Goddess Kaleidoscope

"Of course! If we weren't really on the verge of starvation, who would bother to provoke those monsters from the human race?"

When Gamma mentioned humans, his tone was as if a human were discussing the terrifying topic of ogres, a hint of fear unconsciously appearing in his eyes. Rudd, having learned the cause of the incident, felt a pang of embarrassment; the black dragon Gamma had just mentioned was clearly Nidhogg!

These demi-humans living in the forest are quite unlucky, because under normal circumstances, dragons don't need to hunt so frequently. After each meal, as long as they don't move around too much, they can sustain themselves for a long time, or even sleep for half a year.

However, in order to pay for Kanna's "childcare," Nidhogg delivered over 150 giant wild boars to Pine Village throughout the winter, averaging more than one a day. This number doesn't sound like much, considering that Nidhogg, as a dragon, can hunt over a thousand kilometers daily.

The problem is that dragons are born with a terrifying dragon's might, which can naturally deter most creatures in the world. He does only catch a few pigs each time he hunts, but his frequent flying around frightens other animals, forcing them to flee elsewhere. As a result, the demi-human tribes living in the forest suffer.

These tribes mostly live with their families, and cannot easily migrate elsewhere during the cold winter, so they can only grit their teeth and endure the hardship.

Now that spring has finally arrived and the flowers are blooming, the "mad" dragon has ceased its abnormal hunting activities, but the situation in each tribe is nearing its limit. At this time, some ratmen appeared, persuading the various demi-human tribes in the forest to gather everyone together.

The ratmen are not considered a powerful race among the demi-humans; their individual combat strength is weak, but their intelligence is surprisingly high, and they possess an exceptionally high reproductive rate. During this "Dragon Plague," the ratman tribes in the forest suffered heavy casualties, with at least half of their population starving to death.

But these guys didn't hate the black dragon. Instead, the disaster sparked a primitive religion, and they began to worship the powerful dragon race.

The rat-people priests told the various demi-human tribes that the black dragon was a messenger sent by the great dragon god to bring divine punishment. If they did not want to be punished again, they should muster the courage to declare war on the evil humans in the south. Killing them and plundering them were sacrifices to the dragon god.

The ratmen knew these things because a dragon god's witch descended upon their tribe and brought them a divine oracle that revealed everything.

It was with this not-so-clever rhetoric that the ratmen quickly gathered a large number of demi-humans to join their so-called "Church Army," using this valley as their assembly point to continuously amass troops.

Having learned the cause and course of events, Lu De vaguely saw some familiar shadows in them.

As the saying goes, "the longer the history, the more we can learn from it." Throughout the five thousand years of Chinese history, whenever there was a major disaster, there were always peasant uprisings launched under the guise of religion, but in essence, they were all for the purpose of survival.

Therefore, the various tribes currently gathered in this valley are less persuaded by the ratmen and inspired by the "Dragon God," and more attracted by the ratmen's proposed plan to "join forces to rob humans," thus joining the group as a result.

The coalition is currently in the assembly phase, and the rat-man priests in charge hope to raise an army of 30,000 to carry out a major sweep of the border regions of the human kingdoms in the south.

In order to properly manage this super ragtag army, the ratmen, along with some of the more powerful demi-human races, established a strict hierarchical class system within the entire Holy Army.

The ratmen, centered around their revered "Holy Maiden," held religious power within the group, while other powerful races controlled the military, much like a noble class among humans, cooperating with the ratmen to control the upper echelons of the Crusader Army.

As for the other weaker races that attached themselves to them, some wanted to get rich together, while others were genuinely fooled by the ratman priests. In short, they were all cannon fodder, belonging to the lowest class of the group.

Lude couldn't help but sigh inwardly, those big rats, putting aside everything else, were quite similar to humans in their scheming and manipulative nature.

As the two were chatting, Hume, who had been scouting ahead, returned. Upon his return, he saw Ludwig chatting animatedly with a strange grey goblin, so he gave him a wink from afar.

Lude immediately told Gamma that his companion had come to find him, and that they should stop talking for today. He would come back with jerky to exchange for it after he had finished having his fun.

