Master the Abyss, starting from an apprentice priest.

第446章 决战之前（4k4，第二更！今日总更9k1）

Fafnir Castle, inside the city.

At the end of a path extending from the main street, at the edge of a huge steel smelting furnace that was boiling like magma, a tall and thin figure was looking down at the furnace, playing with a colorful dagger in his right hand.

The short knife was emitting a strange light. The thin figure did not let its blade cut anything, but blood suddenly flowed from the blade.

First, there was a flow of bright red blood, from which wisps of dark mist rose like smoke. The color of the blood soon began to turn black, and drops of it fell to the ground. The moment it came into contact with the ground, a "hissing" sound was made, as if something was burning.

"As you said, the 'messenger' has completed his mission."

The thin figure said in a small, enthusiastic, and somewhat shrill voice:

"According to the will of the Lord, the message has been delivered to the Empire's expeditionary force... As for the messenger, my 'Flame Head' Dartis, I have cut out his heart."

"..."

The owner of this thin figure is none other than the "Apostle of the Holy Abyss" and "Executioner" Cros Jupiter.

His eyes were still fixed on the furnace, and at the same time, the air behind him began to ripple noticeably, as if visible folds appeared on the surface of water.

Before Koros finished what he said, another figure suddenly appeared from nowhere behind him. It was a figure wearing a white robe with black edges. She raised a faint, seductive smile, and said, "Haha":

"Very good, Koros."

"You are so cruel~ That 'Fang Head', um... his name is Dartis Rockfield, right? He has been following you for six years, and you just killed him like that."

"This is a necessary sacrifice." Koros responded in a dull voice.

There was a dim deep purple light flashing in his pupils. He stopped discussing the previous topic with the owner of the white robe behind him, but continued to stare closely at the furnace. After staring for a long time, he spoke again in a sinister tone:
"This is it."

"Honorable... God's Spirit. The target you are looking for, the 'Lord of Blood Sacrifice', is here."

"Jump down from here. Then follow the tunnel inside the furnace all the way down. The blood will tell you which fork in the road to take."

"As long as you go deeper... well, about ten minutes. You will see a pit full of corpses. There is a huge pool of blood below. There should be a lever mechanism inside. Pull the lever, and the blood in the pool will seep out from the hole at the edge, revealing the bottom of the pool. There is a secret door in the center."

"Enter that secret door, and further down there is a skeleton statue belonging to the Red Lotus Destruction Seat. The 'Lord of Blood Sacrifice' is hiding on that floor, and he won't be hiding any further in the short term."

"..."

Koros said this, and behind him, the "angel" Tatia, who had hidden her wings, listened with a smile and wrote down what Koros said.

When Koros finished speaking, Tatia smiled and said to him:

"Very good, I remember it, Koros~"

"I acknowledge your loyalty to him on behalf of your Lord."

"I'm very grateful." Cross nodded and said.

When Kolos responded like this, Tatia could hardly suppress her joyful smile - to be honest, the feeling of being regarded as the representative of the 'Lord' was quite pleasant, and Tatia always felt a little addicted.

But He did not burst out laughing on the spot. Instead, He maintained that gentle and somewhat seductive smile and said to Koros:

"Well, the loyal 'Apostle', Cross Jupiter~"

"I'm here."

"As the agent of the will you serve, I have a new mission for you."

"You say."

"Jump down from this furnace." Tatia said with a smile, "Follow the route you mentioned, find the 'Lord of Blood Sacrifice', and wait there. This is also the will of your 'Lord', you need to guard him and not give him any chance to escape and hide somewhere else."

"…Yes."

Koros nodded, put away the colorful dagger he had been playing with, turned around, bowed slightly to Tatia, and performed a simplified servant's salute.

"Your will be obeyed."

Koros said finally.

Then, he gently pulled the wide hood of his cloak, turned around and faced the boiling mouth of the furnace, and jumped in without hesitation -

puff.

The surface of the bubbling orange-red molten steel created a circle of red "water splashes" when Koros jumped in. The sound of "hiss, hiss" drifted along with the smoke, and Koros' figure had already disappeared in it.

Tatia took two steps forward and looked down from where Kolos had stood before.

He could actually feel that although the boiling molten steel in the huge furnace in front of him looked terrifying, the temperature around it was not as high as it "saw". In Tatia's perception, it was probably only as hot as the hottest noon in summer.

