"Have you heard? In the past few days, there have been several tragedies along the dividing line between the aristocratic faction and the merchant faction. It's horrifying!"
In a tavern, several adventurers were chatting. One of them, dressed as a ranger, probably drank too much and spoke a little loudly: "It's really, it's terrible!"
"Is it terrible?" a rough soldier asked, "We only heard some vague news that there were several large-scale murders that happened one after another..."
"Murder case? Haha... Murder case!" The ranger sneered a few times, shook his head vigorously, and took another sip of wine, "What kind of murder case is it! It's a cult sacrifice!"
Hearing this, the tavern, which was quite noisy just now, suddenly became quiet. Everyone closed their mouths and looked in the direction of the ranger.
For these old gangsters, murder is not a big deal. Most of them have killed people, and many of them have killed more than one person. But cult sacrifices are different. Cultists kill people and sacrifice in order to summon demons to the human world. When demons come to the human world, they will definitely cause huge damage. As little as a village, or even an entire city could die.
In addition, their own strength is not weak. When facing ordinary gangsters and villains, they don't know who will kill whom in a real fight, so they are not afraid of murders. But in the face of demons, their power is worth mentioning. When the demons start to slaughter, they are no stronger than ordinary people, and they may not be able to escape.
So when they heard this word, everyone was stunned, and many people immediately made up their minds. As long as they were really sure that there were cultist activities in this area, they would leave immediately, and go as far away as possible!
Of course, there are also times when you suddenly get excited and feel that you have an opportunity to make money, become famous, or do something heroic. The fight against cults is one of the few things on the main plane that all countries in the main plane have the same stance on. Once an organization is classified as a cult, it goes without saying that the most kind way of punishment is to execute everyone. A slightly harsher method is to implicate relatives and friends. In other words, killing only one person is actually relatively rare. Under normal circumstances, at least Close relatives such as parents, wives and children will definitely die together.
The most recent attack on a cult was His Majesty the Mask of the Void's annihilation of the "Isis" organization. Although everyone knows that this organization is backed by the orc gods and not the abyss demons, but since Sui Xiong has labeled them as a cult and no one is willing to come forward to clear their name, they naturally have to trouble them. Die to death.
And judging from what the ranger said, it seemed that what was causing trouble at the junction of the aristocratic faction and the merchant faction this time was a genuine cult - they were all playing murder and sacrifice.
"What exactly happened?" A soldier came over and asked with worry on his face.
The ranger, who was already six to seven points drunk, sighed and said: "A few days ago, I set off from Bronze Hand City and planned to go to Silver Shield City. One night, I stayed in a small village... the name of that village I won’t say anything anymore. There are no people alive anyway, so there is no point in talking about it. At midnight, I suddenly woke up from my sleep and felt a strong sense of danger... "
"A strong danger?" The soldier was stunned for a moment and asked, "What kind of danger can wake you up from sleep?"
"I don't know either, but my experience tells me that you have to hide. Only by hiding can you have a way to survive." The ranger shook his head and took another sip of wine. "So I quickly tidied up the room and made it look like I woke up in the middle of the night and hurried out, while I hid under the bed.”
"It's not safe to hide under the bed. The bed board may not be able to cover you completely, and people will also hear your breathing." The soldier said.
The ranger smiled slightly: "Of course I have my own way, but I won't tell you."
He did not say what method he used, but went on to talk about the follow-up: "I hid for about an hour, and when the sense of crisis in my heart finally dissipated, I came out from under the bed. As soon as the results came out, I smelled a strong The smell of blood!"
"The whole village is dead?" the soldier at the same table with him guessed.
The ranger nodded and grabbed the wine glass, but his hands couldn't stop shaking a few times.
"I put on my equipment and looked through the window. I saw a few paladins with white light on their bodies in the small square in the center of the village, talking about something. There was also a priest and two paladins who were performing a purification ceremony. —With the help of their auras, I could clearly see that the ground was littered with corpses of villagers, with blood flowing all over the ground, forming a magic circle that made my hair stand on end just by looking at it!"
Hearing this, more than one adventurer was already packing up his things and preparing to escape.
"Who are those priests?" asked an adventurer.
"They are believers of the Lord of Justice." the ranger replied. "My hair stood up at the sight, and I hurried to them. After chatting with them, I found out that someone had just held a sacrifice here to open the way to the abyss. The portal summoned a powerful demon. But that guy was unlucky. The souls of ordinary villagers were not strong enough and could not completely open the door. The priests sensed the evil and used teleportation spells to come directly to the vicinity. However, they arrived It’s precisely because they arrived so quickly that the cultists had to flee in a hurry, leaving behind only the scene of the sacrificial summoning ceremony that failed.”
"Then you are in good luck. If the priests had not come, you would have been discovered hiding under the bed when the devil summoned you."
"Yes, my luck is pretty good, but the luck of the people in that village is not so good!" The ranger sighed and said, "I was dragged and questioned for a long time, and I took three polygraph tests alone, and finally I got the priesthood The policemen finally determined that I had nothing to do with this matter, so they let me go. By the way, they also took me to help the villagers handle the funeral arrangements—a total of fifty-one people, men, women, old and young, one by one to make up for the leaks... "
As he said this, the ranger shook his head and drank again.
There was silence in the tavern for a long time, and then an adventurer said: "But... there must have been murders elsewhere. I remember there were more than a dozen dead in Gray Goat Village."
"Sacrifice must be a sacrifice!" the ranger said categorically, "Once a cult operates on a large scale, it will never sacrifice just once!"
The adventurers looked at each other, and most of them saw uneasiness in each other's eyes.
"So... where should we go now to be safer?" A young adventurer finally couldn't help but asked this question that everyone was concerned about.
"Go to the capital, it may be safer there." Someone said.
"No! Leave the Gold Coin Federation quickly to be truly safe!" someone else said.
"But where can we go after leaving the Gold Coin Federation?" someone asked.
"Let's go to the south by boat. Even if the cult wants to sacrifice, they usually won't cause trouble at sea..."
"No! Let's go to the north, or even go directly to the Northwest Republic!" A middle-aged adventurer said loudly, "The security in the Northwest Republic is good. Although it is not easy to find work, you can still live as a worker... I I’m getting older, so I just take this opportunity to retire!”
The adventurers talked a lot, and soon some people left one after another. In the end, only the drunk ranger was left in the tavern, lying on the table and sleeping soundly.
However, no one noticed that there was a cunning smile hanging on the corner of his mouth...