◎He is waiting for you in the Demon King's Palace.◎
Four hours ago, in the Lich Tribe’s land.
The sky was just getting light, and the glow of the morning sun was shining on the criss-crossing mountains. Dozens of liches, wearing animal skins and holding sharp weapons such as long swords, were sitting in the open space in front of the cave of their tribe, tearing into half-cooked animal legs.
The atmosphere was stiff and depressing.
Ever since Tok disappeared in the Demon King's Palace and dozens of liches who went to look for him also lost contact one after another, the rift within the lich clan has become increasingly larger.
Many liches projected their anger onto the current clan leader, Feko, and even more liches became silent. One day, when more than forty liches united together and left the clan directly to fight the Demon King to the death, this emotion was pushed to the highest point and evolved into a fierce conflict.
Chief Feko, who was always easy-going and talkative in the eyes of the liches, led his team to stop the forty-odd liches and angrily rebuked them for disregarding the survival of the lich clan.
"Lao Dun and the others have already gone to die! If you leave again, there will be less than half of the hunting team left. Do you want to watch the cubs in the tribe starve to death? Or do you want to anger the new demon king and make him slaughter all the liches directly, so that Tono can reunite with his brother now?"
The liches lowered their heads and returned to their tribe, never mentioning revenge for Tok again, but the rift within the tribe did not disappear - some smart liches had already realized that something was wrong.
It's not just about Tok's disappearance, or the fact that they are not allowed to leave the tribe, but the more fatal issue is about Feko's delicate attitude towards Tok.
...
...
The liches asked themselves: All the cubs in the tribe were well protected in the tribe's land. What kind of curse had bewitched them to listen to Feko's words and let Tok leave the lich tribe alone, even for the second time?
After their trust in Feco was shattered, they suddenly realized their own absurdity, but apart from sending more than forty liches away in anger and eventually being scolded back, they did nothing.
This is for the survival of the tribe. They said to themselves in their hearts that no lich in the current lich tribe has the strength and prestige to take on the responsibility of temporary tribe leader, and whether it is hunting or the turmoil brought by the new demon king, the tribe needs a tribe leader to lead the lich tribe to face it.
The Lich Clan, which had already suffered heavy losses in the last rebellion, would probably be on the verge of extinction if internal strife broke out again.
They endured it, but could not escape the condemnation of their conscience. They began to doubt all their tribesmen - did the other liches really not know that Tok was framed by Feko? Were they accomplices? Who else in the lich tribe was trustworthy?
The liches were filled with thoughts.
When they began to doubt each other, the happy life of being close and intimate with each other was gone forever. Even the hunting team, which needed unity and cooperation the most, was now divided and only maintained its operation by superficial harmony.
"Hey! Is everyone up?"
Joyful laughter came from afar, and the little lich Tono came briskly in front of the liches of the hunting team, holding a large roll of animal skins in his hands. He tilted his head, revealing his cute dimples.
"Are you going hunting?"
The liches looked up.
In front of Tono, the liches smiled and waved at him as if nothing had happened. They took a moment to pick from the food and handed him the most tender and delicious piece of meat.
"Yes," they said gently, gathering around Tono, "Do you need our help with anything? If you want to eat some monster meat, we can go hunting today. Didn't you say a while ago that you wanted to make a set of clothes with the hair of a weasel's tail? It's almost done and you can wear it tonight."
Tono's fingers gripped the hide with a little force.
His smile faded a little, and he looked at the liches in front of him who were asking about his well-being. He suddenly asked, "I miss my brother. Uncle Xin Ke, why hasn't my brother returned to the lich tribe? What happened to him?"
The liches looked at each other.
The leading lich Xin Ke turned his head away, forcing himself not to look at Tono's hopeful eyes. He said with difficulty: "It's okay, Tok just has more important things to do..."
The light in Tono's eyes went out.
This is the last chance.
