Goddess Kaleidoscope

The girls were unaware that the spy was nearby, so during their casual conversation, Ludd and Hume overheard a lot of useful information.

It turns out that Romian is indeed a hybrid of Argonian and human, but only one-quarter of her blood is Argonian. She is not yet thirteen years old, and she looks older than her actual age simply because she is developing so well.

Her father was a noble young master in a human country, and her mother was a half-dragon maid in the manor. Romian was the product of their interracial romance. However, for nobles who valued reputation and bloodline, this relationship was undoubtedly a shameful affair that brought disgrace to their families.

Romianne's father was powerless to fight against his own family, so he could only send his wife and daughter to hide away. He secretly sent them living expenses and would occasionally come to visit his wife and daughter. They were doing alright.

Unfortunately, her good fortune didn't last long. Romian's existence was eventually discovered by her father's family, who then hired assassins to eliminate this "half-blood" who had tainted their family's bloodline.

Although Romian's father asked a friend to send her and her daughter to the border in time, the assassins relentlessly pursued them.

During her escape, Romian's mother and her father's friend who protected them were killed one after another. Romian herself fled into the Void Forest in a panic, where she encountered the "kind" rat people. They took in the lonely and helpless Romian and made her the Dragon Priestess.

Recalling this painful memory, Romian couldn't help but think of her mother who died protecting her, and she couldn't help but lie in the bathtub and sob softly. Meanwhile, the rat girl Mina gently patted her back and comforted her best friend in a very gentle tone.

The atmosphere seemed quite warm at first glance, but Ludwig realized that things were probably not so simple.

First of all, the topic that just triggered Romian's painful past was initiated by Minnie, who then subtly guided Romian to recall it all again. This wasn't about comforting her; it was about deliberately reopening old wounds, even intentionally reinforcing Romian's memory.

Meanwhile, Miner kept fanning the flames, blaming all the blame on the entire human race, rather than Romian's father's family. Her final words of comfort were as gentle as a soft breeze, but to Lud, they sent a chill down his spine.

"Don't worry! My poor little Romianne, you will never have to live in fear again. As long as we ratmen are here, we will never let those despicable humans harm a single hair on your head again!"

The two girls soaked in the water for a while longer, until the rat-woman brought them clean clothes to change into before they came out of the pool.

This time, instead of the older woman nagging at the back of her head, Lu De took the clothes and went to help Romianne put them on. Perhaps because she had just taken a bath, the girl's skin felt even more delicate than before.

The two dressed and left the bathroom, with the ratwoman following them. She instructed Ludwig and Hume to clean the bathroom before going to rest. After they left, Ludwig breathed a sigh of relief. He had been worried about being exposed, but thankfully, he had managed to get away with it without any major incident.

At this moment, Hume leaned over, nudged Ludd with his elbow, and asked in a rather sarcastic tone.

"How was that little girl?"

Luther glanced at Hume and answered in a serious tone.

"Not bad! It's worth saving."

End of this chapter

Lude could tell that the ratmen clearly wanted to control the half-dragon girl, Romian, but he was not yet clear on what exactly they wanted to do with this lonely underage girl.

So the two quickly left the bathroom and continued to infiltrate deeper into the camp. They discovered that this area was actually made up of several large tents, divided into many rooms of different sizes, seemingly deliberately made to resemble a maze.

But Hume was, after all, a master thief. When the two passed through one of the seemingly inconspicuous rooms, Hume immediately noticed something wrong with the floor and discovered a hole leading underground.

Without hesitation, the two quickly crawled inside, passed through a long "rat tunnel," and discovered a hidden room.

In this underground room, Ludd and Hume saw two large shelves filled with various ancient books. Ludd didn't recognize the script, but Hume immediately identified it as Ska script used during the Skaven Empire, mainly consisting of magic books and historical documents. However, what truly caught their attention was a tattered scroll on the desk, with a line of blood-red Skaven script on its black cover, which translated to "The Black Sun Bible."

Have you heard of this book?

"No, I have limited knowledge of the rat people's culture."

Hume shook his head, about to open the tattered book to see what was written on it, when footsteps suddenly sounded behind them. Hume quickly pulled Ludwig to hide in a corner and activated the invisibility skill they had used during the day.

A short while later, an elderly ratman with a white beard walked in, leaning on a cane. It was none other than the high priest Midi, whom they had met during the day. Behind him followed the ratman girl Mina.

The grandfather and grandson said goodbye as they walked.

"How is it? Is that mixed-race girl alright?"

"Great! She's sleeping so soundly! She completely trusts me now, and keeps calling me Sister Minnie. To be honest, I'm really looking forward to the day the ceremony is over. I wonder what kind of wonderful expressions I'll see on her bald little face then, hehe!"

