novelraw Chapter 313 The Mastermind
Chapter 313 The Mastermind
Chapter 313 The Mastermind
The orcs of the Youqi tribe were very wary. Ling Chengen only moved a little closer to the inner circle, which attracted two tall cave bear warriors who chased after him and began to search by following the scent.
She had no choice but to retreat with Du Qi, leaving the Raven Clan warriors behind in the inner circle to gather intelligence.
The crow warriors stayed in the territory of the Youqi tribe all night, and only returned to the cave where Haixian and his group had temporarily settled the next morning with the intelligence.
Based on the information reported by the Crow Clan, Ling Chengen was basically certain that the salt powder was in their hands.
It's possible that there were internal conflicts within the Youqi tribe, so the Cave Bear tribe was unaware of the theft of the salt powder. They were very angry about the Half-Dog tribe suddenly leading their team away and disobeying their chief's orders, and they kept complaining.
"It has been confirmed that there are more than thirty half-dog beastmen who suddenly left the Youqi tribe when the transport team passed through the Zhaoshi Mountain section and have disappeared without a trace?"
The raven-orc squad leader in charge of gathering information nodded and said, "I'm absolutely certain."
“I was outside their chieftain’s treehouse when I heard him fly into a rage, suspecting that the half-dog orcs had turned against them.”
"The current chieftain of the Habitat Clan is from the Cave Bear Clan. Because the Cave Bear Clan is larger and stronger, the Half-Dog Clan has always followed their lead," Shui Sheng whispered a reminder.
"However, the half-dog tribe of the Youqi tribe is growing in number, while the Cave Bear tribe has a low birth rate and is not a very benevolent and loving race. So the half-dog tribe probably has a lot of grievances against them. They must have had some conflict recently and are planning to break away from the Cave Bear tribe and establish a new tribe."
Ling Chengen raised an eyebrow and said, "Is establishing a new tribe such an easy thing?"
Shui Sheng shook her head and said, "The birth of a new tribe is often accompanied by war, because the new tribe needs territory. Nowadays, the territories of each tribe are clearly divided. Unclaimed land is actually very rare. Even if it does exist, the environment will not be good. Therefore, in order to ensure the future development of the new tribe, it is necessary to seize the territory of other tribes."
If the half-dog tribe wanted to establish its own independent group, the best option would be to compete for the territory of the tree meerkats and the bush-tailed koalas.
However, the half-dog race is not as weak and harmless as the orcs of the Gor'an tribe.
The Pig Dragon Clan of Zhaonan and the Cave Bear Clan of Youqi can tolerate the Tree Meerkats and the Bush-tailed Tree Bears, but they may not be able to tolerate the equally wicked and terrible Half-Dog Clan.
"Have you ascertained the population size of the half-dog race?"
"The population of the Habitat Tribe is about two thousand, the population of the Cave Bear Tribe is only about eight hundred, and the population of the Half-Dog Tribe is about twelve thousand, including the elderly and cubs. The Half-Dog Tribe has about eight hundred warriors who can fight."
"This number is a bit too much, and we have very few people."
Du Qi glanced at their forces; even including the wounded and the Raven Clan warriors who had little fighting ability, their numbers were less than fifty.
It would be very troublesome to transfer troops from the City of Ten Thousand Beasts.
First, the journey is quite long, and second, many flying orcs need to be mobilized to assist in transporting the warriors.
Secondly, fighting in a foreign land, where they hadn't been familiar with the terrain beforehand, made it very difficult to target a tribe with a population of just over two thousand and strong fighting power.
"Young City Lord, is there any way?" Du Qi was somewhat desperate, but still placed her last hope on Ling Chengen, because she was really amazing. It seemed that no matter what difficulties she encountered, she could always come up with a solution.
Ling Chengen lowered his eyes and said, "No rush, let me think about it some more."
She turned and instructed the crow warriors to keep an eye on the unidentified small beastmen in the forest.
The scout leader of the crow tribe was somewhat troubled and said, "Those small beastmen seem to be orcs from the insectoid race. They are so small, and we have very few people, so we can't keep an eye on them all."
“These small beastmen don’t appear there for no reason. They’re either watching the orcs of the Habitat Tribe like you, or they have other purposes. In any case, split your forces into two groups: one to keep an eye on the half-dog tribe and the other to keep an eye on the cave bear tribe.”
"Check if those insectoid orcs have made any secret contact with either of their races."
"If you have any contact with them, you must notify me immediately."
"clear."
……
As expected, Ling Chengen received a message from the Crow Clan around noon.
The small orcs lurking in the habitat tribes and the half-dog orcs have been in secret contact.