He looked at the liches, and for a moment, a crazy mixture of gloom and hatred seemed to flash across his face, but before the liches could react, he turned back into his original sunny appearance without any haze, blinked, and smiled with the corners of his mouth raised.
"In that case, then all right," he said crisply, his smile gradually widening, "I made a super beautiful gift for Chief Feko. Do you want to come with me?"
Oh, a gift.
The liches' expressions softened.
What a cute little lich.
Almost everyone has seen Tono plucking leaves everywhere. The liches know that Tono's gift must be a circular grass ring. After all, Tono has made quite a few grass rings before.
They tacitly agreed not to expose him, but nodded one after another: "Okay, we also want to see the gift you prepared! The gift made by our little Tono is absolutely amazing!"
Compared to hunting, Tono's status is obviously higher in their hearts. Especially when Feko's position is questionable, the liches dare not let Tono contact Feko alone.
So a group of liches surrounded Tono and came to the entrance of the tribe leader's cave in a mighty manner. On the way, many liches who had just woken up heard the noise and followed curiously. When Feko walked out of the tribe leader's cave and saw the dark crowd of liches in front of him, he almost fell to the ground.
"What are you doing blocking here?" he shouted, not quite confident.
Tono, who was at the front, tilted his head and smiled.
"Chief Feko," he said, "I have brought you a gift."
Seeing Tono, Fico was relieved.
Having watched Tono grow up, he knew that this kid was spoiled and stupid. He was not alert at all and did not even put on the most basic magical protection. He forced a gentle smile and reached out to take the animal skin in Tono's arms.
Tono handed it to him straightforwardly.
"What is this?" Fei Ke asked casually as he lifted up the hide. "A grass ring—"
Before he finished speaking, his movements froze and his pupils suddenly dilated.
He had no time to defend himself. A pure black curse mark appeared on his face. His hair quickly turned gray and fell to the ground, and his smooth skin gradually shriveled.
"No," Tono smiled innocently, but his actions were fierce and ruthless. He used thorn magic to knock Fico, who tried to attack but whose strength was greatly reduced, to the ground. "This is the Withering Curse. Have you heard of it?"
Fico covered his face and screamed in disbelief.
Nearly a hundred liches gathered in front of the tribe leader's cave were all stunned. For a moment, no lich spoke. Only Feko's screams echoed in the tribe's territory, startling many bird-type monsters in the mountains and sending them flying into the air.
Unlike ordinary curses, the Withering Curse is considered a taboo by the Lich Clan because this curse can easily get out of control. Once spread, it will even curse all nearby creatures.
And Tono obviously had no intention of controlling the curse. His emotions were so intense that his lower body turned into gray mist and floated in the air. He said in a harmless tone, "Why, Fico, didn't you expect this? When you killed my father and my brother, did you never think that this would be the outcome?"
Now all the liches were shocked.
"How is this possible! The clan leader was killed by the devil!" The lich Xin Ke shouted in shock, "Fei Ke, explain quickly!"
Fico lowered his hands from covering his face. The skin and flesh on his face fell off piece by piece, and dispersed into the air along with the gray mist. He seemed to have accepted his impending death, and seemed to be stimulated by the matter of the Pikachu leader. His expression was twisted, and the bones and fresh flesh were mixed together. "What else? If I don't kill Pikachu, do I really want him to assassinate the Demon King and finally cause the death of the entire Lich Clan?"
"He is not a competent clan leader at all! I am the competent clan leader! The reason why he studies curses and magic is not to lead the lich clan to become stronger, but just to avenge his damn life-saving demon!"
The liches roared in anger, and many of them even threw away their fear of the withering curse that brought them instant death, and pounced on Fico and beat him.
"Stop pretending. Are you innocent?" Fico laughed hoarsely. "Even Tono can find out the truth. You are more familiar with Pikachu than he is. Why didn't you notice it? Oh, oh - do you know how I treated Toko? Think about it, how many times has he asked you for help?"
