Chapter 491: The Great Shaman Of The Borderlands [Part 1]

I wasn’t born in the Borderlands.

Starting from the western part of the continent, I simply traveled the world, hoping to find a purpose in life.

In my earliest memories, I was a slave. But I was lucky. On the way to the city where I should’ve been sold, a group of bandits attacked the caravan.

Just like that, I was free.

Perhaps out of pity, the bandit leader took the young me in. Little did I know that I was wrong.

Bringing me was not out of mercy. He simply wanted entertainment for him and his men.

From then on, I was subjected to torture, humiliation, and all sorts of cruelty that no child should have to endure.

They would beat me whenever they were in a bad mood, force me to perform ridiculous tasks, and laugh whenever I failed to meet their expectations.

Sometimes, they would leave me tied to a tree overnight, just to see if I could survive the cold. At other times, they would throw me into a pit and make me fight against wild animals for their amusement.

And whenever I begged them to stop, they would only laugh harder.

To them, I wasn’t a human.

I was a mere toy. One they could break whenever they pleased.

At first, I cried every night. I would curl up in a corner, hug my knees, and desperately wish for someone to come and save me.

But no one came.

Soon, days turned into weeks, and then weeks turned into months. Eventually, I stopped crying. I stopped begging. I even stopped hoping that someone would come to my rescue.

After all, what good was hope? It only made the disappointment hurt even more.

As time passed, I learned to endure their beatings, anticipate their whims, and obey their orders before they could find another excuse to punish me.

I thought if I became useful enough to them, they might finally treat me like a human being.

But that never came.

And finally... I broke.

I had no recollection of that day. I had no idea what happened. All I knew was that when I regained my senses, the bandit camp was no more.

The smell of something burning reached my nose.

The smell of burning wood... as well as the smell of burning flesh.

All around me, body parts were scattered left and right.

The scene made my stomach churn, and I threw up everything inside my stomach.

The bodies around me looked like they had been torn limb by limb by a beast. The sheer brutality of it all was too much for me to bear, so I fainted on the spot.

I woke up a few hours later, still thinking everything must’ve been a dream. However, when I looked around, I knew. My nightmare hadn’t ended yet.

"I must get away from here," I muttered back then. "The monster might come back."

Yes. I believed the Gods were finally angered by the bandits and sent a monster to wipe them out.

But for some reason, everyone, excluding me, was dead.

No one else survived.

Not even the bandit leader, who was the strongest of them all. His body was ripped to shreds, and his dying face wasn’t peaceful.

More accurately, he no longer had a face. Whatever attacked him had smashed his face to a bloody pulp and torn off his limbs while he was still alive.

A part of me wished that I could have seen that moment. Perhaps I would have been overjoyed. No, I might have joined the monster in tearing him apart.

After all, he deserved it.

Every single one of them deserved to die.

After escaping that place, I traveled and met people.

Some were good.

Some were bad.

And some... wore the skin of humans, but were monsters inside.

But for some reason, whenever I came across these people, they would be dead by the time I opened my eyes the next day.

I had been too young to understand it. No. Perhaps I already had an inkling, but I simply refused to believe it.

A decade later, I found myself in the Barbarian Lands of the West.

There, I met the man who told me that I was a monster walking in human skin. He was none other than the Great Shaman of the Grimhowl Tribe.

He asked me if I was willing to learn how to control the monster inside of me. When I said yes, he gave me a condition.

"Promise me that you will protect the Grimhowl Tribe when I pass away."

I had been traveling alone for a long time, hoping to find a purpose and a place to settle. So, without a second thought, I accepted his conditions.

That shaman had become my Master, and he taught me everything he knew without holding back.

He was a very kind old man. A bit fickle, sometimes mischievous, but he was the father that I had always wanted to have.

It was also he who taught me how to be human.

And it was his granddaughter who taught me how to be a man.

Through her, I knew what love was.

Through her, I understood what it was like to love and be loved.

I thought that I had finally found peace.

I thought that I had finally found the place where I belonged.

And thus, I was happily married to the woman I fell in love with.

But those happy days didn’t last.

The Barbarian King had passed away, resulting in a great battle between the different tribes who hoped to become his successor.

Many chieftains fought.

Many tribes fell apart.

And by the end of it all, the Grimhowl Tribe decided to leave the battle-ridden lands of the west.

We didn’t want conflict, nor did we want to be used as pawns in a war.

The Grimhowl Tribe was a pacifist tribe, and the last thing they wanted was for their blood to be spilled in the battle for dominion.

The Fenrirs helped us escape to the south. But when we made our escape, we weren’t alone.

Other tribes joined us.

The Warclaw Tribe, the Sandreaver Tribe, the Darkmane Tribe, the Bonegnash Tribe, as well as the middle-ranked and lower-ranked tribes, all feared that they would also be dragged into the succession war.

Cowards, they called us.

But we didn’t care.

Our lives were precious, and we should be the ones to decide our own fate.

After traveling for months, we finally arrived at the Borderlands.

And there... We discovered a great dungeon.

We called it Eden.

The ironic part was that the allied tribes who traveled together soon parted ways after Eden was built.

Except for the Sandreaver Tribe, the high-ranking tribes all built their camps in the rich lands of the south, monopolizing the ideal locations in the Borderlands.

The middle-ranked tribes, who didn’t dare fight against the high-ranking tribes, made their camps at the center of this land.

The low-ranking tribes had no choice but to build their camps far north. They hoped that the high-ranking and middle-ranked tribes would leave them alone, allowing them to thrive in peace.

That was how the hierarchy in the Borderlands was formed, but that was also the beginning of another problem.

After escaping the battles in the west, their desire to rule the Borderlands began to fester.

And thus, a new set of cold wars happened between the once-allied tribes, who had decided to sink their fangs into their neighbor’s throats.