Chapter 493: A Triumphant Return

The cruel ecological environment of the Hellfire Archipelago made every headman, who could dominate the fate of the tribe, to be an extraordinary person. Upon hearing Sarudada’s words, the eyes of all the natives in the bark house immediately lit up with brilliance.

Seeing that his words had attracted the attention of all the allies just as he had expected, the Hellfire old man was brimming with energy and vitality before raising his voice and saying, “I’ve learnt a magical Crossbow Spell that can make a sharp arrow lit with flames to soar higher than a three-headed eagle. Now that the Daruket’s ships have already scattered to the nearby sea area for investigation, as long as all guardians in the alliance can spare no efforts in the battle, even if the enemy’s flying ships don’t fly across the land…”

When Sarudada was confidently stating his plan, he suddenly saw a strong but exhausted looking indigenous woman wearing tattered leaves and old animal skin staggering into the bark house with the help of two panicked choresmen. Seemingly out of her senses, she shouted incoherently with a faint breath, “Headman Sarudada, Headman Sarudada… The enemy is coming… Warships… Warships! There are thousands, tens of thousands of huge sea monster-like steel warships! Tens of thousands of warships… Reinforcements… R-Reinforce…”

“What are you talking about? What warships…” A burly native, who had one blind eye and his face tattooed with a wolf-headed beast, exclaimed in shock as he stood up. Rushing towards the woman, he howled his question but at this time, the woman had already let out her last breath.

When the burly native saw that the messenger had already died, he froze and stayed silent for a while. All of a sudden, he turned and cast a dignified skeptical look toward Sarudada. Under his flaming gaze, the Hellfire old man forced a smile awkwardly. “Don’t panic, Headman Zaloza. I know what you’re thinking but that is impossible. Think about it, a ship as big as a sea monster? And made by steel on top of that? How can it possibly float on the sea? Even if it could, how many people would have to row the ship and just how large the sail would have to be to move the ship? If there was a strange ship like that, we could still interpret it as a ‘magical thing’ created from sorcery jointly by the sea spiritual monsters guarding the enemy tribe in order to catch us off guard. But it’s impossible for there to be tens of thousands of it…”

As he was speaking, another rugged Hellfire warrior, whose body was covered entirely in mud, rushed in the bark house before kneeling down on the ground crying in sorrow, “D-Dear wise Sarudada, the enemy is not using a flying ship but black iron ships to transport their army. Those ships are as big as mountains and they don’t need wind to sail. They run faster at sea than the mountain animals and crush all of our wooden boats without any effort. Everyone is dead! Everyone is dead! I’m the only one left… I’m the only one left…”

The native kneeling crying sorrowfully on the ground was none other than the chief warrior Sarudada regarded highly. At once, he became completely stunned while the spiritual monster, who had a bear head and monkey body, snapped back to reality right away. Abruptly, he stood up and asked the warrior who seemed to be in a trance, “When did they crash into your battleships?”

“Last night, when the moon was still above my head last night…”

“It’s over… Over…” Upon hearing such an answer, the eyes of the spiritual monster with a bear head and a monkey body narrowed without warning. Turning around, he slowly walked back to where he was sitting and sat on the animal skin before muttering.

It was almost noon now, about half a day since last night. Combined with the words of the woman who sent the message just now, the enemy had most likely crossed the line of defense of the tribal alliance from the sea and had begun to seize the tribal habitats that were only occupied by women and children.

The situation that abruptly changed fell to the worst possible outcome, the bark house became completely silent.

A few minutes later, a small indigenous man with a short stature but piercing gaze suddenly roared angrily as he stood up, “Even if Hasatulu perishes, I’ll bury it in the battlefield and not just wait for my death in the tree house…”

Tearing the animal skin on his body apart, he dashed out of the tree house.

“As the Remodeler who has been enshrined by the tribe for 170 years, of course I’ll go to destruction together with the Tusang tribe…” Then, a spiritual monster covered entirely in rough bark suddenly stood up with a solemn gaze. Without looking back, he walked out of the tree house as well.

Just like this, even though they knew that they would definitely be killed if they went for reinforcement, the remaining tribal headmen and guardian spiritual monsters still led their tribal warriors — either maniacally or calmly — to meet their destined tragic fate.

Even though they had fallen into a desperate situation, these brave leaders and their unyielding subordinates still unleashed their battle tactics, bringing quite some trouble to the Wizard Li expeditionary army that had gained the upper hand. After sacrificing nearly 50,000 tribesmen, the Wizard Li tribe finally was able to hold Scorpion Island, the third largest island in the Hellfire sea region, in its hand. Zhang Lisheng’s believers also reached an unprecedented 40 million.

Unfortunately, the Witchcraft’s Gate of Death was very difficult to make a breakthrough when it reached a high level. The young man first thought that he would inevitably make a breakthrough after unifying the entire Scorpion Island but he realized that there was still a thin layer to break before he could make a breakthrough to Rank-11 Wizard from Rank-10 Wizard.

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Such unexpected situation adding on to the nautical maps found in the perished Daruket tribe, that was far more full and accurate than the self-exploratory routes explored by the Wizard Li, elicited greed and ambition from the young man, causing him to be unable to stop his pace of war.