Lich Xin Ke stood there, almost fainting. He thought of everything he had done and suddenly realized that he had become an accomplice to the crime.
Tono turned into gray mist and floated away from the spot, maintaining a happy smile and looking around.
The liches were tangled in chaos. They were not even attacking Feko, but biting each other, venting their sadness, anger and self-blame. The withering curse slowly spread into the air and gradually spread to the liches, but they seemed unaware.
"All of them must die," Tono muttered, his eyes fixed on the panicked liches that were trying to flee in the distance, his eyes boiling with murderous intent, "You deserve to die even more."
He blocked the exit of the tribe in the form of gray mist and chopped off the head of a lich almost instantly. He held a bloody long knife in his hand and looked at the remaining liches who were standing there in fear. He tilted his head and asked, "Where do you want to go?"
One of the liches almost collapsed: "Tono! What on earth do you want to do? Aren't we good enough for you?"
The other liches also glared at Tono.
Fico did kill the Pikachu leader, and Tok did suffer decades of torture, but Tono, the child who was pampered by them, was never harmed by any lich! When did he start to hide his strength, and why did he become like this?
Tono smiled.
He smiled cheerfully, and looked cute and well-behaved, as if he was still the innocent little boy, except that his clothes were stained with blood, and he exuded a cursed aura, and there was a soft corpse at his feet. This made the liches feel cold, and they couldn't help but take a few steps back.
"Let me guess," Tono said softly, "You were there when Fico killed my father, right? You must have known the inside story of Toke's torture? Just because you acted like a good uncle in front of me every day, do you think I should be grateful for it?"
One of the liches opened his mouth and was about to argue, but Tono stabbed him through the heart with a knife, and he fell to the ground with a thud.
"Ever since I was three years old and witnessed my brother being tortured, I have seen through this filthy lich clan," he sneered, "If I hadn't been pretending to be a waste, could I really have lived peacefully until now? All the liches praised my father's greatness and their loyalty in front of me, but my brother is dead, what are you doing?"
The last thing Fico should have done was to treat the three-year-old boy as a three-year-old cub, thinking that he was stupid and easy to fool.
Unfortunately, because Feko deliberately sealed the eggs of the cubs to prolong their hatching time, Tono actually already had clear mind in the eggshell, and even mastered some magic power without any guidance. He just didn't understand how to use it, and had no way to break the seal.
He had heard Fico holding the egg and cursing the Pikachu leader, and when he fell into the lava lake, he tried hard to use magic to protect himself and his brother, so that he was not directly roasted by the boiling lava, but took the opportunity to break through the eggshell.
Originally, he who had the memory earlier should be the older brother, but at that time he realized that Tok's life breath was very weak, so he broke the eggshell on that side first, and thus became the younger brother.
The remaining liches looked at each other.
They all took action at the same time, gathering all their magical power and attacking Tono.
Tono didn't dodge at all.
He knew he couldn't dodge it - no matter how talented he was, he wasn't even an adult yet, and he couldn't practice magic to maintain his silly image, so his strength was only average. He just killed two liches in a row, and he took advantage of the surprise attack. There was absolutely no chance of winning in a head-on fight.
Moreover, he didn't want to hide at all. The withering curse had begun to spread, and except for the few liches that he had tricked into leaving the clan to pick potions, these liches could not escape, and he didn't mind accompanying these idiots to their death.
There was a soft "whoosh" sound.
The snow-white arrow feathers forced back all magic, and gray mist suddenly appeared in front of Tono. Without waiting for Tono to react, it snatched the long sword and ruthlessly chopped off the head of the lich.
Wearing armor, Lawton turned into a human form and anxiously hugged Tono: "Tono, are you hurt? Are you okay? Come on, I'll take you away first!"
Tono was confused for a moment, until Lawton took off his mask, and the confusion turned into shock.
Of course he recognized Lawton, and he also knew that Lawton had gone with several other liches to look for Tok and never heard from him again - why did Lawton come back? Did he go to the Demon King's Palace and see Tok?