The furnace is an illusion, Tatia thought, and He understood.

But the corners of His mouth were already raised in an arc of joy - because He had once again completed His "deception."

In fact, Luo Xiu did not instruct Koros to jump into the furnace. He just asked Koros to contact the "Lord of Blood Sacrifice" and monitor him as the "Executioner".

"He actually jumped down... Hee."

Tatia raised her hand and covered her mouth with her jade-like slender fingers. Now that he was alone, he finally laughed out loud.

……

Outside the city of Fafnir, the Kuisan Flood Peak.

The "Guardians" of the church - the players of the "Mirror of Glow" guild, Thomas, Crocodile, Alicia, Huangdou and others, were climbing the halfway up the steep mountain that was transformed from the corpse of the ancient dragon.

At this moment, almost half of the Adventers of the expeditionary force's "Adventer Legion" are not in the legion.

Two days ago, before they arrived at Fafnir, they received a message from the bishop conveyed by Howard Berrut, the "Priest of the Holy Inquisition" - all the church's saints did not need to follow the expeditionary force, but should give priority to executing the commissions they received from the Holy Inquisition.

This greatly increased the freedom of their players, and the commissions that Thomas and the Crocodile received from the Holy Inquisition were to find out whether there were any significant threats in the surrounding areas. The commission with the highest reward was to find out the Kuisang Flood Peak under their feet.

It is said that their "bishop" had been here once before, but then went back. Thomas and his friends just saw a bunch of golden meteors streaking across the sky a few kilometers away. That should be the bishop riding the "Golden Pegasus".

"Wow... this mountain is really high."

Thomas was a little out of breath. Although he was not really tired as his will controlled the character's movements, he was in a breathless state with a thick layer of sweat on his forehead.

"When can we have a 'holy beast' that can fly and hide like the bishop?" Thomas wiped his sweat and said, "I really need it. The idiot planner, please make one for me. I will pay for it. I really will."

"..."

After Thomas finished speaking, the other teammates around him nodded in agreement.

As the first batch of "body sensing cabin" players in the 1970s, even if they cry poor every day in the game, they are not short of money in real life. The current krypton gold items in "God's Destiny" are a negligible financial burden for them. Compared with several top open world second games of the same era, it is really quite conscientious.

The altitude of the "Kuisang Hongfeng" where they are now is about two thousand to three thousand meters.

"By the way... the manual distributed by the church says that the Kuisang Flood Peak under our feet was formed from the corpse of a huge ancient dragon from the Age of Gods... Oh my god, is there really such a huge ancient dragon?"

Huang Dou asked curiously.

"Yes, brother. Yes."

The crocodile adjusted the crooked Paladin helmet and uttered a strong and rough voice from under his visor: "Trust [Next Generation Black Technology Company] meow, Black Technology Company has enough money to do modeling meow."

"...I'm just worried that if we really have a decisive battle with Fafnir City, this... uh, Quesan Peak? Suddenly 'resurrected', and then we have to fight like a fucking Molten Dragon..."

"Grass."

Huang Dou shook his head: "Stop talking, there is a picture."

"The Dragon Mountain beneath our feet, uh, um." Alicia said, "At least right now, the panel detection on it has not detected any life reaction."

"Even the detection on the prop panel didn't show that 'Kuisang Hongfeng' was a corpse. For now, let's just treat it as an ordinary mountain that's just a little high and steep."

"Come to think of it, we have actually climbed over 2,000 meters so far, but we really haven't encountered any monsters, not even wild animals."

"Is this normal? We clearly saw... um, a lot of holes that looked like nests."

"..."

"Perhaps they were all abducted by the Black Fangs and Fangheads in Fafnir City."

Thomas stroked his chin. "We participated in the attack on the Fire Sword Fortress before, and even earlier when we attacked the Black Gravel Fortress and the Esco City, we encountered the beasts raised by the Black Army. Hey, they are really strong."

"What about inside Fafnir City?" The big crocodile followed up, "Could it be that the strongest of those magical beasts, like the 'leader species', are being locked in some cages by the executioners stationed in Fafnir City, waiting to be released when our expeditionary force attacks the city?"

"..."

"Yes, brother."

Huang Dou said:

"We've encountered them in the previous sieges of Fire Sword Fortress, Black Gravel Fortress, and Esk City. Do you still want to catch one in Fafnir City? - But then again, I actually really want to capture one alive. I heard that the rune technology used to implant runes into monsters for control in Fangbei Academy has been researched to a very mature level. The players in the Border Court can all ride red dragons. Can our church do the same?"

