Goddess Kaleidoscope

"These lizardmen are something else!"

The special forces' offensive was temporarily halted, and by then it was already dawn, with the east wind bringing a pale first light.

As the sun rose, a loud shout suddenly came from the lizardmen's side!

"Stop it all!"

Upon hearing this sound, the lizardman warriors who were fighting immediately retreated. The humans also ceased their attack, dragging their wounded to the rear for treatment by Lud.

Neither side could decide a winner for the time being, so they both chose to take a short break.

Following the direction from which the sound came, Lud saw an old but exceptionally large lizardman emerge from the inner city. The other lizardmen bowed to him upon seeing him, clearly indicating that he held a special status within the tribe.

As soon as the old lizardman appeared, he shouted in a human language.

"Humans, don't push your luck! I have seen through your despicable methods. It won't be long before my thousands of warriors return, and then you will all become dried meat on the rack!"

"Don't listen to his nonsense, this old lizardman is just bluffing!"

On the human side, Narad positioned himself on higher ground, facing off against the old lizardman. Having advanced relentlessly, the special forces were riding high on morale and posed no threat to the old lizardman.

But at that moment, the old lizardman suddenly took out something that looked very familiar to Lud and then roared at the human very loudly.

“Foolish humans, you have no idea what a great being your actions have offended. My entire race has already converted to this true god, who is countless times more powerful than the weak gods you worship. The supreme Hedtaka Miyazaki will protect us!”

"Hedtaka... Miazaki... Hedtaka... Miazaki!!!"

Led by the old lizardman, the lizardmen guarding the inner city gates began to collectively chant the name of their "true god." Most of the humans in the special operations team were completely bewildered, as they had never heard of this strange name before.

Meanwhile, Lu De, who was hiding behind, couldn't help but twitch his lips, looking like he was about to burst out laughing from internal injuries.

"What an idiot!"

Seeing the lizardmen's reaction, Lud knew that his concocted "Book of Ashes" had completely fooled these scaly creatures. They believed it wholeheartedly, even shouting "Hidetaka Miyazaki" in broken accents, trying to use it to threaten the humans who had broken into their home.

To Lud, who knew the truth, this was quite a laughable situation!

However, as our ancestors once said, don't get too excited about anything too soon, or you'll easily be proven wrong.

Just as Lud was about to burst out laughing, he suddenly noticed that the Book of Ashes in the old lizardman's hand was emitting a very strange light.

The smile vanished from Ludd's eyes in an instant. He turned and exchanged a glance with Hume beside him. He knew without asking that Hume had seen it too.

As the lizardmen roared, the light emanating from the Book of Ashes grew stronger and stronger. Ordinary people could not see the light, but they could vaguely feel that the surrounding space seemed to be trembling.

Narad realized something was wrong and, without saying a word, began chanting a prayer loudly, preparing to use a high-level divine spell.

As a high-ranking priest of the Cult of the God of War, Narad can use high-level divine spells twice a day. He had already used one before the attack began, giving a buff to all 150 members of the special operations team.

The remaining one was not originally intended to be used, because various sects have relevant doctrines that admonish priests not to abuse the power bestowed by the gods. Furthermore, high-level divine arts are not like low-level ones. Although divine power is the power that priests borrow from the gods, this power must be released through the priest's body as a medium.

To give an analogy, priests are like balloons, while divine power is like water.

What level of divine magic can a priest use, and how many times can they use it? Besides obtaining authorization from the gods, their own capacity to withstand it is also crucial.

Sensing something was off about the old lizardman opposite him, Narad couldn't care less about anything else at the moment.

End of this chapter

"...In the name of the God of War, Flying Golai, God's Wrath!"

With a long string of prayers from Narad, an offensive high-level divine spell was about to be cast.

The high-level divine spell used by Narad is the God of War's so-called unique divine wrath. The main attack method of this divine spell is to release a high-intensity mental shock with an extremely wide range, which directly crushes the enemy's fighting spirit and turns fearless men into screaming effeminate men.

However, this high-level divine spell, which in theory could turn the tide of battle in an instant, missed its target on the lizardmen and had no effect whatsoever.

"This...this is impossible!"

"Hahaha! The human gods are too weak!"

Seeing that Narad's magic had failed, the old lizardman laughed wildly.

