Goddess Kaleidoscope

On the very night they encountered the strange wooden statue, everyone who was resting at the campsite had the same strange dream.

In their dreams, several adventurers entered a strange town ruin. The dilapidated buildings around them were covered with vines. The silent city was devoid of birdsong and insect chirps, but along the way, they could see many strange vine-like figures, as if they were the residents of the city, watching them, the intruders, with unfriendly eyes.

The group walked to the square in the center of the ruins. In the very center of the square stood three stone pillars covered with strange characters. As they looked up at them, they seemed to hear a strange whisper.

However, before they could get closer to take a closer look, the three stone pillars collapsed without warning, scattering stones all over the ground. At the very moment the pillars collapsed, a strange, sharp wail suddenly rang out from the city.

Then, to their astonishment, the strange wooden statues in the ruins suddenly came to life, baring their fangs and claws as they lunged at them…

The Denzel was startled awake from his dream. When he got up and looked at his companions, the other four also looked like they had just woken up, even the shield-wielding guy who was supposed to be on night watch.

Realizing something might be amiss, Denzel asked his companions if they had just had a strange dream—that they were in the ruins of a town, besieged by a group of living wooden statues. Upon hearing this, everyone followed suit.

"Captain, something's not right about this dream!"

"Isn't that obvious?! How can five people have the same dream!"

"I said, should we continue with this mission?"

Seeing that some of his companions seemed a little scared, Denzel, though he himself found the dream eerie, still cheered them on and encouraged them to persevere. If they couldn't even complete such a simple reconnaissance mission, how could they ever make a name for themselves in the future!

With Denzel's encouragement, the group's emotions stabilized considerably. The next day, they continued their journey and quickened their pace. Finally, on the seventh day after leaving Pine Village, they arrived at the city ruins marked on the map.

However, when they stood on the hillside and looked out at the ruins, they all instantly felt a chill run down their spines.

End of this chapter

"Captain, why does this place look so familiar?"

Looking at the ruins not far away, the five members of the team exchanged glances. Just looking at this place from a distance made them unconsciously think of the strange dream that had been bothering them for several days.

As instructed by the priest, all they needed to do was stand here and gaze at the city ruins from afar to confirm whether the stone pillars in the central square were still intact.

But at that moment, an unusual situation suddenly occurred. Everyone felt a gentle breeze, and then they saw rolling mountain fog drifting in from the east, which quickly covered the ruins located in the valley.

Due to the fog, the group, even just standing on the hillside, could no longer assess the situation inside the ruins from a distance, and no one could be certain whether the thick fog would dissipate anytime soon. Consequently, a disagreement almost inevitably arose within the team regarding whether to continue the mission.

The mage was the only rational person in the group. He believed they should abandon the mission now and retreat as quickly as possible. Although the thick fog earlier didn't contain any magical fluctuations, his intuition told him it was likely controlled by some mysterious entity, intentionally preventing them from peering into the ruins.

The assassin, archer, and greatshieldman were unwilling to give up the mission so easily. After all, they had been traveling for seven days and had finally reached the gates of the ancient city ruins without encountering any decent enemies. It would be very embarrassing to slink back like this.

Neither side could convince the other, so the decision was handed over to Denzel, the team leader. Denzel was also conflicted. Rationally, he agreed with the young mage's suggestion, but his inherent competitiveness as a young man prevented him from being a coward.

After much deliberation, Denzel took a silver coin out of his pocket and looked at his companions.

"The usual procedure! Let it decide for us. If it's the king, we'll continue; if it's the badge, we'll turn back. Just this once, and whatever happens, there's no going back."

In front of his companions, Denzel tossed the silver coin high into the air and caught it with the back of his hand. The other four stared nervously at him, only to see Denzel flip open his other hand, revealing the king's bald head. The young mage slapped his forehead in annoyance.

And so, the group decided to continue, but Denzel instructed his companions that their original mission remained unchanged: once inside the ruins, they must not separate, but quickly go to the central square to check the condition of the stone pillars, and then immediately retreat.

The five-person team carefully descended the slope towards the ruins. The thick fog severely reduced visibility, and the silence was unsettling.

