Three days later, a seriously injured Yan Yong returned to his tribe and woke up all the hibernating rockmen.
“A male immortal is here, he is a demon, he wanted to enslave all of us!”
“Not only this, he also wanted to take away the beautiful men of our rockmen tribe, to become his plaything.”
“We rockmen are born of nature, free and unfettered, how could we bow our backs to such lecherous authority?”
“We resisted at the spot. The immortal was too strong, but we rockmen were not afraid of sacrificing and fought him without fearing death; finally, we injured him and beat him into retreat.”
“The other tribesmen were all sacrificed and only I was able to return. I am dying but that immortal is still alive. Before he ran away, he said he will lead his fox army and annihilate all our rockmen tribes!”
Yan Yong weakly lamented, announcing a frightening information to his tribesmen.
The rockmen were shocked and afraid, grieving and also furious; some declared war, some wanted revenge, some mentioned migrating and some wanted to discuss.
They had become lost their bearings without a leader; whether it was the inheritor or the old tribe leader, they had all died at Fang Yuan’s hands. There were altogether eight tribes of rockmen and they had fallen into chaos now.
Some rockmen wanted to get the concrete details from Yan Yong, but Yan Yong’s injuries were too severe, and after informing them of this grievous news, he lost consciousness.
While they were still in the midst of discussing, just like Yan Yong said, waves after waves of fox groups started attacking rockmen tribes.
The rockmen resisted with all their strength, but there were way too many fox groups; the situation was gradually turning grave, the eight tribes had no choice but to ally and retreat underground to defend themselves.
However, the fox groups did not let them go and repeatedly attacked the underground. The fox groups paid a disastrous price every time they attacked, but they still came endlessly.
The rockmen cursed Fang Yuan, their hatred towards him were like a inferno that could not be extinguished. The situation became worse day by day and despair spread in the hearts of the rockmen.
However, right at this time, Yan Yong woke up.
Rockmen could recuperate from their injuries through sleep; his injuries had healed for the most part. He immediately led the rockmen and made beautiful counterattacks.
“We rockmen are a courageous group with no fear of death!”
“Even the immortal cannot humiliate us!”
Yan Yong announced to everyone and raised their morale.
“Don’t think the immortal is strong, he is only a paper tiger and can only send these fox groups to their death, he is already injured.”
At the same time, he proclaimed the injuries of the immortal and gave hope to the rockmen.
The despairing rockmen tightly grabbed onto this hope like it was a straw that could save them as they were drowning.
Yan Yong changed the subject and talked about the old tribe leaders.
“He was injured by the combined efforts of the old tribe leaders, the sacrifice of the old tribe leaders is our greatest grief.”
“Especially the old white rock tribe leader, his life ended as he was in my arms, before he died he entrusted the whole tribe to me. I looked as his soul dispersed, and felt ashamed, why wasn’t it me who died, but him!” He beat his chest as he said this, appearing to be extremely sad.
Immediately, some rockmen persuaded: “Lord Yan Yong, don’t grieve. It is already very amazing you were able to survive and bring us the warning, even leading us towards victory.”
“That’s right, we iron rockmen all admire you.”
“Since the old tribe leader entrusted the tribe to you, then please lead us white rockmen.”
What rockmen liked was to sleep soundly and were not too obsessed with authority. Especially, at this juncture of life and death where they were living in anxiety, the rockmen hoped for a strong and brave rockman to lead them.
Thereupon, Yan Yong first inherited his tribe’s tribe leader position and then white rock tribe.
Over a month later, he got hold of the remaining tribes one after another, becoming the joint leader of the eight rockmen tribes.
Another half a month passed, he led the rockmen and drove out the fox groups, protecting his tribes.
“This is not enough. As long as the immortal doesn’t die, we have no future. The fox groups will regroup and attack our home again.”
“We can only attack, attack that immortal mountain and completely kill the immortal for a beautiful and peaceful life.”
Yan Yong immediately mentioned attacking Dang Hun mountain.
Some rockmen, however, seemed to hesitate.
“We have just suffered such a bitter battle, we just want to sleep now.”
“Our rockmen population has decreased greatly, we don’t have the strength to attack that demonic stronghold.”
“We have large numbers of offsprings born from this bitter battle, we need to raise them properly till they become adults.”
Yan Yong could only shift the topic to the old white rock tribe leader.
“My tribesmen, will I bring you to your deaths?”
“Attacking the immortal mountain was not my idea. It was a secret the old white rock tribe leader told me before his death.”
“He said this immortal mountain is the legendary Dang Hun mountain. Dang Hun mountain has gutstones, if our rockmen can obtain these gutstones, it can increase our strength and make our tribes stronger!”
The old white rock tribe leader was the oldest and the most experienced rockman. He was widely known by the rockmen as the sage.
With his ‘last words’ along with Yan Yong’s clear might, the rockmen were agitated and formed an expedition to attack Dang Hun mountain.
