The Beast’s Blood Boils Chapter 11

Half a month had pa.s.sed since Hailun and Liu Zhenhan discovered the other island.

After much deliberation, Liu Zhenhan decided to wait until Hailun’s wounds were completely healed, after that, they would go check out the other  island. His keen intuition as a soldier was telling him that something was off about that island.

Both Hailun and Liu Zhenhan were actually cautious instead of being curious about that island.

Hailun had not seen Liu Zhenhan’s fight with a giant wolf but she still gave her dear Li Cha a reminder. She informed him that giant wolves were found throughout the Qin continent and could be considered as tough magical beasts. In fact, her previous magical pet that was actually a lightning type magical bird was on the same level as a giant wolf.

Hailun was a bit scared because they only had a frost type Picchu beast (Fruit) and an acid spitting osprey on their side.

Although they were aware of the strict division of territories among strong magical beasts, such a small island was unlikely to host a magical beast more advanced than giant wolf. However, Hailun was still worried because what would they do if they accidentally encountered a pack of giant wolves? She really did not dare to imagine the consequences if they were attacked by an adult giant wolf, let alone an entire pack.

In contrast, Liu Zhenhan heard her telling about the mutually divided territories and felt a lot calm and confident in his heart. If that was the case then he did not need to worry about being attacked by unknown formidable magical beasts.

Over the last two days, Hailun and Liu Zhenhan spent most of their leisure time talking about Beamon Kingdom, about its history and culture. Most of their discussion was particularly related to the general knowledge regarding sacred sacrifices.

Liu Zhenhan was basically speechless with admiration when he heard about beastmen, elephant warriors who could reach a height of 5 meters and possessed amazing strength, enough to lift heavy stones weighing up to 1000 Pounds and that too without putting much effort. In comparison, Liu Zhenhan could only boast about being a popular figure in a state-run basketball team, but even that was not enough to not make him feel inferior.

But he still loved to hear more and more about Beamon Kingdom and its brave warriors.

Liu Zhenhan was interested the most in information about sacred sacrifices. Unlike beastmen warriors who relied mostly on their strong bodies and beastly instincts during a fight, sacred sacrifices had weaker bodes and their intellect and smartness was enough to more than compensate. Liu Zhenhan had not yet become a sacred sacrifice but at least knew martial arts and had a stronger body in comparison to other sacrifices.

He did not quite understand about his own status as a rare ‘inborn soul singer’. So, he had started to think how to implement the skills he had learned in army in this world and to his own advantage. After arriving in Hailun’s hometown, if she turned out to be mistaken about his potential of becoming a sacred sacrifice then he needed a backup option to demonstrate his importance.

Based on this idea, he began to exercise and practice Kungfu daily. The wounds on his arm and belly had already healed. Every day, he would hammer coconuts with his fists that made strange ‘pop’ sounds.

Fruit also began to learn by copying him daily. It would stand behind Liu Zhenhan and clench its small claws into fists and then it would punch coconuts just like him. He was practicing ‘Saibo’ and learning to control ligament pressure.

Liu Zhenhan had a lot of fun watching Fruit.

But while he was immersed in sheer happiness, Hailun persuaded him several times that it was not necessary to practice this type of Kungfu because sacred sacrifices did not actually need to have excellent martial skills. There was a huge gap between the inherent strengths of pig warriors and other ethnic warrior clans so all his effort would entirely be in vain. An elephant warrior could knockout a coconut tree with just one punch.

If he became a sacred sacrifice, in fact, even if he managed to obtain the t.i.tle of a knight, he could get powerful beastman warriors as followers. Powerful beastman warriors were always willing to follow a sacred sacrifice. Instead of spending time on practicing Kungfu, it was better to focus on meditation, necessary for the acc.u.mulation of ‘Song Power’.

Hailun had been mentioning ‘Song Power’ again and again in her explanations but he was never able to understand what it really was and what its real significance was to be honest.

Hailun explained to him that ‘Song Power’ was a.n.a.logous to the ‘magic’ used by human magicians. A sacrifice couldn’t keep on singing battle songs without paying an equivalent price in the form of ‘Song Power’. Especially after officially becoming a sacred sacrifice and learning ‘Fury battle song’ and ‘Berserk battle song’, there was a requirement of having great song power to sing these high-level battle songs.

Higher song power required very high degree of acc.u.mulation. And high song power was necessary to sing high-level battle songs and that too multiple times. Acc.u.mulation of song power and magic could only be done through meditation.

Hailun gave a vivid example to him; warriors of porcupine clan could throw spears up to large distances, but if they received the blessing from ‘Battle song of glory’ then the throwing range could increase by 30%; if ‘Stone skin battle song’ was sung for a group of elephant warriors then the defense of their already tough skin would further enhance, decreasing physical damage by half. However, the blessing of a battle song would only last for the time counted by a 5 ounce hourgla.s.s. After this period of time, the blessing would disappear and the sacred sacrifice would have to once again sing a battle song to invoke blessing on elephant warriors.

A sacred sacrifice with more song power could sing battle songs more number of times on the battlefield to give support to nearby beastman soldiers.

Similarly, the quant.i.ty and purity of song power also determined the range up to which a battle song could be heard and bestow its blessing. An ordinary sacred sacrifice’s blessing range was up to a radius of 30 meters, beyond which it would be impossible to hear the battle song in a noisy battlefield. But an outstanding sacred sacrifice possessed abundant song power in its purest form, hence, their blessing range was much larger accordingly.

