Iron Powder and Spellcaster

Seeing corpses dressed in pagan costumes, Winters became more convinced of his previous speculation:

The heavy rain that almost caused the collapse of the Szekely layout was by no means a natural phenomenon. It was a spell, a spell of unimaginable scale.

But Winters didn't tell anyone about this idea.

He is no longer the young boy who happily demonstrated magic to Ike. Keeping secrets is the first rule of a spell caster.

Winters counted eight bodies around the campfire.

The corpses were all dressed in clothes decorated with animal bones, bluestone, metal, and colorful ribbons. Their limbs were strangely twisted and their expressions were extremely painful.

There were two sounds of "hiss" and "hiss", the door curtain was cut open, and the strong wind blew away the smoke in the felt tent.

Jessica, Andre and other officers led the people into the felt tent. Everyone was frightened and speechless by the horrific scene inside the tent.

Without the door curtain, the interior of the felt tent became brighter, and Winters was able to see more details hidden in the darkness:

Every inch of the carpet in the tent was painted with unfamiliar symbols. Sacrificial vessels and flags painted with the same unfamiliar symbols were strung together with strings and hung densely on the tent walls.

"Pagan sacrifice?" Lieutenant Colonel Jessica asked with a frown.

Winters nodded: "Probably."

Ciel pointed at a place beside the campfire and asked, "What is that?"

Others followed the sound and saw a gold plate placed on the bluestone in front of the bonfire.

The plate was filled with half-dried blood and a dagger.

"That's not human blood, is it?" Andre suddenly felt nauseated.

"It shouldn't be..." Bud also looked a little uncomfortable: "Maybe it's the blood of the green horse outside."

Winters walked up to Lieutenant Colonel Jessica and discussed in a low voice: "Lieutenant Colonel, I'm afraid there's something weird here, so we'd better let everyone exit first."

Jessica pondered and nodded in agreement.

The militiamen were not willing to stay longer at the strange pagan altar, so they hurriedly retreated outside the tent after receiving the order.

"Ciel!" Winters called to Charles who was leaving the tent: "Bring me Belle."

Ciel nodded and set out to find the little hunter.

Only a few officers remained in the felt tent.

Andre looked around. The hair on his body suddenly stood up on this reckless man who was usually fearless, and he felt a chill for no reason.

He crossed his arms, shrank his neck, and hummed, "How about we go too? But not here...Eh? Winters! What are you doing?"

Winters, who was examining the bodies, answered without looking up: "We have to find out how they died, right?"

Several people watched as Winters examined one of the slightly stiff bodies from head to toe - through the clothes.

Andre swallowed a mouthful of saliva and asked, "What did you find?"

"They are indeed dead," Winters replied, wiping his hands.

"Nonsense!" Andre almost vomited blood: "I can see it too!"

"anything else?"

"It's just because I couldn't find anything else, that's why it's strange." The tip of Winters' nose twitched slightly: "There's no trauma at all."

Andre took a breath and subconsciously took several steps back toward the tent door.

"No external injuries? Could it be poisoning?" Mason looked very uncomfortable. He looked at Lieutenant Colonel Jessica and asked, "Sir, do the Herds still engage in human sacrifice?"

Jessica smiled bitterly: "I'm not a Hud, so how could I know."

Regarding the caster, Winters didn't reveal much - he simply didn't say anything and just continued to look through other corpses.

Bud took a few steps back, looked at a corpse, and said, "Why do I feel like this person was dancing and suddenly died?"

Only then did several officers realize that the "twisted and strange" death state of the corpse... really looked like some kind of dance.

"What dance can lead to death?" Mason asked with a frown.

Winters also followed Bard's example and took a few steps back, trying to take a holistic view of the eight corpses in the tent.

"No!" Winters' expression suddenly changed.

"What's wrong?" The officer in the tent was confused.

But Winters had already rushed out of the tent and shouted at his militiamen: "Bell! Where is Bell?"

"Here!" Ciel pulled the little hunter and ran over panting.

Winters grabbed the little hunter's arm with such force that the little hunter gritted his teeth in pain.

"Bell!" Winters asked urgently: "What is the most important number for the Hurds?"

"Huh?" Bell was confused for a moment.

Winters became more and more impatient: "The most important, most auspicious, and most solemn number! A number used for sacrifices."

"I remember it was [three], three sacrifices." Bell tried to remember: "At the most solemn time, there were three animals each, which is... [nine]."

really!

