An Gulan looked at the backs of the two knights riding their horses and disappeared into the depths of the pine forest, and the look in his eyes dimmed.
She leaned against the outer wall of the dormitory and sighed with the cold wind blowing, her slender body under the thick padded jacket seemed even smaller and weaker.
The rest of the children were dazed around the statue of Rabieda in the yard, as if the witcher had never been there.
"Is this time the crisis has passed smoothly?"
The bald man leaning against the fence by the yard looked back and asked uncertainly,
"Why so serious? Smile! Anyway, the two stunned blues took away the bones and puppets, and the appearance of demon spirits is also their trouble." Dino shaved his sharp teeth with his pinky fingernail and said,
"Don't take it lightly... You have never seen the power and difficulty of witchers, but I have a deep understanding of it in Vizima." Daisy's eyes flashed with fear and resentment, and turned to the bald man, "You follow and see, confirm They're gone completely. But don't disturb them."
The bald-headed man tilted his body and suddenly rushed out, disappearing into the jungle like a gust of wind.
The priestess told the bearded man with a solemn expression,
"Dino...let's get the kids ready. Another day will come from town."
…
Time flies, the morning light quietly tilts to the west, and the horizon is dizzy with an orange sunset.
In the wilderness dozens of miles north of the Temple of Rabiunda.
Curls of cooking smoke wafted out from under an upturned bowl-shaped rock.
Beside the warm bonfire, the two horses bury their heads and enjoy the green grass feast.
The Arkham machine rolled over the golden-oiled rabbit on the grill, frowning and staring at the grass in a trance.
Karl swayed a white powder around the two skeletons on the ground, chanting words in his mouth. When he drew a complete circle, a faint white light emerged, outlining the circle of the hexagram, and then he covered it with a black cloth. Array.
Breathed a sigh of relief.
"Arkhamtom, you big idiot! How dare you tear your face before you have solid evidence! You're not just asking a wolf if he eats meat, how could they not be angry! Are you satisfied?!"
"Who said I have no evidence, and I didn't give you a look at that time!" Arkham's face turned red and defended,
"Am I the glutton in your stomach? How do I know you've got paste in your head!"
Carl sighed in disgust, slapped the powder from his palm, walked over and sat on the straw mat beside the bonfire, and tore off a piece of steaming meat, exposing his white teeth, most of it in one bite.
"Forget it, I don't care about you, a stubborn idiot. Why didn't you show the evidence earlier?"
"The bald muscular man stared at me closely, and those children were suddenly possessed again. I didn't even have a chance to tell you in the temple!" Arkham knew that he had made a mistake this time, and smiled with a good attitude. He thoughtfully handed the water bottle to his companion to moisten his throat, and said comfortingly, "But now that we have left the temple area, no one can control it. We call it retreating to advance!"
"Stop being rude, speak up!"
"Okay, boss. I saw a symbol on the wrists of Angouran and that random boy."
He quickly used his ten fingers to outline a circular spider web and the words - blakat grsyba!
"I can't remember where I've seen this symbol, but I vaguely remember it being related to religion."
Karl suddenly stopped chewing, and without a word, got up and rummaged in Wirth's saddlebag.
Soon he took out a gray leather manual - his usual study notes, which recorded the essence of knowledge imparted by the teachers.
rustling, the pages of the book are turned, and sparks are scattered, reflecting the quiet face of the young man.
"found it!"
"Let me see too!"
The two stared wide-eyed, staring at the image on the book, in shock.
In the dense text, an ancient and strange picture is depicted.
On the evil altar, a huge pale cobweb in the shape of a regular octagon was woven, and its head was covered with black down hair, and eight sharp cheliped insects were quietly crawling on it.
The most shocking thing is that it clearly has the body of a spider, but it bears the head of a lion, with a thick mane on its neck, fluttering like flames, its wide open mouth showing sharp canine teeth, and a pair of cold eyes staring at it. Ahead, as if staring at the unknown fate.
And the pale skeletons piled into hills under the cobwebs came from the prey it preyed on.
The whole picture is full of uncleanness and evil. Just looking at it makes people shudder and have nightmares.
"Lion-headed spider, god of bad omens," Karl read its name solemnly, "blakat grayba, also known as coram agh tera."
"An ancient evil belief in the North!"
"The great weaver who weaves the fate of mankind into a great web."
"Worship death and darkness, just like the evil god Svalblo, who was spread in the Skellige Islands, and likes the sacrifice of bloody living creatures!"
"Its priests have powerful curse abilities!"
hiss-
Sparks crackled and burst, and the two witchers were lost in thought.
Until Wilt flicked their cheeks with a fluffy tail.
Carl woke up from a dream and muttered to himself,
"Priestess Daisy also has this tattoo on her back, which means—"
"She doesn't believe in Rebiuda!" Arkhamtom's eyes lit up, and he gritted his teeth, "She is a believer of the god of bad omens and the lion-headed spider! Those two muscular men who are inseparable from her—"
"Nine times out of ten." Karl agreed. "Their totems should be hidden somewhere in the temple."
"Damn guy, he actually played us all over the place, and he even bullied me and shouted that Rebi beat him up!" Arkham was indignant.
"I'm fooling you, you fool! I told you early on that they had a problem and asked you to have a snack!" Carl glared at him disdainfully, and sighed again, "This Daisy dares to beat Rebi over and over again. I swear, it's a lot of lies, because Rebiwanda can't control her at all!"
