Your Majesty's money, why don't you engrave my name on it?

If Daraguer needed a living sacrifice, even if it was the living sacrifice of an entire tribe, there wouldn't be a need for such roundabout means, right?

We can only wait for Fate's "return".

The young shaman didn't spend too much time communicating with his god. When the black and red smoke dissipated, he didn't fall to the ground with blood coming out of all his orifices, but his face was very pale, even though the wounds on his arms and other parts of his body had miraculously healed.

The damage to his spirit and soul was minimal, and physical health could do little to replenish it. No one present knew how to treat him. Only a soothing piano melody slowly played, and to the music, Fate's eyes, weary as dried-up springs, finally lit up again.

"Thank...thank you," the shaman smiled gratefully at Daisy and the other outsiders. "I...I want to apologize for my previous behavior towards you. You haven't done anything wrong to our tribe."

"We're not usually as crude as other beastmen. We're hunters with a sense of honor. We were just... forced into a desperate situation by an accident."

"You don't have the authority to apologize to outsiders on my behalf, Fate," Zirkan was very unhappy with the weak attitude of this grandson of his clan. "Let's wait until we get through this crisis first. What does the gods say?"

"The God didn't speak to me," Fate shook his head and added before causing any more commotion. "He showed me visions to help me understand what was happening."

"We haven't been abandoned by the god Darragher, nor does he have any reason to be angry with us. We suffered our previous difficulties because he was fighting another god, and the curse was also cast by him."

Mortals sometimes have bad luck here, and the battles between gods will inevitably affect them. Although honorable gods usually disdain to do such things and will even try their best to avoid them from happening, such powerful beings are not everything after all.

The shaman sighed and turned to Reslaufer and the others. "Guests, I believe you have more experience than we do. Have you ever heard of a goddess named Isabara?"

Seeing that Fate's expression and tone did not sound like a joke, everyone couldn't help but start to recall the name, but soon, not only Bella and Angelita looked at each other, but even the dwarves who had lived for centuries and the mercenaries who traveled around the world showed confused expressions.

This was a name even lesser known in this world, even stranger than Darragher. But surprisingly, the bard raised his head after some contemplation:

"Are you referring to the Fox Queen, the vain and vulgar mistress Isabara? Her incarnation might resemble a fox girl or an elf girl?"

"Right, right, right!" Fate became excited. "You are truly knowledgeable! You actually know which god it is!"

"It's a bit difficult, after all, your god is more famous than this one. However, when mentioning Darragher, his sister, Isabara, is often mentioned." Daisy looked at the werewolves curiously. "Why, you haven't heard of her? That shouldn't be the case. The book says she's your patron saint, too."

"Isabara is also our god?!" Now the entire werewolf tribe was boiling with excitement. "Where did you hear that? We have always only worshipped Darragher as our god!"

"How do you know so much about us?"

"How I know this is none of your business," Daisy rolled her eyes and turned to look at her companions. "It's strange. From what I understand, there are significant differences between these two gods, but their fates are intertwined. Their constellations are eternally at war with each other, whether it's fighting in the ordinary sense or... Let's talk about this after we leave, so these werewolves don't think I'm blaspheming."

The stake used for the werewolf heresy trial was usually shared with a barbecue grill, and Daisy didn't want to go up there twice.

"That seems to be the problem," Fate nodded, agreeing with Daisy. "From what I saw, the two gods were indeed fighting fiercely. I didn't know the reason at first, but after listening to what this young lady said, I think we have neglected or even forgotten another god, a god who also protects werewolves and even all beastmen."

"We may deserve this punishment..."

"Then how should we face all this?" a werewolf asked desperately, "We don't even know the name and appearance of Isaba... the goddess, nor can we hear Her teachings!"

They didn't dare say that the gods shouldn't punish them for this reason, but the werewolves definitely had this idea in their hearts.

"I have no idea, but the god Darragher showed me a picture of an altar, buried deep underground," Fate recalled everything he saw. "The statue on that altar does indeed resemble the fox girl. Perhaps this is a chance for redemption. Perhaps we can regain the favor of the gods and the gods themselves!"

Chapter 109 Flail Snail Shell

Although going to the fox girl's altar has been confirmed to be the way to obtain salvation, when Zilkan and Fate called on their people, no one responded.

