The figures in burqas and hoods naturally noticed Duncan standing in the middle of the road without moving away.
At this moment, Duncan still looked the same as when he had just left the cave. His thin and shriveled body was covered with tattered clothes, and the rags temporarily put on his upper body covered the big hole in his chest. He stood in the middle of the road carelessly, looking as if he was frightened by the "hooded man" who suddenly appeared - and the figures in robes were obviously surprised. They were obviously stunned for a moment, and then the leader suddenly shouted: "One of the sacrifices escaped!"
Then Duncan saw them running towards him, and another one was shouting as he ran: "Quick! Stop him! Don't let him run away!"
Duncan shrugged his shoulders and continued to look expressionlessly at the figures running towards him who did not look like good people no matter how they looked. After weighing the current situation, he had no intention of running away at all, but several people on the opposite side still rushed over and shouted: "Don't let him get away!" "The sacrifice escaped!"
As a result, Duncan's action of standing obediently in the middle of the road without dodging or avoiding made the atmosphere even more awkward. The few people who were running and shouting towards this side obviously felt something was wrong halfway through their run. They stopped shouting involuntarily, but had to continue running towards this side. Duncan could almost smell the embarrassment mixed with anger from under their dark hoods - and then these embarrassed and angry people surrounded him from all sides.
Only then did Duncan look around at the people around him, and after hesitating for a moment, he said, "Should I have run away just now? After all, the atmosphere has become so tense..."
The figures in the burqas didn't seem to hear Duncan's joke. They just looked at him cautiously and alertly, and then looked behind him. Two of them lowered their heads and talked to each other quickly. Duncan vaguely heard what they said:
"Why did one come out?"
"Could it be that the hyenas from the church discovered this hideout... But he doesn't look like he was released by anyone..."
"Anyway, take it back first. There's something wrong with this escaped sacrifice... We need to get rid of it quickly."
"Let the messenger decide."
Duncan had no idea what this group of people were like, and he had no idea what the "messenger" they mentioned meant. But when he thought about what he had seen along the way and the word "sacrifice" they mentioned, he had vaguely guessed some of the truth here.
He didn't know how he should react to be considered a "normal sacrifice", and he had no intention of cooperating with these people's "performance". Outside the Lost Hometown, using a temporary body, he obviously had very few things to worry about, so after observing the surrounding situation for a while, he simply asked: "Where are you taking me?"
Those in robes were obviously surprised to hear the "sacrifice" in front of them speak calmly. Although they still had black veils on their hoods to cover their faces, Duncan could still guess their surprise. One of the black-robed men looked at the "sacrifice" in front of him viciously through the mask and said in a low voice: "You are not qualified to ask questions - take him away!"
Several men in black robes stepped forward immediately, but before they could make a move, Duncan took a step forward and said, "You don't have to do anything. I'll just go with you."
Several black-robed men looked at each other, probably thinking that the "sacrifice" in front of them was a little abnormal, but the black-robed man in the lead waved his hand and said, "This is the best, you can't run away anyway... Come with us, and you may be able to welcome the glory with dignity."
Several men in black robes surrounded Duncan, blocking all his "escape" routes from front to back and left to right, and led him deeper into the sewer.
The foul and stench in the sewer was disgusting, but these men in black robes seemed to be completely unaware as they walked calmly on the dirty and moldy road. Duncan remained silent and expressionless, following these men in black robes as he listened carefully to their conversations. These men in black robes didn't talk much, but in the occasional conversations, Duncan still heard useful words such as "Pland", "Archon", and "Church".
"Is this the city-state of Plande?" Duncan suddenly asked, as frankly as if he was chatting with an acquaintance.
"Nonsense..." One of the men in black robes replied subconsciously, but then he reacted and looked at Duncan as if he had seen a ghost. "You are very calm, kid, do you know what will happen next?"
"I can probably guess," Duncan nodded, even with a smile on his face. Then he asked tentatively, "The real sun god... right?"
Several black-robed men paused for a moment. They seemed to have misunderstood Duncan's strange reaction. One of them whispered to his companion, "Wait, could this also be a follower of the Lord?"
"Impossible, he is obviously a sacrificial victim who escaped..." another black-robed man whispered, and then glanced at Duncan, "You are quite smart, but don't think you can avoid being sacrificed like this... The Lord has already decided your fate, you'd better accept it with pleasure."
Duncan remained silent. He knew that his overly calm reaction had caused the suspected cultists in front of him to have wrong ideas. Most of them thought that he was pretending to be calm and pretending to be a "believer" in an attempt to survive, but the real situation was only known to Duncan himself.
This temporarily occupied body made it difficult for him to move normally, and the muscles on his face were as stiff as if they had died... Of course, all that was left was a calm expressionless face!
But he didn't care what these cultists were thinking. He just wanted to collect as much information as possible in this "one-time exploration operation", so he asked casually: "Do you think the current 'sun' in the sky is a false sun? Do you think it will fall down sooner or later?"
"Of course the false sun will eventually fall!" This was obviously a topic that could irritate these cultists. Duncan got what he wanted and heard one of them respond positively and enthusiastically. "Even the lackeys of the Church have to admit in their general history that the sun in the sky is a twisted and bizarre thing that appeared after the Great Annihilation! The one who truly brought vitality and order to all things in the world was the sun god, but our Lord was usurped by that despicable fake... Sooner or later, that despicable fake will collapse from the sky!"
Then, Duncan heard the cultists around him responding: "The false sun will fall sooner or later!" "The real sun god will soon be resurrected!" "The excess seawater in the world will be driven back into the void by the power of the sun god, and the earth will return to a fertile and stable era!"
Listening to the words of these cultists who were obviously getting carried away, Duncan's mind was turning rapidly. He knew that these fanatical cultists could not be reasoned with, and what they firmly believed in was mostly distorted and tampered information, but some of the information they revealed was still worth referring to -
The "sun" hanging in the sky is a fake...
The true sun has been usurped...
They firmly believe that the real sun is a fallen god, and that god will "rise from blood and fire"...
They also spoke of an excess of water in the world, and of an era of abundance and stability... What did these words mean
Duncan's mind was full of thoughts, but the cultists soon calmed down. They still remembered the business and that they were escorting a "sacrifice" that had escaped. So the people closest to Duncan fell silent again, and the two people at the end of the team whispered a few words:
"Do you think this 'sacrifice' is a bit weird?"
"He doesn't seem right... I feel a little uneasy."
"Could it be that this sacrifice stayed in the dark underground for too long when escaping, and his spirit was... "
"That's good. The power of the Lord will purify him."
Duncan listened to the conversation behind him, and he especially noticed the words "lightless underground". But just when he wanted to gather more information from the conversation, the leading black-robed man stopped.
"Here we are."
The cultist in black robes spoke in a low, cold voice.
Duncan felt a little regretful for a moment, but then he was attracted by the scene in front of him.
Ahead was the end of a road, the intersection of several sewers, and in this wide space, which was like a small underground hall, was a gathering place for black-robed cultists!