Chapter 293 – The City and the Lord

The field of vision was a sand sea. The sand dunes formed due to the blowing of the strong wind stretched far into the distance. No vegetation was seen within the vision. The rocks of different sizes and shapes were formed because of erosion by sand and wind.

Looking at the rock above which had a large head and thin neck like an alien, Shao Xuan felt that it was going to collapse soon.

After half a day of trekking, the team rested there where the rocks blocked sunlight.

With the temperature at this moment, eggs could even be cooked on the ground.

“As per the Mang tribe, where are we going?” asked Tuo.

“Fallen Leaves City,” said Shao Xuan, “It’s the land of the slave masters.”

Two days after entering the desert, Huang Ye told Shao Xuan and others the destination of the travel. Shao Xuan had asked him many times before, but he never got a reply and Huang Ye only told him “You’ll know it”. Moreover, on the way to the desert, Shao Xuan could clearly feel that they were excluded by others. It seemed that this time the team just took them as a mere formality and did not include them in the plan.

Especially the people of the Tian Shan tribe, they were not only on guard against Shao Xuan and the other two people, but also often targeted them with arrows hostilely. The two groups almost fought against each other because of that.

Other tribes received information from their elders, but no one told the three people of the Flaming Horn tribe more information. Even Qu Ce, who usually talked with the three people, hesitated everytime he tried to say something. They did not dare to tell the three people too much.

Now, they finally told the three people that the team was going to a place called “Fallen Leaves City” which belonged to one of the Slave Masters. Those who had been forced to keep their mouths shut before could reveal more things and speak more casually now.

Some people of the traveling team always felt superior when getting along with people of the Flaming Horn tribe, as if they were urban intellectuals and Flaming Horn people were country bumpkins.

The concept of “city” was quite strange to the people of the Flaming Horn tribe. They only knew tribes and the concept of “city” made them quite confused. If Shao Xuan did not explain it, Lei and Tuo would still be confused.

“I really want to see whether “city” is larger than the tribe. Ah-Xuan, who is the leader in the city? The Chief?” asked Lei.

“No, I’ve heard that it’s the ‘Master’.” said Tuo.

“Only slaves call their leader ‘Master’.” corrected Lei.

“It’s the ‘Lord’. In the city, the highest ruler calls himself the ‘Lord’.” said Shao Xuan.

Generally, slave masters and tribesmen cannot peacefully coexist. However, there were always a few special places.

Fallen Leaves City was the most special among the desert cities.

In the past, the “Lord” of Fallen Leaves City was also one of the slave masters who hated tribesmen. As generations changed, the stance of the rulers of Fallen Leaves City was changing, and the style of Fallen Leaves City was changing as well.

And the significant change happened 20 years ago.

The ex Fallen Leaves Lord robbed a lot of beautiful female slaves because of his lasciviousness. So a bunch of son and daughter were born.

Originally, in general, only the descendants between the slave masters could inherit the powerful abilities of the parents. And because of this, many of the slave masters never took the descendants of those slaves seriously. They would directly throw the inferior descendants into the slum as slaves. However, this changed twenty years ago when a strong unexpected retaliation took place.

The one who retaliated against this indifference inherited his father’s ability fully and was gifted. After his adulthood, he was even stronger than his father. Later, the ‘black horse’ not only slaughtered his father, who was the slaves’ master, but also slaughtered the Lady and his half-brother who was about to inherit the position of ‘Lord’.

The ‘black horse’ who had shocked all was the current ruler of Fallen Leaves City, the master of all the slaves, and the Fallen Leaves Lord.

When hearing this, Lei and Tuo were puzzled. Perhaps these were not in line with their values. In the Flaming Horn tribe, such cruelty never happened even among competitors, let alone the blood brothers. However, it was the affair of other people after all. Besides, their Chiefs had not found so many women to give birth to a bunch of descendants. After all, the Shamans were watching.

“The Fallen Leaves Lord must be the slave master who treats the tribesmen the kindest. Otherwise he would not allow the tribesmen to enter the city.” said Tuo.

“That’s a story for another time.” said Shao Xuan. He didn’t think that the Fallen Leaves Lord who had killed his dad and his siblings would pay special regard to the tribesmen. And most likely, he was exploiting the tribesmen to stand up to the other slave masters as an equal. After all, as far as the price paid, a retaliation that shocked all was quite costly.

“Let’s head towards Fallen Leaves City!” Lei looked at the man who set out and said.

After the team set off again, they traveled for two more days. Sometimes when they couldn’t find a suitable place to rest, they would just rest in the sand. They also encountered some nocturnal desert beasts and lost four people to those beasts. Those four people were dragged into the sand and couldn’t be found after that.

On the fifth day since they stepped into the desert, the team moved on under the sunlight. Compared with the travelling teams that Shao Xuan once saw, this team was a real demon.

The scorching and dry air waves raged over the boundless desert.

It was blowing a monstrous gale.

The sand was heaped up into dunes.

Not far, on the high hills, some sand was blown up and it flew across the mountain ridge.

The main body of such tall sand dunes may have existed for hundreds, thousands of years, and possibly even longer.

“Look, there are people over there!” shouted someone.

Looking at the direction, they found a tall hill in the distance. Above the ridge, a group of people were walking with camels.

“Who are they? The slaves of the city?”

“I can’t see clearly. But look at the direction they are going, shouldn’t it be towards Fallen Leaves City?” said someone.

“Forget it, keep going, we’ll arrive soon.” said an elderly person.

When encountering slaves, as long as the slave masters did not take the initiative to pick a fight, the people in the travelling team did not fight against them. They wished to save their energy and didn’t want to spend more effort on handling those slaves.

As they continued to move forward, Shao Xuan found that the team was heading in the same direction as the other group was and his camel also became excited.

“Want to be with those camels?” Shao Xuan pulled the excited camel back and prevented it from going forward.

There seemed to be some unique flavors in the air that drifted with the wind. The camel nearby got more excited, and seemed to want to run straight forward rather than towards the direction of that group.

“Are we now closer to Fallen Leaves City?” Lei also smelled the flavors in the air. Because of frequent hunting trips, he was very sensitive to odors.

In addition to different odors, there were some sounds.

Going over another hill, Shao Xuan saw the destination of their trip, Fallen Leaves City.

At the moment, the sun was setting towards the horizon.

The orange sunset shone on the vast desert. While looking ahead, they found plenty of leaves the same color as the sunset.

Orange trees, orange sunset, and the desert city dyed by the setting sun.

It’s said that the trees largest in number in the Fallen Leaves City was the Sunset Tree. It attained such a name because the color of its leaves was similar to the setting sun and the color never changed throughout the year. What’s more, the symbol of Fallen Leaves City was the Sunset Tree.

It’s said that the Sunset Tree wouldn’t die before it lived a thousand years. What’s more, it would not fall to the ground before it remained dead for a thousand years, and would not rot before a thousand years passed since it fell. Everyone had heard these rumours but no one knew the truth. However, when one looked around, they could indeed find a large amount of Sunset Trees in the Fallen Leaves City, which made people feel cool. During the past few days they walked in the desert, it was rare to see so many plants – there was nothing except sand and rocks.

Apart from those Sunset Trees, there were some unknown grasses around the city, but not many. No wonder the camel became so excited. It had noticed its feed.

In addition to those trees with the color of the setting sun, a tall building could also be observed when the team stood on the sand dunes and overlooked the Fallen Leaves City.

Huge stones were based like a pyramid below the building, with houses built above.