Winters sprinted back to the felt tent and shouted, "No! There's someone missing!"

"What do you mean?" Andre couldn't keep up.

"Look at these people!" Winters dragged Andre back to the edge of the tent and pointed at the corpses on the ground: "They don't stand casually! Their positions are regular! This dance is missing someone! There is a missing person. We found the lead dancer! The lead dancer is not dead! Find him!"

Winters rushed out of the tent, jumped up to a high place, and yelled at all the militiamen with a loudspeaker: "Find them all! Find the Hurd in strange clothes! Dig three feet to find him! No!" Go and find me all the Hurds in the city!”

Bell walked into the tent cautiously and was frightened by the sight in front of him. He stammered: "Why...why are so many priests...dead?"

Upon hearing this, Winters rushed over and asked, "Priest? Are these the shamans of the Hud people?"

"Yes." Bell nodded hastily.

"Go find it!" Winters yelled at the militiamen outside the tent again.

The militiamen ran in panic to carry out their duties.

Winters' mood swings were so great that all the officers noticed something strange.

"What's wrong?" Lieutenant Colonel Jessica asked.

Winters couldn't answer. He finally understood why the secrets of the court mage could be kept for thousands of years.

Because no one wants to share this knowledge.

Just like Winters was unwilling to share this knowledge with the Platoans casually.

What a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to capture a weak magical user alive.

This is probably the closest time to the magical barrier being breached since Antoine Laurent established the alliance's spell caster system.

You know, no one can capture the caster alive unless he surrenders voluntarily.

Unless a spellcaster takes the initiative, no one can pry a word out of their mouths.

Even if Winters' hands and feet are tied, he can still explode the enemy's head with one blast of disintegration...or his own.

In the same way, no one can capture the magic user alive.

Capture mages and priests alive and interrogate them?

It would be easier to just kill them all.

The only time to capture a person with magic abilities alive is when they are unable to use magic abilities.

Winters was almost certain that the Hed shaman who led the dance must be the one who guided this spell.

The other eight shamans all died suddenly, and the shaman who guided the spells was definitely not much better.

"The resonance of multiple spellcasters can push the power of a spell to unimaginable levels."

The idea has been playing in Winters' mind for a year and a half.

The idea began to sprout from the night when the fire tornado swept through Guitu City.

It started out as a casual thought, like a whisper in the wind.

As Winters' experience increased, the idea not only was not forgotten, but took root.

After witnessing how the Hed shaman destroyed all gunpowder weapons with a rainstorm, the whisper in the wind has turned into rolling thunder.

A voice shouted in Winters' mind: "This must be it! Find the shaman!"

But he was too impatient, too careless - and he realized it.

Winters didn't want to play tricks on Lieutenant Colonel Jessica, but he also didn't want to reveal the knowledge of the caster.

After regaining his composure, Winters asked, "When I first arrived at the battlefield, I almost lost consciousness. Do you still remember?"

"Um."

"I'm afraid that was some kind of attack by these Hed shamans. I want to find that shaman and ask him how he did it."

This is another theory from Winters.

"He is in the city and you are outside the city. How can he attack you when they are so far away?" the lieutenant colonel raised his eyebrows.

"I don't know either, so I have to find him and ask him clearly."

Jessica thought for a while and said casually: "Let your people search from nearby. All eight of them died miserably, and the surviving one will be half disabled."

Winters nodded repeatedly, turned around and was about to run out of the tent, but was caught by Lieutenant Colonel Jessica.

"Don't hold out too much hope. If this shaman is really important..." Lieutenant Colonel Jashka started pacing in circles inside the felt tent: "...I'm afraid he has been sent out of the city by the Hurds."

"Here, this is it!" Jessica stopped and stabbed the saber into the ground with her backhand. The tip of the saber actually sank into the ground a palm deep.

The lieutenant colonel suddenly pulled out the carpet and the wooden planks underneath, revealing a dark tunnel entrance.

"Barbarians are the most cunning." Jessica dusted herself off and seemed not surprised: "I taught you."

…

The interior of the tunnel is damp and cramped, and only small and thin people are allowed to walk bent over.

There's no way Winters can get in - he can crawl through the tunnels without armor, but would get stuck if he wore armor.

Lieutenant Colonel Jessica also did not allow Winters to enter the tunnel.

Because there are probably enemies waiting inside, and no one knows whether it is a tunnel or a cave.

In the end, the lieutenant colonel selected a few short and capable militiamen to explore the tunnel conditions, while Winters waited anxiously for news in the city.