After saying goodbye to Gamma, Ludwig came to Hume and asked in a low voice what she had found inside. Hume gestured for her not to speak yet, and to discuss it in detail once they were out of there and in a safe place.

However, before they could prepare to retreat, a deep drumbeat suddenly resounded from the center of the camp. It was a full moon in the sky, and the valley was cloudless tonight; the drumbeat echoed throughout the entire camp.

Upon hearing this sound, many of the weaker races in the outer camps prostrated themselves towards the center of the camp. Seeing this, Ludwig and Hume knew that forcibly withdrawing at this time would only attract unnecessary attention, so they could only follow the crowd and lie down as well.

Lude crouched on the ground and secretly lifted himself up. He just wanted to see what tricks those big rats were up to.

End of this chapter

Lude carefully observed his surroundings. Thanks to the power granted by the Primal Flame, he could see that many gray elves around him had begun to produce deep black faith, which was constantly converging towards the center of the camp.

Ironically, most of the faith originated from the weaker races on the outskirts of the camp, becoming increasingly sparse closer to the center. This suggests that the powerful races didn't really believe in the ratmen's doctrines. Perhaps even the ratmen themselves, known for their cunning and treachery, didn't believe in them!

However, Lud had to admit that, whether those ratmen did it intentionally or unintentionally, they had achieved the initial conditions for creating a god without the blessing of the primordial fire. Although this nascent sect was still in its very early stages, given time, and if the ever-accumulating power of faith reached a critical point, there was a high probability that it would bear fruit.

Almost all the original gods were born in this way.

At this moment, the sound of drums rang out again in the center of the camp, this time lasting for a long time. Just as Lud was wondering what was going on, a group of "shamans" suddenly came over.

Although they all wore wooden masks and straw raincoats covered with all sorts of strange little trinkets, Lud still judged from their strange hands and the large yellow teeth peeking out from under their masks that these shaman-like fellows were priests of the rat people.

The ratman priests, leading the way, hopped and skipped, chanting incantations. Not far behind them was a massive palanquin carried by four ogres. Straw curtains hung on all four sides of the palanquin, and a figure could be vaguely seen sitting inside.

The palanquin quickly arrived at the gray elf camp. The leading ratman priest stopped, waved his torch-like scepter, and shouted in a very shrill voice.

"Great Dragon King, send down your sweet rain!"

"May the sweet rain fall!"

As the rat-man priests shouted, a faint blue light suddenly appeared above the palanquin, followed by a light rain that poured down in all directions. The gray elves, soaked, were overwhelmed with gratitude, prostrating themselves on the ground and shouting, "Thank you, Dragon King, for your blessing!"

But Luther and Hume exchanged a secret glance, their eyes revealing mutual understanding.

This isn't divine magic at all, it's fucking magic!

Regardless, the ratmen's ritual was quite elaborate. The ratman priests led the palanquin from camp to camp, spraying water on each of the surrounding races, practically reaping a huge wave of faith from the believers face-to-face.

After circling the camp, the palanquin returned to the heavily guarded center, while Ludd and Hume took the opportunity to slip away. Their infiltration had indeed been fruitful, gathering a great deal of valuable intelligence, but many questions remained unanswered.

"These rat-man priests are something else."

"Then you haven't been to the center of the camp, which would have been much more eye-opening!"

"What did you see?"

"An altar, a very strange altar."

Hume frowned deeply when he mentioned what he had seen in the center of the camp. The altar set up by the ratmen was really too eerie, and Hume felt that it looked familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

Seemingly a standard feature of cults, bones and blood are always the "building materials" that these heretics like to use the most. The altar located in the very center of the camp is a pool of blood decorated with a large number of skulls. The faith generated by the many believers in the entire camp is gathered in the pool.

Hume, who had infiltrated the pool, wanted to get closer to take a look, but she discovered that the pool seemed to be "alive." Although her stealth skills allowed her to easily avoid the guards and rat-man priests, as soon as she got within ten meters of the pool, the thing would suddenly react, and the blood in the pool would violently boil and churn as if it were boiling.

