Chapter 451

Underneath the dim gloomy sky was the endless scorched land. There were a few rivers curved and twisted through the black earth until they reached a huge sinkhole in a distance; on the vast land, countless strange steep hills were risen from the ground and scattered around as if they were nails trying to stop the ground from rising.

Behind a row of hills that seemed to be forcibly cut into half by something, clouds of deadly dust were flying in the air; and in those dust clouds, groups of strange glowing things formed a crooked line and slowly swayed around the broken hills like a glowing dragon.

The night was deadly quiet and filled with the smells of danger and blood. Deep inside a mysterious field appeared strange and creepy noises from time to time.

A figure that was completely covered by a black cloak and moving fast in the dark suddenly raised one of its hands and stopped moving. Instantly, all the seven black shadows that were behind it all stopped and quickly leaned against the steep hill next to them.

The figure that seemed to be the leader of the group climbed up to a secret wind gap, removed the black glove from its hand. It pointed its index finger at the direction of the wind. A moment later its index finger began to glow the dim green light.

It kept its finger in the wind for a few seconds before it moved back and put its finger in its mouth and on its tongue. It then frowned all of sudden and slowly claimed back down.

“He is in this area, Kill on sight! This is the order!” the figure said sternly.

“Captain Yi, does he really have The Will of Cambrian, the Will was left by that legendary man?” One of the shadows couldn’t help but ask.

The leader’s face instantly dropped. “Don’t ask any questions that you shouldn’t ask. Your whole family might end up dead!”

The shadow that asked the question instantly had a cold shudder. It didn’t dare to say anything back.

It was at this moment, on the darker side of the other hill, a plume of fluorescent smoke slowly rose up into the sky. “Shit! The team Jia is under the attack! Quick! That direction!” The leader was shocked.

‘The Will of Cambrian is truly the most powerful cultivation method in the world. Within just a few months, he can obtain such power! No wonder why that old fuck is that powerful!’ the heart of Captain Yi sank even deeper.

The group of shadows quickly left the place and disappeared into the darkness. The hill once again fell into creepy silence.

… Late midnight…

The end of the scorched land was the edge of a primeval forest. Under a huge mountain peak that seemed to have been destroyed by something a long time ago, hid a small unknown village.

Inside the village, the heavy dismal atmosphere shrouded everyone, making people feel depressed and hard to breathe.

Inside a simple and crude house that was made by a rusty bus that no one knew how many years it had been abandoned there, a few figures were gathered together and sat quietly in a circle around an oil lamp with their faces filled with worries.

With the flame of the oil lamp flickered unsteadily, the shadows of those figures were twisted while swaying left and right behind their backs, making people feel even more depressed.

“Father, I am not going to draw lots. I’ll go. Second Older Brother is capable of working now. The little sister is just 8 years old, she may still be able to awaken!” a ten-year-old little boy raised his head and said using his shaking voice after biting his lips very hard. He clenched his fists tightly until his nails were embedded deep into his skinny palms.

His sight first landed on his father’s old face, then it was shifted to the worried face of his mother who was holding his one-year-old little brother. But eventually, his sight landed on the dark corner of the room behind his mother. Although he couldn’t see her clearly, he knew that his sister who was only a few years older than him was timidly hiding in there, feeling inferior of herself, because of her senile look.

Thinking that he himself would be turned into a similar ‘monster’, the boy’s body suddenly shivered uncontrollably. He began to slightly regret what he had said earlier.

But when he saw the eight years old younger sister who was hiding behind him, and her skinny weak body was shaking constantly in fear, he gritted his teeth and held back his own fear.

And next to him, a slightly older boy lowered his head and didn’t say a single word. However, If anyone looked closely, they would notice that the older boy’s hands also clenched tightly.

“Let… your younger sister go, this family needs… men…” said the father whose face was filled with wrinkles, after a moment of silence. His lips were twisted and his voice was shaking as if he had also made a very difficult decision.

