The Strange Totem Pillar
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Meng Chao continued forward.
The next "relief" presented a rather peculiar content.
If the previous "reliefs" roughly told what the ancient Turan people had thought and done, the content of this "relief" was puzzling and even creepy.
The "relief" had the peak of the Holy Mountain as its background, and countless Turan orcs were kneeling on the ground and worshipping.
The object they worshipped was neither a god nor a spaceship that transported them to this planet. Instead, it was a huge pillar.
No, calling it a "pillar" was not too accurate.
It was a huge cylindrical creature.
There were tentacles on something that was more than 30 to 50 meters in diameter and could barely be called a trunk.
The tentacles were covered with suckers.
The suckers were filled with sharp fangs.
Between the wildly waving tentacles were the limbs of a large number of creatures — from the strong claws of jackals, wolves, tigers, and leopards to the hard hooves of bulls, boars, elephants, and war horses, and the wings of falcons to soar into the sky, and even the long, thin, razor-sharp blades of insects and arthropods.
In addition to the limbs, there was also the head.
This extremely strange giant creature seemed to have a hundred heads — lion’s head, Tiger’s head, Wolf’s head, Ox’s head, elephant’s head, of course, it also included the heads of birds, rodents, arthropods, and even insects.
All the heads were in a form that made one’s scalp tingle. They were glued to the cylindrical body that was constantly moving and sucking.
As the body trembled, all the heads rotated together. From time to time, they opened their bloody mouths and let out loud and sharp howls. They even started to bite each other.
Of course, there were eyes.
All the heads had eyes.
The red and blue eyes of the wolves, tigers, and leopards were filled with endless killing intent.
The compound eyes of the insects.
The sharp eyes of the Falcons.
The compound eyes of the reptiles.
There were also the visual organs of the sea creatures that could function normally in the absence of light, which were completely different from those of land animals.
Even in the densely-packed folds of the cylindrical body, where there was no head, there would often be three to five weird eyes that would spin randomly, emitting a soul-stirring light.
The strangest thing was that a cluster of enormous plants grew on the head of the cylindrical creature.
It was hard to tell whether it was a giant tree that was deformed and twisted, or a giant man-eating flower that was covered in a large number of fungus blankets.
All in all, a large number of strips that looked like branches and vines hung down from the head of the monster. Together with its tentacles, they wound around the bodies of countless tulan orcs who were worshipping it.
The Tulan Orcs who were entangled by the monster did not show any pain at all. Instead, they narrowed their eyes and revealed joy, as if they were enjoying the supreme glory and abundant strength.
Because a large amount of bioelectricity was still surging into Meng Chao’s body through the relief sculpture.
The information that Meng Chao received was far more complicated than what was described in words.
It was as if he had truly seen such a mysterious existence. It appeared in front of him, blinking its thousands of strange eyes and waving its countless tentacles, dancing and summoning him.
He knew that this monster was extremely ugly and weird, but he felt like he was stuck in a whirlpool and couldn’t extricate himself. He had the urge to worship the Tulan Beastmen from nearly ten thousand years ago and accept the monster’s control.
Meng Chao had experienced similar urges when he encountered the demon God ‘wisdom tree’and the main brain of the monster in the hidden fog
Although the urge at that time was a hundred times weaker than it was now.
It was like he had been injected with a ‘mental virus’vaccine. He was filled with vigilance and resistance to the scene in front of him.
A bolt of lightning flashed across Meng Chao’s entire neural network.
He shivered deeply and regained his consciousness.
Meng Chao hurriedly pulled out his feet from the ‘relief sculpture’.
Looking at the slightly protruding and dancing ball, he took a deep breath, calmed himself down, and said in a low voice, "What on Earth is this thing?"
"This is the most ancient totem pole of Tu Lan Ze, and also the symbol of the ancestral spirits. It is said that before the ancestral spirits fell into this world, but shuttled through the Sea of stars, they looked exactly like this — in other words, this is the true appearance of the Tu Lan People!"
The Wolf King’s gaze was deep, and it was not known whether it was envy or awe as he spoke, "A temperament that is more savage than a lion or a tiger; a strength that is more savage than a giant elephant; a vision that is sharper than a falcon; the bat-like ability to map the terrain through sound; the Chameleon’s ability to change the color of its skin according to the environment and enter an invisible state; the octopus’s ability to twist its body as it pleases and escape through incomparably narrow crevices; and the sea cucumber and starfish’s incredible self-repair ability..
