Samsara Paradise: Dream Weaver of Connections.

Just when Lin Yi and Mag's army were surrounding the Sun Tribe from both sides, an unexpected change occurred within the tribe.

Inside the fire sacrifice hall, the great chief Gulaba and core figures including the fire priest were sitting around the blazing sacred fire. The sounds of fighting outside were earth-shaking, but it did not disturb the solemn atmosphere at all.

The great chief Gulaba is a burly old man, like a silent iron tower, with muscular bare upper body and dark red flame patterns winding on his bronze skin like living things.

His snow-white hair was braided into a thick braid more than one meter long, hanging behind him, trembling slightly with his breathing.

"My fellow Zerg, we are facing a crisis. If the Zerg unite, it will be the day of our destruction."

On the ground beside him, a ferocious long sword that was about one and a half meters long was inserted diagonally. The blade edge was uneven, as if it was not forged, but was roughly hewn from some meteorite from outer space.

The blade glowed with a dark red glow, as if soaked in blood, emitting a suffocating sense of oppression.

"But! Mosezha, at this critical moment of life and death, why did you betray the tribe?!"

The great chief Gulaba drew out the long knife at his side and pointed it at a priestess kneeling in the middle of the crowd.

Before Lin Yi and Mag attacked, the priestess Mosezha suddenly launched a rebellion.

Surprisingly, her target was not the great chief Gulaba, but the fire priest who was second only to him in status.

"That's for the tribe!"

Priestess Mosezha glared at the other male priest.

"For the tribe? I'm afraid you are just trying to satisfy your own ambitions?" The high priest sitting on top spoke softly.

Gathered here are a great leader and five fire priests of the Sun Tribe. These six people are the rulers of the Sun Tribe.

To put it simply, the chief is equivalent to the king, the fire priest is the general, the elders under him are equivalent to officials, and the high priest is the supreme archon who holds real power. He is both the marshal of the military and the real decision-maker of the tribe.

"For my own selfish desires? High priest, do you dare to swear with me in front of the totem? Let the ancestors judge who is betraying the tribe!" Priestess Mosezha stared at the high priest. The reason why she chose to attack at this time was because the Zerg army was approaching, and almost all the warriors of the tribe were transferred to the front line to resist foreign enemies. At this time, the high priest was the least guarded.

What she didn't expect was that, despite all her calculations, she had never expected that the chief would appear in the high priest's room!

The original behavior of the priestess Mosezha to purge the court completely turned into rebellion the moment she saw the chief.

The soldiers under her command dropped their weapons and knelt on the ground - to them, the assassination of the high priest could be justified as an internal power struggle, but wielding a knife against the leader would be blasphemy!
In the beliefs of the Sun Tribe, the great chief is the son of the totem, the incarnation of the ancestral spirit on earth, and the unshakable faith of the people.

Priestess Mosezha's back was straight, and the taut muscles under her dark red robe showed her uncompromising attitude.

"Totem?" The high priest suddenly sneered, and his skinny fingers stroked the sun emblem on the top of the bone staff.

"Do you think you can still enter the altar?" The flames at the four corners of the shrine rose higher, nailing Mosezha's shadow to the ground.

The high priest is mobilizing the power of the totem, which is a precursor to the judgment of holy fire!
But according to tribal law, the Holy Fire Trial can only be initiated with the witness of all the people.

Her eyes swept over the other four silent fire priests, and she finally realized that this confrontation had been an elaborate trap.

"You... knew everything?" Her voice trembled with anger.

The youngest fire priest turned his head away, while the other three stood there like weathered stone sculptures. Not even their eyelashes trembled on their mask-like faces. The answer was self-evident.

"Enough!" The long sword of the great chieftain Gulaba suddenly split the ground, and the spider-web-like cracks were right before Mosezha's knees. "The claws of the Zerg are already at the gate of the city, and you are destroying the last hope of the tribe!"

The fire patterns on his chest began to flow, as if lava was surging under his skin - this was a sign of rage.

Mosezha did not retreat. Instead, she suddenly raised her head and laughed. Her laughter was like the cry of a night owl, echoing in the stone chamber and even drowning out the flames burning around it.

She violently tore open her robe, revealing a hideous burn mark on her heart.

Under the robe, there was a hideous burn mark on her heart, shaped like a sun totem torn by sharp claws, and the edge of the scar still glowed with an eerie dark gold color.

