In Leilin's eyes, whether in his previous life or this one, all renowned figures shared a particular quality.
That was the tenacity to press forward once a goal had been set! And an unwavering conviction in one's own path!
Because they had already established their path, they could move forward without fear—or even by any means necessary.
And for the sake of eternity and freedom, Leilin in this life would not spare a single thought for the lives of these natives.
"My life is devoted solely to the pursuit of eternity. Even if I collapse halfway, consumed by resentment in return, I will not regret it in the slightest…"
A gleam of tenacity flashed through Leilin's eyes—the great awakening of a heart set firm upon its course.
Under the drive of this conviction, even killing and burning cities, annihilating nations by the hundred, was nothing more than an offering on the road to the supreme heights.
……
The conflict between the two Ngodo tribes had escalated to a fever pitch. By the end, no one even cared about the great chieftain Leilin had captured. Both sides had been driven to madness by bloodshed, their sole objective the annihilation of the other.
Those who start wars often do not know how to end them, and in the haze of slaughter they gradually forget their original purpose—a sorrow if ever there was one.
Meanwhile, the Sakakats Empire had also learned of the situation and dispatched a ten-thousand-strong intervention force accompanied by a large retinue of priests. Their aim was likely far more than mere mediation—preventing or even eliminating Leilin and his group of outsiders was a matter of the highest priority.
Unfortunately, the Empire's intervention quickly came to nothing.
Not through any armed assault, but simply through the arrival of death—along the Imperial army's line of march, a plague erupted without warning.
This plague was extraordinarily virulent. Its mortality rate was equally terrifying, spreading throughout the entire army in a matter of days.
Given the density of the troops, along with the natives' appalling hygienic habits, without divine healing, once infected it was nearly impossible to survive.
The priests, stretched to the breaking point, could save only a fraction of the officers and elites, while the rest of the common soldiers rotted and died before their eyes.
With their limited divine magic, this was already a remarkable achievement.
In the age of cold weapons, a casualty rate exceeding thirty percent was already considered catastrophic—let alone the psychological pressure brought by this invisible plague.
Under the threat of death, the great army quickly forgot its purpose. Deserters began to appear!
Once the soldiers' death rate surpassed fifty percent, no matter how the officers screamed themselves hoarse and beheaded those who fled, they could not stem the tide of desertion.
In truth, even among the officers themselves there were those who deserted out of fear of the plague.
Before long, the army had completely collapsed. The scattered remnants carried the disease with them to even more distant places, and a far greater plague spread in its wake.
Natives died in droves. Entire villages were left nothing but corpses. Fields overgrown with weeds lay barren in vast swaths, overrun with lost poultry and other animals.
Once the plague had spread, the whole of Bankitz Island was weeping.
The Empire's upper echelons were thrown into a frenzy, but they could not halt the plague's relentless advance into Imperial territory. As for the possible invaders, they had long since been forgotten.
With the foreign intervention resolved, Leilin set about completely destroying the two tribes that had started the conflict.
Due to the war and the plague, both tribes had been hit even harder, losing more than sixty percent of their population. Young and able-bodied men had been almost entirely wiped out.
The consequence was that the two tribes' totem spirits had also suffered grievous losses in power, and could no longer withstand Leilin's assault.
These totem spirits of small tribes were naturally still at the level of divinity-holders. After absorbing the divine power of both, Leilin felt that the Slaughter Divinity within him had taken another great step forward, drawing ever closer to the critical threshold for igniting the divine fire.
With the spiritual faith of the two tribes destroyed, absorbing them was a matter of course.
The remnants of both tribes were gathered together and a new town was established, while an enormous statue of the Tagarian Feathered Serpent was erected.
The natives who abandoned their former faith, after undergoing prayer before the idol and a baptism of holy water (miracle drugs and vaccines), found that the diseases and pains afflicting their bodies vanished instantly. This phenomenon immediately ignited a fervent wave of devotion.
Pulling a believer back from the brink of death—the感染 power this created was something even Leilin could hardly estimate.
Those believers who had been on the verge of death, their bodies already half-rotted away, after receiving Leilin's "salvation," immediately became fanatical devotees of the Feathered Serpent God, driving his power ever higher.
