Six-Armed Serpent Demon

Page 10

"Don't call me cousin."

The Archmage of Zaire stared intently into his eyes, speaking slowly and gently:

"I originally thought you were just a useless piece of trash with no talent for adventure, but I didn't expect you to be even more useless than I imagined, unable to even understand human speech. So listen carefully—"

"Let me make this clear to you: I don't need your worm-like intelligence to judge what constitutes 'saying' and 'not saying'."

“Now, repeat to me every single word you said to her, including what she asked and how you answered her.”

“If you can’t even do this, my dear cousin, I suggest you kill yourself to avoid my wrath from affecting you, your family, your clan, and your wife’s family.”

King Samarachi finished speaking in one breath, then paused for a moment to give Tankred ample time to digest the information.

Then he asked gently, "Did you understand?"

Tankred swallowed hard and nodded vigorously.

After listening to his cousin stammeringly recount the entire conversation, Zaire sat in his chair, lost in thought, gently tapping his thigh with his index and middle fingers.

“So,” he said softly, “she inquired carefully about the geography of the Chultan Peninsula and Samarach, and also about the Narubel Pass and the pirate port. Given her character, she dared not remain in Samarach…”

So, did she use the pirate port of Narubel as a hiding place?

Tankred, standing to the side, noticed that Zaire's expression had become strange, a half-smile on his face.

—This aligns well with Chu Shixin's line of thinking; she is indeed a person of that kind of unscrupulous character.

he thinks.

—From Tancred's retelling of their conversation, we know that she was unaware that north of Narubel Pass, the area was no longer the original pirate port of Narubel.

Archmage Zaire glanced at Tankred with a mocking expression, but said nothing.

Samarachne has been in a state of isolation for far too long, cut off from the outside world.

Although the entire country has now been teleported to the world of Abel, many residents are unaware of this and still believe they are living on the Chultan Peninsula of the Forgotten Continent in the world of Toril.

Tankred is one of them.

The truth is, the teleportation caused the Kingdom of Samarachi to connect directly with the continent of Shedan in the world of Abel. The compression of the two tectonic plates caused the Samarachi Mountains to rise by nearly two thousand meters, making the Narubel Pass even more rugged and treacherous.

Furthermore, the pirate port north of the mountains was not teleported to Abel.

Following the route Tankerd provided, traversing the Narubel Pass and crossing the mountains will only lead to the territory of the Shedan continent.

The worlds of Abel and Toril are twins, like reflections of each other. Indeed, there exists a port in Abel that corresponds to the original pirate port. Their relative geographical locations are quite similar.

However, it wasn't a pirate port, but a coastal city-state called "Flame Land" ruled by an old bronze dragon, a port of paladins who worshipped the fire element and the sun.

Zaire's beard twitched up and down.

The idea of ​​a chaotic and evil six-armed serpent demon traveling thousands of miles to hide in a city full of paladins seems quite interesting.

Tankred kept his head down and remained silent.

He didn't know what Zaire was planning; he only knew that it was best not to speak now. Once his cousin started thinking about something, anyone who interrupted or talked nonsense would definitely anger him.

The last person who angered my cousin was turned into a hamster by him using a malicious shapeshifting technique, and then fed to his pet alligator snapping turtle as live food.

After a long while, Zaire rolled his eyes and turned his gaze back to Tankred.

"Although your abilities are limited, you did a good job."

Tankred was beaming with pride at the King of Samaraki's praise, but the Archmage's next words struck him like a thunderbolt.

“I have a lot of things to do here, so I won’t keep you any longer. I’ll give you four days to go back and prepare. Then you can go and contact that six-armed snake demon. First, go and check out the magic laboratory that Eric van Boto mentioned. If she’s not there, then go to, well, the pirate port, and wait for her there.”

He couldn't help but chuckle.

But Tancred felt his legs go weak and his throat was so dry he could barely speak.

Even when facing a massive army, he didn't want to confront that terrifying female demon again; the eye he had lost still seemed to ache faintly in its socket.

Tancred said urgently, "But that's already beyond the borders of Samarach! According to the law promulgated by Lord Samarach back then, no one is allowed to leave the country! I can't—"

"you can."

Zaire said lazily, "Now I am the master of Samarach. If I say you can, you can."

Tankred panicked: "But—"

"Shut up."

Zaire took in his reaction and gave a dismissive snort.

"Relax. I'm not telling you to fight her to the death."

He took a disc from the desk drawer. It was inlaid with several gems and had a magic circle with dense lines engraved on its surface.

He casually tossed it at Tankred.

Tankred caught it quickly.

"Communication array".

The Grand Master of Zaire said.

"When you see that six-armed serpent demon, touch the red crystal on it. I will receive a signal to confirm your location. Less than a second later, I will teleport to your side."

He smiled gently, revealing his white teeth.

"As for the rest, you don't need to worry about it; leave it to me."

Chapter 11 The Attack of the Directions Party

In the vast, primeval jungle, a long procession slowly made its way from the northern mountains along the river, and had just reached a steep peak.

At the head of the procession were forty lizardman warriors covered in fine brown and green scales.

They carried stiff bows and quivers full of poisoned arrows; in their hands they held wooden spears with obsidian tips that were very sharp, and the shafts, hardened by a gentle fire, were wrapped with fine ropes made of tanned rattan; and on their backs they carried oval shields.

They smeared mud and wild animal excrement on their heads and bodies, filed their teeth to a sharp point, and painted them black with tree bark sap.

Following behind them were several hundred female lizardmen and their cubs.

The female had a large pot of stew and various everyday utensils balanced on her head. The cubs huddled cautiously beside their mother, idly wagging their little tails.