"But this prophet is too useless?" Arkham complained, "My temple was occupied by the evil god Dove, and my priest Xinni was probably killed a long time ago, not a trip! It didn't respond at all!"
"It is said that the Prophet Rabbiuda was just a poor worm who stood out for the believers and was taken away by the dragon and eaten to the bone." Carl tore a piece of meat from the grill and pondered while eating.
"Now I think the rumors are true. He is probably just a symbol of knowledge, and he does not possess divine power, so the believers of the lion-headed spider specially picked such a soft persimmon to start! Now the eighteen children of the temple are already in Under the fangs of the evil god."
The witcher was relatively speechless, his eyes turned and he pondered for a long time.
"Since they are cultists!" Arkham wondered, "Why did you allow us to enter the temple to eradicate demon spirits in the first place, instead of driving us away directly? Isn't this equivalent to bringing wolves into the house?"
"It's true that lion-headed spiders have a powerful curse ability, but 99% of the curses can only take effect on flesh and blood, not on ghosts. This means that they are almost powerless to the night demons that convert from reality to reality, and they do need the assistance of witchers. ." Carl replied without hesitation,
"What they did wrong was to underestimate the curiosity and sense of justice of the witcher, especially a young man with a few beards who was clamoring for chivalry all day long."
…
"Bah! Little genius, are you wise and skilled? Answer me, are the two children in the cellar their fault?" Arkham recalled the bald man's remarks about war orphans, with a complicated expression on his face. Said, "How do I feel that they still treat the children with a bit of sincerity and will not kill them cruelly. Comparing their hearts, those little cubs have come forward to face our sharp blades."
"Lion-headed spider, is it possible that it is not as evil as imagined."
Carl sneered,
"What could make a group of sheep attack a lion, and you don't see the struggle and pleading in the eyes of that group of kids? I think their final excesses were influenced by some external force, like the tattoos on their wrists!"
"Well, even if you're right," Arkham threw a piece of wood into the bonfire, "where did those big cats and spiders come from? There's no trace in the temple! The god of bad omens is good at Curse, but you can't summon monsters out of thin air, right?"
Carl silently drank a large mouthful of chrysanthemum tea in the water bag, his eyes flashed with thought, and the faces of a bald man and a bearded man suddenly appeared in his mind... The mysterious sniffing movements of the two men... caused him The invisible pressure of...weird attitude...
The hazy line was quickly connected.
"I see. Our investigation was wrong at the beginning. We fell into a blind spot of thinking. Those two evil beasts didn't invade the temple from outside at all. Maybe they stayed in the temple all the time, so outsiders had no way of knowing."
"What do you mean? We didn't search the entire temple."
"Take your head and think about it. Regarding the God of Bad Omen, Mr. Roy once told us a few adventures he personally experienced!"
Arkham slapped the back of his head sharply, his eyes lit up, he stood up suddenly, and circled excitedly around the bonfire, "Naviren, the bear-headed man on the outskirts of Vizima (true love is like blood)... Temeria Princess Vampire Bird Ya Da (chasing evil), Aaron the Werewolf, the head of the acrobatic troupe, and a pair of birds and birds (please close your eyes when it's dark)... They are human beings, but they wear animal skins, because they are all priests of the god of evil omens. Cursed!"
Arkham suddenly thought of Angula's strange, dream-like speech - fangs and claws, a dog-like nose, maybe it wasn't a witcher!
"So the power of the curse can transform human beings into monsters with infinite power!"
"Curse is also a power in a sense."
Carl stared at the flames and said aloud,
"What we're looking for is not a lynx or a spider at all, but a leopard man, a tiger man, or a spider man transformed from a human?"
"Thinking about it further, the most likely cursed people are Bruzi and Dino who are beside the priest Daisy, the god of bad omens!"
"They manage the temple, and to clear the traces, it couldn't be easier!"
breathe-
The moon rose, and the bright moonlight and the bouncing bonfire illuminated Arkham's shocked face.
"So, the murderer we're looking for has been swaying in front of us all the time? Are you misleading us?"
Arkham smiled wryly ashamed.
This fact is absurd, ridiculous, but logical.
"Well, I'm leaning towards that answer."
"But why did they brutally kill two children? They sacrificed to the god of evil omens with a painful death?"
"If children are deliberately used as consumables for sacrifice, I don't think so many orphans will survive." Carl thought for a while and shook his head, "As for the specific reasons, it has nothing to do with us."
"Now we should think about what to do next? Although I don't want to admit it, we are just two real rookies. The first lesson the teacher gave us was to choose a close opponent! The god of bad omen is not in this category. I suggest first Go to Ron Essett to connect with brothers and teachers."
"You haven't killed enough water ghosts yet? You don't know how to seize the ready opportunity to show off your skills? We must figure it out quickly!" Singing the opposite tune, "Give up halfway, what qualifications do you have to brag about the guys in the future!"
"Are you filled with shit in your head, can you learn to judge the situation?" Carl shook his head and said worriedly, "Anyway, I don't want Vicky to be a widow at a young age."
"She's not yet fifteen years old, she's never held your hand, she's a widow! By the way, I have a piece of evidence here!" Arkham took out the dirty puppet from the saddlebag , the firelight illuminated the colorful patches and long-dry bloodstains on it, and the roaring words of Angulan flooded in his mind—
Why don't you ask it!
Arkham's mouth curved slightly, and he tore off the patch,
"Why did you kill those two children? Maybe the answer is in it!"