The reason was simple. No werewolf knew the consequences of contacting and worshiping the goddess. Even Fate and Zirkan didn't know how to perform the ritual to seek forgiveness.

As a last resort, the old werewolf chief and the young shaman turned their eyes for help to Reslaufer and others who had been standing nearby.

"My lord," although Raslaufer's numb expression showed his indifference to the matter, Zirkan still chose to be blind and pleaded respectfully, "Although we live within the empire's borders, we have never been able to gain any benefits. We are just savages living in the wilderness, knowing nothing about religion and sacrifice. But you and your companions are knowledgeable and brave..."

"Can we be so fortunate as to seek your strength to help us regain our lives? We will repay you. Both I and my successors will remember and repay this favor!"

"That sounds familiar," the mercenary glanced at him. "I'm not sure if I've heard that before I spared Fate. At least so far, I haven't seen any so-called reward."

Qi Erkan gritted his teeth, turned around and shouted to his people: "Go, dig out that thing in Pit No. 2!"

"Chief, are you sure?" The strong werewolf who had previously pretended to be the leader asked in a low voice, "Whatever it is, it's certain..."

"There's no point in keeping them anyway. Who among us would need them?" The old werewolf quickly raised his voice. "Why would we be reluctant to part with them? These people are our benefactors. Go get them!"

The "Pit No. 2" that Zirkan mentioned was not a code name, but a real earth pit used to store some rare things that werewolves obtained from various means - usually hunting. Most of them were items that they could not use, and those that could be used were distributed early or taken by Zirkan and the shamans before them.

So when the werewolf dug out what Zirkan had mentioned and carried it up, even Angelita couldn't help but frown.

It was a bumpy, dull-colored, kite-shaped object, about one meter long and half a meter wide, slightly curved, made of something between stone and metal. While its shape resembled a shield, its outline was unflattering, and its meager thickness cast doubt on the degree of protection it could offer its bearer.

"This thing can't be called a reward," Angelita shook her head. "You don't mean to say that this is actually a shield, do you?"

"I know what you're all going to say, but it's a shield—at least it was when we killed its previous owner. The handle on the back is just rotten now."

Zirkan picked up the object and showed everyone its more shabby side. There were indeed traces of the handles and straps, but they were completely gone now.

"We don't know exactly what it is, but what we do know is that it was once an extremely powerful magical item! Not only could it withstand our claws and teeth, it could even deflect our thrown spears. If its owner hadn't given up perfect defense to save his companions, we might not have been able to defeat him."

"If you want to make up stories, I've got plenty of them," Daisy shook her head. "Whoever wants to be the scapegoat can be the one to take the blame. We won't..."

"Wait," Vondar suddenly interrupted her. The dwarf waved to the old werewolf, "Bring it here and let me take a closer look."

Daisy's eyes widened. "Uncle, you don't really think this is a good thing, do you? It looks like junk no matter how you look at it!"

"This is indeed a piece of junk," Feng Daer finally turned his eyes away from the object after studying it for a while. "But Zirkan didn't lie. When it was first made, it was indeed a magical item. It's just that over time, the magic within it has been exhausted."

"How could this be?" Reslaufer raised an eyebrow. "Could it be that this is an antique that has gone through hundreds or thousands of years of age?"

If that were the case, then it certainly had some value. Many wealthy people liked this kind of thing, and Leslough had met a few of them.

"Not that long," the dwarf said, a smile playing beneath his beard. "Its magical power only lasted a mere month, but its first owner might have lived quite a while. After all, growing the shell to such a size was quite difficult."

"shell?"

"It's a shell, and a snail shell at that," Vondar nodded slowly. "Its first owner was probably a large creature called a flail snail. They consume almost all minerals and produce mucus that can be transformed into high-quality glass, as well as this anti-magic shell. Of course, that was in the past. Now it's just an ordinary large shell fragment."

"As I said before, its magical power can only last for a month after leaving the snail's body."

Vondar Halfhill hesitated for a moment, then looked at Reslaufer. "But, Old Lei, even after losing its magical power, the shell of the flail snail is still a rare treasure. Can you..."

"Ask her," Leslaufer pointed at Angarita. "It wasn't me who defeated the werewolf last time. She has to make the decision on this matter."

If Fate had not used the power of the shaman at the end, Angelita would definitely have defeated him. In Leslaufer's opinion, this was already a victory.

