The Great Worm Lich

Unlike the choice that the enthusiastic juveniles made, the few cunning old men on board among the passengers wisely refused to disembark the ship, giving the reason of being physically exhausted after being overwhelmed by the shipwreck. However, they did not show any objection against the rule of having their meal restricted for their choice of staying onboard.

Naturally, Lisheng also did not choose to run into the unknown forest to cut wood as well. Tina and Trish had witnessed the young man’s powerful strength before so they did not have any objection to his choice.

Sheila, on the other hand, had only seen Zhang Lisheng hugging a huge toad that automatically leaped into his embrace and how mysterious he was in doing his deeds.

Seeing him sitting on the side of the ship wrapped in a blanket while watching the others disembarking in a daze, she could not help but whisper, “Even Walter also limped down to look for wood but to think that this person who’s completely healthy is sitting here doing nothing. Speaking of Walter, I forgot to ask you, Trish. Why isn’t he with you?”

Upon hearing her words, Trish was stunned for a moment before hastily looking at the crowds disembarking the cruise ship along the suspension ladder. As expected, she saw Walter disembarking the ship with crooked steps and a twitching facial expression.

Horror dawned on the girl’s expression and she seemed to want to shout out loud, but in the end, her mouth remained shut as she lowered her head.

Tina, on the other hand, hastily covered her best friend’s mouth. “Sheila, shut up…”

“There are two reasons for them to be willing to look for wood. One, it’s because these people have no idea just how terrifying the word ‘unknown’ is; while, second, other than looking for wood, they don’t have any other way to survive. As for me, on the other hand, it’s completely different. Don’t worry, Tina. I won’t get mad at your best friend because of such trivial matters. However, if she continues to spout nonsense, then she’d have to be mentally prepared to become somebody’s poop if we encounter the dangers like we did with the Amazon cannibal tribe during these next few days.” Staring at the distant forest, Zhang Lisheng chimed in without turning his head.

“Urghh, don’t say something like that, baby. I promise that Sheila would never say anything nonsensical anymore..”

When Sheila heard Zhang Lisheng’s disgusting description that had a purpose of eliciting fears that far outweighed a threat, as expected, her face became flushed red. Tina, on the other hand, still had her palm covering her mouth tightly, causing her to be unable to spout any word of protest at all.

As for the young man, he merely ignored Sheila and stared intently at the midgets who suddenly returned to the shore while pulling multiple thick vines from the distant forest.

When the sailors and passengers saw the midgets that walked out of the forest one by one, they became nervous right away.

Despite wanting to interact with these aborigines of a different world just now, when they saw the wrinkled folds on their dark brown skin and the sharp array of beast-like teeth in their cracked big mouths from a close distance, many people could not help but clench their fists, becoming vigilant thanks to their survival instincts.

“Don’t be nervous, these aborigines don’t have any malicious intent towards us. Let us not go into the woods for the time being and just stay here at the same spot for now. I’ll go talk to their leader and see.” Upon sensing the tension forming in the atmosphere, the old Captain Fjodna yelled out loud.

Then, he began to move step by step towards the midget who had a feather stuck on his head. Flashing a smile, he moved and gestured with his hand at a slow speed, hoping that he would not create any misunderstanding.

“Hello, we’re a group of shipwreck victims and our ship is stuck between the two giant stone pillars there. We don’t mean any harm and we just want to look for wood from the forest to make fire…”

The aborigines’ leader looked at Fjodna who was gesturing and suddenly pointed at the distant place where the captain was standing a while ago before starting to dance around, waving his hand while yelling out loud, “ooohh ahhh —”.

“Y-You want me to go back?” Fjodna pondered about it for a moment before turning around to go back. “You want me to go back?”

“Aaauuu —” The midget nodded his head continuously. His action intensified as he kept pointing towards the distant place where the captain stood a while ago.

“A-Alright, I’ll go back. I’ll go back there and we can continue to talk some more afterward.” Fjodna, who had spent a long time in Africa, knew that these aborigines who seemingly looked as though they belonged to a primitive society actually had many quirks that many modern people could not understand. Slowly, he walked back to the position where he was standing a while ago.

The aborigines’ leader did not chase him as he watched the old captain’s walk to the distant place he pointed. Instead, he commanded his men to run down towards the nine rope loop twined by vines on the three stone pillars not far away from the shore.

Then, he proceeded to lead all of the aborigines to pray on the three sand pits that had a diameter of 50 centimeters opposite the stone pillars, before commanding the midgets to use the vines to make a border around a large sandy area by the sea. He then told them to move four giant stone mortars from the forest to place them at the four corners of the sandy area.

After finishing all of this, the several hundred midgets surrounded the sandy area that was surrounded by the vines. Eighteen of them, who appeared to be the strongest, walked into the sandy area excitedly and began to compete for the rattan ball the aborigines’ leader had just woven briskly with his hands.

When the sailors and passengers on the Elizabeth Holiday watched the indigenous midgets do their own things and end up seeing this unexpected and peculiar scene, they could not help but become stunned in unison before somebody burst out in laughter. “These aborigines are going to perform the original football game for us! My god, I can’t believe that we’d get to watch a live broadcast of a football game in a different world too!”

