After a century of worship, I became the ancestor of the tribe.

Chapter 39: From Sea to Land, Man is Food for Fish (Please continue reading)
On the hilltop, Huotang remained silent, gazing into the distance for a long time.

They had traveled thousands of miles east of the tribe, far exceeding the area the tribe had previously explored.

Using the tribal maps he had collected, he located the locations of five tribes in a row.

Using the maps found in these five tribes, they traveled eastward.

They selected usable supplies and stored them in a secluded place, planning to bring them back to the tribe on their way back.

Now, the terrain marked on the map has turned into a vast expanse of water, with only mountain peaks standing in the water.

"Chieftain, why don't we search around the mountains again? I bet there are tribes that happen to be on the edge of the flooded land."

They had come all this way, only to find out they hadn't come to see the water; some of them were quite upset.

Huotang took out a map and started searching through it. Although the terrain had changed, it was still somewhat useful for reference.

"Head northeast."

Faced with disaster, human tribes will not sit idly by and wait for death; they will inevitably migrate to higher ground.

I haven't encountered any disabled people on this trip yet, and gathering some of them is one of the purposes of this trip.

They can also help carry supplies on the way back.

The edges of the marshes are interspersed with jagged mountains; in some places the water is shallow and turns into swamps, in others it is deep, and in still others the water and land are mixed together.

Huotang led the group carefully along the waterfront, occasionally climbing to the mountaintop to look out for any signs of smoke or campfires.

The survivors of the natural disaster need food to survive.

If the tribe's food supplies could not be salvaged, then fishing became the means of survival, since the area was all wetlands and they needed space to farm.

"Look for gently sloping hills and see if there are any terraced fields that have been cultivated."

Fishing by the water, farming on the gentle slopes.

Based on Huotang's experience, the group quickly spotted a gently sloping mountain range stretching for over ten miles, dozens of miles away.

The mountain slopes gently to the south, and there is a terraced field above the water.

"Chieftain, look! There's a boat in the water!"

……

“There aren’t many people.”

From a distance, there are not many cultivated fields and cave dwellings on the gentle hillside.

I didn't see any children playing.

On the distant marshland, a dozen large dugout canoes carved from logs and a pieced-together wooden boat were fishing.

They were delighted to encounter this group after traveling so far; their small numbers meant the tribe could easily absorb and assimilate them.

"Chief, shall we go down directly?"

"We'll go down after everyone on the boat has disembarked."

Huo Tang looked around. Although they were there to gather the remnants of the people, not to capture them as slaves, it would still take some effort to subdue them.

The group consisted of one Heavenly Vein cultivator, three Mountain Openers, and over forty Stone-Splitting Warriors. Under the cover of night, they stealthily made their way up.

under night.

The houses on the hillside were all quiet, with only the smell of grilled fish wafting from the campfire.

There was a campfire near the water's edge, and two martial artists were watching over it.

They even dragged their canoe up the slope, watching the water warily, as if some terrifying wild beast was lurking in the water.

"who!"

Footsteps sounded under the cover of night, immediately alerting the two guards, one of them drawing his wooden bow to its full extent.

One of them grabbed a long spear and slammed it against the broken pot hanging in front of the campfire.

With a clang, the people inside the cave and houses were all startled.

One by one, they came out grabbing whatever weapons or tools they could find.

Everyone huddled together like frightened birds.

Bonfires were lit one after another, illuminating the hillside.

Now Huotang and his group revealed themselves, which was of course related to the fact that they had not concealed themselves.

Tribal warriors are easy to identify; the more robust and muscular they are, the stronger they are relatively.

Huotang appeared with only three people; the rest of the clansmen stood at a distance, appearing and disappearing in the distance.

But the group of people, dressed in leather armor, wielding iron weapons, with piercing eyes, were clearly not comparable to the group of refugees.

In contrast, this group of refugees, now remnants of the tribe, put forward a young and strong warrior who looked to be in his thirties and whose body was covered with scars.

The other women, clutching their tools, huddled behind them. Though their expressions betrayed their panic and they lamented their predicament, their eyes glared angrily at those around them.

"We will never be slaves, we'll fight to the death!"

"Afu, let's fight them! We might as well die!" "Fight! I'll fight! I want revenge for my son!"

……

Seeing the crowd so united in their hatred of the enemy, Huotang gestured for his people not to move and said, "I, Zhiyan, do not capture slaves."