Countless conspiracies and intrigues flashed through his mind, but his face remained calm. Seeing Lawton's anxious look, Tono asked tentatively: "Why are you here?"
Lawton, who had just teleported over and saw that Tono was almost killed by those liches, was still in a state of panic and didn't notice that Tono was wrong at all. After checking and finding that Tono was not injured, he was relieved: "I'm here to take you to the Demon King's Palace. Let's go, Tono is still waiting for you."
Tono narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
He looked at Lawton's appearance - ruddy complexion, bright clothes, and even a magic weapon to cover his face - was this guy actually being used in the Demon King's Palace? What kind of situation would allow a lich who was supposed to seek revenge on the Demon King to receive preferential treatment from the Demon King?
There was a gleam of ferocity in the little lich's eyes.
At this moment, he actually had little rationality left. He buried the liches in the withering curse with his own hands, and even did not spare those liches who were biased and valued the inheritance of their tribe more but actually treated him sincerely. For Tono, this decision was not only a cruel punishment for the liches, but also a burial of his own conscience.
"We can't leave now," he looked up at Lawton, his round eyes revealing worry and fear, "My uncles said that Fico killed my father and brother, and they are already fighting. Uncle Lawton, is this the truth?"
Lawton hesitated.
When he saw Tono was almost killed, he realized that something was wrong with the Lich Clan, but the idea of protecting Tono still prevailed, so he planned to send Tono to the Demon King's Palace first, and then beg the Demon King to let him come back to protect the Lich Clan after Tono was safe.
"Yes, Fico is a sinister bastard," Lawton said. "How about I send you away first? I promise, I will kill Fico."
Tono's suspicion deepened.
He shook his head to show his unwillingness to cooperate: "A lich has used the Withering Curse. If it is not suppressed, all liches will die."
At the end of his speech, his tone rose slightly, and there was a hint of excitement in it.
Fortunately, when Lawton heard the words "Withering Curse", his mind was blank and he didn't notice anything wrong. Knowing the harmfulness of the Withering Curse, he couldn't bear to watch all the liches die without a burial place. Lawton gritted his teeth, took off the teleportation gloves, handed them to Tono, and briefly explained how to use them: "If something goes wrong, leave immediately, okay? Go to the Demon King's Palace, Tok is waiting for you there."
Tono nodded obediently, took the gloves, and watched Lawton rush into the depths of the tribe's territory. A smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, and he turned into a ball of gray mist and followed silently.
In the tribe leader's cave, Fei Ke had already died so badly that not even his bones could be found.
The liches stopped fighting and sat on the ground in despair. Each of them looked miserable, but no one stood up to try to lift the withering curse.
Dealing with curse magic every day, the liches clearly sensed that Tono had engraved the spreading magic of the withering curse in every location in the clan's territory. Unless they fled the clan's territory immediately, they would surely die.
But no one wants to leave.
The cruel truth exposed not only Feko's crimes, but also theirs. Pulled by the great guilt, the liches completely gave up resistance, and thought with dejection that it would be better to be buried in the ashes with the tribe, and perhaps they could pray for forgiveness from the tribe leader and the young tribe leader Tok in another world.
"What are you doing?" Lawton rushed over, looked around, and was completely confused. "Hurry up and run! This place has been infected by the Withering Curse. If we don't leave now, it will be too late!"
When they looked up and saw Lawton, the liches' eyes changed.
But still no one spoke.
Lawton was anxious: "Are you crazy? If you want to kill Fico, just kill him. Why create the Withering Curse? Whose idiot's idea was this——"
Before he finished speaking, his chest armor suddenly lit up, blocking a curse attack for him. Lawton turned around in shock and anger, and just as he was about to fight back, his arm froze, and he looked at the lich attacking him in disbelief.
"Yo," Tono tilted his head and looked at his armor with contempt, "It seems that being a dog for the new demon king is a good job. Even the armor has enchantments."
