Death Scripture

Chapter 366: Forest

To cover his failure up, Dugu Xian publicly insisted that the army of the Great Snowmountain had been completely wiped out; privately, he wished for it to be true.

Just like this, the Dragon King and the Great Snowmountain were forgotten amidst all the continuous stream of huge events happening throughout the entire Western Region. Only a few still remembered the army that had been buried by the last blizzard of the winter and believed that there were survivors.

The blizzard had wrecked great havoc on the soldiers from the Great Snowmountain. More than 300 soldiers who were heavily wounded did not manage to survive the terrible weather; they froze to death in the icy wilderness.

It was, also, a savior for the people of the Great Snowmountain. Other than removing the dead weight, albeit in the cruelest way, it completely covered their tracks.

The survivors struggled to advance, so much so that they did not even have a chance to bid their dead comrades farewell.

The traveled southward for a month, passing through unpopulated, arid landscapes and deserts and fighting their way through swamps laden with traps. As spring finally came, they were suddenly greeted with lush, green landscapes everywhere. The Dragon King had led them to the border of an uncharted forest.

It was vast and endless, seeming like a rough ocean, filled with wariness and animosity towards the strange visitors.

Gu Shenwei did not dare to venture into the forest rashly, and thus gave the order for his people to set up camp outside of it. He wanted to use the rare break to rest their weary bodies and breed some livestock, as well as settle many of their internal issues.

The swordsmen soon began to miss the Great Snowmountain with its four seasons of snow. Even though it was also impoverished, they were familiar with the ways of their land. The deserts, swamps, and forests they were facing now were strange to them and made them feel uneasy.

At first, their sense of longing for the Great Snowmountain only lingered in their minds, but gradually, as more and more of them began voicing out their thoughts, their pleas to return back to their homeland was soon building up into a crescendo.

The machetemen under Tuo Nengya were even more unsettled; even though they had pledged allegiance to Boss Tuo and the Dragon King, they still retained their mercenary nature and wished to be repaid for their services, the sooner the better.

Their current situation, however, made the idea seem imaginary.

Even so, the survivors, amounting to a little more than a thousand people, had still not splintered into different factions due to a couple of reasons. Firstly, they were loyal to and in awe of the Dragon King, and secondly, they had no other way to turn to; no one was willing to head back and re-experience the hardships of the past month.

Gu Shenwei, however, became more resolute in his beliefs and stubbornly hung on to the thought that if they continued advancing, they would soon come to the secret mountain pass that led to the Xiaoyao Lake.

Even when their guides were already disheartened and admitted to losing their way, Gu Shenwei was not shaken by the least bit. He felt that the Golden Roc Fort’s power was at a high now and that the Great Snowmountain had to avoid taking it head-on. Even if they could not reach the Xiaoyao Lake eventually, he wanted his people to remain in hiding in the south for at least a year or so.

Once again, Gu Shenwei prayed to the Heavens for divine assistance.

The three warlocks who had been accompanying the army of the Great Snowmountain began offering livestock as sacrifices on a mountain slope. They tossed the innards of the animals on the ground and burned their fat for divine signs which turned out to be unclear.

“The Heavens want us to continue southward,” the first warlock said as he tried to predict the future from the pattern displayed by the innards splayed out on the ground. “But… there are surprises and disasters ahead of us,” he continued.

“I see death, countless number of deaths,” said the second warlock as he observed the rising plumes of smoke. “However, there stands a gigantic deity clad in golden armor behind the dead… they will not be forgotten… great honor.”

“Pick up your weapons,” said the third warlock as he tried to predict the future by meditating. His advice was the most straightforward and was also the first to be proven correct.

On the third day after the army from the Great Snowmountain had set up camp outside of the forest, curious eyes could be spotted peeping at them from the gaps between the trees. Soon, more of them could be seen, and the animosity towards the intruders became more obvious.

The fugitive army had encountered the legendary forest residents.

They were a savage people and clothed themselves with animal skins and leaves. They used wooden longbows and javelins as weapons and spoke a strange language that only they could understand.

At first, Gu Shenwei tried to handle them by making a show of friendship. He sent the forest residents a few horses and dozens of metal weapons, hoping to garner their support and get a guide familiar with the land in the process.

However, the ways and thoughts of the savages were distinctly different from others and Gu Shenwei could not figure them out. In the end, he did not even know how he managed to offend the forest residents.

The savages began organizing raids and snuck into the Great Snowmountain’s camp in the night after killing the sentries, or they would hide in the thick bushes near water sources and attack with their sharp wooden arrows. Their familiarity with the techniques and the mysteriousness of their movements were comparable to top-level killers from the Golden Roc Fort.

Gu Shenwei gave up his plan of forming an alliance after the 10th casualty from the Great Snowmountain camp. He decided to garner their support forcibly.

He formed the swordsmen and machetemen under his command into 20 or so 50-person teams. They would enter the forest in waves and support each other, covering each other’s flanks and advancing slowly. They surrounded each tree and engaged in close combat with the savages.

The frustration of the soldiers was pent up for too long, and they did not show any mercy. Within five days, they had killed more than a hundred savages and finally advanced their way to the village where the savages lived in.

The youths of the village were either killed by the intruders or escaped deeper into the forest.

The soldiers were engulfed by bloodlust and each of them had the intention to massacre all the villagers. Even Gu Shenwei’s desire to kill was aroused, but he managed to compose himself at the critical moment. In the end, they only snatched away a portion of the food stored by the villagers, as well as five elderly savages and a dozen children.

It proved extremely difficult trying to communicate with the elderly forest residents, and it was only after 10 whole days that both parties could have some semblance of understanding as to what each other meant through hand signs and guesses.