Fearing to look into his own daughter’s eyes, as soon as he finished it, he turned around to face the darker side of the room in pain while coughing very hard.

The man was sick and he seemed to be very weak. Despite that, he was still the only decision maker of the family. Right after the decision was made, the girl’s mother burst into tears.

She instantly hugged her youngest daughter who still couldn’t stop her body from shaking and cried in hysterically. “My baby…”

The boy who had volunteered to go earlier had mixed feelings. Every time when he wanted to speak, the image of his ‘monster’ sister would stop him. Eventually, he also turned around to avoid having eye contact with his little sister while feeling guilty of himself and clenching his fists in pain.

The older brother just stood up, walked outside without saying a single word.

…

On the next day, all the people who lived in that village got up very early. Some families didn’t even sleep for the whole night.

In the grey sky, there were countless thick and deadly dust-like particles. It made the originally hazy sky even dimmer.

On the black scorched land, a group of 10 years old kids were gathered together with the help of the adults. There were around a dozen of them, and most of them were girls. Same as the bodies that had been buried in a place not far from the village, the people in the village chose to save boys over girls…

“Is everyone here?” one of the middle-aged men who looked slightly stronger roughly counted the number of people and then asked.

“Still waiting for elder Yu’s fourth kid. They will probably be here soon.” An aunt who was dressed in a weird combination of clothes that seemed to be collected from ruins, was shivering with cold. She took a quick glance around the group and said.

“This winter is too cold, the food we have is not enough to support us to live through the winter. If we don’t go to the forbidden land, more people will die…” looking at the sky that had visible signs of getting colder and colder, the man said.

“Chief, elder Yu is here…” the aunt in strange clothes stamped her feet a few times to warm herself up and said while pointing in a direction.

While she was talking, a man whose face was filled with wrinkles walked towards them numbly with his daughter. Several years ago, the man had experienced the exact same pain.

The little girl was familiar with the other kids who had also been selected. Although she was still very scared, with so many people here, she was not as scared as before. She just quietly walked into the group while looking at the ground.

“Okay, since everyone is here, let’s go. The forbidden land only has two safe entrances, don’t let others take them first.” the middle-aged chief didn’t say many things. In fact, when facing those parents, he knew that it was useless no matter what he said.

The group that was made of mostly young girls were asked to stand in a row, and then led by the chief. Other young and stronger men were asked to take ropes and follow behind them.

When they walked past the entrance of the village, a little boy who was around 10 years old and was dressed in the best clothes in the entire village was standing proudly at the entrance. All the girls were looking at him with envy while feeling inferior of themselves because the boy was an awakened human!

“Dad, will sister come back alive?” The little boy who had volunteered last night pulled the corner of his father’s tattered clothes and asked sadly.

The father wiped his teary old face with his hands and sighed. He did not answer the young boy.

Everyone knew what the forbidden land meant – it was the land where food and death coexisted!

No one and not a single monster was able to walk out of it alive, except for very young children. They could enter the forbidden land in a short period of time. But when they came out, they would be either dead or become very old. It was as if their lives were stolen by something.

But there was food there. There were many frozen bodies of monsters piling up like mountains. As long as they could get a few of those monsters’ bodies out, it would be enough to support them to live through this cold winter.

In order to survive, people thought of an extremely cruel way to get the monsters’ bodies. It was to tie a rope on a very young kid and ask the kid to rush into the forbidden land with the hook that also had a rope tied onto it. They asked the kid to use its fastest speed to hook a monster’s body, so the young adults outside the forbidden land could pull the body out.

Sometimes, the hook rope would be stuck; other times the monster’s body would be blocked by something; all kinds of unexpected situations would happen to delay the entire process. If the process was delayed, even though the adults were able to pull out the kids and the bodies, it would still be too late for the kids…

Only when everything went smoothly would the kid be pulled out alive. But without exceptions, all of them would become very old and with only a few years to live.

It was not the first time that the surviving village under the broken mountain peak had done something like this. The last time they did it was a few years ago. It was after the village was attacked by a group of monsters. All their food was destroyed during that attack. At that time, only less than half of the kids that had been gathered together came out alive!

