Chapter 523, Section 522: Believers and Villains
In the valley, in a makeshift dungeon, came bursts of painful screams.
"Ah—! You beasts! I… Ah—!"
A man bound to a stone pillar was trembling violently, his right arm twisted at an odd angle, clearly having just been broken off.
His body was covered in countless tiny wounds, from which blood flowed incessantly.
Aurora stood in front of him, toying with a thin, willow-leaf-sized knife between her fingers.
Her face held an almost rapturous expression, as if she were admiring a work of art in progress.
“Louder,” she whispered, the blade lightly brushing against the man’s cheek, slowly slicing down. “Weren’t you so capable back then? Not only were you not poisoned, but you also turned the tables and attacked me. That really hurt.”
Aurora touched the new wound on her neck, her movements as she carefully cut away the flesh, as if afraid of accidentally killing the man before her.
In the next room, several sacrificial offerings were tied up, trembling with fear as they listened to the wails coming from this side.
This part is also part of Aurora's enjoyment.
"Aurora." A disgruntled voice came from behind, and Aurora's cheerful expression immediately fell.
"The Lord says to give the soul peace, not fear. What are you doing?"
Charon, the priest of the Hand of the Dead, stood before the tormented man and separated him from Aurora.
He took out a bottle of healing potion from his pocket and poured it onto the man's fine wounds.
Aurora clicked her tongue behind him: "Wasting a potion for someone who's about to die? We're really rich!"
In fact, they were not wealthy; on the contrary, they were somewhat impoverished.
The reason these dozen or so people are still alive is because they have run out of materials for the sacrificial array, and they are trying to gather enough materials for the final round of the sacrificial ritual.
After using the healing potion, Charon turned around and looked directly at Aurora, warning her, "You'd better put away your disgusting interests. This is the Hand of the Dead, not the bandit gang you used to be with!"
Aurora didn't speak, but it was easy to tell from her flippant smile that she hadn't taken any of it to heart.
After leaving the basement, Charon found Seral in the temporary camp, who was assigning gathering tasks and collecting several materials.
He was tall, his armor was a mixture of old metal and dull leather, and his helmet was completely black, obscuring his true appearance.
“Lord Celar,” Charon’s voice was steady, but a hint of resentment could be heard if one listened carefully, “that bandit… Aurora, she is not practicing the teachings of the goddess at all! She enjoys torture and takes pleasure in pain! This is completely contrary to the maxim of ‘giving peace to the dying and a home to the lost’! The temple of the goddess needs pure sacrifices and peaceful returns, not this kind of blasphemous slaughter!”
Serar first waved his hand, instructing the followers to carry out the tasks he had assigned.
Then she turned to Charon: "Charon, the goddess's devout guide, you see it clearly. Her actions are indeed contrary to the goddess's beliefs. The goddess values the essence of the soul, not its pointless screams before it departs."
“Then why allow her to exist? Why let her defile the sacred ritual?” Charon stepped forward, his voice growing increasingly agitated.
“Because the scales need weights, Charon. The goddess’s last oracle tells us we need to hold more sacrifices, and this chaotic situation presents the perfect opportunity. But after so many years of lying low, we are short-handed. The rituals need to be constructed, the offerings need to be acquired, and the guardians need strength.” His voice was cold, with a pragmatic quality. “Aurora, and those like her who are drawn by power or desire, can make our actions smoother and allow us to achieve our goal as quickly as possible.”
“But this is exploitation! It’s using blasphemy to achieve a sacred purpose!” Charon retorted, unable to accept this compromise.
“It is a ‘temporary tool’,” Seral corrected. “The goddess sees all; she knows the purity of the lamb and the greed of the wolf. On the long road to ultimate purification, sometimes it is necessary to use the wolves’ teeth to clear the thorns, but that does not mean we condone the wolf’s nature.”
"Maintain your purity, Charon. Your steadfastness is the foundation upon which the Church survives. As for Aurora and the others... when the required number of sacrifices is reached, those who have strayed from the doctrine will naturally be purified."
