Chapter 843: The Raven and the Speaking God

High above a long line of the Refugee Team, a massive raven, almost impossible to see from the ground, was circling and flying around this human Refugee Team.

It would occasionally flap its pitch-black, massive wings hard to maintain its altitude in the airflow. Every time it flapped those pitch-black, massive wings—which were much larger than those of an ordinary raven—it would let out a few unpleasant, hoarse caws.

If one were to look closely, one would discover that this raven had some ominous missing feathers on its tail and abdomen; it was hard to imagine that a bird having suffered such severe injuries could still remain healthy and fly steadily in the air.

The raven had a pair of completely pitch-black eyes, which were rolling around and scanning at this moment. Looking down, it could see a long line of humans; the team looked quite large and was composed in a rather chaotic manner. Most people were moving on foot, so the speed of movement was very slow, which forced the raven to frequently change direction and circle above the head of the team.

At the front, middle, and rear of the human team, there were Warriors carrying swords that could reflect sunlight; even though the raven was flying at a great height, it could clearly notice the reflections on these Soldiers' weapons.

The reflections from these weapons did not make it feel afraid; on the contrary, those few humans carrying curved wooden sticks on their backs made this raven feel afraid every time it saw them, because its own flock had been wiped out by just such a group of humans carrying curved wooden sticks not long ago.

Dozens of raven companions were shot down to the ground one by one while surrounded by these humans. In the end, only it, as the leader of the flock, escaped with injuries.

"Caw!"

Damn it.

It let out an unhappy cry, but because of the lack of strength in the cry and the altitude of its flight, no one in the human team on the ground noticed it at all.

The raven's gaze shifted, and it soon noticed a metal human riding a horse outside the human team. The clever raven understood that this stiff, horse-riding human was not only the leader of the human team below but also the target that the Great Existence wanted it to keep an eye on at all times.

Whenever the human team stopped to rest at night, it would follow the instructions of the Great Existence and land on a treetop near the human team's campsite, avoiding raptors active at night while letting out cries to show evidence of the Great Existence's presence.

Sometimes it would glide at low altitude over the entire human team; the dull humans would mostly not pay attention to its existence, but when it approached that metal human riding a horse, it would always clearly perceive a strong feeling emitted by the Great Existence from that human.

The clever raven was curious; it wanted to know why that metal human had such a strong feeling transmitted from the Great Existence.

But it did not dare to approach such a human.

Because whether it was day or night, as long as it got slightly close to the other party, that shiny, stiff-looking metal human would look at it immediately and wave a fist at it in an unfriendly manner.

"Caw!"

Damn it.

The raven let out an unhappy cry, and then a pair of eyeballs, blacker than the night, scanned around casually.

The slightly undulating ground was covered with overgrown wild grass and flowers, and a stream flowed from the distant mountains, gathering into a slightly larger natural small river in the middle of this relatively open land.

By the river, green jumping frogs were hopping around on the Suishi, occasionally flicking out their tongues to catch various flying insects buzzing along the river.

The raven was a bit hungry and couldn't help but think that after a while, when the human team stopped to rest, it would descend to snatch a few to taste and fill its stomach.

Sparse Shulin stretched along the river from the foot of the distant mountains; it was quite lively during the day, and the noise caused by wild beasts and birds was quite eye-catching. Some weak little birds in the Shulin sang carefree songs looking for mates, which made the raven flying in the air caw in dissatisfaction.

They are all ignorant, colorful little idiots; humph, besides singing well, they can't even build a good-looking bird nest.

Thinking of this, the raven remembered its own original shiny bird nest.

That was a luxurious bird nest that all the ravens on the hundreds of nearby mountain peaks envied! Bright pine resin blocks after hardening paved the floor of the nest, and it was also scattered with shiny human coins; in the center was a small pile of many beautiful Stone it had found from the cracks in the mountain rocks.

Laying bird eggs in such a luxurious and magnificent bird nest—what a wonderful thing that would be! All the female ravens would fight like crazy for it!

Thinking of this, the raven let out a happy, triumphant caw.

But soon, it became dejected.

Life was going well, and even the newly met Great Existence marveled at its bird nest, but who could have thought that those damned humans carrying curved wooden sticks not only killed its flock but also destroyed every single raven's nest.

