Condemning the Heavens

The youngster accepted the painting and looked at it curiously. He knew much about Primordial Beasts since he lived in the Flowing Blood Prairie, as the few that could survive in their land were incredibly powerful, and the tribes have had a long history fighting with them.

Looking at the painting, the young man furrowed his brows. It was clear that he was in deep thought.

"This is your Crimson Devil?" he asked while frowning. "I have never heard about this Primordial Beast before, is it a newly emerged one? The name is indeed domineering, even more so than most Primordial Beasts," he asked curiously while deep in thought.

"He is the brother of the Ice Harpy. He emerged in the Kingdom of Heping a few months ago during a beast horde. It seems he was undercover as a human, intending to trick and kill our most famous Primordial Beast Hunter."

Yuan Chao did not keep anything hidden. He was feeling rather energetic at this very moment when he saw the frown on the young man’s face. From this, it could be inferred that he had had some sort of encounter with a person that looked like him, and this alone was already a great achievement for these soldiers.

"You say he is a Primordial Beast? Which kind of beast is he?" the young man continued to ask, sounding out the details, and while the soldiers were impatient and unhappy, Yuan Chao was patient.

"We do not know," Yuan Chao answered honestly. "We have never seen him in any other shape than his human shape, but his companion once changed his form to be that of a massive black dog with wings similar to the ones on a black crow."

The eyes of the youngsters all widened in surprise when they heard this, and then they grit their teeth. It was clear that something was wrong with them.

"Have you seen him or not?" Finally, one of the soldiers could no longer take the suspense and sneered at the young man. He thought that they would kill these youngsters anyway so why not try and threaten them into speaking sooner rather than later?

Yuan Chao glanced at the soldier and conveyed disagreement with his eyes, but he said nothing. Although he did not agree with the rushed approach this soldier took, he had to admit that he too was impatient to know what these tribal youngsters knew.

"I know him," the youngster said with a sigh. "He is in our tribe right now. Are you sure that he is a Primordial Beast? You have never seen him take on a beastly shape."

"We don’t know for sure whether or not he is a Primordial Beast," Yuan Chao said honestly. "But even if he is not a Primordial Beast, he has conspired with them to cause chaos in the Kingdom of Heping. Even here in the Flowing Blood Prairie, you all ought to know that someone who conspired with a Primordial Beast is to be slain as soon as possible."

"This is a serious accusation," the young man sighed. "The one I know cannot threaten our tribe as we have a Prairie Monarch, but I guess we ought to return to the tribe and inform them."

"Tell us where the tribe is located," Yuan Chao requested. "We are here for the sake of killing the Crimson Devil. If he is in your tribe, then your tribe is where we are going."

"I am afraid that is not acceptable," the young man suddenly looked serious and shook his head. "I am not allowed to return to the tribe with a force like yours following me; it is likely that it will be seen as treason. I cannot tell you where our tribe is located out of fear of you telling other tribes, which could potentially result in us being wiped out."

"This is not the time to care about your rules!" a soldier sneered. "Your life and death are in our hands! If you want to live, then you take us to your tribe right away!"

"Then kill me!" the young man did not hesitate and called out. "I would rather die than go against the rules of our tribe! We are all proud men of the Chaos Vulture Tribe. Even if we are young, everything we have has been given to us by our tribe, and now you want us to betray it for something as simple as our lives?!"

The young man was seriously furious. Yuan Chao was impressed by him.

"Well, if we cannot go to the tribe with you, then what can we do to ensure that our target dies? We need proof of his death, preferably his head."

"That’s not really our problem is it?" The young man did not back down. He was a proud member of the Chaos Vulture Tribe, and he knew that he and his friends were likely to die at their hands today.

"Why not allow one of us to return to the tribe and inform the Elders of all this new information? You can keep the rest of us hostage so that the person who leaves is bound to come back with news of what to do with this young man you claim to be a Primordial Beast?"

"That won’t do," Yuan Chao was not dumb, he knew that it would be the same as putting their necks at risk. "If you come back with a large army ready to wipe us out, then we will have no chance of doing anything against you."

The youngster and Yuan Chao looked at one another; their eyes were both unyielding and unhappy.

No matter what they came up with, it could result in either the tribesmen suffering losses or the soldiers putting themselves at risk.

Since neither side was willing to back down. Yuan Chao sighed and a cold flash appeared in his eyes.

"I am sorry to make this decision," he said after a bit of time, "but since our two sides cannot find a solution, you and your friends will have to leave your lives behind. We will personally find the Chaos Vulture Tribe and figure out what to do after this!"

Having said this, Yuan Chao did not waste any time. He rushed forward and drew his sword, slashing out and slitting the throat of the young man he had spoken with.

