Banner of the Evil God

"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 this! It's a cult sacrifice!"

Hearing this, the tavern, which had been quite noisy just now, suddenly fell silent. 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, they are not weak in strength. When faced with 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 - rather, it is actually relatively rare to kill only one person. 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.

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 real cult - they were all playing murder and sacrifice.

"What exactly is going on?" 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... from that village I won’t say the name, since there are no more people alive, so there is no point in talking about it. In the middle of the night, 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. ——Through the auras on their bodies, I clearly saw that the corpses of villagers were scattered all over the ground, and the blood was flowing all over the ground, forming a magic circle that made my hair stand on end at first sight! "

Upon hearing this, more than one adventurer was already packing 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, but they arrived. It was precisely because they arrived so quickly that the cultists had to flee in a hurry, leaving only the scene of the unsuccessful sacrifice summoning ceremony."

"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."

"Yeah, I'm lucky, but the villagers in that village are not!" The ranger sighed and said, "I was questioned for a long time, and I took three polygraph tests. Finally, the clergy finally confirmed that I had nothing to do with it, and let me go. By the way, they also dragged me to help those villagers with their funerals - a total of 51 people, men, women, young and old, one to make up for the leak..."

As he said, 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 have been murders elsewhere. I remember that more than a dozen people died in Gray Goat Village."

"Sacrifice, it must be sacrifice!" The ranger said firmly, "Once the cult is large-scale, it will definitely not sacrifice only 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 asking 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 to go after leaving the Gold Coin Federation?" someone asked.

"Take a boat to the south. Even if the cult wants to sacrifice, they generally won't cause trouble at sea..."

"No! Let's go to the north, or even directly to the Northwest Republic!" a middle-aged adventurer said loudly, "The security in the Northwest Republic is good. Although it's not easy to find a job, you can still make a living as a worker... I'm old, so I'll 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 whole tavern, lying on the table and sleeping soundly.

However, no one noticed that there was a cunning smile on the corner of his mouth...

I'll go to sleep for a while...