The beautiful colored Stone were put into small wooden boxes by those humans, and the shiny human coins were also looted and put into those people's leather pockets, mixed with other equally shiny human coins.

Even the bright resin decorating the floor of its nest was pried away by those hateful humans with small knives; hateful!

The unhappy raven flapped its wings hard and flew higher; it felt angry seeing the humans below, humph, flying high up, it would be clean if it couldn't see them.

But every time it flapped its wings, it would bring about unbearable pain in the injured parts of its body.

This made it caw in pain again.

It was even angrier.

The raven flew high, still circling above the human team; at this height, relying on the humans' terrible eyesight, they couldn't see it at all even if they looked up.

This made the raven a bit happy, and with a plop, it dropped a puddle of runny feces, not knowing whose unlucky head it would land on.

This made the raven caw with a wicked laugh, and its mood seemed to improve a little.

The flock was killed, it didn't matter; with the Great Existence to rely on, it was larger, stronger, and had a better ability to find shiny things. It believed that in just a few winters, it would rebuild its luxurious bird nest and attract more female ravens to rebuild the flock.

By then, it would take revenge on those humans carrying curved wooden sticks; its memory was very good, and it remembered the face of every human who killed its flock. One day it would find them, then bring burning wooden branches and set fire to their bird nests!

Bring poisonous seeds and secretly mix them into those people's food.

Drive away the tabby cats at their dwellings, let the delicious gray-furred Jumping Mouse breed vigorously, and eat up all their food.

Use feces to dirty every one of their hats and hoods, making them so angry they wouldn't dare to go out!

Steal the shiny coins from their money bags, making the rewards for their daily labor quietly disappear.

Thinking of this wonderful revenge, the raven flying high in the sky cawed happily. Excited, it also flapped its wings, ignored the pain of its small wounds, and flew to an even higher place.

"Caw!"

Stupid humans, how can they compare to a raven that can fly to such a high place?

They still have to walk slowly on the ground; how can they compare to the powerful wings of ravens?

Their bird nests are ordinary and boring; how can they compare to the shiny bird nests of ravens?

Humans can't even catch a mouse with their own hands and have to hire those hateful tabby cats to guard their food; it's just too pathetic.

"Caw! Caw! Caw!"

The raven was extremely happy; it felt it had figured it out. Although its flock had been defeated and wiped out by humans before, its revenge would surely succeed; after all, ravens were far superior to humans in every way! Not to mention that it was now an important messenger of the Great Existence.

It is with the Great Existence!

The happy raven felt relaxed and looked around from high in the sky.

The human team on the ground had shrunk to a size smaller than ants; the long line that originally walked along the vague path looked like nothing more than this at the moment.

The nearby Shulin also became flat in its field of vision; those other tiny birds, although they had beautiful feathers, could only fly low at the height of the treetops after all. Now it could fly in such a vast high sky just like a fierce hawk or falcon.

This is natural majesty!

The raven thought so, and felt a bit stifled in its heart; it thought, in the past, was this how those hawks and falcons flying high in the sky looked at them? At that time, it felt those fierce guys were too arrogant; now, flying in such a high sky itself, it could finally personally experience the feeling of those hawks and falcons.

"In the future, I must let my flock accept the power of the Great Existence, so that everyone can fly to this height!"

It thought to itself.

Its pitch-black eyes continued to scan left and right; its enhanced vision allowed it to see a mountain leopard in the forest preparing to pounce on some birds, which made it feel a twinge of regret—those tiny, pretty birds that could only sing and catch insects were just not up to the task.

It saw a family of sharp-horned Banwen Deer lowering their heads to drink by the stream; even while drinking, they had to have companions constantly guarding the surroundings, wary of potential risks. But those foolish sharp-horned Banwen Deer did not know that a massive python was lying in ambush in the shallow stream.

The raven let out a disdainful caw; it realized that if one were on the ground, one would surely be unable to discover the python lurking in the stream, and only by flying in the air could one clearly see the python's form.

That fellow was slowly approaching that family of foolish, stupid deer; it estimated that it wouldn't be long before a thrilling scene occurred, right?