The group walked for nearly two hours, covering a distance of just over a kilometer, before finally reaching the entrance to the dilapidated ruins. The towering city walls, shrouded in mist, resembled a crouching behemoth, with the city gate its gaping maw.

From the size of the city gate, Denzel could easily deduce that before it was reduced to ruins, this city must have been a magnificent metropolis with a permanent population of nearly 100,000. At its peak, it might have been even more prosperous than Griffin City, the current capital of the Kingdom of Duran. But now it has fallen to such a state.

The group paused at the gate for a moment, leaving their horses there. Just as they were about to enter the city, the female assassin noticed someone lying in the gate opening. She rushed over to investigate and found it was a skeleton that had been dead for an unknown period of time.

It's easy to see from the final pose of the remains that he was crawling out of the door, and both legs were severely injured. Most of the bones below the knees were gone, leaving only a few fragments at the scene, indicating a very serious comminuted fracture.

At this moment, the female assassin noticed a very tattered leather bag in the skeleton's arms, so she pulled the bag out. Judging from the still-sealable leather bag, the group deduced that the deceased was not from three hundred years ago, otherwise the bag wouldn't have survived to this day.

The female assassin carefully opened the bag and found several pieces of hard, rock-hard, aged salted meat jerky, as well as a blood-stained notebook.

After confirming that there was no poison on the note, the assassin handed it to the most cultured mage in the group, and then the group continued on their way.

Upon entering the ruined city, the group found that the sense of déjà vu was getting stronger and stronger. Apart from the absence of those vine-like monsters, the surrounding building ruins were almost exactly the same as what they had seen in their dreams. Some of the details that matched the descriptions made their hearts ache.

The group proceeded cautiously, while the young mage, unable to contain his boundless curiosity, opened the notebook he had just acquired. The notebook was written in Elvish, the script commonly used by mages, indicating that the skeleton they had just encountered was very likely also a mage. However, most of the notes on the yellowed paper were covered in dark brown stains, leaving only a few fragments, which left the young mage completely bewildered.

"The fire is dying out, yet the king is nowhere to be seen... The disappearance of the Lord of Cinder... The cursed undead... Beware of the malice of Hedtaka Miazaki... This name sounds so strange!"

After glancing through it, the magician became increasingly confused. He recognized every single word, but couldn't make sense of them when put together.

What is the Lord of Cinder? And what is the Undead? Could it refer to the undead? That Hedtaka seems like some kind of evil god.

With this question in mind, the young mage quickly followed the team to the central square of the ruins. At this time, the fog seemed to have dissipated a bit, and the visibility had improved slightly. Denzel, who was walking at the front, raised his hand to signal his companions to stop. Following his finger, they saw a pile of scattered rubble on the ground not far ahead, which seemed to be the stone pillar they were looking for... the remains.

"The pillar has been destroyed, we need to retreat, immediately!"

Seeing that the situation in the central square had been confirmed, Denzel immediately ordered a retreat, because in their previous nightmare, they had also been attacked by monsters after the stone pillars collapsed. Although the city was quiet now, who knew what might jump out from any corner next?

As if to confirm Denzel's fears, just as they were about to turn around, a strange noise suddenly came from the previously silent city, like the heavy footsteps of some enormous creature, accompanied by a slimy, wriggling sound.

Following the direction of the sound, everyone looked and saw a nearly six-meter-tall, bloated monster slowly emerging from a hole in the wall of a building not far away. Four thick, hoof-like legs supported its bizarre body, which was covered with enormous, octopus-like tentacles.

The adventurers had never seen such a terrifying monster before. The intense fear made them hesitant to make any move, because they hadn't noticed that the monster had eyes, and it seemed that it hadn't noticed them either, wandering aimlessly around the square.

Denzel signaled to his companions to remain silent and carefully retreated from the plaza. They had no way of knowing the monster's strength, or even what it was. Fear of the unknown made Denzel, who had once been brimming with confidence after obtaining the "Complete Guide to Dragon Slaying," choose to follow his instincts!

The group carefully tiptoed backward, step by step, while the monster seemed oblivious to their presence, continuing to linger in place. As the distance between them gradually increased, the terrifying figure slowly disappeared into the mist, leaving only a constantly twisting black shadow.

