Once upon a time there was a greedy snake.

Chapter 128 Deeply Cultivating Darkness, Serving the Light
First, let's hear what the ancient serpent said.

Secondly, what does the ancient serpent truly want?

Finally, there's what you need to do.

After a brief discussion, the priests had solved the most difficult problem. They had realized that although they had to work in the darkness to survive, the light of the sun still remained in their hearts.

Then the remaining two are much easier to do.

The ancient serpent said it wanted seasoning, but in reality, it was testing them in various ways—as long as the ancient serpent was brought into a godlike position, the priests would naturally understand everything.

"It must be done quickly! It must be done well!"

In order to survive, and also to leave a better impression on the ancient serpent, the priests decided to carry out the serpent's orders twice as much.

After all, only by exceeding the target, or even exceeding it by several times, can they prove their ability and prove that they are capable people.

Staying under the ancient serpent's nose might seem like a constraint, but for these priests, it was no big deal. Only ordinary people would see such a thing as an obstacle; for them, as priests, it was a great opportunity to demonstrate their abilities.

Two days later, the grand festival began.

The festival was held in the name of worshipping the snake god, and the previous battle was also glorified as a test of the Butuo people's faith. As for their attack on the ancient snake, it was even transformed into a worship of the god.

"This is to help the great serpent god stretch his muscles."

They gave this explanation.

As for why the snake god appearing in the snake god temple is not the cobra that has been worshipped locally for many years... that's easy to explain. They simply say that the snake god is two-faced, being a cobra in the previous era and a giant python in this era.

In any case, it's impossible for ordinary people, let alone the priests themselves, to truly verify such matters.

Since there's no way to verify it, then whatever they say is fine, as long as we can clear up the doubts left behind and prevent the locals from thinking about it too much.

If they really wanted to think about it carefully.

"Are you trying to question the great serpent god?"

No one could withstand such a charge.

Even so, there were still people who questioned the great serpent god. One of them was the town's spice merchant. Although the spice merchant repeatedly said that he had never said such a thing and that he was extremely devout to the god, several priests, under the pretext of disrespecting the serpent god, ordered the able-bodied men who had begun to obey their commands to send the merchant's entire family to meet their demise.

Of course, some priests raised questions during this process, feeling that it was going too far to forcibly send a devout believer's entire family to meet the Grim Reaper, which was clearly an evil deed done by followers of evil gods.

So, what do you think we are now?

Faced with such doubts, the leader who used the scarab amulet frowned.

"You don't actually think we're serving the sun god right now, do you?"

Upon hearing this, the other priests also remembered that they were supposed to pretend to be working diligently for the ancient serpent.

Since they are working for the ancient serpent, not for the righteous god, the methods used are naturally less important.

Moreover, didn't they do such things when they were serving the true gods?

“But this amount is still too little,” a priest said, expressing his opinion.

"That ancient serpent could have simply stolen all the local spices on its own. If we only do what that ancient serpent can do, how can we demonstrate our abilities?"

Upon hearing this, the chief priest shook his head, indicating that this was not the end of everything, but rather the beginning.

After all, after raiding the spice merchants' homes, they obtained more than just a large quantity of spices.

There is also the vacancy left by the spice merchant.

So the priests randomly picked one person from the group of ordinary people they had previously subdued and put him in charge to continue the operation of the spice trade. In the process, the priests gradually learned where the spices were produced and where the spice merchants were gathered.

"And these salt wells... Atrebis and Kent?"

The priest chief marked the two towns on the papyrus map and then handed it over to the able-bodied men.

Immediately afterwards, temples dedicated to the serpent god were erected in both villages.

Although it is only the size of a shrine, it is still a temple, and it still represents the name of God and has the same divine majesty. No matter how small the temple is, disrespecting the temple is still disrespecting the God.

Disrespect for God will naturally result in the confiscation of property and the extermination of the entire clan.

Thus, just like the spice trade in the Buto region, those salt wells, as well as several other spice-producing areas, also fell into the control of these priests.

In just one month, these priests had almost completely taken control of the Buto region.

Throughout this process, none of them even left the gate of the Snake God Temple.

"The main reason is that there's no resistance here..."

Thinking of this, the priest chief couldn't help but feel a sense of relief. After all, not every place allowed them to show off their skills so much. If they were in the territory of the sun god in the north, other priests would probably have come to challenge them to a duel before they even started dealing with the spice merchants.

At present, at least in the Buto region, the only ones who can fight against them are old Buto and that ancient snake. Old Buto is busy with something, and the ancient snake is busy with something. Neither of them pays any attention to them, yet they can do their work without any hindrance.

"This kind of life seems pretty good... no, wait."

The moment a feeling of comfort arose in his mind, the priest leader quickly pressed it down.

You can't think like that, you absolutely can't think like that. Even though they've been deeply entrenched in darkness, the radiance of the Sun God still lingers in their hearts. In a sense, the reason they deliberately made such a commotion was to attract the Sun God's attention, so that the holy land of Sun City would send out more forces to besiege this ancient serpent.

On the other hand, the bigger the commotion they make, the more capable they are.

"Very good, you guys did a really good job."

Just as they expected, when the one-month deadline came to an end, the enormous ancient serpent indeed rewarded them.

"But there's one more thing I want to ask you."

"Was the shop where I used to buy pepper also demolished by your people?"

(End of this chapter)