Ten years ago, she had cut open her heart, taken out a drop of her blood and merged it into the totem fire in exchange for helping the tribe survive the severe drought.

It was this almost crazy piety that allowed her to break the tribe's centuries-old tradition - becoming the only person who ascended to the position of fire priest not by inheritance or military merit, but purely by the power of faith.

At first, the high priest Amon Het even praised it publicly at the ceremony: "The sun god has finally given us the purest messenger."

However, this joy did not last long.

When other priests still followed the unwritten rules - reducing the offering share for relatives, extracting "hardship fees" from the sacrificial materials, or turning a blind eye to the blasphemous behavior of noble children, Mosezha was like a bone knife unsheathed.

She would check the list of sacrifices late at night, suddenly appear in remote villages to investigate missing tributes, and even question in person why some families never had to participate in dangerous Zerg defense battles.

The high priest once held a banquet to "advise" the newcomer and gave Mosezza some pointers: "The flame needs a moderate amount of wind to help it burn, but a strong wind will only extinguish the holy fire."

Unexpectedly, Moseda not only did not appreciate it, but he became more and more aggressive and even secretly investigated the blasphemous behavior of other priests.

From then on, the other priests and Mosezha began to fight openly and secretly, which has continued to this day.

The other fire priests had different expressions - some had no expression on their faces, some had flickering eyes, and some subconsciously took half a step back.

"Do you think you can slander us like this?" The high priest's voice was icy cold, but Mosezha caught the panic that flashed in his eyes.

"Slander?" Mosezha sneered, suddenly pulled out a scroll of animal skin from his waist and smashed it heavily on the ground.

"Three years ago, at the 'Holy Fire Ceremony', thirty tribesmen were burned alive, and it was claimed to be a 'voluntary sacrifice'. But in fact, their blood was used to feed your 'Eclipse Beast'!"

"Ridiculous!" a fire priest interrupted harshly, but the trembling ending of his voice betrayed him.

Mosezha turned a deaf ear and continued, "Two months ago, the high priest's nephew Carlo mistakenly entered the 'forbidden land' while hunting. According to the law, he should be burned at the stake. But the next day, he inexplicably became the captain of the East District patrol - and the four soldiers who were in charge of the guard that night were all charged with 'blasphemy against the totem' and beheaded!"

"Enough." Just as Mosezha was about to continue speaking, the great chief Gulaba suddenly spoke up and interrupted all her conversations.

"Big Boss"

"I've said enough!"

"Let the flame tell us if you are still loyal to the tribe."

The great chief, Gulaba, picked up a piece of red-hot charcoal from the fire and threw it at Mosezha.

The burning charcoal drew a blinding trail in the air. Mosezha did not dodge, she opened her palm to catch the red charcoal.

The sizzling sound of burning flesh was accompanied by rising green smoke, but her face was eerily calm.

"Look! Desire has made her lose her soul!"

There was joy in the high priest's roar. With just a glance from him, two burly priests immediately rushed forward.

One of them grabbed Mosezha's long hair and pulled it back roughly, forcing her neck to be exposed; the other locked her limbs with his iron-like arms.

The high priest came before the great leader Gulaba. Under Gulaba's cold gaze, the high priest drew out the holy object, which was the rough long knife, and walked towards Mosezha.

puff!

With a flick of the knife, Mosezha's head was chopped off and thrown into the fire.

"Sun, be with us!"

The high priest held up a rough long sword. The black blade was stained with blood, reflecting red light under the flames.

"High Priest, this is the last time." As the iron-blooded leader who has ruled the Sun Tribe for twenty years, Gulaba knows better than anyone how pure Mosezha's faith is.

But not now.

Replacing the high priest at this moment? That would be equivalent to tearing apart the tribe's last defense system with one's own hands.

Mosezaben was a chess piece he had carefully arranged. On that night ten years ago, when the blood-soaked girl knelt in front of the altar holding the essence of the heart, Gulaba saw an opportunity - an opportunity to break the millennium-long monopoly.

He has been working secretly over the years to allow this priestess with no background to survive in the vortex of power until now.

If he had only been patient for another month, until the festival on the Spring Equinox, he could have used Mosezha to completely cleanse the priest group.

But now, his eyes fell on the still burning head, and in the rising flames he seemed to still be able to see Mosezha's last bit of unwillingness.