If he was initially just bluffing, trying to scare away these humans who were about to drive them to the brink of despair, he has now completely relaxed and has even become a bit arrogant.

In Lud's eyes, the dark green light emanating from the Book of Ashes slowly took on a distorted shape, at first glance resembling swaying seaweed. But as the shape grew larger, he finally recognized that those swaying things were actually snake heads.

When Lud saw this scene, he vaguely understood what those lizardmen had done.

"Holy crap! Did these scaly idiots sacrifice their own guardian beast?"

Since he wrote the book himself, Luther naturally knew what the contents of the book were.

Besides referencing the Dark Souls universe to write a bunch of stories about Lords of Cinder and the Undead, he also added some bizarre and outlandish content, including some that were full of dark humor and ridiculous moments.

For example, "Impure World Reincarnation" or "Substitute Messenger" and so on.

The lizardmen are a race with a strong cult-like atmosphere, obsessed with human sacrifice. They can even use this bizarre method to raise some super monsters that are half-gods and half-beasts.

If Lud is not mistaken, these lizardman cultists have sacrificed the Zaun Hydra, which their tribe has worshipped for hundreds of years, as an offering to summon the great demon Miyazaki. The exact method is unclear, but it appears to have been successful.

According to what he wrote in his book, if a living being is sacrificed to the Great Demon, then whether the living being is willing or not, it will be forced to become the Demon's eternal servant, and the Demon will then dismantle this servant to help the sacrificer.

The lizardmen who obtained the Book of Ashes not only believed in it, but also put its contents into practice. This strong blind faith gave rise to a belief, which in turn made some of the contents of the book a reality.

As for why it was so effective, Lude suspected that it might be related to the fact that he wrote the book himself. It was a side effect of the primordial fire that turned it into a supernatural item similar to a divine artifact!

"Damn it! That book was made up by me! How could you bunch of idiots actually do it?"

Seeing that something was wrong, Lud was also a little confused.

Although the adventurers present could not see the eerie green light emanating from the Book of Ashes, their biological instincts made them feel a strong threat that was very close at hand.

"Wait, don't just stand there! Brothers, let's get started!"

At the critical moment, a veteran adventurer raised his arm and led another attack on the lizardmen opposite. Lude recognized the middle-aged man; it was none other than "Old Man" Arik, who had a good reputation among adventurers, and whose team was part of the special operations team this time.

Led by Arik, the adventurers charged forward once again, launching a fierce attack on the lizardmen in hopes of killing the old one.

A fierce battle erupted once again. The lizardman warriors held their ground, while the old lizardman, their leader, clutched his "holy book" and continued to chant the name of Miyazaki. Above his head, a tiny crack appeared in the void, and it grew larger and larger.

Seeing this, Lu De could no longer afford to play dumb to fool the enemy.

"Let's go too!"

"it is good."

Realizing the seriousness of the situation, Hume didn't hesitate. He drew two assassin's daggers from his waist and rushed forward, while Ludd unleashed a barrage of divine spells, attempting to clear a path for her and take down the old lizardman behind enemy lines.

However, it was too late. The summoning ritual on the other side was faster than they had imagined. From the appearance of the crack to its complete shattering, the whole process took less than three seconds.

To everyone's astonishment, a terrifying giant serpent with eight heads appeared out of thin air before them, emitting a chilling, terrifying roar.

"Alber...you motherfucker...why!?"

The eight-headed serpent, summoned, began to speak in human language as soon as it landed. One of its heads saw the old lizardman below and made a move to bite him angrily. But the old lizardman simply raised his hand and revealed the Book of Ashes, and the serpent's movement stopped abruptly, though its eyes were filled with rage.

“Serpent Spirit, you are no longer my tribe’s sacred beast, but a servant of our Gray Scale Tribe. I now command you to exterminate these humans.”

"I'll wipe out your entire Grayscale tribe sooner or later!"

The giant snake gritted its teeth and threatened, but its body obediently followed the old lizardman's orders, attacking the humans around it.

The difference in combat power between the two sides instantly shifted in favor of the lizardmen.

The giant serpent's combat power is astonishing. Its eight heads each exhibit different characteristics; some have a pair of curved horns, while others have many eyes, and their attack methods are also different.