Fang Yuan had intentionally arranged some fox groups around Dang Hun mountain, forming a weak defensive line.
Yan Yong continually boosted the rockmen’s morale: “See, there is not much left of the demonic immortal’s fox army. We are already close to victory.”
The rockmen sang of victory and triumph along the way, charging toward Dang Hun mountain with uplifted morale.
At Dang Hun mountain, Fang Yuan appeared with a group of foxes and fought a ‘great battle’ with the rockmen.
Fang Yuan showed terrifying strength and killed many rockmen, causing all the rockmen to be terrified.
But at this moment, Yan Yong stood up and pointed to Fang Yuan’s injuries and his paper tiger ‘immortal essence’, and fought a ‘decisive battle’ with him.
The fox groups were eliminated, as Fang Yuan was ‘defeated’, forced to escape from Yan Yong’s assault.
“Wait till I come back after gathering immortal essence from the water and fire! That moment will be your end!” Before retreating, Fang Yuan shouted loudly with a malevolent expression.
Rockmen had rough physique and their movements were slow, and not being familiar with Dang Hun mountain’s terrain, they could only let Fang Yuan ‘escape’.
The rockmen worshipped Yan Yong for beating back the immortal and cheered victoriously.
“My tribesmen, now is not the time to cheer.” Yan Yong stood up, “We can’t stay on Dang Hun mountain for long, this is a demonic land. The old white rock tribe leader had told me, every year only during these few days, we rockmen can enter this place safely. We need to hurry and collect the gutstones here. Three days later, we need to leave this place!”
Their bodies were made of solid rock. There was a burden on their soul to hold up such a strong and firm body. If the rockmen moved too excessively, it could harm their soul.
Thus, rockmen would spend eighty percent of their whole life sleeping and nurturing their soul.
When the foundation of their soul was thick enough, it would leak out. This overflowing part of the soul would fall on a rock and form a new life. Rockmen tribes reproduce like this.
After the rockmen obtained the gutstones, the guts Gu could strengthen and expand their soul, causing the soul to overflow and form little rockmen.
Three days later, inside the mountain, in Dang Hun palace.
Yan Yong kneeled on the ground and reported with reverence and fear as he lowered his head and bowed: “Reporting to the immortal, with these three days of soul strengthening, our rockmen tribes have increased by six thousand little rockmen. Including us old tribesmen, the whole population has increased to three times the population before the battle!”
Fang Yuan was sitting grandly on the fluffy bed and looked down at Yan Yong.
“Good, with this, your rockmen have enough manpower to start the river construction. Next, you remember what to do, right? Or do you need me to tell you again?”
Yan Yong promptly replied: “Supreme immortal, I did not dare to forget your words and have engraved them in my mind.”
“Good.” Fang Yuan nodded indifferently, “I will give you three months of time to dig a great river that cuts across the eastern and northern areas.”
“Ah, three months?” Yan Yong was stupefied, “Mighty immortal, us rockmen need sleep to nurture our souls. If we move excessively, we will tire ourselves to death. The great river is so long, and with only three months of time, we would have not be able to have any rest. If we work like this, our rockmen tribes will probably die out.”
“Hehehe, you won’t die completely. I have already calculated, there will be over two hundred rockmen remaining.” Fang Yuan laughed.
Yan Yong felt a chill in his body. There were ten thousand rockmen now, but there would only be over two hundred after the project. How terrifying of a sacrifice was this?
“Three months later, I want to see a great river! If I don’t see it, I will tell the truth to your tribesmen before I kill you. Now roll away.” Fang Yuan’s tone was cold and unfeeling.
Yan Yong’s body trembled all over hearing this demonic threat.
He had a very deep fear towards Fang Yuan and did not dare to retort, his body curled up into a ball and surprising, he really rolled away.
“Master, we paid a huge price back then to bring in these rockmen.” The little Hu Immortal land spirit tactfully persuaded, she could not endure seeing such a huge amount of rockmen dying like this.
“Don’t worry, the rockmen has still a great use to me. And isn’t it easy to increase their population?” Fang Yuan leaned on a chair with his eyes squinting as he took out a burial soul toad from his aperture.
Burial soul toad was a rank four Gu used to store things. It was one of the Gu worms left by the Hu Immortal.
It was palm sized big and was grey color. There were small warts all over its back and its large eyes flashed with weird and gloomy green light.
It could only store souls and its belly would inflate as it sucked in the souls.
Fang Yuan used this to collect the souls of the rockmen who died in the battle with the fox groups.
Now, this soul burial toad’s belly was deflated. The souls that were inside it before were placed on Dang Hun mountain by Fang Yuan to breed new gutstones.
Fang Yuan used a part of the gutstones to make his soul six times stronger than that of a normal person.
And the remaining gutstones were given to the rockmen tribes.
The rockmen had no idea, the strengthening of their souls was all due to the death of their companions.