and smiled, "Are your boss rich, Moxi?"
"… Yeah, I guess. The pay is good."
Tang Fan's eyes got brighter, "Then, do they have a treasury manager yet?"
"… No? Maybe? Wait a minute, damn fatty! What the hell are you trying to do?"
Tang Fan patted his belly and laughed, "Can't you tell? I'm a merchant, and a merchant always looks for an opportunity to make money regardless of what he has to do! Just answer my question, Moxi. How rich is your boss?"
Ma Moxi shrugged, "Rich enough to give me a divine-grade pill as my wage."
Tang Fan's pupils brightened. He seized Ma Moxi's collar and pulled him closer to his face, "Introduce me to your boss!"
BONK!
Ma Moxi slammed his fist on top of Tang Fan's head, "Hold your horses, you money freak! You can't simply approach my boss with your current state! At least, you should prove your worth to me and other elders in this city first! For now, pick one of the bathtubs and get in there! Let me burn all your fat in your belly and improve your physical strength a bit. You're too weak!"
Ma Moxi turned to other trainees, "You punks, too! Form ranks, strip, and get in the bathtub, one-by-one!"
Pao Luo and Tang Fan acted first. They stripped their clothes and jumped into the nearest bathtubs without hesitation.
As soon as the boiling water touched their naked skin, they screamed in pain. Every cell and nerve sent pain signals to their brains as if a billion needles had pierced into the pores of their skin.
Yet, both men didn't jump out of the bathwater. Pao Luo even dove under the water, drinking a mouthful of medicinal liquid.
A second later, his body floated on the water, face down. It was as if he had turned into a corpse, who had been drowned to death.
Pao Lao passed out from misusing the medicinal bath. He was not supposed to drink the black water.
Tang Fan had another torturous experience. As the bathtub was too small for him, he got stuck. His face flushed as he could feel the heat from the burning barrel plate.
"IT'S FUCKING HOT!! MY FAT IS MELTING!! NO, MY SKIN IS MELTING!!"
As if Tang Fan was a pig in a slaughterhouse, he squealed and squeaked in pain.
28 other trainees gazed at the two maniacs in shock. They gulped, hesitating if they should get into the medicinal bath.
But Ma Moxi was merciless. After he had helped Pao Luo and Tang Fan out of the bathtubs temporarily, he dragged the trainees into the other bathtubs with a bright smile.
To the trainees, that was a smile of a devil. They shrieked in fright and helplessness.
That day, when everyone focused on the awakening of a supreme demoness at the yin slave mansion, loud screams resounded throughout the Ma courtyard.
…
At the center of the orc camp, Kzarka, the 7th-stage warchief and the leader of the Blood Orc's Vanguard Army, stared at another orc warchief, who was also a 7th-stage warrior.
Kzarka was a 5-meter-tall pig-head orc with a dread braid hairstyle. His red skin was covered in flame as he was the dragon fire curse bearer, and the curse could instantly burn anyone in the radius of 10 meters around the orc.
The grand warchief didn't wear any armor other than an immortal grade black fabric as a loincloth as it was the only piece of equipment that could withstand the dragon fire. He didn't have a weapon either since he didn't need one.
Fogan, who were being stared down, was the 4-meter-tall orcs who had landed on the beach first. He was in charge of leading the spearheads to clear the perimeter around the landing sites. Yet, he didn't complete their jobs properly.
Fogan had failed to locate the Heretic King that they had been searching. Moreover, they had yet to occupy every city in the perimeter, especially Siren City.
As such, Kzarka, who was the grand commander of the spearhead army, was dissatisfied with the result.
"Fogan, why haven't you attacked the south?"
Fogan clicked his tongue. Kzarka was so irresponsible that he had left all tasks to him. Then, he came here, blaming everything when he had made mistakes.
"We have run into strong human cultivators at the north and the east. We don't have enough manpower to start another war front to the south."
"Bullshit! We have over 20,000 capable orcs! Why can't you deal with those puny insects!? If it were me, I would have cleared this perimeter within the first day I had landed!"
"If you're so confident, why don't you lead your forces there yourself. I have my hands full managing two war fronts. I can use some help here," Fogan sneered. He didn't tell Kzarka about the recent incidents at the south with his scout units.
Since Fogan didn't like Kzarka, he intentionally baited his boss to deal with the most problematic issues.
Kzarka snorted. He thought that Fogan was so incompetent that he couldn't conquer a simple land around the beach. He planned to capture the southern area and shame Fogan, "Fine! I'll go there myself and show you how it's done! Once I come back, I'll remove you from the warchief position!"
The tall orc stomped and flew south, heading toward Siren City alone.
Fogan looked in the direction where Kzarka had headed toward. He raised his eyebrows and smirked.