There was still more than 900,000 people left in his expeditionary force of 1.5 million troops. Even though the casualty rate was higher than that of Wizard Li’s last expansion, the largest island among the 60 over islands in the sea region of an area of 1.2 million square kilometers near Scorpion Island was not more than 100,000 square kilometers. In this overwhelming conquest that had great military strength as an advantage, the number of warriors was still enough.

For this reason, just when the Scorpion Island’s battle ended in triumph, Zhang Lisheng had already planned which island nearby he should seize to pull open the prelude to the conquest of the islands.

After deciding on his target, Zhang Lisheng understood that even though the Hellfire people were unlike the Earthlings and were completely like a war machine that was addicted to war, the exhaustion deep in the bones was not something that could be overcome by willpower alone. If he really wanted to let the Wizard Li expeditionary army to re-embark on an expedition, they would need at least more than ten days of rest. For this reason, Zhang Lisheng did not rush to the next war but quietly ordered for the entire army to rest.

During the period when the expeditionary army was resting, the young man, who was pretending to be one of the Shrimp World No. 2 explorers, could only carefully conceal his identity and stay together with the other explorers without showing any smugness.

Actually, now that Zhang Lisheng was backed by tens of millions of believers, he has the confidence to face any strong enemy in the Wizard Li territory. Even so, Someril, Allison and the rest had the two powerful civilizations of Atlantis and Earth behind them so naturally, he smartly decided to put on a fake pretense in front of them, until it was absolutely out of necessity for him to reveal the truth.

On the morning of the third day after the end of Scorpion Island’s battle, the sun rose and the bright sunshine sprinkled on the ground. In the sky in the Dragon Hawk Harbor located at the tail of the giant scorpion, an oval airship that was a kilometer in length and over 100 meters in width when it swelled up slowly descended from the sky.

According to its specifications, this airship was four times larger than the largest airship that had appeared on Earth before. Its airbag was woven from giant millispider’s silk that had unimaginable flexibility and was absolutely incapable of igniting.

Under the airbag was a rope also woven from the giant millispider’s silk along with more than ten unique tree fibers. It was tied onto a fully sealed cabin that looked similar to a canoe but was several hundred times bigger. It was built from the extremely tough yet light wood peculiar to the Hellfire Archipelago.

In front of the transparent crystal giant window at the bottom cabin of the double-decker cabins with an area of ​​several thousand square meters, Zhang Lisheng looked out at the harbor that was getting bigger and breathed a sigh of relief. Smiling, he said, “We’ve flown for one day and one night and now, we’ve finally reached the Dragon Hawk Harbor, Lieutenant Allison.”

“Yes, Dr., we’ve finally arrived.” The beautiful black female officer next to the young man was not in a good mood, like he was. Looking at the complicated military watch on her wrist, she said thoughtfully, “The length of Scorpion Island is 6,200 kilometers long. We’ve taken 25 hours to travel from the scorpion’s head to its tail. According to the preliminary calculation of this giant airship developed by the Wizard Li tribesmen, it has a speed of more than 220 kilometers per hour and a maximum load that is estimated to be 250 tons minimum. In this case, it already has a carrying capacity of ten B-2 Bombers…”

“Lieutenant Allison, you’re even equipped with the knowledge of airships?” Astonished, Zhang Lisheng interrupted Allison’s words. “Wow, the federal intelligence officer is quite well-informed. Even though I don’t know much, I at least know that the speed of 220 kilometers per hour is already the highest limit on the ground. However, it’s considered as slow as a tortoise for an aircraft that can fly in the sky. Even if this airship has a carrying capacity that is equivalent to 100, 1000 or even 10,000 bombers, there’s no military value at all, let alone just ten bombers. Stop letting your imagination run wild. That’s right, have you decided whether you’d continue to follow the Wizard Li expeditionary army when they go for another expedition next time?”

“I’m in a dilemma, Dr. I plan to see the value of those mainlanders before I make my decision,” Allison replied honestly. After a few months of spending time together, even though the Shrimp World No. 2 explorers could not be said as friends, they had indeed forged a closer relationship with each other.

At this time, the airship had landed on the open space between the harbor and the native city. A few minutes later, other than the two linguists, the remaining six Atlanteans and eight Earth explorers walked out of the cabin.

Even though the war of conquest of Scorpion Island had just ended not long ago, the Dragon Hawk Harbor had already fallen into Wizard Li’s hands for more than two months already. Its scene had already been filled with Wizard Li’s style.

“It used to only be a small fishing port here but now, it has already become a magnificent port city. This is like magic,” In this joyous spring weather, Harman placed a hand over his head to shelter under the sun as he looked around the harbor that was docked with an endless stretch of steamships and the native city that was built from the improved version of sturdy huge bark houses that were full of rustic charm. “I think even a modern civilization would find it difficult to achieve so.”

After hearing the CIA agent’s compliment, Someril said with a smile, “Mr. Harman, over here, there are hundreds of thousands of workers who can work up to 16 hours every day; and tens of thousands of engineers who are commanding their partners who, to some extent, similar to modern construction machinery to engage in critical work. It’s not surprising for such a big harbor to be built in the span of two months time.”

The instant the Atlantean woman’s words left her mouth, several giant dragon hawks suddenly descended from the sky in front of the explorers.