Jiang Ran was deep in thought after hearing the village chief's words. But while pondering the meaning of his words, Jiang Ran also had to take the village chief's identity seriously.
Those are fanatics of the moon.
Therefore, this story may simply be something the moon fabricated to make its followers believe that the moon is equal to the goddess, because in this story, darkness is what the goddess is fighting against, and the moon is equal to the goddess herself, which coincides with the moon's idea.
However, every piece of news has two sides, and we cannot be certain that it is false. If the village chief's story is true, and the goddess was willing to sacrifice herself to fight against the darkness in order to protect her people, she then became the moon.
So who is the goddess who is now fighting against the moon?
Could it be that the goddess was corrupted in her struggle against darkness, resulting in a malignant personality that doesn't want to sacrifice herself to protect others, which is why it opposes the original goddess?
This new goddess wields the power of darkness, and those she protects are the dead. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that she herself is darkness, and not just another personality of the goddess.
"My lord, what are you thinking about?"
"It's nothing, you can go out now, I want to stay here alone."
The mountain god was a consciousness entity that directly possessed Jiang Ran's body, so in the villagers' eyes, he was the only one who had arrived here.
“Alright, I know Your Excellency’s devotion to the moon. You must want to review the doctrine again, so I won’t bother you any longer.”
The marks on the bookshelf show that the village chief frequently reads these books, which is normal behavior for a believer.
Although Jiang Ran didn't have any particular faith in the moon, he did intend to read those books.
After the village chief left, Jiang Ran took out the books with the most obvious signs of wear and tear from the bookshelf and began to read.
What puzzles him is that if, as the village chief said, the Goddess of Night was willing to sacrifice herself for her followers, then why would she allow her followers to offer sacrifices in such a bizarre way? These two points are clearly contradictory.
"Found it, the purpose of the sacrifice—"
"The reason that the sacrifice is to ensure the moon doesn't forget the believers' existence is too far-fetched. Let me see... Providing the moon with the power to fight against the darkness? That's barely plausible."
It was very difficult.
The following section of the book discusses some key points about sacrifices. After reviewing the materials already known, the maximum time interval between sacrifices cannot exceed one year, but there is no minimum requirement!
In other words, if believers wanted to sacrifice, they could sacrifice the entire village in a single day! Even if they didn't want to, they still had to sacrifice one person a year.
The sacrificer must first have a devout faith in the moon, and secondly, be between 20 and 30 years old. This rule clearly says "I am an evil god" on its face!
The cemetery village already had a small population, and the young and middle-aged were the backbone of the village. In addition, the village had already suffered population losses due to the accident, which can be considered as a further control over the population of the cemetery village.
No wonder Jiang Ran glanced at the villagers earlier and found that most of them were just teenagers. Once you are over 20, you risk being chosen as an archbishop to be sacrificed. You have to not be chosen for ten consecutive years to live to 30!
Those elected as archbishops enjoy high welfare benefits in the village, and the next archbishop is elected the day after the previous archbishop's sacrifice.
Although he was called the archbishop, he had no power in the village. After all, he was someone who could only live for a year, so it wouldn't make a difference to put him in charge. He just enjoyed his year and then kicked the bucket.
Actually... it's quite humane?
However, the cemetery village itself has no resources, so the so-called enjoyment is nothing more than being able to do less work and eat an extra bowl of rice than others.
Just based on the sacrifice alone, Jiang Ran already had a vague distrust of the moon.
This dungeon is clearly a choice: either stand on the side of darkness or on the side of the moon. In fact, it doesn't matter who the real goddess of the night is; what matters is who you help to clear the dungeon!
If you choose to help the goddess of night, you can return to the temple and cut the chains with your greatsword—it's a simple matter. But what if you choose to help the moon? You can't just wait around.
Assuming the moon's side of the story is true, then the statues beneath the temple are not upside down, but rather a goddess statue symbolizing the "Hanged Man," a statue with a positive connotation.
Cutting the chains and making the goddess statue stand upright, doesn't that mean the goddess will no longer protect her people, and darkness will engulf the whole world?
"Furthermore, if the moon is the embodiment of a goddess, meant to protect humanity, then why do people who look directly at the moon become polluted?"
"But if darkness is the embodiment of the goddess, it means that the goddess only protects the dead and not the living..."
No matter which direction you look at it from, it seems like you can find a loophole. At this moment, Jiang Ran really wished there was a third option, because neither darkness nor the moon seemed very reliable.
"Goddess... Goddess."
etc!
The goddess transformed into the moon to contend with the darkness, but that doesn't mean she could ignore its encroachment! So, the pollution the moon suffers from may not have been the goddess's intention at all!
She herself was corrupted by darkness!
If we choose to help her break free from her constraints, then everyone else will directly suffer from the corruption of darkness, causing the entire world to be polluted. But even if we do nothing, it's only a matter of time before the goddess is corrupted by darkness!
This is a world of ghost stories, so there's really not much time left! Generally speaking, ghost storytellers have about three days to complete the game, and the more difficult the dungeon, the tighter the time constraints become!
This is why high-level dungeons can often be completed in a day, while B and C level dungeons usually take several days or even more than a week.
"The cemetery village...the temple...we don't have enough information yet. Are there any other important locations?"
Jiang Ran picked up the map and looked at it from left to right, but couldn't find anything else noteworthy in the entire cemetery.
He got up and walked outside.
Upon arriving at the cemetery village, he went directly there with the village chief without taking the time to observe the entire village.
Jiang Ran thought he needed to make up for this missing step.
"My lord, are you going out? It's getting late. Why don't you wait until tomorrow?"
Jiang Ran smiled and made a devout gesture.
"I can only act with peace of mind when the moonlight is on."
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