After a long wait, they finally couldn't hear the "crackling" sound of the wildfire after an hour, and after waiting for more than half an hour, they felt a slight decrease in the temperature above before they climbed out, and the four of them were already exhausted and drowsy because of the higher temperature.

By the time they climbed out again, the sun was about to set, and the surrounding wasteland had been burned black, and the woods, which had been relatively dense, had been reduced to empty shelves, leaving only a few large tree trunks, and the corpses of wild mice that had been burned together could be seen from time to time.

On the road in the distance, except for the two armored vehicles that had been destroyed, all that remained was the corpses of soldiers, most of which were burned black, and the guns could no longer be used, and the two T-tanks had long since disappeared - Eddie, the commander of the Golden Tide, did not care about their lives at all, perhaps pursuing the liberation front, or perhaps retreating.

Tang Shuxing rubbed his eyes that were almost open, sat next to the pit, and reached out to touch the kettle, only to remember that the water in it had already been poured clean, and he could only drink turbid water, but his mouth was dry and cracked, and his facial skin seemed to be torn violently by something.

"The first time I encountered a wildfire, it was in Somalia, I was with five people, two of them were employers, I didn't understand it at the time, I ran when I saw the fire, and in the end, everyone else couldn't run and was burned to death, and I was lucky enough to fall into a crater and survive." Quinn pulled out the soft-packed juice drink from his backpack, "And this, you must replenish vitamins and necessary water every day, otherwise you can't survive a day under this kind of sun in this hellish place of Africa." ”

"Do you have juice ready? That's great! Ji Kefeng flipped out of his backpack and sucked greedily.

Quinn raised the juice and touched Ji Kefeng's wrist: "I wish we all go back alive." ”

"Best wishes." Tang Shuxing also raised his juice to signal, and then handed it to Ji Kefeng—he couldn't eat what a normal human should eat, otherwise he would die.

After a short rest, the four of them got up and walked across the burned wasteland towards the road, who knew that as soon as they walked onto the road full of corpses and wreckage, countless men, women and children in ragged clothes ran from both sides. The four of them immediately clenched the guns in their hands, but were waved down by Quinn.

Quinn carried his assault rifle and continued to move forward, stepping over a corpse: "These are all victims of war, and they are also people who still have hope for life, and every time the battle is over, they will run out at the risk of picking up some rags to exchange money for food, but they will not carry guns, because whether it is the liberation front or the Golden Tide, or the political axe army, if they find out that they have guns, they will immediately frame them as such and such a gang, and even the whole village will be implicated because of a gun." ”

Quinn pointed to the side and said, "There used to be a lively village to the east, and that year the whole village was slaughtered because of a gun, and about twenty of the dead were underage children. ”

Everyone didn't answer Quinn's words and asked anything else, but after a few minutes, Ji Kefeng diverted the topic and asked, "How long do we have to go to Kanga Province?" He was exhausted, and his energy was drained from the sweltering heat after nearly two hours of squatting in the pit.

"At this walking rate, we're going to have to walk all day." Quinn held the gun and said casually, "But with me, you won't be bored along the way, I will explain the customs here, and if you are lucky, you can eat a delicious local barbecue of wild mice, not the kind that was burned to death by wildfire." ”

Quinn stopped talking, and the group fell silent again, and everyone continued along the road. The civilians who came to pick up the rubbish on the highway were also treated as air, and except for a few children, no one else had to look at them squarely, I don't know if it was because they were afraid, or if they were used to it.

After walking for several hours, I only knew that I walked to the north, from the road to the wasteland, and then from the wasteland to the path that people had stepped on, and then into the dense bushes, and then to the so-called road full of devastation, and finally saw a little fire a hundred meters away, and looked up at the sky, it was already dark. The four of them numbly walked on, maintaining the most basic vigilance.