The high priest was holding up the bloodstained holy knife to receive worship, but he did not notice the cold light flashing in Gulaba's eyes. Mosezha's head made a "hiss" sound in the fire, and the moment the smell of burning filled the air, the heavy stone door of the altar was suddenly smashed to pieces.

A soldier covered in blood fell to his knees, his left arm already missing: "The east wall... the east wall is about to be drilled through by the Zerg!"

Gulaba kicked the bronze brazier over, and the burning charcoal flew everywhere like a meteor.

A few sparks landed on the high priest's robe, burning some charred holes, but the old man did not move.

In the flying charcoal, his beast-like roar shook the beams and pillars to dust: "Take your people to the front line - if I don't see the body of the insect mother before the sun sets, the next one to enter the fire will be you!"

The high priest's Adam's apple rolled. He knew Gulaba's bottom line too well - faith can be falsified, but the survival of the tribe must never be a bargaining chip in power struggles.

Next to the fire, Bubu Wang's mouth was half open, and his face was filled with a confused expression of "Who am I and where am I?"

Its furry ears twitched from time to time, as if it was still digesting what had just happened.

Of course, Bubuwang will not enjoy such a wonderful political drama alone.

The miniature camera on its head was broadcasting live in 4K high-definition quality, even the shaking wrinkles on the high priest's face were captured clearly.

At this time, on the outskirts of the tribe, a thirty-meter-tall Son of Titan was squatting on the battlefield.

Su Xiao and Lin Yi sat leisurely on top of it, with a holographic projection screen floating in front of them.

Baha flapped his wings and landed on Su Xiao's shoulder, with three pairs of eyes staring intently at the live broadcast screen.

"The Zerg ate this woman's brain, didn't they?" Baha pointed his wing at Mosezha, who had already turned to ashes in the projection. "If I rushed in, the first thing I would do is to twist off that old charlatan's head and kick it like a ball. There would be no need for all these other things."

Although what Baha said was very vulgar, it has to be said that it is indeed a good idea.

No matter if Lin Yi or Su Xiao were in Mosezha's position, they would never do such a stupid thing.

You've already been forced into a desperate situation. If you don't take advantage of the chaos to kill the other party and give him time to react, you're just asking for trouble.

So, when the time comes, act now; hesitation will lead to failure.

This wave, this wave is a textbook-level negative example.

At this moment, the sound of collapse suddenly reached the ears of the two.

Lin Yi looked up and found that the Abyss Demon Beast had successfully flattened the first line of defense. The sound of collapse just now was the sound of the outer wall collapsing.

An hour after the battle began, the entire battlefield had turned into a purgatory.

The raging fire was raging all around, and the flames greedily licked the wooden tents, devouring these makeshift outposts one after another.

Thick smoke billowed up, forming strange black columns under the bloody sunset.

In the flames, the remains of the Demon Beast and the charred body of the Sun Warrior were intertwined, emitting a disgusting burnt smell.

The defense line of the first wave of Fiery Sun Warriors has been completely defeated, and the remaining troops are hastily retreating to the high ground of the second line of defense.

There was also good news from Magg, as her Zerg troops also broke through the outer wall.

An army of 10 Demon Beasts has already headed towards the high areas, while the remaining Demon Beasts are clearing the nearby battlefield to prevent any fish from slipping through the net.

Soon, tens of thousands of demon beasts formed a defense line around, and this place became their buffer zone. The war was not about rushing forward all at once, but advancing step by step and preparing a retreat route.

After the buffer zone was established, hideous-looking abyss amplification towers rose from the ground, and sticky black fungal carpets spread on the ground like living things.

As the fungal blanket and the power of the abyss spread, this area quickly became a healing sanctuary for Demon Beast.

Injured demon beasts gathered here, greedily absorbing the nutrients provided by the fungal mat. Wounds deep enough to see the bones healed at a speed visible to the naked eye, and broken limbs grew back with the nourishment of the power of the abyss.

On the battlefield below the highland area, the deafening shouts and the sounds of weapons clashing intertwined into a melody of death.

Two hundred thousand demon beasts and Fiery Sun Warriors engaged in a brutal battle in this narrow valley. The black swarm of insects and the golden-red battle formations constantly collided, bit, and devoured each other.

Puff, puff...