Seeing that the group had retreated to the edge of the square, Denzel's tense mood relaxed slightly. But who knows if God was deliberately messing with them today, a gust of wind blew by, and as if by some terrible twist of fate, tiles fell off the roof of a building behind them.

The sound of the tiles hitting the ground was so crisp and clear in the silent city ruins that it immediately attracted the attention of the monster not far away. Denzel could clearly hear that the creature was rushing towards them at an astonishing speed and was right in front of them in the blink of an eye.

"Everyone be careful, get out of the way!"

At Denzel's prompting, the group immediately dodged to the sides, narrowly avoiding the monster's charge. However, this also revealed their position, and the monster immediately realized that there were other living creatures in the square. It then brandished its enormous tentacles and attacked them.

Seeing that it was too late to retreat, Denzel had no choice but to draw his longsword to fight back in frustration. However, the huge tentacles were thicker than his waist, and with a single blow, he knocked away the strongest member of the squad, the Great Shield.

This burly man, nearly two meters tall and weighing over two hundred kilograms with his equipment, was sent flying backwards seven or eight meters like a kite with a broken string, crashing heavily to the ground. He couldn't get up for a long time, clearly seriously injured.

"Police!"

As Denzel dodged the tentacle attacks, he called out the name of his companion, Big Shield Boris. At that moment, Big Shield Boris, who was lying on the ground, suddenly emitted a white light from his body. He then nimbly got up from the ground, picked up his shield, and returned to the battle.

Upon seeing this, Denzel knew that the other party had used the recovery medicine given to them by the priest, and he did not expect the effect to be so powerful!

It should be noted that ordinary recovery potions in this world do not work this quickly. They usually only accelerate recovery, and some potions made by mages even have obvious side effects. Only the healing spells cast on the spot by priests can have such an immediate effect.

However, Denzel understood that Lude had only given them five bottles of this powerful holy medicine, and this monster was far stronger than them. Its seemingly enormous body could move swiftly, and the attack power of its tentacles was not to be underestimated. If they were not careful, they would be seriously injured or even killed instantly.

Fortunately, the team's mage finished chanting the Fireball spell, conjuring a large, orange-red fireball the size of a basketball, and hurled it at the monster, striking one of its tentacles. The powerful explosion severed the massive, half-meter-thick tentacle in two, and the monster let out a deafening, piercing scream.

Seeing their companion's spell successfully damage the monster, Denzel and the others were greatly encouraged and continued their attacks to distract the monster and buy time for the mage to cast his spell. However, this terrifying monster seemed to possess a certain level of intelligence and had realized that the mage posed the greatest threat. So it launched another savage charge, recklessly rushing towards the mage who was casting his spell.

Seeing that he was about to be crushed if he didn't dodge, the mage had no choice but to stop chanting and dodge. Then he watched as the monster, as if it couldn't stop, crashed into a building behind him, collapsing half of the building and being crushed under the wreckage.

Realizing this was a rare and golden opportunity, Denzel immediately raised his arms and shouted to his companions.

"Stop standing there, run!"

In an instant, Denzel had a breakthrough, mastering the most essential move of the Thirty-Six Stratagems without any instruction. His companions then realized that with their current strength, they were no match for this terrifying monster, and without a word, they followed their captain and ran.

The group ran as fast as they could, and thankfully, Denzel had been careful enough to mark every intersection they passed when they came in, so they didn't go the wrong way no matter how many times they turned left or right.

But soon they noticed heavy footsteps behind them. The monster had crawled out of the collapsed house and was now chasing after them, and the sound was getting closer and closer.

Hearing the sounds behind them getting closer, Denzel, who was running in the lead, looked back and saw that the monster had caught up with them and was only thirty meters away, and the distance was getting closer and closer.

Among his companions, the mage was relatively weak and didn't run very fast, while the great shield made a fatal mistake by carrying his tower shield, which was the size of a door panel, and was now lagging behind the group.

Just as the monster was about to catch up with the large shield, and the wriggling tentacles were less than half a meter away from him, Denzel suddenly remembered that when they left the village, the priest had given them another item, something like Virtual, which could create an illusion to attract the enemy's attention, but it was best not to use it on targets with high intelligence.