"There is probably a refugee camp in front of it, and they are all fleeing from the fighting, or it can be said that they are chasing the war, because only in the place where the fighting is taking place, can you pick up something to exchange for basic necessities." Quinn put the gun on his shoulder, "From now on, put away all the guns, don't cause unnecessary trouble, sleep in a crowded place tonight, set off before dawn tomorrow morning, and estimate that you can get to Kanga Province at night." ”

The other three nodded numbly and continued to move forward, Tang Shuxing took two quick steps and asked Quinn breathlessly: "Why doesn't the United Nations send peacekeeping troops?" ”

"It's useless." Quinn glanced at him, "The first peacekeepers were British and French, but because these two countries colonized here in the past, they were opposed by the other two factions except the political axe army, and even the liberation front and the golden frenzy formed a temporary alliance for the first time, constantly attacking the peacekeepers, and finally had to withdraw." Then the United States and Russia crept in, the Americans supported the political axe, the Russians supported the Golden Rush, and from that day on, the war never stopped, but it gave arms dealers and mercenaries room to survive. ”

"For the mineral resources here?" Ji Kefeng followed behind and asked.

"Those resources are nothing." Quinn paused, "Then I ask you, what does Ethiopia have?" What's in Somalia? What does Congo have? You can't find a place on this amazing continent of Africa where there are no wars, it's not because of resources that wars, there are a lot of other things, differences between different peoples, immature political demands, and so on. ”

"However, I don't understand why the big countries are eyeing here, and I'm curious, but I haven't found out." Quinn shook his head.

Tang Shuxing stared at the road and thought, not for resources, why should he focus on such a small country? It is not a key military buffer zone, if there is a conflict between the two neighboring countries of Astaya, there will be a war at any time, so it is understandable to choose Astaya as a non-military buffer zone, but the fact is that the neighboring countries themselves are still in a civil war.

When we finally approached the camp, we could see the piles of bonfires lit in it, and the civilians singing and dancing around the campfires, all of them naked[***] and covered in black dirt, as if they were performing some kind of ritual. But when they found out that the four Quinn had arrived, they immediately stopped their activities and looked back at them, and the atmosphere in the camp instantly became very strange.

Quinn raised his hands and pointed to the trees next to him, indicating that he would not approach or disturb them, then turned around and found a few trees to sit down, and made a gesture for them to continue, and then beckoned Tang Shuxing and the others to approach him and not step forward again.

"What are they doing?" Tang Shuxing asked after sitting down.

Quinn replied in a low voice: "An indigenous ritual, in Astaya a tribe may be a people of different faiths, when the British and French did not colonize here, the tribes often fought because of the different gods they believed, and they were mainly headhunters, but there were strange things that happened......"

As soon as Quinn said this, the people on the other side of the campfire suddenly lifted a teenager up, sang loudly, and then put the boy down again, each of them touching the blood of his index finger on the boy's chest, and then threw the boy directly into the fire under the command of one of the leaders.

"I'll go! Murder, what is this? Tang Shuxing got up to stop it.

"Don't go!" Gu Huaiyi stopped him, "This is their own business, we are outsiders, and they don't feel cruel themselves." ”

"But......" Tang Shuxing saw the young man stand up from the fire casually, holding his hands high, and there was a blue flame in his hands, and the people around him immediately knelt down to worship and continued to sing.

"Magic, huh?" Tang Shuxing looked at it in surprise.

"Africa is a magical land." Quinn yawned, "Don't be so surprised. ”

Ji Kefeng nodded and stared at the young man: "Indeed, it's amazing." ”

What happened next was even more incomprehensible, even more bloody and cruel - those people surrounded the boy who came out of the fire with knives, and cut his flesh one by one, one by one, just like Ling Chi was executed in ancient China, but only cut the flesh of the boy's upper body, and did not move his legs.

The young man who had been cut just stood there, motionless, without any painful expression on his face, and every time someone finished cutting, he had to watch the man talk to himself, as if he was blessing.

After each of the men of the ritual had cut off a piece of meat, the young man who had been cut slowly turned away and walked slowly towards the wasteland, while the others stood in a neat row behind him, singing to him, and when he had gone away and disappeared into the dark wasteland, the men of the ceremony returned to the campfire, roasted the piece of meat in their hands, and ate it with satisfaction.

"Eating human flesh!?" Ji Kefeng covered his mouth.