At the same time, organized and unplanned looting was going on in Bianli.

The war was too hard, and most of the spoils had nothing to do with the soldiers.

For the soldiers, looting after breaking the city was the only way they could get [compensation].

If an army could avoid looting after the war, there must be something more noble than material things supporting them - the Plato soldiers obviously did not have that kind of thing.

But in Winters' view, the Platuan people were just chewing meat on a scrawny leg of lamb.

The best trophies are of course portable and valuable items such as gold, silver and jewelry.

However, there was nothing in the longhouse of Bianli, and the Hed people were impoverished.

The city of Bianli is so poor that the wealth of Hailan Street is greater than that of the whole of Bianli.

Most of the warehouses in the city are empty, and the White Lion's wealth is not kept in Bianli.

"I allow you to enter the city first," Arpad said to Lieutenant Colonel Jessica.

Winters didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back now, he was simply flattered.

Because the few valuable things in the city had been taken away by the first batch of Jashka Brigade that entered the city.

The troops that entered the city later gained almost nothing, and the only property Bian Li could sell was "people".

Those old, young, women, children, and injured people who failed to follow the White Lion to break out were inevitably becoming slaves.

Winters witnessed the quartermaster imprisoning, registering, and registering the Hurds in the city with extremely high efficiency.

The slave traders accompanying the army appeared out of nowhere, speaking various dialects, and bargained with the Plato quartermaster.

The Platoans are preparing carriages, and the Hittite slaves will be transported back to Plato before being exported - because the Plattans do not use Hittite slaves.

The Venetians and the people from the United Provinces were quite shocked, but Lieutenant Colonel Jessica was calm and composed.

Finally, the militiamen who had been sent to the cave came back from outside the city.

…

"This is it! Sir!" The militiamen took Winters and Bud to the northeast corner outside the city.

The tunnel exit outside the city is protected by double-layered wooden boards and covered with soil.

Winters noticed that the dirt on the planks even had grass growing there, no different from the surrounding turf.

This meant that the tunnel had been opened at least last summer, which made Winters increasingly uneasy.

The terrain of Bianli is high, and the direction of the tunnel is diagonally upward. About ten meters in from the exit, there is a small space with several small boats stacked inside.

"Oops!" Seeing the boat, Winters turned around and rushed out of the tunnel.

The exit is very close to the confluence river, and you can still vaguely see traces of boats being towed on the river beach.

Looking far into the distance, is there any trace of the boat?

"Run away?" Bud followed Winters out of the tunnel.

"You can't run away!" Winters shouted: "Bring the boat out!"

The militiamen hurried to the tunnel again.

Winters began to take off his armor and spoke quickly: "The boats in the tunnel are very small and cannot carry horses. There are no boats on the other side of the river beach, and the White Lion was defeated. The north bank is all our people. Nahede Shaman He must have gone downstream by boat.”

"Want to continue chasing?"

"Chase!" Winters handed the reins of Qiang Lun to Bud: "You lead the people across the river from the pontoon and chase on the north bank. Let Andre lead the people to chase on the south bank. I will take the boat to chase. I don't believe you can catch him. Get to him!"

"Wait a minute." Bud raised his eyebrows: "You can swim?"

Winters' breath was stagnant: "Then you chase him by boat, and I will lead the men to chase him on the north shore."

Several cavalrymen galloped from the river bank, and the leader was Andre.

Winters shouted excitedly: "Andre! You came just in time!"

"Where can I go?" Andre pulled the horse in front of Winters and said breathlessly: "The lieutenant colonel wants you to go back immediately."

"What happened?" Winters had a bad feeling.

"The legion has ordered to destroy the border troops, dispose of all the Herds, and burn all supplies that cannot be carried." Andre smiled bitterly: "The entire army retreats! Break camp immediately!"

…

"W.M's Spell Book"

Entry: Prayer for Rain

Level: Anti-military level

Principle: unknown

Method of application: unknown

Note: Boy Bell said that during the dry season, the tribe’s shaman would perform a rain praying ceremony. Some work well, some don't. Isn't this just a typical bluff? But that heavy rain cannot be faked. The shaman in the felt tent seemed to be doing nothing else but dancing...but he died in the end. Is it possible that the Hud people's rain praying technique is genuine? In this way, wouldn't the rain praying spell be equivalent to converting a civilian spell into a military one?

Also note: There must be a cloudy weather...

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