Before long, surrounding tribes heard that this deity had the power to cure plagues—and that he extended his blessings to commoners as well. They immediately uprooted their families and flocked to the town, clutching every last possession they owned, begging to be accepted.
Even though other totem spirit priests could also perform divine magic to remove diseases, the limits of their divine spell slots and divine power meant they served only the upper classes, and could not stop the desperate commoners from fleeing below.
Under these circumstances, even if worshipping the Feathered Serpent God granted not a single divine spell, it was still enough to triumph over all other faiths.
Knowing this, Leilin dispatched his priests in every direction, carrying holy water and the like to spread word of his abilities and deeds among the surrounding tribes, with excellent results.
In the face of life and death, no amount of obstruction from the nobility could make a difference.
Row after row of natives came to seek Leilin's blessing, and the town was quickly filled to overflowing.
Leilin named this town, built atop the ruins of the two former tribes, "Hope Fort"—a symbol of new hope, and also the beginning of his conquest of the entirety of Bankitz Island.
Relying on his power to cure diseases, Leilin held the natives' faith and their armies in his hands. With a carrot in one hand and a stick in the other, he began expanding in all directions, his influence growing at a staggering pace…
Before anyone realized it, a year had passed.
That winter proved exceptionally harsh. Even in the southern seas, snowflakes drifted down, draping each island in a mantle of silver.
Bankitz Island was no exception—as though the gods themselves were mourning the fading of life and venting their sorrow, the snow on the mainland fell thick and deep, deeper than any living elder could remember. In an instant, it killed countless unprepared natives.
Although the bitter cold somewhat slowed the spread of the plague, it could not stop death's advance altogether.
The terrible plague that had begun the year before continued to sweep across the island, wiping out vast numbers of native inhabitants. Entire dead cities stood empty—filled with native corpses, with swarms of rats and crows brazenly roaming the roads and houses, gnawing at everything, even the stray dogs on the roadside whose eyes had turned red from eating so many dead.
For the natives, since the previous year, all of Bankitz Island had seemed to fall into hell itself.
And amid this landscape of despair, standing tall by the seashore was Hope Fort—and that legendary, omnipotent Feathered Serpent God. Together they represented the last hope of all the natives.
According to tales spreading through certain channels, that god wielded the power of both slaughter and healing. Any of his followers could receive his grace. Even those already stricken with the plague could find treatment there and recover their health and vitality.
Under these deliberately spread "rumors," waves of natives fled toward Hope Fort's sphere of influence in every direction, and no amount of obstruction from the nobility could stop them.
In a mountain range east of Hope Fort, near the border of the Sakakats Empire.
"Hang on… just a little further, and we'll be within Hope Fort's territory…"
A group of natives wrapped in thick furs trudged艰难ly through the snow. Among them, a native girl kept encouraging her younger brother at her side.
"
The native boy at Aya's side looked to be only fourteen or fifteen. Wrapped in thick furs though he was, his face was still purple from the cold, and he spoke in a timid, shrinking voice.
"Yes… the totem spirit there is the great serpent that governs life. It can drive the plague away…"
Aya kept encouraging her brother and supported him to keep him from slipping in the snow, but in her own heart she was sinking into confusion as the column pressed on.
Thinking back to events a year ago, it felt almost like a dream.
A plague with no warning had erupted out of nowhere. The infected first developed small dark greenish-black spots on their skin, like sesame seeds, followed by low fever and unconsciousness. Once it reached that stage, even the priests' divine magic could barely save them.
In the final stages, the patient's muscles would even rot and fall off in chunks. Aya had once seen a corpse—the sight left her unable to eat for days.
The plague struck with devastating ferocity. At first it was only a rumor from the Imperial borderlands, and then in less than a handful of sunsets it had reached the great cities.
High-ranking priests and nobles spent their days hiding in the temples, performing blood sacrifices and prayers, but to no effect whatsoever.
Other folk healers were equally helpless before it.
Before long, the plague reached the city where Aya lived, taking all her family members and leaving her with only her younger brother.
After that, she had followed the tide of refugees in a daze, running toward Hope Fort.
The tale might well be nothing more than a lie—but it was the girl's last hope.
"I will get my brother there safely… I will…"
Aya whispered this to herself over and over, and prayed: "If the Feathered Serpent God of Hope Fort can truly cure the plague, then please descend and help us! Aya is willing to sacrifice everything she has…"