The raven was not interested in this; whether the python could catch something to eat, or whether the family of sharp-horned Banwen Deer would suffer any losses, it did not care.

Its gaze continued to move, crossing the undulating hills with large Stone ahead; not far away, there existed a tiny Human Cunzi. However, that village had long since been devoid of Humans, the farmland was abandoned, and the houses were empty.

In the streets and courtyards within the tiny village, a group of reddish-brown furred foxes, having run over from who knows where, were occupying the place, preying on the Jumping Mouse that had multiplied wildly due to the Humans' departure.

The raven felt a bit greedy, because it also quite liked eating the tiny Jumping Mouse in Human houses.

Unlike the large Caoshu that lived in the wild grass, although Jumping Mouse were smaller, in the raven's view, their tiny bodies brought a soft and delicious taste. They were also easier to prey upon, because Jumping Mouse were born in large numbers and grew fast, making them all the more foolish, and their vigilance was also very low; they would take the bait as soon as they saw food.

Even if those food traps were not set by Humans, but were set by the raven carrying seeds.

Thinking that the Human team might arrive at that village tonight, it could just happen to have a beautiful, filling meal in the village this evening or tomorrow morning.

Thinking about it this way, those jumping frogs by the small streams and rivers didn't seem quite as delicious and tasty anymore.

Having decided how to fill its stomach, the raven slightly bent its wings and its tail feathers—which were missing a piece—and rode a gust of hot air to fly higher.

Its gaze scanned the distance; there were continuous large mountains in the far east and west, so looking at it this way, the land beneath it seemed rather rare. Even for ravens, the various Monster and powerful Magic Beast in the large mountains were very dangerous.

After all, no one could say for sure whether those formidable fellows would like to eat ravens!

It had once heard some ravens that occasionally escaped from the mountains say that the Monster and Magic Beast that ran on the ground and couldn't fly were fine; these fellows generally wouldn't affect the survival and life of smart birds, and one only needed to be careful not to deliberately provoke those formidable fellows.

But occasionally, when groups of flying Monster or flying Magic Beast appeared, the birds in the large mountains would all suffer a disaster. Powerful Magic Beast that intentionally established order were fine and wouldn't kill all the birds in the Forest. But if one encountered groups of flying Monster, that would be terrible; let alone the foolish wild beasts on the ground, even the smart birds that could fly had to flee to survive.

After all, a Monster is a Monster; they were simply not something ordinary animals could deal with.

Because it had just ridden a gust of hot air to fly to a higher place, the raven saw further into the distance, even crossing the far-off large mountains with its gaze, and saw, uh, more large mountains behind the large mountains.

No, the raven turned its head toward the east, its gaze fixed on a direction in the distance.

There was a grey-black small river flowing out from the Forest; this was not the point, but looking upstream along this seemingly ominous small river, one could see that the small river flowed out from a large expanse of Forest that was right next to the mountain ridge.

This looked very ordinary, but this Forest grew right against the mountain ridge, as if it had draped a green wing over the large mountain.

And behind the seemingly towering mountain ridge, there were not more continuous mountain ridges.

The raven saw that behind that place was a gradually opening, gentle Valley. What was even more interesting was that deep in the Valley, there seemed to be smoke rising, similar to a Human Cunzi.

That place, which looked secret and not easy to reach, seemed to have signs of Human life.

This was very interesting; one had to know that not far from the Human team below, there was an uninhabited village, and the people inside had long been called elsewhere.

That place was actually not far from where the Human team had come from before, so why didn't they leave together?

The raven felt it was interesting, so it reported this matter in its heart to its Great Existence.

Soon, the raven, having received instructions from the Great Existence, changed its flight direction, no longer circling above the Human team, and instead flew toward that place.

Jier cupped his hands over his eyes, his gaze crossing a Stone hill ahead, and pointed at the map to his two companions: "Look, according to the map's instructions, behind that abrupt little Stone mountain ahead is Shichui Cunzi."

He shook his head: "Shichui Cunzi? This name is really rustic."

Bata'er Jiaoshi was a bit embarrassed: "Although the name doesn't sound good, it has always been quite good there. I remember Shichui Cunzi has unique Stone scarecrows; they weave clothes out of Wheat Straw and put them on the Stone scarecrows in the fields; it looks very interesting!"

