"Elder Niji," Lin Mu called out to the man.
The Haima Tribe's elder looks at Lin Mu, his eyes glinting with knowledge as well as awareness that was not there before.
"I now know…" Elder Niji spoke. "I now know… the origin of our tribe."
Lin Mu could somewhat guess Elder Niji's thoughts. 'Did he awaken some memories?' he wondered.
"And what is it elder?" Lin Mu asked with great curiosity.
"As you said before, our bloodline is certainly sourced from the beast in front of us… the Great Ocean Hippocampus. It is the great horse of the ocean, just like we are supposed to be the dominator of the oceans.
Our power comes from it, and so does our name. Hai as in Ocean, Ma as in Horse… the name of our tribe was bestowed by the Ancestral Beast in front of us." Elder Niji replied, a hint of emotion on his face.
"So this beast… really is your ancestor?" Lin Mu questioned.
"Yes… it is this beast that protected out ancestors and bestowed its bloodline upon them. It is what allowed them to become the dominator of the ocean. From the bloodline resonance, I learned of old memories… history that had been erased…" Elder Niji answered.
"The history of the Haima tribe… is it the same tribe that Muxuan belonged to?" Lin Mu quickly started to link up the information he had gotten in the past.
"Indeed… Muxuan was the first ancestor of our tribe. He was also the first person to have been bestowed this bloodline.
All this happened long time ago. Back when great wars were waged and kingdoms clashed. Our tribe used to worship the Great Ocean Hippocampus long before. But back then, our tribe was scattered and had humans from many places.
Over time, under the oppression of other kingdoms and empires, we fell apart. In the end, only Muxuan was left and sacrificed himself. This lead to the deity of our tribe worshiped, the Great Ocean Hippocampus to awaken." Elder Niji answered in detail.
"Wait… why didn't the Great Ocean Hippocampus help them before the tribe was made to fall apart?" Lin Mu had been wondering about this for a long time now.
"It wasn't that the Great Ocean Hippocampus didn't intend to help us. But rather, it simply didn't know we were being killed. It was deep in seclusion… just like it is now." Elder Niji answered. "It was the dying will of our tribesmen and Muxuan that crossed the barriers of the world, reaching the ancestral beast and bringing forth its rage."
"I see… then it really was a great tragedy." Lin Mu couldn't help but say. "Though, if Muxuan was supposed to have been killed, how did your tribe survive?" he asked in doubt.
"Our first ancestor Muxuan did indeed die, but his Nascent soul and true soul survived. The ancestral beast protected it and allowed him to be reborn with the new bloodline as well as an appropriate physique to withstand it." Elder Niji clarified.
"No wonder…" Lin Mu felt like all the things were now falling in place.
"This is also the reason why our bodies are so much different than normal human. With the bloodline of the Great Ocean Hippocampus, it caused mutation that gave us four legs and great strength.
It even caused our Dantian to mutate and gain two extra lobes. Ancestor Muxuan changed his identity after being reborn and hid away. He spent years gathering his strength and cultivating.
He even managed to revive many of the tribesmen who had been killed in the past. While they had died, many of their nascent souls were still being kept safe elsewhere. Ancestor Muxuan had kept them hidden, hoping that in the future he might get to revive them.
And eventually that time came." Elder Niji explained further.
"So Ancestor Muxuan rebuilt the entire tribe?" Lin Mu asked, hoping to learn more.
"He did indeed. After a significant number of the tribesmen were revived, he took them away to the depths of the great ocean. The Ancestral Beast left too, as it still needed to cultivate further and breakthrough its limits.
Our tribe stayed hidden for over a thousand years, before reappearing in the Rust Sky world. This time though, we had several million members and tens of thousands of immortals.
The time to take revenge had come and thus ancestor Muxuan mounted a great offense against the kingdoms and empires that had wronged them. This was what actually led to the formation of the Eight Kingdom alliance.
But it didn't end there… Seeing that the Eight Kingdom Alliance was unable to deal with our tribe, the Holy Topaz Empire set out to fight too. After all, they had hurt our tribe too in the past and knew that Ancestor Muxuan would come after them, eventually.
Thus the Holy Topaz empire, the Huiqing Empire, and the Dao wind empire all joined up in a temporary alliance.
Still… our Haima tribe had dominion over the ocean, leaving them helpless when they ventured out into the ocean. We could simply destroy their trade routes and more, preventing them from doing anything.
This lasted for a hundred years, and a stalemate was reached.
But then… something unexpected happened." Elder Niji said and took a breath.
"What was that, Elder?" Lin Mu inquired, wanting more.
"The Peak experts of all the empires left their seclusion and directly utilized a great array to seal the ocean. This suppressed our power, allowing them to kill our tribesmen once again.
Of course, they knew that this wouldn't last, so they had to hurry. Finally, when only a few hundred thousand members of our tribe were left, Ancestor Muxuan couldn't take it anymore.
On his final breath, he proclaimed that the death of the Haima tribe would awaken the Ancestral Beast once more.
Thus, to prevent this from happening, the Empires collectively decided to exile us. They killed all the elders of the tribe, and erased our legacy while banishing the younger generation to the Broken Chasm." Elder Niji revealed.