"You! Your personality is just as bad as mine was when I was young."

The old mouse sat down at the desk and casually picked up the half-finished book to look through it. Minnie stood behind him, massaging the old mouse's shoulders while asking questions while looking at the contents of the book.

"Grandpa, are you sure the methods in this book can really create a god? We've been preparing for so long, but nothing has grown in that filthy, smelly pool yet!"

"Girl, you can't see it because your cultivation isn't enough!"

"Then you can see it?"

"We can't see it, because what's in that pool is beyond what the eyes can see. Be patient. At this rate, when the next new moon arrives, it will be the day our rat-people clan rises again!"

"Sigh! That means I still have to play the good sister for another ten days or so."

While Midi and his grandson Minnie were chatting, Ludwig and Hume, who were separated from them by only a bookshelf, were quietly eavesdropping while quickly processing the information they had just received.

Based on their conversation, Midi is using a strategy left over from the Ratman Empire to secretly create a god, while the half-dragon girl Romian is very likely the living sacrifice required for the final step in this evil ritual.

Just then, a ratman priest suddenly ran in from outside and whispered a few words in Midi's ear in a somewhat panicked manner. The old rat, who had been leisurely and seemed to have everything under control, suddenly changed his expression.

When did this happen?

“Just now. The person was found in the grass by the stream. I just asked the guards, and they must have already infiltrated this area.”

Damn it! A bunch of useless trash!

The old mouse slammed his cane down and got up to leave, but after a few steps, he suddenly remembered the "Black Sun Bible" on the table, turned back to his desk, picked up the tattered copy, and looked hesitant.

The Black Sun Bible was quite large, so it wasn't suitable for carrying around. So Midi thought for a moment and suddenly had an idea. He took a large book, about the same size as the Black Sun Bible, from the bookshelf, removed the hard cover, hid the black Bible inside, and put it back on the bookshelf in a very conspicuous place.

Having done all this, the old rat left the secret chamber with his trusted priest and granddaughter. Before leaving, he didn't forget to cast a few spells on the room. But he never dreamed that two intruders were less than three meters away from him, and one of them was a real god.

After the old mouse left, Hume deactivated his invisibility skill, and Ludwig carefully avoided the magical traps left by Midi and took down the "Black Sun Bible" hidden on the bookshelf.

The old rat's magic was very seductive; he was clearly a cunning old fox who excelled at psychological tactics. Of the three spells, one was a barrier to seal the door, one was a trap on the ground to ensnare people, and the last was a concealment spell, but it was used on another bookshelf, while the bookshelf actually containing the "Black Sun Bible" was left completely undisguised.

Unfortunately, the devil is always one step ahead of the saint. Hume's invisibility skill was a true divine art. The old mouse might be able to detect the skillful invisibility magic, but he couldn't see through the divine art that was even more advanced than magic. So all his preparations were ultimately in vain.

Taking the "Black Day Bible" from the shelf, Ludd looked at the tattered book, now only half intact, and forcefully tore off the cover, rolling up the pages and stuffing them into his pocket. Hume smiled at this.

"I like that thieves never leave empty-handed!"

"Let's retreat!"

With Hume's help, the two easily broke through the barrier set up by the old rat from the inside, left the secret room and came outside. Then, with their skillful movement and ever-changing transformation abilities, they easily escaped the ratman's camp and returned cleanly to the orc's tent.

Upon their return, Ludwig immediately asked Hume, who could read the Ratman script, to help translate the contents of the Black Sun Bible, and then recorded the key points.

They discovered that some steps in the ratmen's method of creating gods were incredibly insidious. Especially in the final part, awakening the god's consciousness, because they lacked the primordial fire, the ratmen took a different approach, directly using blood sacrifice to forcibly awaken the god's consciousness.

The specific method involves finding the purest soul and then, in the final step of the ritual, inflicting upon her the most intense despair. The powerful negative emotions that erupt in that instant are used to "ignite" the faith they have collected.

End of this chapter

The next morning, the ratmen summoned the leaders of the allied forces to a meeting once again. Just one day later, High Priest Midi had clearly lost his composure from the previous day, and his expression was visibly gloomy.

After all, what happened last night was a blatant slap in the face for the old rat and his entire rat-man race.

Two unknown individuals knocked out their maids, then disguised themselves as ratmen and swaggered into the camp. They first gathered intelligence, and finally stole the crucial "Black Sun Bible," nearly driving the old rat to his death with rage.

To be honest, if it were just the loss of the book, it wouldn't have much of an impact on their ongoing deification plan, because Old Mouse had read the contents of the book repeatedly for most of his life and could already recite it by heart. The problem lies mainly in the fact that the book was stolen.