"Our oldest ancestors were able to combine the abilities of all animals, some plants, and some fungi into one. That was the most perfect and powerful creation in the world.
"Unfortunately, when they passed through the Sea of stars, their ancestors encountered a terrible storm.
"Every shining star in the night sky was a burning grain of sand in the storm.
"Falling Star City, which fell into the Stardust Storm, was almost torn into pieces like a dried leaf that was sucked into a vortex.
"Most of the ancestors’bodies were torn, invaded, and penetrated by the storm. Even if they were lucky enough to survive, most of their strength was taken away by the storm.
"When the ancestors finally found this place, the only safe haven in the endless storm, and tried to land and live in a new home, they were hit by the earth-shattering impact and stuck in the rock stratum. They were faced with the problem of insufficient resources.
"Out of desperation, the ancestors could only seal most of their power inside the totem pillar.
"Only a small part of their power could be compressed into the form of a totem and implanted into their own bodies.
"Such a totem was even split into five. That was the origin of the five major clans.
"From then on, a warrior of Tulan would no longer be able to activate the characteristics of all animals, some plants, and some fungi.
"Wolves, tigers, leopards, pigs, dogs, cows, sheep, snakes, insects, rats, and ants were all clearly distinguished.
"Even if a mixed-blood possesses the characteristics of two or three clans at the same time, he can only cast certain totems, or at most, the power limited by two or three totems. Once too many totems are superimposed on his body, he will lose control and become a deformed monster, or even explode and die.
"Of course, I believe that as long as we find the oldest ‘Totem pillar’, we will be able to solve this problem perfectly.
"Think about it, if your body can accommodate all the totems of the five great clans and change as you wish, displaying the characteristics of any living creature, coupled with tens or even hundreds of layers of totem battle armor, then how strong will you be?"
Wolf King’s words made Meng Chao’s face full of question marks.
His intuition told him that if Wolf King did not lie to him, someone had lied to Wolf King and all the Tulan people.
An individual of a high-level civilization that had the ability to charge out of the mother planet and undertake interstellar travel was destined to not have to display all the characteristics of animals and plants, combining the "Eyes of an eagle, the strength of a bear, and the speed of a leopard"together, to become the "Most perfect carbon-based creature.".
The Tulan civilization had words, language, and thousands of individuals.
They also needed extremely sturdy spaceships to be able to perform space jumps and travel to the stars.
And their advanced technology in the fields of materials science and architecture.
They also followed the same path as the Earth Civilization: Social Division of Labor, group cooperation, large industry, high technology, and information technology.
They could build skyscrapers and even spaceships with liquid metal materials, yet they were still chasing after the abilities of wolves, tigers, leopards, pigs, dogs, cows, sheep, snakes, rats, ants, and even octopuses, sea cucumbers, and mantis shrimps?
Wasn’t this a complete reversal? Wasn’t it too laughable?
"No matter how the body of flesh and blood is strengthened, there is a limit. The limit is likely to be decided when the first cell is born, or even when the first cluster of amino acids is synthesized.
"To say the least, even if we really want to walk the path of ‘Flesh and blood strengthening’, it is not something that can be achieved simply by violently fusing the obvious characteristics of countless creatures into one.
"From the fact that the form of the Tulan people and the Earthlings are so close, and that the Tulan people can even intermarry with the holy light humans without any reproductive barriers, the oldest Tulan people should be roughly in the form of humans. They belong to the category of primates, or at least mammals, and not a totem pole condensed from flesh and blood — such a strange appearance.
"This thing is definitely not the ancestor of the Tulan people.
"However, it is similar to the ‘incubating pool’that the mother used to produce a large number of monsters on the ancient battlefield.
"During the difficult period when the Tulan civilization had just transmigrated to another world and was on the verge of destruction, what role did this damn thing play exactly?"
Meng Chao’s thoughts raced.
However, he realized that he had reached the end of the ‘relief sculpture’.
The fluctuations of the ‘relief sculpture’were getting more and more intense, like boiling mercury.
Countless liquid metal substances were surging toward the end of the ‘relief sculpture’from his feet, which was what the Wolf King called the ‘Totem Pillar’.
The ‘relief sculpture’that had freed the thing from the two-dimensional plane was like a giant statue that was slowly emerging from the deep sea, standing in front of Meng Chao and the Wolf King!