Poor Lawton almost fainted where he stood.
"You, I," he stammered, and finally slapped his head, almost crying, "The king is right, the lich tribe is a bunch of blind idiots!"
They didn't see that Feko, with whom they lived day and night, harbored malicious intentions, nor did they see that the gloomy and weak Toke was being tortured. They even didn't realize that the cub they had raised was actually disguised as a naive person!
"Don't stay here," he said almost beggingly, "Leave the tribe quickly and come back to the Demon King's Palace with me... Tok and the other liches are all there, really, I'm not lying to you! At that time, Feko forced Tok to test the king. The king found that Tok was being abused, so he rescued him and brought him back to the Demon King's Palace. Tok is very powerful now. He scored 100 points in the magic test and won the Red Moon Medal!"
Tono scoffed.
"What does this have to do with me?" He no longer concealed his malice, and his pretty face with baby fat twisted into a ferocious look. "Do you think I want to destroy the lich tribe because of Tok's death? No! I want to destroy the lich tribe because of Feko, because of you! I've had enough of this filthy tribe that talks about loyalty all the time!"
Lawton looked at him, his eyes filled with sadness.
In fact, until now, he has not been able to accept the fact, but he knows clearly that both Tok and Tono are just victims, and he and the other liches are accomplices.
However, compared to those liches who have lost the will to live, Lao Dun, who has been silently digesting the situation for almost half a year and is responsible for bringing Tono back to the Demon King's Palace, is more rational.
"Tok is in the Demon King's Palace," he said, his voice choking as he repeated in a murmur, "Tok is waiting for you in the Demon King's Palace."
Tono stared at him without saying anything, but his eyes gradually turned red.
In this silent stalemate, the curse gradually wrapped around the lich Laodun's neck, leaving a dark blue mark on his face, revealing the breath of decay and collapse, but it was suppressed by his magic power and worn away bit by bit. It didn't take too long for it to disappear into thin air.
"I'm fine," he looked at the Demon King sheepishly, carefully observing Tok's expression, "Anyway, Tono organized the remaining lich tribe members, left the tribe and headed for the Demon King's Palace. They should be there in a few days."
Although Tono spoke harshly, threatening to exterminate the entire clan and massacre them all, he had actually tricked his trusted liches into leaving, and took all the young ones to the edge of the clan's territory for refuge. In the end, only Feko and the liches who rebelled with Feko died miserably, while the other liches did not suffer serious injuries at all. Apart from the injuries from fighting each other, the curse marks of the withering curse only took some time to remove.
Warren rubbed his fingertips, not knowing what to say for a moment. After thinking for a while, he tilted his head and looked at Tok: "I'm going to send a team of magic soldiers to bring the lich tribe back and check their physical condition. Do you want to come with me?"
Tok was still in a daze.
It was obviously not easy to accept that the lucky and naive brother in his impression had suddenly turned into a cunning and crazy guy. He grabbed the corner of the devil's clothes and hesitated for a long time, feeling a sense of crisis.
If a younger brother who is both cute and smart comes, will he no longer be the king’s favorite?
He nodded vigorously: "I'll go!"
The author has something to say:
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Tono: I want to exterminate the entire clan!!!
Lawton: Your brother is still alive.
Tono: It has nothing to do with me. I want to destroy the whole clan!
Lawton: Your brother is still alive.
Tono: I already told you that I don’t know my brother well, I want to exterminate the whole clan!
Lawton: Your brother is still alive. He's waiting for you.
Tono: ...
Tono: Let me make it clear in advance, I definitely didn't stop because of Tok! Let's go to the Demon King's Palace!
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Six thousand words combined into one! I have a meeting tonight, so I updated it together in advance~
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Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or irrigated nutrient solution during 2023-05-09 18:40:18~2023-05-10 17:24:09~
Thanks to the little angels who irrigated the nutrient solution: 10 bottles of Mona from Huadizimeng; 3 bottles of Red Butterfly;
Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!
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