Somebody even took this opportunity to show off his profound knowledge. “Looks like they must have regarded us as their God. Just like how the ancient Greek people held sports games beneath the Olympic Mountains that numerous legendary Gods lived, they wanted to play a match of football to make us happy!”

The old captain Fjodna was not as relaxed as the other people. Because of the blind spots caused by the two giant stone pillars in the ocean, he had neglected the three relatively small stone pillars on the shore.

Now that he noticed them, taking a closer look, he realized that the carvings on the small stone pillars were similar to the giant pillars in the ocean. Two of them must have some connections with each other.

However, just this alone was not enough to make Fjodna feel nervous. Among everybody present, only Zhang Lisheng knew what would happen next by looking at the loops of rope the aborigines tied on the stone pillars.

When he saw the midgets start playing the football game, he pondered for a moment before kindly warning Tina, “Tina, after the midgets finish their football game, you, Trish and Sheila better shut your eyes if you’re afraid.”

“What?”

“I have a feeling that something strange and horrifying would take place afterward. If all of you are afraid, just close your eyes.”

“You’re deliberately making things appear more mystifying,” Sheila, who was by the side, pouted and muttered to herself when she heard Zhang Lisheng’s explanation.

“Don’t throw a tantrum, Sheila. It’s better for us to listen to Lisheng at such a strange place. In fact, such things like these in the perspective of a primitive religion is extremely horrifying. When I was still a child, I heard many horrifying stories from the wet nurses when I was at a church school in California.”

“Trish, those nuns were brainwashing you…”

“What are you talking about, Sheila!”

Criticizing the nun for no reason was equivalent to blaspheming the church. After Sheila realized that she said something she should not have, she quickly apologized, “Uh, uh I’m sorry my dear. I didn’t mean that. In fact, I also believe in God…”

As the two girls were conversing with each other, the football game of the indigenous midgets escalated to a more aggressive playstyle. The physical struggling as they fought for the rattan ball at first had now started to become gory.

The sailors and passengers of the Elizabeth Holiday could not differentiate the midgets from one another. They only saw 18 midgets beginning to attack their opponents in a relentless manner. All of a sudden, a seemingly sturdy midget took hold of the rattan ball and kicked the leg of a seemingly skinny midget until it became fractured.

When the injured midget howled in pain as his left leg bent into a v-shape, the sturdy midget took a few strides forward to one of the stone mortars and slammed the rattan ball into it.

This seemed to be a goal. After he had completed this action, the sturdy midget began to howl loudly towards the sky in a berserk manner. His other teammates also shouted and yelled as they prostrated themselves on the ground, worshipping the sky.

Upon seeing this scene, the sailors and the passengers who were originally watching the aborigines’ football match with ease suddenly had horrified expressions on their faces. Not long after, they also saw a more absurd scene — the midget, whose leg was broken, howled for a moment before standing up again, leaping around one-legged with the help of his companions and started to fight for the rattan ball once more.

Harry, who finally understood what the captain meant by “their thinking might be bizarre and is completely different from our logical way of thinking”, whispered, “Sir, I don’t know what are in the midgets’ mind, shall er…”

“Tell the security to unlock the safety pin of the gun but they shall not act rashly without my order!”

“Yes, sir!”

At this side, the Elizabeth Holiday’s Captain ordered the first officer to tell the security to be on guard while on the other side, the indigenous midgets’ crazy football game continued. Not only that, the scene of hardcore body collisions began to increase as well. In the end, this gory game finally came to an end when one team had finally slammed the rattan ball into the stone mortars for the ninth time.

Most of the members of the losing team had now become physically crippled. After they lost the battle, they became dispirited and depressed before supporting each other to leave the football field made from vines in a rolling and crawling manner.

Right now, the victorious side was also covered in a mass of bruises but they looked extremely proud. Under the “oooh luuuu oooh luuu…” shouts of several hundreds of their compatriots, they kneeled on the middle of the football field, not before running one round around the football field with all their might.

The aborigine, who slammed the rattan ball in the stone mortar the most, suddenly made a V-shaped gesture with his fingers and raised it up to the sky. A loud New York boy in the distance commented, “The hell?! Does that midget even know the sign of victory? Don’t tell me that he’s from New Yo…”

In the midst of the untimely joke of the boy, the midget suddenly inserted his erected fingers into his eyes.

With a light swipe, he poked and dug his watery eyes out as white and black water started to gush out from the eye sockets.

“Urghh! Urghh! Urghh! Urghh! Urghh! Urghh!” Even though the girls on the deck of the ship were far away, they could not help but scream in shock maniacally. Some of the girls even fainted at the instant they saw it happening.

Tina hugged Zhang Lisheng immediately with her body trembling entirely. “Lisheng, it’s too horrifying! It’s too horrifying!”

Trish had also unknowingly leaned onto the young man with colors drained from her face. Clenching her teeth, she forced her trembling body to stay still as she squatted beside Zhang Lisheng.