Left with no other option, Hume had to retreat.

All signs indicate that the ratmen are brewing something big. They are still recruiting and recruiting more demi-human tribes to join them. Even though they already have tens of thousands of members, they have not yet made a move against human villages, as if they are preparing to unleash a "big move".

However, the fact that the other side is holding back for the time being is not necessarily a bad thing for Songshu Village, which is not yet ready to fight.

So Ludwig and Hume discussed it and decided to infiltrate again under different identities. This time, they would not disguise themselves as weak grey elves, but as dark elves with outstanding combat abilities but not a good reputation.

The dark elves in this world are not a separate race, but rather a general term for those exiled from the Forest Kingdom by the high elves. Some were punished for violating the laws of the Forest Kingdom, while others were punished for betraying the Elven Mother Goddess, and their skin turned completely black.

It is worth mentioning that some dark elves, after betraying the Mother Goddess cult of the high elves, switched to other sects, both righteous and evil.

Therefore, Lud's new identity remains that of a priest, only he has converted to the faith of the Mother of Lunar Eclipse, an evil god representing chaos and betrayal. The low- to mid-level divine spells of the various sects are largely similar; unless the ratmen request him to reveal his sect's signature spell, he generally won't be exposed without being asked.

So, the two, now disguised, returned to the camp, went straight through the outer "refugee camp," and arrived at the camp of the powerful races, hoping to meet the leaders of the allied forces and get rich together.

Because of their dark elf identities, the two received special treatment this time. However, the person who greeted them was not a ratman priest, but an orc chieftain who called himself "Zaka".

To be honest, when Rudd first saw the orcs of this world, his initial small expectation almost instantly shattered into dust. Because these guys weren't cute Japanese-style kemonomimi girls at all, but rather the kind of American-style grotesque characters from Skyrim... the purest original versions without any mods.

This race is stronger than humans individually, but their level of civilization is extremely low, remaining in a relatively primitive stage of society, and they haven't even mastered metallurgy.

However, the man who warmly welcomed them, Zaka, was clearly different from his rugged appearance; he was a very cunning fellow. He invited Lud and Hume directly to his territory and told them that he was the "Great Chieftain" elected by all the orcs in the entire camp, and that he had nearly two thousand skilled orc warriors under his command who followed his lead.

The implication was that he was the most powerful force in the entire multi-race alliance and wanted to recruit these two dark elves. He even bluntly stated that he was more generous than many leaders in the alliance and would never mistreat his true "own people".

End of this chapter

It's easy to see from Zaka's attitude that the Allied Forces are not a monolithic entity. The more powerful demi-human races each have their own cliques. While the various factions are not necessarily hostile to each other, they are certainly not of one mind.

So, in essence, what brought these loosely organized subhuman tribes together was never some religion or lofty righteousness, but simply the most naked desire.

Before joining the coalition, Zaka was not a great chieftain, and he did not have more than a thousand men under his command; he was just the leader of a small tribe.

However, the ratmen spearheaded the formation of the coalition, giving Zaka an opportunity to use his superior strength and intelligence to persuade several other orc tribes within the coalition to elect him as their chieftain, making him the leader of all the orcs in the coalition.

He exaggerated the combined population of the nine orc tribes, which was only about a thousand, to two thousand, naturally increasing his influence within the allied forces.

With the orcs taking the lead, other powerful races such as ogres and minotaurs followed suit and formed their own small groups. The ratmen who led these groups simply preached and showed no intention of interfering.

This group of demi-humans is quite adept at political intrigue and infighting, no less so than the "treacherous and cunning" humans they describe.

Lud and Hume considered it and decided that it would be acceptable to temporarily align themselves with Zaka's orcish group, but they made one condition to Zaka: they would obey orders but not summons. Because of their faith in the Mother of Lunar Eclipse, they sometimes had to leave for a period of time to kill two people as sacrifices to the Mother Goddess. This was their religious custom; priests needed to do this to gain the Mother Goddess's approval, otherwise they would be unable to use divine magic.

The two men took advantage of Zaka's ignorance and fooled him into believing their lies.