The two sides found a very secluded spot to talk.
Fearing discovery by the small orcs guarding the outside, the Raven Clan warriors dared not get too close, so they had no way of finding out what they were saying.
Upon hearing the news, Ling Chengen finally emerged from the cave and instructed the Crow Clan to keep an eye on the insectoid beastman responsible for relaying the message. She wanted to see who exactly was trying to seize their beast city's salt.
Therefore, they remained inactive.
Ling Chengen didn't intend to bring this small group of people to confront the other side head-on.
Salt can be made again if it's lost.
When a person dies, they are truly dead.
However, there's no way you'd expect her to suffer this injustice for nothing.
Those salt powders, even if destroyed, won't benefit the person behind all this.
The orcs lurking in the forest are mostly spider orcs, and they are particularly small spiders.
Spider-orcs also exist in Beast City, but in very small numbers.
Moreover, the spider orcs in the city are all very large, not inferior to many beast warriors. They are also very fierce in battle, and are typical high-damage, high-defense warriors. Even without superpowers, they can beat many large-sized fifth and sixth-tier warriors to the ground.
However, these spider-like beastmen in the forest seem to belong to a branch of the forest spiders. Their beast form is only the size of an adult male's fist. It is uncertain whether they will grow larger after leaving the territory of the Habitat Tribe, but so far, all of them that have been monitored are like this.
The crow-tribe orcs took turns keeping watch, eventually identifying the person behind the secret communication between the spider orcs and the half-dog tribe.
Ling Chengen sat on Du Qi's back, spread out his superpowers, and saw the spider beastman transformed into human form.
Like a goblin in a fairy tale, he was very short.
They are somewhat similar to the rat-like orcs in their city, but their appearance is more similar to those from the Southern Plains.
The most obvious difference is that those spider-orcs have more complex tattoo patterns on their faces, and even some bright paint.
They were contacted by a female orc.
It was also a spider-beastman, but much larger, with a stride that stretched out to at least three meters.
The orc's upper body remained human, while her lower body appeared enormous and bulky, though her six legs were exceptionally long and thin. Her spider-like body below her waist was covered in concentric circles of black and white patterns, her long, purplish-black hair was braided, and she had prominent tattoos on her face, mainly concentrated on her cheeks and jawline, forming continuous black lines. A black vertical line ran down the center of her chin, extending all the way to the middle of her collarbone.
The crow-like beastman perched on Ling Chengen's shoulder and whispered, "Those are beastmen from the Daxing tribe."
"You've seen it before?" Ling Chengen asked.
"Of course I've seen them. There aren't many spider beastmen in the Northern Wilderness. We all know the native races and they're easy to distinguish. We beastmen in the Northern Plains generally don't have tattoos on our bodies. Only a very small number of males get tattoos after mating with females from the Southern Plains to please their partners."
"As for the females of our Northern Wilderness, they definitely wouldn't do that, because we think it's ugly to have some green and black patterns tattooed on the skin. We also think the patterns are unattractive, and they can't be washed off. Since they'll be with us for life, it's even more unacceptable."
"Only the beastmen of the Southern Plains admire the idea of tattooing their tribe's totems or marks on their skin."
"What race is this female of?"
The crow warrior looked at Ling Chengen with a puzzled expression, somewhat surprised that she didn't recognize the female.
"That female is quite famous. She is the leader of the female spider clan of the Great Horizon Tribe, named Fu Tong. She is from the ancient two-horned giant spider clan."
This was the first time Ling Chengen had ever heard of adding the word "ancient" before the name of an ethnic group.
The Raven warrior explained, "The Giant Two-Horned Spiders were a race unique to the era of the Beast God. This race quickly became extinct with the fall of the Beast God. Strictly speaking, there are no Giant Two-Horned Spiders in the Southern Plains and Northern Wilderness today. However, there is a tribe established by spider beastmen in the Southern Plains. Because they developed a pair of very small horns, they changed their race's name to Giant Two-Horned Spider."
"But Fu Tong has reverted to the bloodline of the two-horned giant spider clan from the time of the Beast God, which is completely different from those beastmen in the Southern Plains who claim to be two-horned giant spiders. In order to distinguish the fake two-horned giant spider clan in the Southern Plains, some people later added the suffix 'Ancient Species' to the names of those who reverted to the bloodline of the two-horned giant spider clan from the time of the Beast God."
"Although the bloodline of the Giant Spider with Two Horns is not as great as that of the Beast God, it is still a ruthless character that has survived the bloody era, so it should not be underestimated. Although Fu Tong's bloodline is not as domineering as General Chang's Heavenly Python bloodline, if her level is two ranks higher than General Chang's, she may still be able to kill him."