So, with a try-it-and-see attitude, Denzel immediately took out the little straw doll from his pocket, and following the instructions taught by Lud, untied the red rope around the straw doll's neck. Then, as he passed an intersection, he threw the straw doll in another direction like a grenade.

After flying seven or eight meters, the little grassman landed and transformed into a phantom that looked exactly like Denzel. Then, with a sudden jerk, it multiplied into three, loudly singing strange songs and dancing wildly as it ran off in another direction, creating a strangely comical scene.

Then, a miracle happened!

The three phantoms running and singing successfully attracted the monster's attention. The big guy clearly hated these guys who sang terribly, so he abandoned Denzel and the others and turned to chase after the phantoms in the direction they fled!

End of this chapter

Using the illusion created by the straw man, Denzel and his companions successfully shook off the terrifying monster. But suddenly, strange howls echoed from all around the once silent ruins. Denzel and his group felt as if they had accidentally stirred up a hornet's nest, waking up countless monsters from the ruins.

The five of them ran in a panic all the way to the city gate, not even bothering to check what was behind them, and rode off south as if fleeing.

After they left, a lid suddenly opened on the grass not far from the entrance to the ruins, and a kobold emerged. He glanced at the departing adventurers, then turned and ran into the city, arriving at an inconspicuous building on the edge of the central square. There, he reported to Rudd and Hume, who had been staying, that the adventurers had escaped.

"They went back?"

"Yes, they've all run away. What's next, you two bosses?"

"The next phase of the plan is temporarily over. Everyone can take a few days to rest. Ah Qin, go and inform all the groups in the city to gather at the central square immediately. I have something to say to everyone."

After instructing the kobolds to deliver the message, Ludwig got up and stretched. To ensure the plan went smoothly, Ludwig and Hume made a point of rushing to the ruins to make arrangements before Denzel and his group arrived, all to give the unsuspecting adventurers the best "game experience"!

Soon, the demi-human race scattered throughout the ruins gathered at the central square. They were the same group that had "escaped" from the village earlier, and now Lud had integrated them into a tribe to do some "shady work" for him.

Suddenly, a distortion appeared in mid-air, and a long, elegant female black dragon appeared out of thin air above the plaza—Nidhogg's wife, Tawawa. The demi-humans on the ground quickly made way for her, and Lud smiled and thanked her.

"Thank you for your great cooperation, Mrs. Tawawa."

"It was just a small favor, and besides, I found it quite fun."

Tawawa was an important outside helper that Lude specially invited for this plan. If dragons had a class division, Nidhogg would definitely be a warrior, while his wife Tawawa should be classified as a magician, and a genius magical girl at that.

Tawawa's most proficient dragon magic is illusion. She first used "Stealth Flight" to approach Denzel and the others from the air, and then silently cast a spell, which the young adventurers did not notice at all.

After that, the fog and monsters they saw were all illusions; only the beatings they received were real, and the person responsible for beating them was Luoye.

To the adventurers, they appeared to be battling a colossal, terrifying monster whose monstrous tentacles had nearly destroyed their squad's greatsword with a single blow. However, to Lude, who had witnessed the entire battle from a "normal person's perspective," the reality was that the petite Fallen Leaf wielded a massive warhammer taller than herself, sending the tower shield-wielding figure flying.

Through this fake battle, Lud believed that Denzel and the others would soon bring the information he needed back to the village.

A few days later, Denzel and the others fled back to Pine Village in a sorry state. Lud, who had returned to the village earlier on "Dragon Clan Airlines," pretended not to know anything and asked how things were going. Denzel replied somewhat awkwardly.

"The pillars in the ruined square have fallen, and we've encountered a monster we've never seen before!"

In front of Lud and many others, Denzel recounted their experiences along the way, including the strange dreams they had on the journey.

Lude listened silently, his expression growing increasingly serious. He then took out paper and pen and drew a simple sketch on the spot. He then asked Denzel and the others if the monster they had encountered looked like this.

"That's right! That's exactly it. Do you know what this is?"

When asked by Denzel, Lud couldn't help but think to himself that he knew what it was, since Tawawa had used the sketches he provided as a reference when creating illusions.