Charon was not convinced. Faced with his superior's explanation, he pointed out the fallacy without hesitation: "Cerar, the great recipient. Have you considered that your compromise also deviates from the doctrine?"
Seral paused briefly: "Now that the High Priest has begun to act, we must do our best to fulfill the divine decree and not become a hindrance."
Charon was about to say something when he suddenly turned his head: "There's an outsider approaching... No, this fluctuation is...?"
Seral stepped forward, two dark blue flames lighting up under his helmet, and he immediately spotted Number Ten, who had just run up to the treetop to observe them.
With a swing of the longsword, an invisible wave instantly crossed most of the valley and arrived in front of Number Ten.
Number 10 dodged with all his might and was not split in two, but two of his tentacles were cut off.
At this moment, some of the nearby believers also noticed Number Ten and followed him.
"That's...Puji?" Charon wasn't quite sure because they were too far away.
"What's going on?" Seral asked a believer who had just arrived at him.
This man was the spy who had been following him all along, number ten. Now he realized he was being followed and quickly explained the situation:
"A regular army of the kingdom has just crossed the Scarecrow Abyss. The leader, with pink hair and pink eyes, is likely Inanna, the daughter of Duke Alama, who is now a war hero of the kingdom."
A moment later, another cultist ran over: "Lord Seral... your subordinate is incompetent. That little bastard killed both of us and broke through the encirclement."
Seral didn't rebuke the cultists before him. After a brief moment of deliberation, he made his decision: "Abandon this camp and retreat to the Rocky Ridge stronghold."
Every bit of the church’s strength is precious, and Seral doesn’t want to waste it on trivial matters.
In fact, even if they were stronger, they would never provoke someone like Inanna St. Clair.
To the goddess, Inanna's soul was no more important than the soul of a country bumpkin.
Getting involved with Inanna means getting into endless trouble with the Mushroom Clan, Duke Alama, the Kingdom, and more.
Avoiding their sharp edge is naturally the best choice.
“What about the remaining offerings?” Charon asked.
“The materials are not yet complete, and there is no time to hold a formal ceremony.” Seral turned to him, his armor making a slight scraping sound with the movement. “Leave them where they are and let them be rescued or escape on their own.”
"What a pity." But Charon had no better choice.
It was a temporary camp, so there weren't many important items to begin with.
Under Seral's concise and effective instructions, more than a hundred black-robed believers quickly and orderly packed their necessary items and retreated into the mountains along a pre-planned secret path.
However, one figure went against the flow of people and quietly left the group.
Aurora glanced in the direction the group had left, then turned and ran back to the basement.
She always demanded that enjoyment be complete from beginning to end.
Now that the man is no longer the sacrifice required for the ritual, she will send him on his way in her own way.
Unfortunately, time was short, and we couldn't leisurely savor his dying cries and struggles as we usually did.
In the dim light of the basement, the man saw Aurora return and seemed to understand his own fate.
Instead of crying, he spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, which he aimed directly at Aurora's face.
Aurora easily turned her head to avoid it, without stopping.
The thin, willow-leaf-like knife reappeared between her fingers, gleaming coldly. She walked up to the man, the blade casually pressed against the pulse on the side of his neck, feeling the faint tremor of life pulsating beneath his skin.
"Finally, nothing else to say?" she asked with interest, anticipating either desperate curses or ridiculous pleas.
The man raised his blood-stained face, his eyes burning with pure hatred: "You damned bastards! Didn't you say there was an afterlife? Fine! In my next life, I'll keep an eye on you beasts and kill you one by one!"
Aurora shrugged noncommittally; the man clearly didn't know she didn't believe in death at all.
The knife swung down.
However, the expected dull thud as a sharp blade cuts through flesh did not occur.
Instead, a crisp "ding" sounded!
She felt a lightness in her hand, and when she looked down, all she could hold was the bare hilt of a knife.
Pfft—
A strange sound came from behind Aurora...
(End of this chapter)
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