Narrator: A few months after the hellhound was tasked with guarding the mountain fortress, it met with the old man for the first time after he returned from his morning stroll. Both of them had not seen each other since their last meeting at the dungeon because the old man preferred to sneak in or out of the fortress through a secret underground tunnel rather than entering or exiting through the fortress gate.

Old man: Hi doggy! How’s life?

Hellhound: It's very boring here. And very frustrating and annoying too, especially when the stupid coyotes laugh at me daily for participating in your joint venture which seems to taper off in an anticlimax day by day.

Old man: It's a blessing if our fight against the priest's tribe would never occur at all because of the potential terrible sacrifices endured by both tribes. Due to the super magical powers wielded by the leaders of both tribes, this mountainous region and the priest's tribal land would be in ruins at the end of the battle.

Hellhound: It sounds horrifying indeed. Besides the daily irritating laughter of the stupid coyotes, my sleep is wrecked occasionally by the terrifying howling and wailing of spirits at night.

Old man: The howling and wailing of spirits come from a giant cemetery in the southern part of the mountain. About 160 years ago, my youngest brother tried to break away from my ancestral tribe. To save my tribal land, I led a group of loyalists to launch a series of offensives against his secessionist forces. After four years of fighting, I managed to wipe out all the secessionists in a decisive battle. The civil war resulted in at least 1,030,000 casualties and a death toll as high as 750,000. The giant cemetery in the southern part of the mountain is the final resting place of the war dead.

Hellhound: I find it supremely ironic that you had to kill so many people of your kind in order to "save" your tribe.

Old man: I was caught between a rock and a hard place. For instance, if you find a cancerous tumour in your body, you will have no choice but to remove it by surgery when all other treatments fail to get rid of it.

Hellhound: Absolutely.

Old man: Let me elaborate on my viewpoint of that old civil war. Time plays a crucial role in any historical event. My tribal land was fortunate enough to survive the crisis as one entity due to the lack of foreign intervention in the civil war. At that time, about 160 years ago, no other tribal lands, including the land of my former colonial master, were powerful enough to risk intervening in my war against the secessionists. The priest's tribal land, under the leadership of his great-great-grandfather, was too weak to mind other people's business at that time. With hindsight, however, the unexpectedly long, hard war might have been averted if there were some interventions by other tribes.

If the 160-year-old civil war were to be happened in this era, history would be entirely different. The priest's tribe and some other tribes are now powerful enough to intervene in such conflicts within my tribe. For instance, the priest may compare my tribe's old civil war with the ongoing invasion of XXX Tribal Land, by saying “XXX Tribal Land today may be the Old Man's Southern Mountain tomorrow”. In short, everything has its pros and cons.

Narrator: Just then, they could hear the sudden laughter of coyotes in the distance as though the animals were mocking the "wisdom" or "folly" of the old man. He bade farewell to the hellhound and entered the mountain fortress through the gate.