The sharp weapon chopped the shell, and just as a Fiery Sun Warrior with insect blood all over his face wanted to take a breath, three demon beasts pounced on him.

swoosh~
Blue-green fireballs fell from the sky and exploded among the crowd. Although the Sun Warriors were not afraid of high temperatures, they could not withstand the corrosiveness of the flammable liquid.

Flames, smell of blood, smell of burning, shouts and screams, this is the battlefield. It is like a huge meat grinder that ruthlessly draws all the combatants in, crushes them and devours them.

Frontline battlefield.

This is a gently sloping slope with uneven gravel scattered on the ground.

At this moment, these stones have been covered by countless corpses, forming a road of death paved with blood and flesh.

Looking upward along this bloody road, you will see the most sacred core area of ​​the Sun Tribe - the Fire Sacrifice Site.

The Fire Sacrifice is not a building, but a mountain that has been hollowed out. Although the mountain is only more than 200 meters high, it covers a large area.

On weekdays, this is an absolutely forbidden area of ​​the Sun Tribe, and no member of the tribe is allowed to enter without permission.

But at this moment, under the relentless pressure of the Demon Beast army, the remnants of the Sun Tribe had to retreat to the interior of the holy mountain for a final resistance.

There was a constant roar on the Burning Mountain. The Titan troops were continuously pouring out long-range firepower, and the long-range Zerg in the Mag camp did the same.

If it were a normal mountain, it would have been flattened by now, but the outer shell of the Fenhuo Mountain was only shattered, revealing a layer of black rock.

The texture of this rock is similar to that of ore. It has withstood nearly two hours of heavy bombardment, and the blue-green flames almost covered the entire mountain.

The three entrances to the Burning Mountain have now become the focus of contention between the two sides.

The two entrances on the left were supervised by Mag herself, and her elite Zerg were launching waves of attacks.

The entrance on the right was attacked by the Thornilla Zerg - this was a natural cave about five meters wide and seven meters high. The seemingly spacious passage was now blocked by the dense corpses of the abyss demon beasts.

The abyss demon beasts stepped on the corpses of their companions and rushed into the cave in wave after wave like a tide.

The Fiery Sun Warriors inside fought to the death, causing the decisive battle to turn into a war of attrition.

The limitations of the terrain made it impossible for the Zerg's most skilled swarm tactics to be used - the narrow passages could only accommodate a few Abyss Demon Beasts at a time, greatly weakening their numerical advantage.

In contrast, the warriors of the Sun Tribe displayed superb tactical qualities. They adopted a rotation tactic. Once someone was injured, they would immediately retreat to the rear to rest and the gap would be filled by the reserve team members.

This efficient rotation system allows the defender to continuously maintain the best combat condition.

But even so, as the war progressed, there are only a little over 12 of the 3 Fiery Sun Warriors of the Sun Tribe left, and almost all of the 17 ordinary tribesmen were killed in the battle.

The Sun Tribe wanted to fight to the death. They had reached the end of their rope. Half of the 40 tribesmen died in the battle, and the old and young were sent to the Frog Tribe by the great chief, Gulaba.

This breakout attempt naturally did not escape the eyes of Mag and Lin Yi, but neither of them went to rob and kill the breakout troops.

If a trapped beast is trying to fight back, it is best not to push the other party to the limit, otherwise it is not surprising that the other party will do anything.

Mag was very worried that the crazy people of the Sun Tribe would detonate the Sun Totem and die with them. The Sun Totem was the belief of the Sun Tribe. Once detonated, its power would be enough to wipe the entire Burning Mountain off the map.

The two commanders reached a subtle understanding - temporarily let go of the old and weak who broke through, and concentrate all their efforts to wipe out the remaining forces of the Sun Tribe.

As for the Frog Tribe? It wouldn't be too late to turn around and deal with them after we've dealt with the current trouble.

War has never been just a game of killing.

The chief of the Sun Tribe, Gulaba, did not leave, and neither did the fire priests. They wanted to guard the tribe’s last glory, the Burning Fire Mountain. This was the origin of the Sun Tribe and also its end point.

At the entrance, waves of elite Demon Beasts are rushing in. Ordinary Demon Beasts cannot get in at all. If they enter, they will die and cannot hold on for more than a few seconds.

The sky gradually darkened, but the siege continued. The elite Demon Beasts were much more powerful than ordinary Demon Beasts. They charged in waves, and the Sun Warriors in the cave could no longer hold them off after ten hours of resistance.

At this moment, the Sun Tribe's defense line was breached! (End of this chapter)