The other soldiers did not waste their time. Swiftly, the remaining six scouts from the Chaos Vulture Tribe also became corpses that were buried in the Flowing Blood Prairie; their blood seeped into the dark-red ground.

"Captain, are we going to enter the tribe on our own? This young man said they had a Prairie Monarch – do you reckon that is an existence at the Heavenly Warrior rank?"

"I do not know," Yuan Chao said seriously. "But we ought to look for this tribe. We should get as much information about them as we can while we are moving."

"It was hard to find someone who knew about the Crimson Devil, but I bet that anyone we meet from now on knows about this Chaos Vulture Tribe. Getting information should not be too hard, and then we will act accordingly."

Yuan Chao sighed, "We are not strong enough to take on a whole tribe from the Flowing Blood Prairie, but this tribe is bound to have some enemies. If we play around the different forces, we should be able to benefit from the chaos and slay the Crimson Devil and his companion while they are fighting."

The eyes of the soldiers lit up when they heard this. "The reason these youngsters had to die is so that they do not tell their tribe about us. Letting the Chaos Vulture Tribe know of our existence is the same as foiling all our plans.”

"If the Chaos Vulture Tribe knows that these two are Primordial Beasts, they will never hand them over to us. Instead, they will keep them captive until they can get their hands on a Diviner to tame them. No one will kill a Primordial Beast that can be tamed unless they have no other choice, like us."

The soldiers were enlightened. If they had let the youngsters leave, then they would have been in danger, and they would not have been able to kill the Crimson Devil and his companion.

Having reached this decision, the group left the corpses in the prairie and started their journey forward once more. Another set of scouts were sent out to find other experts that they could interrogate.

While Yuan Chao and his company had discovered Xue Wei and Hei Gou’s location, the two individuals in question were currently stuck within their tent in the Chaos Vulture Tribe.

Hei Gou had learned how to compress his voice, and the two spent their time discussing how to flee the camp.

"Our biggest issue is that the Elders are here. Especially Elder Zhang will be difficult to escape from," Xue Wei sighed. "I apologize for getting us into this chaos, but we will manage one way or another."

Hei Gou nodded his head; he did not seem too bothered. "Although we are stuck in this place, it is not too bad. They feed us every day, and they leave us alone, so we have peace to cultivate. You have broken through to the seventh layer of the Earth Warrior rank, and my Qi has also increased drastically."

"We are their prisoners, but it seems that we are not being mistreated. I do not know what their aim is, but it is clear that they have something planned for us." Hei Gou shrugged his shoulders.

"We are here now, might as well eat and cultivate as much as we can. It is a peaceful time. Eventually, they will have to migrate from here to another location; I do not believe that we cannot escape by then."

Xue Wei nodded his head. "That’s true, so let us give cultivation our all for now," he agreed. The two sat down and started cultivating once more. Right now, they could not escape, but that did not mean that they could not bide their time.

Just as they sat down and got ready to cultivate, they sensed movement from the tent entrance.

The Little Tribe Chief popped up. Her eyes were filled with complex emotions as she looked at Xue Wei and Hei Gou, and a sigh escaped her lips before she started speaking.

"Xue Wei, come with me." She did not give any information as to why he should follow her, and there was no room for discussion.

Both Xue Wei and Hei Gou frowned. Neither of them wished to be split up right now, as they were captives, but in the end he knew that he had no choice.

As Xue Wei exited the tent, he found that an additional four Sky Warriors were waiting outside. These Sky Warriors were clearly the guards that were meant to escort the Little Tribe Chief and Xue Wei towards their destination.

Walking through the tribe, Xue Wei looked casual and comfortable. He had a slight smile adorning his lips, and his eyes calmly observed the daily life of the tribesmen.

Although he looked very casual, the truth was that his spiritual energy was spread to its very limit, granting him sight of everything that was happening around him. He tried to discern the patterns of their everyday routines.

If he understood their habits and their schedules, it would be much easier to escape.

His spiritual energy continued to observe everything around him as they moved further and further into the middle of the tribe. Many of these tribesmen looked at Xue Wei curiously. They were all curious about these two so-called prisoners, as the Chaos Vulture Tribe never took captives. To have been made captives meant that the Elders had something planned for them, and they were all curious about these plans.

They arrived in front of the biggest tent in the tribe, the tent belonging to the Elders. When they entered, Xue Wei felt a group of gazes lock onto him.

He felt uncomfortable. These eyes were like a wolf looking at a lamb; there were no gentle intentions behind them. All of them made Xue Wei feel like they wanted something from him, but he was clueless as to what that could be.

"Little Tribe Chief, make our guest come forward and face us," Elder Zhang’s voice sounded out. Xue Wei’s eyes turned hard. It was clear that they had planned something big this time.