The Magus Era

The western side of Liang Zhu City, in a middle of a turbid, rapidly flowing river, a stone island was shrouded in dense watery mist. The small island was over twenty miles long, and the widest area had reached seven to eight miles. Based on the geographic feature of the island, a weirdly-shaped castle was built on it. Over ten towers with pointed tops stood in the castle that looked like finger bones of corpses, pointing directly at the sky.

East, south, north and west, a military camp was built in each direction around the castle. In the middle of each military camp was a nine-hundred-meter tall divine tower, with a blood-red erectly eye slowly rotating above it. The eye was releasing waves of ripples, scanning across the ground and monitoring the entire area.

In the middle section of a tower in the castle, Di Luolang sat in a small cell with a deathly pale face in a daze. He was looking at a flying bird beyond the river surface, through the fist-sized ventilated window.

Puff! A red ripple flashed across the air when the bird was still around a mile away from the tall fence wall of the castle. The strong electric bolts released from the red ripple struck the bird into a wisp of smoke, only leaving a few broken feathers rolling in the air and being blown far away by the wind.

Di Luolang quivered slightly. From this poor bird, he seemed to see his own tragic fate.

"I’m so stupid...I shouldn’t have come back." murmured Di Luolang, "Why did I come back to Liang Zhu? Bloody Dishi Cha, he pushed all blame on us. Back then, why didn’t I strangle him to death when he was born?"

Pasted on Di Luolang’s forehead was a foot-long, extremely thin and nearly transparent magic talisman, that was made from the softest leather that came from flood-dragons’ abdomens, and was crafted with a special method. Especially thin beaks of black light spurted out from the talisman, covering Di Luolang’s face just like a large spider net.

Di Luolang’s spirit magic eye was sealed, which disabled him from casting any magic or activating his power. Yu Clan nobles had always been living a high-quality life, which made their bodies fragile and vulnerable. In this heavily guarded prison, Di Luolang didn’t have even a slight chance of escaping.

As an elder of Di Family, Di Luolang was given special treatment. Even though he was now a prisoner, the strict hierarchy of the non-humankind still worked on him. Di Luolang could have a single cell in this tower, with ‘fresh air’ and a ‘good view’. This single cell could contain nothing more than a single bed, but at least from normal standards, this was indeed a special treatment.

Under this castle was an enormous underground prison with complicated structures. Tens of thousands of Di Family people were kept in that place, without being able to see the daylight. All Di Luolang’s direct descendants were kept in prison too.

"How much time do I have left?" Di Luolang gnashed his teeth and counted with his fingers, "According to the tradition of our Yu Clan, since we have taken all the blames, we need to be killed and silenced as soon as possible to kill all possibilities of any change."

"That means, we don’t have much time left. They will choose a good date to execute all of us...Of course, in order to drain the last bit of value of us, which is also one of those good traditions of our kind — To drain the last little bit of value to us that is not even worth mentioning, I assume we will be used as blood offerings!"

"I, Di Luolang, an elder of Di Family, a descendant of the great Emperor Dishi Luotian, as a possessor of the noble bloodline of Emperor Dishi Luotian, I have actually fallen to this point! Be used as a blood offering! Blood offering, damn it! I will be used as a blood offering, just like those lowly slaves and animals!"

Di Luolang’s face even turned purple because of the anger. He hysterically clenched his fist and fiercely smashed on the wall.

"Ah! My hand!" A dim stream of light flashed across the stone wall. Next, a large area of Di Luolang’s skin was scratched off, making him hold his fist with the other hand and squat on the ground while tears gushed out from his eye sockets without his control.

There was a tiny window on the wooden door of this cell, through which, a silhouette suddenly showed up outside and looked into the cell.

Di Luolang loosened his clenched fist, slightly coughed and stood up. He dragged his long crumpled robe and tried quite hard to make himself look like an elder of a large family. "What do you want?" Looking at the man outside the door, Di Luolang asked in a cold voice.

"Elder Di Luolang?" An oily voice came in.

Di Luolang’s look slightly changed. He hurriedly took two steps forward and put his eyes near the tiny window on the door, looked outside. The man standing outside in the narrow corridor was a Yu Clan young man with a luxurious outfit.

Through generations of bloodline majorization, many of Yu Clan people were beautiful and handsome, with tall and slim bodies. However, the Yu Clan young man standing outside the door of Di Luolang’s cell was around a foot shorter than the other Yu Clan young men. Besides, he was in a bigger size than the others, and even his face looked slightly fat. Among Yu Clan nobles, who regarded appearances as rather important, this young man would certainly be isolated and despised.

Di Luolang knew this guy. This Yu Clan young man came from a low-grade small noble family, and wasn’t too powerful at all. Their family members were mostly working for large noble families as officers or as business managers in territories of powerful landlords. They would also do some other assistant works for a living.

To top-grade large and powerful families like Di Family, the family of this Yu Clan young man was just like every other insignificant thing, that could be wiped out with a single word. If Di Luolang didn’t misremember it, this Yu Clan young man once proposed to a distant descendant of his. That distant descendant was a daughter of a great-grandson of his, who was not valued by Di Luolang, and the girl was mothered by a lowly maid.

Because of her family background and bloodline, this girl was no different from maids and servants among all Di Luolang’s descendants. But still, Di Luolang rejected the proposal of the Yu Clan young man without any hesitation, and had used the power of his family to lay some suppression, which was not great, or easy, to the young man’s family.

"It’s you...Your name..." Di Luolang remembered this ‘ugly’ face, but he didn’t remember his name.

"Gru." The Yu Clan young man smiled in an oily way and said, "I, lowly Gru, come to show my respect to you, dear Lord Di Luolang. Ah, how’s the condition of this cell? This crappy cell indeed suits you." chuckling, Gru took a glance at the guard, who was at the other end of the corridor, then lowered his voice and continued, "Dear Elder, do you remember Di Wu, your favorite granddaughter? What a noble young lady, what a beautiful girl. I, came to take her away."

Di Luolang’s face twitched suddenly.

Di Wu was the youngest daughter of Di Luolang’s favorite son. Her mother possessed a noble bloodline from Yemo Family of the Dark Sun. Therefore, Di Wu had the noblest bloodline among all Di Luolang’s descendants, because of which, she surely earned the most concern and love from Di Luolang.

"We, twelve poor guys who have been admiring Miss Di Wu, we pooled a sum of money." said Gru while showing a nasty smile and provokingly looking at Di Luolang’s twisted face, "It’s a considerable sum of money. Therefore, the manager of this place has decided that Miss Di Wu died because of a serious disease, as she couldn’t adapt the extreme condition of this prison."

"We will treat Miss Di Wu well." Gru even trembled in excitement. He looked at Di Luolang and growled deeply word by word with a creepy voice, as if he was casting the evilest curse.

"Believe us, we will love her so much, and we will even take turns to love her!"

Di Luolang’s face turned even paler, but he couldn’t say anything.