dognovel Chapter 85 [Going Too Far]
Chapter 85 [Going Too Far]
With that strange loot, the four-person team returned to the tribe.
What greeted them was no longer the fear and awe they had felt before. The villagers looked at them with a mixture of fanatical worship after witnessing the miracle of the "resurrection of the dead."
The war leader, Kahn, wielding an iron spear, strode forward, followed by his most elite warriors. His gaze was fixed on the four men, filled with scrutiny and hostility.
"You've returned from the swamp unharmed?" Kahn asked in a low voice.
Kahn's gaze was instantly drawn to the ominous crystal in Wang Xuan's hand. His brown pupils contracted sharply.
"You? You think you can do that?" He sneered, taking a step closer. "The whispers of the swamp can drive even the strongest warriors mad. You…" The tip of his iron spear dipped slightly, pointing at the crystal. "You've brought back something far more dangerous than the swamp."
Terra stepped out from the back of the crowd, frowning. "Kahn, they accomplished their mission and proved themselves."
"Proof?" Kahn scoffed. "They've simply brought the 'madness' of the swamp into the tribe! This thing poses a threat to me far greater than a saber-toothed tiger!"
"Prove to me that this thing in your hands is a tool, not a disaster that will devour us."
Wang Xuan looked around and his gaze fell on a hardwood target used for throwing practice not far away.
He didn't want trouble, but now trouble had come knocking on his door. The best option was to shut this muscle-brained idiot up in the most direct way possible.
He glanced at Chen Kai, whose eyes were cold. Chen Kai nodded slightly, indicating a swift resolution. Ai Jia, meanwhile, adjusted her glasses, her eyes behind the lenses gleaming with the light of a researcher seeing a rare specimen.
"Watch closely." Wang Xuan's face wore a smile that was a mixture of confidence and madness, like a scholar discovering a new theory.
He closed his eyes, gripped the Seed of Chaos tightly, and described the target to it with a clear thought: "Look at that target, make it... 'burn'."
He deliberately didn't define the method of combustion; he wanted to see how this so-called chaos would interpret his intentions.
He snapped his fingers lightly at Kahn, who looked at him with disdain.
next moment.
Under everyone's horrified gaze, the hardwood target a hundred paces away suddenly burst into an eerie, pale flame.
The flames were pale white, devoid of heat or explosions, silently engulfing the target. The surrounding air, instead of warming up, grew chilly.
Several soldiers splashed water at the flames, but the water flowed directly through the fire, as if pouring it onto an illusion. The fire remained completely unaffected.
"See," Wang Xuan said, spreading his hands towards Kahn, a slight smile playing on his lips, "it's controllable, right?"
But before he could finish speaking, Kahn's pupils suddenly contracted, because he saw that a wisp of pale flame was "dripping" down from the target, crawling toward the nearest soldier as if it were alive.
"Stop it!" Kahn roared at Wang Xuan.
"ah--!"
A young soldier who was watching couldn't dodge in time, and the animal skin on his trouser leg was scorched by the crawling white flames, which instantly spread wildly.
The young soldier screamed and rolled on the ground, while his comrades frantically tried to thwart him, but to no avail.
The skin covered by flames became dry and gray.
Panic ensued.
"Holy crap!" Wang Xuan was stunned when he saw this.
He tried to stop the power, but found that the Seed of Chaos in his hand did not respond to his intention to "stop," but instead transmitted a greedy and pleasurable "feeding sensation."
After successfully contaminating its target, it begins to spread itself wildly!
In the end, Chen Kai reacted the fastest. "Get out of the way!" A resolute glint flashed in his eyes as he snatched the spear and swung it fiercely at the young warrior's burning thigh!
"puff!"
The calf, which had been set on fire, was instantly detached from the body.
The severed limbs turned into pale ashes in mid-air and vanished with the wind.
The young soldier survived, but lost a leg forever, and lay on the ground howling in pain.
All the villagers looked at their groaning tribesmen on the ground, then at Wang Xuan, who was staring in astonishment. Their eyes shifted from worship to extreme fear.
Kahn stared at the leg that had vanished into thin air, and the hairs on the back of his head stood on end.
Taking a step back, when he looked at Wang Xuan and his group of four again, he regarded them as if they were plagues.
"Lock them up...!" Kahn roared, his fingers trembling as he pointed at Wang Xuan and his group of four. "Isolate them! Until we figure out what this thing is, they're not allowed to have contact with anyone!"
Wang Xuan looked down at the [Seed of Chaos] in his hand, which still emitted a faint, dim light, and then at the terrified natives. Far from panicking, he exchanged a complex glance with Chen Kai and Ai Jia.
The next second, a blood-red warning popped up on their system interface.
[Warning: Your reputation with the "River Valley Tribe (Kahn)" faction has been significantly reduced, from "Friendly" to "Hostile".]
[Warning: You have triggered the special status [Source of Chaos]. The tribe members' attitude towards you has changed to 'fear' and 'hatred'.]
[Warning: NPC Kahn's favorability towards you has decreased to -80 (a fight to the death).]
"We've gone too far." Wang Xuan said this, but his face didn't show much annoyance. Instead, it was a mixture of excitement and apprehension. He whispered to his companion, "This game... is for real; the power system of this thing is more complex than I imagined."
They were driven at a distance by tribal warriors wielding spears, pushed towards...
The shack was extremely simple, with walls made of a rough mix of wooden stakes and thatch. Light squeezed in through the gaps, casting dappled shadows on the dim ground.
At the entrance, two tribal warriors holding spears stood.
They became real prisoners.
"How are you feeling?"
Chen Kai's voice came from the corner. He was leaning against a wooden stake, wiping the rough stone spear that had accompanied them in battle.
Although the weapons were not confiscated, this did not bring any sense of security.
"This is terrible." Wang Xuan rubbed his temples. "I never expected the first punishment in the newbie village to be jail."
"This is not punishment."
Chen Kai's voice was calm, and he gestured with his chin towards the door.
"I've observed that there are at least twelve elite warriors taking turns guarding the outside, all of whom are equipped with the best iron spears in the tribe."
"They've surrounded the place."
"The chances of winning by brute force are zero," Chen Kai concluded. "We can't fight our way out."
His words made the already oppressive atmosphere in the shack even heavier.
"We really messed things up."
In the corner, Li Yao hugged her knees, buried her head deep, and her voice was trembling with sobs.
"That soldier's leg...it's because of me...it's because of us..."
The thought of the young soldier groaning in agony on the ground, and the leg that vanished into thin air in the pale flames, made her tremble.
The all-too-realistic consequences made her, for the first time, deeply question whether this was truly a "game."