Quinn and Gu Huaiyi had a strange expression, but what about Tang Shuxing? Unexpectedly, he smelled the smell of Ji Kefeng's disgusting and wanted to vomit, and his mouth was watering - he had long been unable to eat the food that normal people eat, but he didn't dare to let Quinn know that he was a monster, and he had been holding on to it before, or pretending to eat, and finding a place to vomit.

"They don't think they're eating human flesh, but a gift from God." Quinn explained, "The boy was chosen by everyone to be sacrificed to the spirits of the wasteland, but before the sacrifice, they had to taste the sacrifice first, which was considered a sign of respect for the spirits of the wasteland, just like the ancient emperors had to be helped to test poison before eating. ”

"Where's that boy?" Tang Shuxing got up and looked around.

"He will walk slowly on the wasteland until he falls, until he is eaten clean by the animals of the wasteland, because in the eyes of the Astayas, the spirit of the wasteland will possess all kinds of animals, sometimes lions, sometimes leopards, sometimes other things, each tribe thinks that the spirit of the wasteland, that is, the totem they worship, is different, but everyone recognizes that there is a spirit of the wasteland, especially today when the war is spreading throughout the country."

"What I'm curious about is ......" Tang Shuxing stared at the direction where the young man left, "He is immortal in the fire, and his upper body is about to be cut to the point that only the skeleton is left and he is not dead, is it because?" Saying that, Tang Shuxing subconsciously looked at Gu Huaiyi.

"Magician." Gu Huaiyi said in a low voice, "There are also in Africa, there are all over the world, but everyone calls them differently, many tribal wizards in Africa are magicians, and that young man may be the descendant of the wizard." ”

"When the French colonized here, strange things also happened......" Quinn suddenly said, staring at the location where the ceremony was held, "At that time, the French did not have many garrisons in Astaya, because at that time it was very backward, there were no firearms, only bows, arrows, spears, broadswords, etc., so it didn't take much garrison to clear the opposing tribal forces, at that time they just regarded this country as a barren land, until the outbreak of World War II, after France surrendered to Nazi Germany, the Nazi forces penetrated deep into Africa, Although the main battlefield was in North Africa at that time, a conflict between the French garrison and the local tribes caused the Nazis to set their sights on Asaya in East Africa. ”

At that time, Italy was not going well in the East African battlefield, and was beaten by the British army for several rounds, and finally had to ask for help from the Allied Nazi Germany, and the intervention of the German army under the command of Rommel turned the tide of the war in North Africa, and the French had surrendered nearly a year earlier, although they surrendered their war zone, the British still held on, and began to use the power of the indigenous people of the colonies to drive out the fascists.

The battle for the small country of Asyata was also quietly going on, but it was the French Foreign Legion that fought here, because France surrendered, the legion was divided into two sides, one side was loyal to the Free France led by Charles de Gaulle, and the other side was loyal to the Vichy political axe who surrendered to Germany.

In the middle of the night, the Foreign Legion loyal to the Vichy political axe was being renovated, the day before they had just experienced a brutal battle, and finally found a water source to camp and rest, who knew that when the evening just came, a ** teenager covered with strange totem tattoos appeared outside their camp, and did not carry any weapons, just stood there blankly, looking at the group of soldiers in the camp staring at him.

The soldier reprimanded him to leave, but the officer thought he had only come to find water, and told the interpreter to come forward and tell the boy that he could carry the water he needed in a utensil, because there was enough water for his soldiers to use, and even enough for them to bathe.

The boy did not speak, nor did he even look at the interpreter, but only stared at the officer, his eyes becoming more and more greedy, blended with an indescribable horror.

"Hey—" The translator took another step forward, looked at the young man, and was about to speak, but the young man directly raised his index finger and stuffed it into the translator's mouth, and then the interpreter shook and froze.

The officers in the camp could only see the interpreter standing there with his back to him, his hands slightly outstretched, maintaining a stiff and motionless posture, they immediately sensed that something was wrong, and shouted loudly for the soldiers to be vigilant, and at this moment, the aborigines of the camp appeared on all sides of the camp, all wearing the same tattoos as the teenagers, and there were no weapons in their hands, just standing there, looking at the Foreign Legionnaires in the camp.

The atmosphere froze, the boy withdrew his hand, the interpreter turned, faced the camp, and then quickened his pace and rushed towards the officer......