"really."

"really."

"..."

Huang Dou's words also aroused a wave of agreement from his teammates. They have been playing "God's Destiny" for nearly two months now, but apart from the cats, dogs, raccoons and cats that can be bought in ordinary pet stores, they have not yet had a "pet" that can truly be called a replacement for combat power.

And if the extraordinary people of [Glory] want to contract a holy beast, it seems that they need to have a quadruple destiny, which is just stuck at the level cap of version 1.0.

The players discussed this for a while, and Thomas finally sighed and said:

"But it's really strange. I didn't see any monsters at the Kuisang Flood Peak, which was originally marked as 'extremely dangerous'. Although it's cool to get commission rewards for free, it's still a bit boring."

"I have a suggestion - it's still early before dark, why don't we play the exciting 'Shadow of Fate' right here? Our progress in conquering the 'Gluttonous Tyrant' Brigantis in the group mode is almost over 5%! We can get the 10% minimum living allowance reward soon!"

"climb!"

"climb,"

"climb."

The crocodile, Alicia and Huangdou are more united than ever before.

While they were still chatting about these things, suddenly, in the "Mirror of Glorious Light" guild group chat, the members who stayed behind in the church headquarters sent a new message.

Thomas, Crocodile and the others stopped chatting and opened the chat channel to take a look.

"Hey, has the Border finally issued a formal decision to attack the city?"

Thomas looked at the messages sent by other guild members in the chat group and said, "We will attack the city tomorrow morning. Oh my god, it's so early!"

"Our bishop has also presided over the ceremony of the 'Divine Revelation'." Alicia said, "Xianyu Banban sent the news, and he participated in the ceremony. Well, the bishop said that the expeditionary force will successfully capture Fafnir City. The bishop has confirmed it."

"With the blessing of 'Divine Revelation', it's stable, brothers!" Thomas said excitedly.

He knew that the most amazing thing about the bishop was not only his monstrous fighting power, but also his ability to predict the future with the "divine oracle". Basically, the bishop could fight wherever the "oracle" pointed, and the expeditionary army always won a great victory and returned with a full load.

"The bishop has sent a message to all the 'Guardians', uh... to all the Guardians who are not in the base to return as soon as possible. We really should go down the mountain and pack up, because we have to get up early tomorrow morning to fight the decisive battle."

Alicia said.

The group of players no longer stayed on the Kuisang Flood Peak, but quickly went down the mountain and returned to the direction of the church headquarters along the path they had opened up during the climb, with the shortest distance and fastest speed.

……

Half an hour later.

Fafnir Castle, inside the city.

At the bottom of the blood cave under the city - on a small floating island floating in the center of the blood lake, there is an altar with a "red lotus" base carved from crimson magic crystals.

Sitting on top of it was a thin, dark red figure with no facial features, emitting a thick and ominous black aura.

——"Lord of Blood Sacrifice".

He was surrounded by people wearing black and scarlet cloaks, all standing with their hands hanging in his direction.

The Lord of Blood Sacrifice had his eyes tightly closed - or rather, there were no eyes on his horribly smooth "face". He sat there like a dark red sculpture, and there was no movement except for the sound of his heart pumping and even breathing coming from nowhere.

Suddenly, his whole body trembled, and the "eyes" on his smooth face tore open. Countless tentacles with sharp tips and shining black light pierced through his dark red robe and went through behind him!
--clang!!
The sharp sound of metal clashing was heard, and another figure behind him swung out a colorful dagger to block the sneak attack of the Lord of Blood Sacrifice.

"...Tsk."

The Lord of Blood Sacrifice retracted those tentacles covered with black barbs. His terrifying face opened up, and his jagged teeth touched each other, making a muddy and sharp sound:

"What a pity... Koros."

"What are you doing here?"

"..."

"I am here to watch over you, 'Lord of Blood Sacrifice'."

A sinister smile appeared on Koros' face, and he said:
"As you know, the expeditionary force is approaching Fafnir City."

"Your master, the 'Chief Executioner' Fafnir, asked you to guard here."

"And now, for the last bottom line of Fafnir City - that is you. I will watch you and make sure you don't betray this city."

"..."

……

(End of this chapter)