A muffled voice came from behind Hao Xuan taking him by surprise. Meanwhile a translated sentence instantly appeared at the bottom of his vision.
"Looks nice, doesn't it? I was quite shocked the first time I saw it," the words read.
Hao Xuan read them before turning slowly towards the source of the voice, his mind already connecting them to a wide face with a beard, bushy brows, and 2-3 inch long hairs that were standing straight up.
His gaze landed on the Barbarian's face that was just half a meter away from his. He was bent down, squatting down to Hao Xuan's eye level with a slightly eager/anxious expression.
'Burak,' Hao Xuan mumbled inwardly with a somber tone. Somehow after running for two hours straight he had still ended up walking directly up to the Barbarians.
Burak and all the other barbarians had gone off somewhere when they reached their camp. Was this where they had run off to? Many of the other barbarians that went in another direction as soon as they reached the grassland could also be seen down in the valley. (Ch 645)
Maybe it was just meant to be.
While Hao Xuan was busy cursing his luck, or lack thereof, Burak slowly turned his head to look at him.
His ardent expression was slowly replaced by a knowing grin, "You can understand me, can't you?"
As Burak's unexpected words translated within Hao Xuan's vision, he could not hide the astonishment which was, in turn, picked up by Burak. He let out a hearty laugh.
"Hahaha! I knew it! From the start you were never scared or looked ignorant about what we were saying. You are a good 'pretender' to be able to even fool my sister but my eyes are much sharper," Burak proclaimed proudly, even explaining how he found out which disheartened Hao Xuan quite a bit. He did not know for sure until Hao Xuan basically told him so himself just now.
"Can you not speak our language?" curious, he asked a follow-up question.
Hao Xuan stared into his eyes for a moment but could see nothing but pure inquisitiveness to find out more. To him, Hao Xuan was a marvel.
Strangely enough, this grown man that was leagues stronger than Hao Xuan himself resembled a child at this very moment. There was no malice in his words or actions.
"Baracus, translate the words "A little" for me," Hao Xuan ordered.
Baracus translated his words into the Barbarian's language that sounded in Hao Xuan's ears which he repeated out loud with some effort.
Burak's face lit up as he bobbed his head up and down, "Makes sense, makes sense," he finished, leaving Hao Xuan a little confused.
He turned back towards the fight that was taking place in front of them in the valley.
Hao Xuan waited for him to ask other questions like why or how he had come to this place but judging from the look on his face, Burak could not care less about any of it. So Hao Xuan followed his line of sight and spectated the fight below.
In the entrance of the valley there were two groups fighting against some strange-looking creatures. Both these groups were made up of the barbarians that Hao Xuan had seen before.
Close to 15 of them were here engaged in mortal combat against utterly strange..."things". That was the only way to define them.
At first glance they resembled humans, ordinary humans. But some of them were larger in size, although much fewer in numbers.
If you stripped all skin, fat, and 90% of the meat from a human's body and allowed it to rot for several weeks, this would be the result. The only difference was that the abdominal cavity of each of these walking 'corpses' was cut open from which numerous white thread-like worms were spilling out.
The smallest of these white worms was only a few inches in length while the largest was up to four meters long. But each one was either connected to another worm or directly to the human corpse that from the looks of it, was being controlled by the worms and being dragged around by them like puppets on a string.
The worms and the corresponding corpses they were attached to were fighting against the barbarians. There were 6-7 of these things for each barbarian so they were greatly outnumbered but, Burak was still sitting idly next to Hao Xuan watching even more of them crawl out of the opening in the pyramid.
***
Authors Notes:
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