Speaking of scarecrows, Xueya Site mysteriously lowered his voice and said to the two: "Do you know that in my hometown or somewhere, there are stories of scarecrows in the fields coming to life and turning into dangerous Monster to attack farmers?"

Jier shrugged: "I've also heard these stories in the Northwest Province. Isn't your hometown the Western Province? There should be very little farming there, right? So the prototype of this story might be the Northwest Province. Anyway, in the version of the story I heard, it was that a murder happened in the village, and the murdered person was unluckily stuffed into a scarecrow in the fields outside the village."

"First one person went missing, then more people went missing; people were afraid and panicked for a long time, until crows that liked to eat carrion landed on the scarecrows outside the village, and then it was discovered. And those scarecrows filled with Human flesh not only had eyes that emitted red light, but they would also work in the fields at night! Just like the deceased were when they were alive! Tell me, isn't that scary!"

Xueya Site looked surprised: "You're wrong about that, Jier. In places with good conditions in my hometown, they also farm. Have you forgotten the vast farmland that couldn't be seen to the end outside Montoka City? That's also the Western Province, okay? In fact, I clearly remember that when I was a child, such an incident really happened in my hometown. Of course, it wasn't anything like a scarecrow coming to life, but rather someone went missing and was discovered stuffed into the body of a scarecrow guarding the farmland."

"Yuck—" Jier made a sound of disgust, which aroused strong dissatisfaction from Xueya Site.

"Alright, alright, it sounds like the places you originally lived in were all 'exciting', but in reality, the Shichui Cunzi we are about to reach is just an ordinary village; it hasn't even been established for forty years! There are no terrible disappearances and murders there, nor are there any poor people stuffed into scarecrows who have to work after they die. I said, the scarecrows here are made of local Stone; it doesn't have a place that can be filled, okay."

"We should be able to settle down and camp in the village before dark. It just so happens that the people of Shichui Cunzi have all gone to Yemei Town to take refuge; we should be able to spend the night in the village tonight and borrow the things that are already in the village."

Bata'er Jiaoshi said with a smile on his face.

Jier shrugged, looking indifferent, but he complained in a low voice: "The team's speed has slowed down these past two days, Priest; you know the reason. I've heard people complaining about this behind their backs more than once."

Bata'er Jiaoshi looked helpless: "Sorry, Warrior Jier, they have caused trouble for everyone."

Jier shook his finger: "This isn't something that can be solved with a 'sorry'. Those people are different from everyone else in the team, and people have a lot of opinions. You know, everyone—I mean most of the people in the team—they are fleeing from their hometowns all over the place and don't have any belongings on them. And those wealthy Nongshen Believer, heh, it's not for me to say, but aren't they really not bothered by the weight of the luggage they're carrying these past two days?"

The Priest looked troubled and sat on the carriage, silent for a long while: "Perhaps I can let them find a place to bury and hide their luggage and valuables?"

Xueya Site added: "This is a good method. I think it's best to solve this matter as soon as possible."

Jier had also wanted to interject a few words, but suddenly, the Da Niao Mujiao that hadn't spoken to him for many days had the ancient god inside suddenly speaking to him with a brazen face.

"Caw caw, Human, how has your situation been lately?"

Jier, riding on horseback, saw this and signaled to his two companions without changing his expression, indicating that he was going to circle around the team to take a look. The two companions waved at him, so Jier flicked the Jiansheng and nudged the horse's belly, letting Tianxuecao leave the crowd.

Only then did Jier laugh in a low voice and mock: "Look who this is? Ah, it's the silent excellent god, the pitch-black wings that don't keep their word, the wilderness protector of who knows what? Ah, sorry, I don't remember your name; can you tell me again? Ha, I've seen through the 'deal with a god' or whatever. This thing is completely a one-sided deal, because no matter what I do, I can't do anything about a god who breaks the agreement, right?"

The Da Niao Mujiao god remained silent.

Subsequently, continuous loud cawing bird calls rang out in Jier's ears.

The god was furious.

It hadn't been mocked to its face like this for at least a thousand years!