And so, the two became Zaka's retainers. Lude briefly displayed his divine magic, which astonished Zaka. Zaka had no shortage of capable orc warriors, but he had none who could cast spells.

Orcs are known throughout the world as "magical idiots." They worship the mad god of war, Feigolai, but are never favored by this eccentric deity. As a result, many tribes, although they have shamans similar to priests, are not recognized by the god of war and therefore cannot use divine magic.

In comparison, although ratmen are individually weak—an adult ratman might not even be able to defeat a gray elf or goblin in hand-to-hand combat—their intelligence is among the highest of the demi-human races, and they also have considerable magical talent.

Most importantly, they are more civilized.

Although they are both demi-human races living in the Virtual Realm Forest, the Ratmen are different from those primitive tribes that have been living a life of mediocrity for hundreds of years. They are a fallen family whose ancestors were once wealthy.

Three hundred years before the War of the Gods broke out, the Ratmen had already established a feudal empire with tens of millions of people, whose strength was almost equal to that of the human race at the time, and even surpassed it in some areas.

But the epic war that followed almost changed the entire world order. The once-powerful Skaven Empire could not escape the fate of being wiped out. Only a small number of surviving descendants fled to the barren and cold lands to eke out a living, and were never able to restore their former glory.

Zaka had absolutely no interest in the ratmen's current schemes. The orcs' sole purpose in joining the alliance was to raid humans. Ideally, they'd pull off a big heist and take over a few human towns for fun!

It's important to know that orcs are notorious bandits, and they've wreaked havoc on human villages in the border regions. However, small, loosely organized tribes have limited strength; at most, they can only attack small villages with a hundred or so people.

Ironically, all the orc tribes knew that human towns had far more to offer, yet they themselves were unable to truly unite. Instead, the ratmen successfully persuaded a group of orc tribes to join their coalition, indirectly creating a golden opportunity for Zaka, the clever orc among the few.

Ironically, the first thing the orcs did after finally uniting was to create cliques within the coalition and undermine their unity.

In short, Lud felt it was best not to analyze the thought processes of these orcs from a human perspective, otherwise it would easily give him a headache!

After Ludwig and Hume successfully infiltrated the enemy, their first thought was to urge Zaka to find an opportunity to take them to visit the core area of ​​the entire camp, especially the ratmen's territory, to see what they were up to behind everyone's back.

Zaka was indeed smarter than the average orc who only had muscles in his brain, but no matter how smart he was, he was still just an orc. Lud had long seen through the chieftain's thoughts and temperament, so he easily gained the other party's trust by coaxing and deceiving him.

Chief Zaka found the dark-skinned shrimp's words very pleasant to hear; his flattery was refreshingly elegant, far superior to his orc underlings who only knew how to follow behind and shout "Awesome!"

Zaka was very dissatisfied with the ratmen's inaction. He felt that those big rats were definitely spineless, which was why they kept hiding in this ravine and carrying out those fancy rituals. Only idiots like ogres and trolls believed in some ghost dragon king. The smart orcs only believed in the God of War.

So at this moment, Zaka was just like the Japanese soldier who was squatting on the other side of Lugou Bridge in 1937, with "going alone" on his mind!

Following his ulterior motives, Lude tricked him, saying that he had a way to subdue the ratmen magicians and priests, but he needed to conduct an on-site reconnaissance first in order to make the necessary preparations.

Zaka immediately said that the Ratman High Priest would be holding a meeting with the heads of each family the next morning, and he could take them with him.

That evening, Lud and Hume settled into the orc camp. The chieftain took an instant liking to Lud, who was particularly good at flattery, and not only arranged a five-star luxury tent for him, but also planned to give him two vivacious orc women. Lud was so frightened that he quickly put his arm around Hume to show that he had company and that he appreciated the chieftain's kindness.

After Zachara left with the two "half-orc beauties" he had originally intended to give to Lud, Lud quickly breathed a sigh of relief, while Hume looked at him with a half-smile and said.

"My lord priest, when did I become your woman?"

"Stop joking. It's an emergency, so I have no other choice."

"Oh! Since it's all an act, why not go all the way?"