The warrior knights at the forefront were the first to suffer. Their hardened plate armor, enhanced by divine magic, was no different from paper in front of the giant serpent; a single bite could tear them to shreds, armor and all. Hume, who was charging forward, almost got swallowed by one of the heads due to a moment of carelessness.

Faced with this colossal beast whose strength was comparable to that of a dragon, the human side was utterly powerless and suffered heavy casualties in an instant.

But it wasn't just humans who were paying the price; the lizardmen were also dying on the spot, their bodies instantly shriveled up as if they had been drained dry, leaving only a thin skin in an instant.

Noticing this, Lud realized that the giant snake betrayed by the lizardmen must have been transformed into a spirit creature, appearing in the real world and needing to be sacrificed constantly. The lizardmen warriors who died one after another were like expendable batteries.

This means that the giant serpent cannot fight for long; once the lizardmen who have been sacrificed on the other side are almost all dead, it should also disappear.

So Lud kept casting Holy Light Barriers to help his allies defend against the giant serpent's frenzied attacks, while shouting at the somewhat stunned Narad.

"spread!"

End of this chapter

Seeing that the giant serpent was too powerful to fight, Lude used a barrier of holy light to block its attacks while shouting for everyone to scatter.

Previously, Lude had always kept a low profile and used divine magic very cautiously. Although he never explicitly stated which level he was at, he never used more than three divine spells a day, and only used them to treat critically injured people. He used the medicines they brought to treat ordinary wounded people.

Therefore, Narad and most adventurers only regarded him as a junior priest. However, the other party suddenly unleashed a series of divine spells on them, and it was a pure silent spell without any incantation, which immediately amazed everyone.

Narad thought himself to be knowledgeable and experienced, and that he had seen it all.

But this scene before him... he had never seen anything like it before.

Under Lud's cover, the knights and adventurers retreated. The eight-headed serpent was frustrated to find that although it could easily devour these overconfident humans like "snacks," every time it opened its mouth, it would be stuck between its upper and lower jaws by an invisible barrier, just like having a gag stuffed in its mouth.

So the head with the most eyes looked around and quickly locked onto the guy who was not only getting in the way of eating—Narad!

This is where the advantage of being low-key comes in. Lude himself wears a very inconspicuous linen robe, and he always casts his divine spells silently, without even saying the names of the skills.

In contrast, Narad, dressed in a flamboyant silver-patterned gold-embroidered robe and deliberately standing at a high position (for easier spellcasting), was immediately recognized by the intelligent serpent as a priest, a type of human who could use special magic. Thus, the serpent mistakenly focused its hatred on him.

Sensing the serpent's hostile gaze and obvious hostility towards him, Narad thought to himself, "This is bad," and turned to run away with his scepter in hand.

The giant serpent's eight heads seemed to be of one mind; without the "Multi-Eyed" one saying anything, the other seven heads fixed their attention on Narad.

One of them, with a tuft of green hair on its head, suddenly puffed out its cheeks and spit a mouthful of dark green "phlegm" at Narad.

"He~tui!"

The dark green, thick viscous liquid is clearly highly toxic and extremely corrosive.

Fortunately, another priest from the Cult of War had already prepared a sacred barrier, which directly blocked Narad's attack. However, the poison that splashed out when it hit the barrier not only corroded a large area of ​​buildings but also hissed and released a large amount of poisonous gas.

Seeing this, another flat head with an exceptionally large mouth suddenly blew a gust of wind in this direction, spreading the poisonous gas to the surrounding humans. Several adventurers who didn't have time to run away were immediately covered by the poisonous gas, and then they convulsed and collapsed to the ground, their bodies rapidly festering and foaming at the mouth. Before Lud could save them, they died, turning directly into a pool of extremely foul-smelling pus.

Seeing that the giant snake's spit-out mucus was extremely poisonous and that it could coordinate with the other heads to perform "combination attacks," Ludwig thought to himself that no wonder Nidhogg had suffered a loss when he fought this guy back then; this eight-headed giant snake was indeed something else.

At this moment, the giant snake was still rampaging. Its huge body looked like many snakes tangled together, and it was impossible to tell which was the neck and which was the tail.

However, it seems that because its entire body is wrapped up in a ball, its movement speed is not very fast. Or rather, the ancient city is not its main battlefield. The surrounding buildings obviously interfere with its activities. The scattered humans are safe as long as they keep a little distance.