At the very back of the column were sixty lizardman warriors responsible for covering the rear, equipped exactly like the scouts at the front.

Three months ago, this lizardman tribe called "Green Poison" fought a battle with the dragon race from a northern coastal city-state. Following their headhunting tradition, they ambushed a caravan from the city-state outside the jungle, taking nothing from the caravan's goods but beheading ten caravan members.

But soon the city-state dragons retaliated: they sent a fully armed army of six hundred men, all of them snake-men mercenaries.

The lizardman tribe, which once numbered over two thousand, was razed to the ground. The shaman and chieftain were all dead, leaving only less than three hundred old people, women, and children who fled south into the mountains and deep jungles.

The lizardman exiles wandered for six days through this pathless green maze before finally shaking off their pursuers—in fact, they were unaware that they had inadvertently crossed the Sanrachi Mountains and entered the territory of Samarachi.

The lizardman exiles descended the peaks and that night entered a valley between the mountains, where they discovered a relatively flat, low-lying marshland. The trees and vines were sparser than in the places they had passed through.

So they set up camp here and rebuilt the village.

The lizard people spent half a month clearing the land, building huts with mud, erecting fences around the perimeter, setting up totem poles of their ancestors, scattering banana and cassava seeds, and starting to raise water beetles and worms in the swamp again.

And so, the Green Poison Tribe began a new life in their new home, just like before.

This place is far inferior to their homeland; everything is unfamiliar. There are no exciting coffee berries, nor swamp beetles and worms that have been nourished for years by lizardmen's excrement. Fortunately, there are also no snakemen mercenaries' blades.

Life returned to peace and tranquility.

just now.

Inside the fence in the southeast corner of the village, several lizard-man cubs were playing naked under their ancestral totem. They ran around joyfully on all fours, whipping a natural rubber ball with their tails.

Their keen sense of smell told them that there was an unfamiliar scent in the air.

The lizardman cubs looked up curiously and saw that the two lizardman hunters who had gone missing from the village had returned.

"So, you were captured, and then escaped back while the enemy wasn't looking?"

The new lizardman chieftain stroked his chin, looking at the two exhausted and dejected members of his tribe opposite him. They were covered in wounds, as if they had suffered quite a bit.

"Was it done by some scaleless creatures? Was it a tribe of goblins?"

"Perhaps... a goblin?"

The two lizardmen who had escaped were unsure about their chieftain's question; they had never seen such a creature before.

Another added, "Their daggers, not made of obsidian, but more like those used by the snake people in the north who kill for the dragon race, are shiny and exceptionally sharp."

“But the weapons of the dragon race reflect gold,” the first said, “the weapons of the southern scaleless tribe reflect white.”

The lizardman chieftain began to worry.

Do we have to move again?

Suddenly, he thought he had grasped the key point: "How did you two get back?"

Could they have been released by the scaleless tribe? If so, the cunning scaleless tribe might follow their trail all the way to the village, so we must be on guard.

"Don't worry, clan leader."

One person said, "After we were captured, we were first put in cages, next to other things we had never seen before, and then transported to the scaleless tribe village at the foot of the mountain to be shown to many scaleless people."

Another person said, "Their village is very large, with a large population, many houses, and very wide roads."

One said, "But they're stupid for not living in the swamp."

Another agreed: "Exactly, it's incredibly stupid."

"Later we were taken to the mountain, to a large basement. The basement was round."

"They said something after that, but we couldn't understand it."

“There was a very young scaleless creature in the basement who took my blood and his blood, and then seemed not very satisfied with our blood.”

"They had someone move our cages upstairs to the yard to make room for other things."

"Later, the scaleless tribe that captured us also went up the mountain and into the basement."

Finally, the other person summarized: "We took the opportunity to smash open the cage door with stones and escaped."

The lizardman chieftain was somewhat relieved.

So there are many scaleless tribes in the southern mountains?

He stroked his chin, thinking.

That's good, this year's headhunting festival is settled, at least fifty heads can be obtained... Seeing such a bountiful blood sacrifice, the ancestors will surely bless their clan to grow and prosper again.

Just then, the lizardman chieftain and two of his men heard the screams of the cubs coming from outside.

Let's go back five minutes.

The southeast corner of the village.

Three lizardman cubs scrambled for a rubber ball.

Amidst laughter and cheers, a lizardman cub lashed the ball with too much force using its tail. They watched helplessly as the rubber ball soared high above the village fence and flew into the nearby green jungle.

The adult members of the village will not allow the cubs to leave the village on their own.

But now, the adult females are in the distance crushing worms and cassava with stone mortars, while some of the adult males have gone out hunting, and others are standing on ladders arranging thick banana leaves, which they are spreading on the roof.

The cubs exchanged glances, their eyes gleaming with eager anticipation.

The three mischievous boys chuckled and dashed toward the fence—on the other side of the wall, where the totem pole had been hidden, there was a broken hole.

The three lizardman cubs quickly squeezed through the fence and followed the direction the ball flew.

They circled around the towering, vine-covered trees, searching curiously, and soon spotted the rubber ball wedged between several coiled, snake-like tree roots.

The three lizard-man cubs happily took their steps forward.

However, at that moment, a large, scaleless hand, as clear as jade, descended from beside the tree roots and gently grasped the rubber ball.

The cubs watched in horror as their beloved rubber ball was lifted into the air by that large hand.

It was a gigantic woman with a snake's body.

They finally understood.

Beneath the dappled shadows of the trees, what they had once mistaken for a giant tree root was actually the lower half of a woman's coiled body underground. Its dark scales shimmered with iridescent light.

As for the upper half of the human body.

She was so tall that, with the sun behind her, the cubs couldn't see her face at all.

Their tail tips began to tremble, and they all cried out in terror.