But what would happen this time?

The father whose face was covered with wrinkles was constantly sighing. Just when he was ready to go back to prepare firewoods for the winter, he heard a few people rushing into the village from outside. The person that led the group was the eldest son of Old Wang’s family, and behind him was a group of people carrying a young man that was covered with blood.

He immediately asked his son to go home, but he himself approached them and took a close look carefully. What he saw instantly sent a chill down his spine.

“Quick, Mom, it is Second Brother, he is back. But he… injured… injured… ” the eldest son of Old Wang’s family shouted hurriedly.

The young man tried very hard to open his eyes. The blood flowed into his eyes, making him look fierce and scary. Many villagers were scared away and ran back to their home in panic.

The young man took out a bloodstained paper from his arms and said intermittently with all his remaining strength, “Old Seven… take… take… this is… I risked… my life… they… are coming… I have…. to go… immediately… to… lure… them… awa…”

Before he was able to finish it, he passed out.

…

In the forest that was filled with huge mushrooms, all the little girls followed the adults along the less-traveled path carefully. The deeper they went into the forest, the more scared they were.

About an hour later, the tall mushroom-like plants disappeared from their sights. What appeared before them was the deadly quiet and vast forbidden land.

It was very easy to tell the boundary of the forbidden land because no animals or plants here dared to cross the boundary of the forbidden land half a step. Hence where the plants stopped growing was the forbidden land.

The forbidden land was covered with a dense black mist. When standing outside, no one was able to see through it, even if one had the best eyesight. So except for the children who had been in there and were still alive, nobody knew exactly what was inside.

Adults were extremely afraid of the strange noises that had appeared in the deep forest from time to time. Once they arrived here, they quickly tied the rope to the children and prepared hooks.

The youngest daughter of Elder Yu’s family was tied up the last. At the urging of adults, although she was extremely frightened, she could not ask help from anyone. Because the village chief deliberately refused to let all the kids’ parents and relatives follow them. So she had to follow the other children with a thick rope in her arms and get into the thick black fog.

Once the children went into the dark fog, they began to run desperately. They knew from the adults that the faster they ran, the higher the chance that they would come out alive. Although they would become a monster, they could still live.

For the first time, the elder Yu’s little daughter saw so many scary monsters. They were piling up like mountains. Some monsters were even several times larger than the size of her village!

Her mind went completely blank when she saw them. When she finally came back from the shock, the bodies of the little monsters that were near her had already been hooked by the other children that were with her. The rest of the monsters were either too big or stuck on the ground.

She had no other choice but to walk deeper into the forbidden land through many huge monsters’ bodies. If she did not hook anything before she went back, she would be thrown back in again.

Maybe she had walked a long way, or maybe he was too frightened to walk, or maybe she had already become an old monster like her older sister. She felt weak and could not walk anymore.

It was at this moment, a rope near her suddenly bounced up from the ground and stretched to its limit. It was the adults outside the forbidden land who began to pull the monster’s body out. However, the rope that was near her seemed to be hooked on a monster that was stuck in the pile of monsters’ bodies. As soon as the adults began to pull it, many monsters’ bodies began to fall down…

All the kids were scared by the collapsing of the pile of bodies. All of them were running around in panic.

The Elder Yu’s little daughter was tripped over, and before she was able to get up, a strange thing rolled down from the top of the pile of the monsters’ bodies.

Seeing other kids had already run far away from her, and after failing to get up, she instantly burst out crying.

“Ha…. Where… is… this… place?” The thing was covered with broken armor-like skin. It looked a lot like a monster. After letting out a long breath, it began to talk using a stiff, hoarse and extremely scary voice.

The little girl’s cry was instantly stopped by the scary voice. She tried very hard not to cry, but her body was still constantly shivering in fear.

…note…

Back in Jin Ling city, Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, are four ranks that people gave to Dark Warriors.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep