The captured Apocalypse Beastmen: Beastmen are the people of Xia, and so are other living beings.
The scorching flames lunged at Jiang Yunlan with bared fangs and claws, but were swallowed up in mid-air by another powerful fire dragon.
The fire dragon retaliated against the orc who had launched the attack. The orc, not expecting a fire spirit to be by her side, was stunned and reacted a beat too late.
"Use fire power in front of me? You're not qualified." Agni's voice was cold and full of disgust, devoid of his usual cheerfulness and good temper.
The fire dragon opened its mouth like a wild beast and swallowed the orc who attacked Jiang Yunlan.
In an instant, the surrounding wind swirled wildly, and the flames enveloping the Apocalypse Orc suddenly burst open. He leaped out of the fireball, rolled a few times on the ground to reach his companion, and quickly got up.
His burns from the flames became visible as he moved; he had been injured in the process of escaping. His strength was weaker than Agni's, and he couldn't dispel the flames surrounding him, so he was naturally burned by Agni's fire.
"So there's another orc who's plundered the power of wind hidden here." Agni remembered Sylph saying that it was hard for him to find someone of the same origin, and instantly released a new fire dragon to attack the leopard orc that had just appeared.
These two orcs who plundered the power of the elves were strange. It hadn't even realized they were orcs possessing natural powers until they actively used them.
"Bang! Bang bang bang—"
Outside the battlefield between the two enemies and Agni, the sound of some attack being stopped echoed, like a sharp blade cutting through hard rock.
The diamond-shaped ice that had blocked the wind blades disappeared. Jiang Yunlan looked at Yan Wuyan, the leopard beastman who was dodging the fire dragon, and said in an icy tone, "If you want to use my people as hostages to threaten me, beat me first."
As soon as she finished speaking, the two orcs from the Apocalypse Tribe were subjected to even more attacks. There were various natural forces at play, as well as a rain of arrows.
The two orcs struggled to withstand the attacks, growing weary from the relentless assault and sustaining several non-fatal wounds. The thought of retreat began to cross their minds, and their eyes darted around.
"Tsk, what are they doing? Why haven't they come to reinforce us yet? Forget it, let's just retreat." Yan Wuyan's companion frowned, clearly expressing his displeasure. He gave Yan Wuyan a look, signaling him to run with him towards the weakest point in the defenses of the Forest Lake habitat.
Yan Wuyan blinked and agreed, then used his wind power to fly into the air.
These two orcs' dodging ability far exceeded their combat strength, as if they had maxed out their escape skills. However, faced with the wind shield that appeared at the same time, several small fireballs shooting out from below, and water droplets flowing in mid-air, Yan Wuyan could only drag his companions around in a sorry state to dodge the fireballs, forcibly break through the wind shield, and temporarily ignore the ordinary and seemingly harmless water droplets.
It wasn't until her exposed skin touched the potion controlled by Jiang Yunlan that Yan Wuyan heard the sound of her arm being corroded and burned. She gasped in pain, and instinctively let go of her useless companion who was slowing her down, fleeing as fast as she could.
The abandoned orc plummeted from the sky. The wind whistled past his ears, and he twitched his lips speechlessly, unsurprised. Although their Apocalypse Tribe had a rule against killing its own people indiscriminately, being abandoned by one's comrades was a common occurrence.
With tens of meters still above the ground, he began to think about how to land safely.
At the same time, a rapidly growing plant scooped him up from his fall and gently placed him on the ground.
He froze for a second, looking at Jiang Yunlan who was controlling the plant with a strange expression. He could feel that the branches binding him were struggling to break free, clearly worried that he would escape, yet he still couldn't understand Jiang Yunlan's actions in controlling the tree to catch him. The sluggish tree was much gentler than the one controlled by his companion.
He couldn't understand why the Xia tribe's leader would treat his enemy so gently, and doubts arose in his mind. He waited until his feet touched the ground before burning off the branches covering his body and running away.
"bump!"
A whirlwind hit his back as he took his first step, knocking him to the ground.
He scrambled to his feet and looked up. Agni's fire dragon circled around him, glaring menacingly. He silently surveyed his surroundings, now devoid of escape, before lying back down. He could hear Jiang Yunlan outside the fire dragon talking to the orc beside him.
"Black Soil, how is the situation at the Forest Lake habitat?" Jiang Yunlan turned to the lemming beastmen who had returned and asked.
Black Soil can hear the sounds around plants through the power of wood, making her well-suited as a scout. Therefore, after the enemy attacked her with fire, she took the time to instruct Black Soil to lead a team to investigate the dangers in the Forest Lake. Among the orcs who went out with Black Soil were Mountain Shepherds who had already obtained the power of ice and snow, as well as most of the guards.
“We’ve found the enemy’s accomplices and subdued them. Yamaki used an ice cage to hold them in place. Lan, should we go over now?” Kurotsuchi said in a flat, almost indistinct voice.
Jiang Yunlan shook her head and asked her again, "Were there any casualties in the tribe?"
“We found the orcs early enough to rescue their people they were about to kidnap, and no orcs died. However, some orcs were wounded during the battle with the enemy, but not seriously. When I returned, Shanmu and the others who stayed behind were bandaging the wounded orcs,” she said.
Jiang Yunlan felt relieved and instructed the orcs without natural power to leave. She then strode towards the Apocalypse orcs trapped by the fire dragon. If she wasn't mistaken, the orc who had just escaped was Yan Ganguo's older sister, Yan Wuyan.
She was so familiar with the appearance of the leopard beastmen that she immediately recognized the similarities between Yan Wuyan and Yan Duoyu.
She slowly exhaled and walked into the clearing marked by the fire dragon. She crouched down and looked down at the orc lying on the ground, asking in the language of the Sage Clan, "What is your name?"
Upon hearing this, the orc lying down froze once again, looking at her as if she were a creature he had never seen before.
"Is that important? The first question you asked me was about my name. You're strange." He spoke to Jiang Yunlan in the language of the grasslands, without moving his body, completely giving up his dying struggle.
Jiang Yunlan nodded and said in the language of the grasslands, "Important."
When interrogating a prisoner, the first question is usually their name, and a name is certainly important. Their name reveals which clan they came from and which orc region they belonged to.
If his experience of leaving the clan was similar to that of the leopard beastman Yan Wuyan, then did his original clan also suffer an attack from a giant beast? Jiang Yunlan wanted to know this.
“…Bai Su,” he paused for a few seconds, looking at Jiang Yunlan with slight hesitation, “want to make a deal with me?”
"What transaction?"
"I will answer your questions, and after you have asked what you want to ask, I will kill you with one blow, how about that?"
Jiang Yunlan was puzzled, her confused gaze sweeping over Bai Su lying on the ground.
Seeing the surprise on Jiang Yunlan's face, he continued calmly, "You are different from the orcs in the Apocalypse Tribe where I am now. You will keep your promise. I don't want to experience a painful death."
He was an orc with the power of fire, able to sense the fire spirit's rage from the flickering flames. He had no desire to be burned alive by the fire spirit's flames; that would be far more painful than self-immolation.
Upon hearing this, Jiang Yunlan's expression became even more puzzled, unable to understand why he would have such a thought. Xia would not cruelly kill any living being. The most painful way to die in the Xia tribe was to drink poison and die from it. However, this was only because the poison took time to take effect, making death by poisoning more painful than other methods.
Who smeared Xia? How could he have such a misunderstanding?
It wasn't until he caught sight of the fire dragon circling around him that Jiang Yunlan suddenly realized what was happening. He shook his head and said, "You took the life of the fire spirit. Only Agni has the authority to make this decision."
Hearing this, Agni continued to scrutinize the ashen-faced Bai Su, and after several seconds angrily said, "I don't care how he died, I just want to know what method can be used to take away his power of fire."
“A creature like you is unworthy to rule the power of nature!” it said.
It was furious. The thought that the orcs who had taken its life form could possess the power of fire made it incredibly angry.
"Is it impossible to take away the fire power he plundered using the old methods?" Jiang Yunlan was also troubled and pulled 022 and Freya together to discuss a solution.
These strange methods terrified Bai Su. He couldn't help but secretly try to break free of the ice chains binding him, only to find an ice blade next to his cheek.
"Don't move. If you move again, your hands and feet won't just be frozen solid," Freya threatened coldly.
Bai Su was peaceful and timidly closed his eyes.
After discussing for a while, Jiang Yunlan and the two elves tried several methods they had come up with on him, but none of them worked.
"This method didn't work either, this is really troublesome." Jiang Yunlan stared at Bai Su, whose face was written with the words "let me die," untied the ice chains under his feet, and lifted him up from the ground.
With her left hand gripping the ice chains binding his hands, Jiang Yunlan pulled him outside, saying, "Until we find a way to take away your power over fire, you'll stay with me. If you want to escape, you can try and see if you can get away from me."
"I'm warning you beforehand, if you're just trying to escape, I won't do anything to you. But if you're planning to escape by harming my people, I don't mind you becoming the first orc to be tortured by Xia." After saying this, Jiang Yunlan looked to her left and explained to Bai Su what torture was, her voice extremely calm.
Upon hearing the two tortures she described, Bai Su's round ears and tail bristled. He immediately promised that he would never run away or lay a hand on Xia's beastmen, almost kneeling down and raising his hands to the sky to show his sincerity.
Startled, Bai Su looked down at Jiang Yunlan, who continued walking forward, and couldn't help but mutter under his breath, "You're just like Jianying, who's always in the treehouse. You're too scary for the beastmen."
“Xia will not mistreat prisoners, but that doesn’t mean I will be gentle with the orcs who harm my people,” she said.
Bai Su recalled what had happened in the Tianqi tribe, especially what happened in the Shadow Tree House, and still felt that the Xia tribe was better. At least the Xia chieftain said that Xia would not mistreat prisoners.
The squirrel-beastman, who claimed he wouldn't be gentle with his enemies, was actually quite gentle. When he accidentally provoked those beastmen in the Apocalypse, he suffered many times more than he is now.
"Who is this 'Jianying' you're talking about? What did he do that makes you think his actions are comparable to torture?"
Jiang Yunlan's question echoed in Bai Su's ears, and he fell silent.
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