Ling Chengen's eyes widened slightly: "What rank is she?"
“Twelfth rank of the Gold element.” The crow-clan beastman turned his head to look at Ling Chengen and reminded him, “Young City Lord, you should still be careful. This female is very powerful and extremely vicious. She was not exiled to the Northern Wilderness with her family, but was exiled there because she slaughtered many beastmen.”
"Is it really that ruthless?" Ling Chengen asked in surprise.
The crow-tribe beastmen nodded vigorously, their eyes filled with fear as they looked at the woman, and they dared not let any of their tribesmen get too close to her.
Their fear of Fu Tong was far greater than their fear of Ling Chengen.
Because the young city lord has a good personality and stable emotions, he never kills innocent people indiscriminately, nor does he torture orcs to establish his authority.
The young city lord commands considerable prestige among them.
But Fu Tong had a notorious reputation for killing.
Anyone she dislikes will be killed without her even giving a word of warning or scolding, and before they can react.
The crow-tribe beastmen did not tell Ling Chengen about Fu Tong's well-known past.
Fu Tong had at least fifty beastmen in Beiyuan.
More than thirty people died at her hands, and most of them died after she entered her reproductive period.
There were more than twenty others, some of whom disappeared suddenly, and some of whom she gave away to other females.
Those missing male orcs are most likely already dead, but because no bodies have been found and Fu Tong doesn't admit to killing them, they are simply classified as missing.
"The ancient species of the Giant Two-Horned Spider is a branch of the Spider Clan."
"Female spiders will kill and eat their mates after becoming pregnant."
"Because they cannot control their bloodthirsty and cannibalistic racial instincts, most male orcs are terrified of them."
However, female spiders are born extremely beautiful. Even if they have patterns tattooed on their faces, they still have an extremely dazzling appearance. They lure male orcs who are in their breeding season and make them go crazy for them when their willpower is weakest. They are even willing to give their lives. They are an extremely vicious race.
Through the Raven Clan, Ling Chengen gained a basic understanding of the female beastman in the distance.
She used her supernatural abilities to find out that they had not yet obtained salt from the half-dog tribe because the half-dog tribe wanted to use the salt powder to exchange for huge profits, and even wanted to get a piece of territory from them.
Upon hearing this, Fu Tong merely smiled, reached out and picked up a small spider perched on a nearby branch, playing with it as she listened to her subordinates continue reporting. When she heard an even more greedy request, she became so angry that she laughed and crushed the small spider in her hand.
Ling Chengen watched as she casually tossed the shattered spider corpse to her feet, flicked away the bluish-purple liquid in her hand, and stretched out her long, sharp fingertips to the side. A male water-type beastman next to her conjured a stream of water to wash away the dirt on her fingertips.
Only after the water had washed away all the grime and blood did she slowly say, "Letting them steal that batch of salt powder was just to give them a chance to show off. They really think they're something special."
Fu Tong flicked the water droplets off her hands and sneered, "Ignore them. Keep an eye on the Youqi tribe and wait for my news."
Although the Daxing tribe is not close to the Youqi tribe, there are many small and medium-sized tribes in this area, all of which are subordinate to the Daxing tribe.
There's no need for the Daxing tribe to lead a team to deal with them; all they need to do is issue orders to the surrounding tribes, and the name of the Youqi tribe will soon disappear completely from the Northern Plains.
Ling Chengen watched the group of people turn around and walk back, then sat on the tree trunk and stared south, lost in thought.
The people around her didn't disturb her, but stood quietly to the side, waiting for her to come to her senses and speak.
Ling Chengen quickly came up with an idea.
Since the other side has already started fighting amongst themselves, it would be a shame not to take advantage of it, as they have spent the last few days carefully concealing their whereabouts and gathering information from all sides.
After leading the team back to the cave, Ling Chengen instructed Du Qi to accompany Shui Sheng to invite the chieftain of the Southern Tribe.
She didn't know the chief of the Youqi tribe, and if she went there rashly, she would definitely be kicked out.
But if you have an acquaintance who can act as a go-between, things are different.
As evening fell, Ling Chengen waited at the foot of the forest, watching the bushes suddenly sway in the distance. Soon, several tall male beastmen emerged from the branches.
Shui Liudi walked at the front and introduced Ling Chengen to the several cave bear beastmen behind him.
The other person stood a few meters away, scrutinizing them with a cold expression for a while before finally walking over.
"So it's you. You want to discuss something with us?"
Seeing that she was a very young female, the other party already showed a contemptuous attitude in his expression and words.