In short, song power was the source of various miracles and blessings, manipulated and invoked through battle songs.

Liu Zhenhan finally understood why these songs were called battle songs. He thought that sacred sacrifices seemed just like those political commissars from army, acting as instructors on battlefield. And all these instructors had this strange habit of drinking heavily and giving a long lecture right before mobilizing soldiers into the battlefield.

Well, this time, he was thoroughly lectured by Hailun about the importance of meditation, so he stopped practicing Kungfu for one day and dedicated that whole day to meditation.

The entire process of meditation and contemplation was arid and boring. He spent 5 minutes meditating then started snoring and drooled all over himself. He woke up after a nap only to see Hailun’s cold face while she was glaring at him. He himself felt a bit embarra.s.sed about this.

He cooked special dinner using all of his Chef skills, just to please Hailun and eventually succeeded in the same.

Liu Zhenhan pledged that he would not think about meditation again. He felt that his voice sufficed in a big way and did not need this so-called song power to enhance his singing capacity. His elder brother used to tell him that whenever he did not know what to do, he must practice Kungfu because immersing oneself completely in practicing Kungfu was also a type of meditation!

So he once again started practicing Kungfu.

These days he had been training hard, mostly concentrating on ‘Saibo’ which was based on a one leg technique used by Soviet army and later on adapted by Chinese army. Several small moves were eliminated and the concise style became one of the most efficient and popular martial technique to be used against enemies.

‘Saibo’ was a lock technique, specially designed to instantly twist the opponent’s body and limbs, such as twisting the opponent’s both legs in a blink of an eye. When he was in reconnaissance squad, he had learned a lot of martial arts but his favorite skills were ‘Saibo’, ‘Nimble horse’ and ‘Wheeling hand’.

Back then when he was fighting with that giant wolf, he was extremely weak and was in no condition to display all these skills he knew. But this time, if he encountered a giant wolf, things would be a lot different as he would be able to fight back.

Those melon seedlings he had planted near his house had started to transform quickly into vines and sprouting small melons. Even strong winds were unable to destroy them, partly because of the mound of earth that blocked the winds. Liu Zhenhan pinched a melon to estimate the time left before these melons would ripen. According to his estimate, it would probably take more than a month for the melons to ripen. The very thought of eating those delicious melons made him lick his lips.

These melons could retain large amounts of water and would be extremely useful during their voyage to Hailun’s hometown.

Liu Zhenhan suddenly thought, if Hailun ate these melons then she would need to pee frequently. Liu Zhenhan smiled like a sly vagabond when he realized that the raft was not going to be too big, so…..

By the time his nose was completely restored, Hailun’s injuries had also healed completely. They finally decided to set foot on the other small island.

Liu Zhenhan was being extremely cautious so they waited for two more days and gathered enough food to last for several days. He also took his machete, the wolf skin, feather robe as well as bow and arrows.

Hailun sent her osprey to scout the area and made it fly ahead of them. Since there was a telepathic relations.h.i.+p between the two, she could sense any threat in advance.

They crossed the continental shelf and went to the other island. This island was covered with th.o.r.n.y trees, lush green plants and there was an estimated distance of half a mile from island’s edge to the crater. While going through the forest, Liu Zhenhan was extremely vigilant.

They encountered several small beasts on the way, and each time, Liu Zhenhan shot arrows as warning shots to scare them away.

As soon as they arrived at that crater, he was stunned.

There were green plants and vines covering the entire area surrounding the crater and also hanging inside it. He also noticed that the topsoil was covered with asphalts. Standing on the edge of the crater, he put out his hand and felt a cool breeze shuttling back and forth between his fingers.

Liu Zhenhan was looking down from the top and estimated the depth to be around 25 meters with a gully type vertical terrain. The reason behind the formation of this crater was certainly this island’s vertical climate. A rare variety of meadow flowers was growing on both the islands and was also growing everywhere inside the crater. The natural flow of waterfall was complementing the steep cliff as the stray drops of water were sprinkling on green moss like pearls. As expected, bamboo grove was the dominant vegetation inside the crater.

High

Rolling green hills hundred miles long

Imposingly arched like a barrier.

Green mountains high piercing through the clouds

Patches of the gray clouds

Rolling green hills hundred miles long

He is standing on the top waiting for the fine makeup

Green hills high piercing through the clouds

There stands a fine guy waiting!

He was standing at the top with a distant hope

That was for the green vast Baltic

When Liu Zhenhan saw this beautiful and colorful scenery, he felt like reciting a poem to give tribute to the beautiful Mother Nature, but no matter how much he racked his brain, he was unable to find a suitable poem. So he decided to sing his favorite song ‘Standing at the top’ by Long Piaopiao (Fluttering Dragon). He started singing this song without realizing why he chose to sing it all of a sudden and without actually giving it much thought.

Although it was slightly out of tune, but still substantially exceeded an ultra level of performance.

His forceful voice was rippling in the crater below, echoing within the bamboo forest and in the valley. His voice was echoing back and forth inside the crater as if nature itself was singing a duet with him.

He continued to sing and was deeply submerged in his own world. Once he was done, he turned around only to find Hailun looking at him with a shocked look in her eyes.