'Good luck dealing with two nascent soul realm cultivators, you moron.'
All 100 orcs, who had attacked Siren City yesterday, had a life brand. The brand had sent a record of their last-minute experience before they had been killed to an artifact in Fogan's hands.
The receiver artifact had already collected all the records, and Fogan had gone through all the contents. As such, he was aware of how dangerous Siren City was.
'Go kill yourself. If better, kill those cultivators before you die, asshole!'
As Fogan was mocking Kzarka in his mind, he walked toward his troops, which had come back from the northern expedition.
There was another issue that Fogan had to deal with ASAP.
Out of three thousand orcs that Fogan had sent to eradicate all humans to the north, only five hundred returned alive. Currently, they had been resting and recuperating in the field hospital area as most of them were injured.
Fogan gazed at the make-shift field hospital, which was an isolated area with walls around them. 500 patients laid on the patched beds while worker orcs had been busy tending their wounds.
The warchief took out a red orb, which was an artifact that could record the branded orcs' last moment before death. He placed the artifact at the center of the field hospital. A hologram image appeared above the orb, revealing the short clips of dead orcs' last moments.
Fogan sat on the chair next to the unit commander, who was also injured.
"Tell me, what the fuck happened on the north?"
[ARGH!!]
The clip showed a half-naked gold-skinned human, who seized the heads of two orcs and crushed them with his bare hands.
Fogan looked at the clip and pointed his finger, "Who's that guy?"
The unit leader coughed. He raised his head a bit, "A 7th-stage cultivator."
"Another one!?" Fogan was surprised. He didn't expect to encounter so many 7th-stage cultivators early as the intel said that there were about 10 to 20 nascent soul cultivators on this continent. But now, his forces had run into three of them.
"What kind of abilities does he have?"
"G-Gold element."
"Gold element? You lost to a lousy 7th-stage cultivator with the weakest advanced element!? He's fighting alone, yet you failed to kill him!?"
"B-Boss. My strength is only the peak of the 6th-stage. I can't-"
Fogan seized the orc's neck, "You had three thousand orcs! Three-fucking-thousand 6th-stage warriors! I also gave you ten domain-sealing talismans! Why the fuck didn't you use any of them!? You could have killed him easily without a casualty!"
"I-I'm sorry! T-The talismans… were not with me! They were gone!"
"Dafuq!? Do you think that's a proper excuse!?"
"I-It's true! I kept them in the platoon's supply caravan, but everything just simply disappeared at night."
"How the fuck did you lose your war supplies!? And why did you fucking attack that 7th-stage human without a weapon! Are you retard!?"
"I seriously don't know! The supplies just disappeared at night, and we were ambushed by that guy the next morning! We just got caught off guard!"
The unit leader explained what had happened yesterday.
Yesterday, the northern expedition army had cleaned all human cities on the north, and they took a short rest, celebrating their success.
As they had been looking forward to uniting with the beast women, who would be on the mating season in a few months, they let their guard down as they couldn't wait to mate with beautiful beasts.
Then, they lost everything, and they didn't know how they lost them.
"Ugh…"
Fogan had a headache. He thought that the northern expedition would have been smooth since there were not many cities to occupy.
Unfortunately, they ran into a mysterious nascent soul cultivator.
…
A kilometer north of the orc camp, a master-disciple duo had taken a short break there.
"ACHOOO!!"
Li Jue sneezed. His mucus dirtied the wooden mask that he had been wearing.
The old man took off his mask and replaced it with a brand new one. As for the old one, he poured some water on it and wiped the dirty parts with Niu Fu's robes. The disciple cried in disgust.
"Master! That's disgusting!"
"Oh, shut it! It's your duty to support your mentor in whatever he wants to do!" Li Jue inhaled and pulled back the wet boogers into his nostrils, "You have no idea how hard your mentor has been working his ass off for you!"
"Oh, what did you do? You disappeared last night on your own again."
"Hahaha! You have no idea."
Li Jue placed a hundred corpses of 6th-stage orcs on the ground. Most of them had a tinge of gold element Qi.
"Wow! Master, did you kill all of them?"
"Nah. A new friend of mine helped me. Let me introduce you to a great person. Oh, he should arrive here in a few minutes."
A minute later, a half-naked gold-skinned man descended to the ground.
It was Qiang Sui.
"What about my shares, Li Jue?" Qiang Sui wiggled his fingers, asking for his payment.
Li Jue took out five red talismans, the domain-sealing talismans. Then, he tossed them toward Qiang Sui.
The latter collected them without touching it. All five talismans entered his spatial ring.
Qiang Sui rubbed his ring and smirked, "Now, let's talk. I want to know about the strength of Siren City."