In Midi's view, the infiltrators were definitely after the book. They were highly skilled and familiar with the situation in the camp. The two unconscious maids were just a ploy to lure the infiltrators away from the camp. As soon as Midi left the secret room, they fell right into their trap.

As for the suspects in the book theft, Midi did not suspect the tribal leaders of the demi-human race before him. This was not out of trust, but simply out of contempt. Midi considered himself quite accomplished in magic; there were indeed people who could break the magical traps he had set in the secret room, but these barbarians before him certainly did not possess such skill.

Therefore, Midi believes that the book thieves may be descendants of other Skaven tribes. After the empire's destruction, the survivors scattered and fled, and Midi's branch was just one of them. Many surviving tribes still exist throughout the continent, but they have never been able to unite again.

This disintegration was due to two main reasons: firstly, the royal family and almost all of the upper-class nobles of the Skaven Empire had been wiped out, and the remaining branches were not loyal to each other and lacked a strong leader.

That's why this branch of Midi is so obsessed with creating gods.

The ratmen are an extremely arrogant and conceited race. They once created the most powerful nation in the world using magic, and therefore consider themselves the most perfect beings in the world. They believe that other intelligent races are inferior to them, and they don't even respect the gods.

Therefore, the rats created a god not to create an ancestor to worship, but because they coveted the god's powerful strength and planned to create a god to use as a "super weapon".

Midi believed that once they successfully created a god, he would gain the power to unify all the branches of the Skaven and rebuild the great empire of the past.

However, Midi also knew that not all the ratman branches would want them to succeed, and his side was not completely secretive, so it was inevitable that some information would leak out. Those ratman branches that were not on good terms with them might send people to steal the book, or even secretly sabotage them, trying to ruin their god-making plan.

Left with no other choice, Midi could only speed up the process as much as possible, but he also had to be patient and play along with these barbarians. After all, they were all "important materials" necessary for creating gods. Therefore, before completing the final step, he absolutely could not let the tens of thousands of demi-humans in this camp scatter easily.

However, just as Midi was about to continue deceiving the barbarians, Zaka, the leader of the orcs, suddenly jumped out, saying that he wanted to accuse the ogre leader of "colluding with the enemy." The evidence was that his men had seen him meeting with some mysterious people wearing robes in the woods south of the camp the previous night, and that he had accepted gifts from them.

Faced with Zaka's accusations, the cannibal leader immediately flew into a rage, warning Zaka not to spew nonsense and that if he dared to talk such rubbish again, he would tear off his head and eat it like a snack. The henchmen on both sides then joined in the insults, looking ready to fight at any moment.

Seeing that the situation was getting out of control, Midi did not try to smooth things over this time. Instead, she raised her staff and began to chant. A large fireball appeared at the top of the staff and quickly swelled to the size of a washbasin.

Seeing the ratman high priest's displeased expression, and knowing that the fireball could be thrown at any moment, both the orcs and ogres immediately backed down.

"High Priest, don't be angry! I'm only thinking about our group. If you ogres really haven't colluded with the enemy, how about we all search your camp?"

"Bullshit! Why should you touch our territory?"

"What's wrong? You're feeling guilty because you can't move it?"

"you……"

"Alright! Stop arguing, we're all family, there's no need to ruin our harmony over some unfounded rumors."

“I don’t want to suspect people randomly, but my little brother patted his chest and assured me that what he saw was absolutely true. Not only did those ogres bring outsiders in, but those outsiders also seemed to have entered your ratman camp, High Priest. They might have gone to steal something.”

"You're talking utter nonsense!?"

Hearing Zaka insist that he was a traitor, the ogre leader could no longer contain himself. He picked up his big club and was about to beat Zaka up, but at that moment, Midi threw the fireball he had just made directly onto the ground in the center of the arena. Like a large-caliber howitzer, it blasted a huge crater with a "boom", and all the demi-humans present were covered in dust.

Seeing the entire room fall silent, Midi turned and asked.

"Zaka, is what you just said absolutely true?"

"Absolutely true!"

"Alright! Search! But not just the ogre camp, search your orc camp too. We ratmen will handle that. What do you say?"

Seeing that Midi had made the decision, Zaka glanced at the ogre leader who was glaring at him and nodded heavily.

So Midi immediately dispatched a portion of the ratman guards to storm into the two families' camps and conduct a thorough search. A short while later, a ratman squad leader came to Midi carrying a wooden box, opened it, and showed the old rat its contents.

When the old mouse saw what was in the box, its gaze immediately darkened.

"Whose did you find it?"

"It's an ogre."

"I understand. You can leave now. Keep your mouth shut and don't go around telling everyone, understand?"

"Understood."