The old folks had never heard of any place resembling the Xiaoyao Lake, and they only knew that there were fewer villages as one progressed deeper into the forest. However, the savages would be increasingly violent in nature.

Gu Shenwei gave the order to break camp and advance into the forest. He sent an advance party of 20 soldiers and two old forest residents who were familiar with the land to set off one day before the main body. Their responsibility would be to give a simple instruction to each village they encountered: provide some food and send 10 to 20 of their young men to join the army, otherwise, it would be considered as the enemy.

The first two villages they encountered were tougher, and not only did they refuse the terms, they even killed one of the messengers. After which, they ventured out of their villages to fight the invaders.

Each time, Gu Shenwei managed to resolve the fight quickly by sending out only about four of his 50-person teams. The weapons and equipment used by the savages were too rudimentary, and even though they were familiar with the land, they were no match for the battle-hardened soldiers.

After the first two battles, the remaining journey of the invaders into the forest went much smoother. As the forest residents got wind of a huge, unknown army invading their land, they either fled or obediently acceded to the invading army’s requests.

This became another problem for the Dragon King and his army, however. They could not advance in a straight line and had to move from village to village. It was a journey that sometimes forced them to walk around in circles.

They did not have any other choice, as they were a huge group and had to depend on the villages for food. Without the forest residents providing their sustenance, they would not last for more than a few days in the forest.

Even so, everyone, including the Dragon King, had to ration their food. The villages were small, and the number of provisions they could provide were limited.

The fortunes of the invaders got better after conscripting the savages into their army, Even though they were additional mouths to feed, they were familiar with the ways of the forest, and could always manage to hunt down some prey or gather other types of food. Although the food they provided might not be tasty, it helped to prevent the others from starving.

The forest was vast, and even the savages had limited knowledge of its entire expanse or the way out of it. Other than directing the army to nearby villages, they could not help much with navigating.

The army wandered in the forest in this manner for three months, raiding dozens of villages and relying on whatever meager tribute they were given as sustenance. The vengefulness of the soldiers grew increasingly obvious, and as they were afraid to voice out their frustration, they began venting it out in other ways. Once, a team of 50 soldiers massacred an entire village of forest residents, not discriminating by gender or age. It was sparked off merely because one of the soldiers had been attacked by arrows from a savage in hiding.

Gu Shenwei could only humiliate the offenders by confiscating their weapons; he could not mete out punishment according to the military law of the Great Snowmountain under such circumstances.

The forest had become an extremely restrictive piece of garment constricting the movements of the soldiers; it would always cause restrictions to outsiders. They were driven close to the brink of insanity by the ancient fauna which blocked out all sunlight and the swarms of poisonous insects.

If this carried on, even the authority of the Dragon King would not be able to contain the pent-up resentment of his soldiers.

Gu Shenwei had no intention of turning back and kept searching for a way out of the forest. To this end, he specifically selected a few machetemen who were literate and had them map out each village and record down the myths of the savages. In this way, he finally managed to produce a rough sketch of the entire forest.

He then sent out 10 groups of scouts to perform reconnaissance in different directions. He ordered them to turn back the moment they came to a dead end, and even if they did not, they had to return back to camp after five days at most.

Most of the scouts came back before five days; they met with either deep gorges or insurmountable mountains and could not advance any further.

There was only one team which brought back a glimmer of hope for the Dragon King. They reported that it was possible to advance in a southwest direction, and even though they would be obstructed by a mountain, there was a small passage through it.

According to the myths of the savages, there were no villages in the southwest cluster of mountains, but it was the prowling ground of strange beasts. As such, Gu Shenwei felt that it was most possible that it would lead to a way out of the forest.

He garrisoned his troops in separate locations to gather as many provisions as they could. After 10 days, he gathered them, and they advanced southwest-ward.

The mountain pass was extremely windy and hard to traverse, and even the conscripted savages were fearful; some of them even deserted the army. However, the soldiers were generally excited at the thought of being able to leave the forest.

Spring was drawing to a close. On an afternoon when the sun shone gently, and just as their stores of food were about to be depleted and the few remaining livestock were already slaughtered for food, the army from the Great Snowmountain finally managed to break free from the clutches of the forest.

In front of them was a paradise-like place. After walking for so long in the ancient forest which was completely obscured from sunlight, everyone was stunned to see stretches after stretches of beautiful flora and countless fauna of all types.

No one knew who started it, but very quickly everyone was shouting “Dragon King”. Their doubts had been banished, and even if they could not arrive at the Xiaoyao Lake, they knew that their journey southward had not been in vain.

However, the conscripted savages were increasingly panicky; it was the first time many of them had been out in the open.

Gu Shenwei gave them a choice: either remain in the army and get to learn about a bigger world that they had ever known, or return back to the forest.

Their panic, however, had aroused the ambition of many of the savages, and more than half of them were willing to remain behind. These forest residents amounted to more than 300 in number and became another source of manpower for the Great Snowmountain army. Gu Shenwei formed them up into a special unit under his direct command.

Their good fortune continued, and on the third day after they had left the forest, the scouts from the advance party came back with a piece of news that created a wave of excitement throughout the troops: more than 30 miles away lay a fort.

They had stumbled upon an isolated country by accident and came to know its name after establishing contact with its leaders.

It was known as the Land of Fragrance, and legend had it that it was a place of many peculiar flora and people. Many years ago, Gu Shenwei had heard about this country from a highly skilled doctor, but he had never imagined that he would personally step foot on it one day.

He could also never imagine that the fate of both himself and his army would take a huge turn for the worse here.