The night envelops the Axe-Fragnted Highlands, a cold wind blows into the camp from the mountain hollow, swirling the ashes of dying flas.
In the center of the camp, the tall pole bearing the "Angry Flower" flag flutters fiercely in the wind, the blood-red and black patterns resemble the eyes of a fierce beast, making one dare not look directly at it.
Barbarian elder Olten stands on a high slope, draped in a heavy horned hide cloak, overlooking the entire encampnt.
On the edge of the camp. Another circle of chaotic silhouettes gather, within the flickering firelight, the flash of knives appears suddenly.
It’s the young n of the Redstone Tribe, fighting again in the middle of the night.
Punches, kicks, biting, roaring furiously, utterly devoid of clan rules, like a pack of wild dogs ignited by gunpowder.
In the past few months, it’s beco countless tis, and more often than not it ends in death, yet strangely no one stops it, as if tacitly approved.
This tightens Olten’s heart, yet he can’t pinpoint what’s wrong, he is not a coward, but these nights, he feels increasingly unable to sleep.
It’s not just external, that sense of irritation and brutality seems to be quietly growing inside him too.
Lately, he’s prone to anger, often yelling at young warriors, even the cries of a kin’s baby can make his teeth itch unbearably.
He knows it’s abnormal, yet he cannot control it.
This emotion seems to have started spreading after Titus waged war against the Axe-Fragnted Tribe.
After that battle, on this gradually silent barbarian land, the old totems were burned bit by bit, turned to ash, buried in the soil.
Replacing them is that newly erected black-bottom angry flower banner.
With thorns as stems, blood-red angry flas as petals, standing tall at the center of the Axe-Fragnted, Redstone, Blazing Tooth, and Dark Horn tribes’ camps.
In rely a few months, Titus has integrated the four major tribes, controlling a force nearing ten thousand.
On the surface, each conquest resembles a traditional tribal war, the first battle fierce, blood flowing profusely.
But strangely, the flas of war do not last long, the day after the battle, the enemies begin to "voluntarily" surrender.
And the surrenders often co with an inexplicable heightened emotion, as if it’s not surrendering to an enemy, but to sothing higher and purer.
Olten initially thought it was simply the awe for the strong.
But now he’s not so sure, this isn’t re conquest, this feels more like an infection.
It’s like an emotion bred from anger, bridging tribal bloodlines and customs, like a branding iron, burning into everyone’s bones.
......
Deep within the snowfield, a valley intertwined with eternal white bones and layers of ice.
This is the sacred ground of the original Blazing Tooth Clan, the "Bone Snow Valley", and at the center of the valley, the original totem pole has long been smashed and burned, replaced by a high platform wrapped in deep red vines and iron stones.
And at the altar’s center, a massive shadow is roaring and struggling.
It’s a dying, yet still conscious Frost Giant, with jagged bone armor, its whole body encircled by dozens of black iron chains, each link engraved with burning scars, slowly seeping residual heat into the gray snow.
Its eyes are tightly bound by thick black cloth, it can only raise its head and howl, its throat emitting mountains’ reverberations, the shockwaves causing the snow accumulation at the valley bottom to continually slide and shatter.
Titus stands on the altar stone platform, bowing his head to overlook the giant, his face stern as iron, yet in his eyes flickers a wildly abnormal gleam.
His right hand slowly rises, a deep red vine unfolds from his palm, like a hungry eye, constantly squirming, as if yearning for a host.
"Beco my weapon..." he whispers, his voice carrying a chilling softness, as if soothing a lover, not commanding a beast.
The giant below him still struggles, roaring ancient words in defiance, pain, and with remnants of lost divinity lingering.
The lieutenant stands to the side, his expression grave, but still tries quietly: "King... this giant’s wild nature is untad, should we wait until the chief priest stabilizes?"
Titus’s gaze shifts slightly, then slowly turns his head.
"...No need." he says.
His voice is extrely light, but in that mont, the scorching main vine seems to obey, winding out swiftly, piercing the flesh beneath the giant’s collarbone, blood splattering amidst the tremor of the flower crown, greedily beginning to devour, parasitize, expand.
In the instant "Scorching Main Vine" pierced like a spear, the Frost Giant’s body convulsed violently, blood mixed with frost gushed out of its wounds, quickly freezing into jagged scarlet ice spikes on the ground.
He roared skyward, yet that roar lasts only for a fleeting mont.
"Ka—ka, kachak..."
Following, the giant’s back skin abruptly bulges, as if sothing inside struggles, twists.
Skeletal joints jaggedly rise beneath muscle and frosty skin mbrane, accompanied by a nauseating ripping sound.
Thick vines burst from its shoulder blade, spine sides, branching over limbs, wrapping around its entire body.
Original smooth as ice, the giant’s forehead now reveals a strange burn mark.
It’s the flower crown’s insignia, like scorched branding iron totems, in the cold wind, strangely emanating a scarlet brilliance.
His roar suddenly halts.
Replacing that savage scream is a sort of muffled and hoarse low growl.
Indistinct, suppressed, nearly a murmur, the language unclear, yet faintly echoing compliance and response.
Those eyes once blue as glaciers, now filled with bursting blood threads, pupils glowing red, gaze lifeless and hollow.
He slowly turns, movents heavy yet firm, as if pulled by invisible strings, slowly bowing his head towards Titus on the stone platform.
Titus quietly watches this scene, a god’s oversight upon his hand-forged creation.
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