The crowd did not relax their guard at all, still watching the fire tower warily, and gripping their various 'weapons' even tighter.

Huotang's gaze fell on the leader.

"If my troops were here to capture slaves, would we have given up such good cover of night, allowing you to become alert?"

Shi Fu was holding a heavy knife. It was called a heavy knife because the forging skills were poor, so he could only thicken and increase the weight of the blade, making it more like a strangely shaped stick.

"We do not welcome you. Please leave."

Shi Fu spoke up, "As you can see, we are just a group of survivors who escaped from the water, we have nothing."

If any of you wish to eat fish, today's catch is all here, available for all martial artists to enjoy.

“My tribe is developing and needs to absorb outsiders. Since you are living in such a difficult situation, you can join my Blazing Flame Tribe.”

Huotang looked at the fish he had caught; they were all small fish, none of them even a foot in size.

Apart from fish, there is almost no other wild beast meat to be seen in the entire tribe's territory.

Unfortunately, even though Huotang made the offer of recruitment, no one present relaxed their guard in the slightest.

Or rather, they simply don't believe it.

"Don't lie to us. My tribe was hiding in the mountains to avoid the flood. It was you who suddenly attacked us. The old and weak were slaughtered, and the young and strong were captured. Only I and a few others managed to escape."

A one-armed man with a scarred face rushed out, wielding a fishbone knife, intending to stab the firebox with the tip of the blade.

Before he could even get close to Huotang, he was kicked away by Huobai.

“My Blazing Flame Tribe has never committed any acts of killing, much less captured any of our own kind as slaves.”

Then, the man with the missing arm was caught by the stone spirit and helped to stand up again.

Huo Bai was very gentle; otherwise, the one-armed man would probably have died from ruptured internal organs.

Shi Fu stopped the one-armed man who was still trying to rush forward and looked at Huo Tang.

"We are a group of people from a small tribe, who survived by sheer luck and came together. We have nothing. Does your tribe really want to take us in?"

"My Blazing Flame Tribe is the same, except that we were luckier than the other tribes and survived the floods and plagues."

Huotang spoke, his tone devoid of any condescension.

“Ah Zhao, those who slaughtered the tribes sailed ships as big as mountains, navigating floods and waves as if they were flat land, and wore armor that we could never even dream of. They are different from the people in front of us.”

Shi Fu's words brought the tense crowd to their senses.

"Look at them, don't they look different from those on the giant ship back then?"

The one-armed man squatted down on the ground with a thud. "They are not human. My child is only seven years old. Only seven years old, and they threw him into the mouth of the monstrous fish."

"The clan leader was bitten off by the strange fish in one go. I jumped into the water with my youngest son and escaped, but my youngest son is gone too."

The roars and cries instantly silenced the small settlement, filling it with sobs and whimpers.

……

"In the second month after the floodwaters swept across the mountains, a boat as big as a mountain appeared outside the tribe's territory, with a strange fish dragging it from its bow, riding the wind and waves."

The strange fish is impervious to swords and spears, can climb hillsides, and eats anyone it sees.

The ship was covered with cages, which were packed with people.

The Stone Rock tribe was breached in the blink of an eye. The old and weak were thrown into the water to become fish food, while the able-bodied were captured and imprisoned. The giant ship sailed away, cutting through the waves.

Before the campfire, Shi Fu slumped to the ground, trembling all over, his eyes filled with immense fear, unable to even grip his weapon.

"I was hiding in the mountains and I saw them using people as bait on hooks to catch wild beasts in the water."

Under the cover of night, the campfire flickered.

Huotang and his clansmen felt a chill run down their spines.

Unaware of the impending major crisis, they narrowly escaped it.

Perhaps it was because the Blazing Flame Tribe was located too close to the Giant Mountain Range, with its undulating peaks and dense forests, making navigation difficult, that they escaped this catastrophe of annihilation.

The hundreds of survivors on the hillside came from several tribes. Shortly after the flood, large ships sailed in and broke into each tribe, slaughtering and capturing people.

As for where the large ship came from, they didn't know. They only knew that there was more than one ship, about twenty or thirty of different sizes, forming a large fleet.

That night, Huotang and his men settled down in this small settlement.

The annexation of these multi-tribal remnants did not provoke resistance.

Having repeatedly escaped death, those who survived have become numb.

Rather than explaining that they need to join a tribe to survive, it's more accurate to say that their mentality has become one of going with the flow, taking things one step at a time, and having lost all expectations.

(End of this chapter)