Seeing the dwarf looking over, Angrita hesitated for a moment, then took the dwarf aside and said, "Uncle Vondar, tell me the truth, is this thing really useless?"

Looking at Angrita's lively eyes, the dwarf couldn't help but smile knowingly. "It's still somewhat useful. When it was still on the flail snail, it could display a variety of magical colors. Although it looks dull now, if it is ground into powder, it can still be used as a very good dye for clothes."

Clothes dye... Hearing this, the werewolves who had pricked up their ears lost interest. That thing had no value to them at all. If that was all, this deal could be said to be a huge profit.

"This is just to repay you for letting Fate go," Qirkan quickly took the opportunity to express his opinion. "Fate said there's an abandoned altar there? Maybe you can find a lot of things there. Everything can be yours. We won't touch a single thing!"

Chapter 110 Buried Hand Mirror

The werewolf god Darragher and his priests are usually described as wild beasts with a taste for blood and killing, but most ordinary werewolves are not that crazy. At most, they just have a hot temper and are no less shrewd than other intelligent creatures.

However, the dwarf's attitude had already given Angelita and others a hint, so they gladly accepted the commission - a dwarf craftsman with superb forging skills would not make a mistake in such a matter.

With Reslaufer and the others joining them, the old wolf, Zirkan, naturally enjoyed a leisurely journey, and Fate had to accompany them as a guide. After setting up camp outside the werewolf tribe and resting for the night, as the dawn once again illuminated the empire's wilderness, the group of six headed southwest of the werewolf gathering place. There, a stone mountain that appeared in the shaman's revelation had stood unchanged for centuries.

This hill is not very high, only about two or three hundred meters, and its coverage area is not too wide. There is no special marking on the map of Reslaufer and others. The werewolves living nearby simply call it "Stone Mountain", which is quite unremarkable.

Who could have imagined that such an ordinary place would one day become a place for werewolves to worship their gods? But that was all later. Now, Reslaufer and his companions faced another unexpected problem:

According to the revelation received by Fate, the altar of the Fox Queen was located underground, but everyone searched the entire mountain and did not find the entrance leading to the depths. The entire stone mountain seemed to be an integrated whole, without any gaps.

"Your god won't even tell me where the entrance is?" After two days of searching, the bard finally sat down on the ground in frustration. The mountain was full of rocks anyway, so he wasn't worried about getting his clothes stained by mud. "Where's the link? Where's the link? Give me a link."

"Daraguer isn't known for his meticulous deity," Bella muttered. She had persuaded every persuadable animal on the mountain to help search for the past two days, but still hadn't found any clues. "And this mountain feels a little strange to me. Even with our search, we haven't found anything."

"Ordinary hills don't usually look this seamless," Fengdal Halfhill said. As a dwarf, he was more sensitive to such issues. "These past two days, this place hasn't even felt like a hill to me..."

"If it's not a hilltop, then what could it be?" Daisy leaned against a large rock and took out her matte, ready to play a couple of tunes to entertain everyone. "Stone Mountain, 300 meters, used to be—"

The poet plays the piano well and her voice is pleasant, but for some reason, the chances of hearing heavenly music from her are very rare. Instead, most of the music she plays is incomprehensible tunes. The night before yesterday, she played an unknown song, and the creepy notes that sounded like weeping and complaining scared Bella, who had lived in the wilderness for many years.

This time it was pretty much the same. Although the high-pitched voice didn't sound scary, the magical performance made the surrounding rocks tremble. The already unstable rocks simply began to move, rumbling down the mountain, looking for a new place to rest.

Angelita and Bella rushed over to fight with Daisy, trying to put an end to her earth-shattering performance, but Leslough cast his eyes in an inconspicuous direction. There, a "stone" that was somewhat round and unusual rolled down from its hiding place and landed at the mercenary's feet.

"Stop messing around, come and take a look at this." Reslaufer picked it up and held it in his palm. This "stone" was about the same size as a human head, but apart from its color being more like the gray-black color of rock, its shape was also quite different from that of a human skull.

"A beastman's skull." Fate recognized it immediately, but that didn't help him clear up his confusion. "Although it looks very similar to a werewolf, a closer look reveals quite a few differences... It's too short, with neither a prominent forehead nor cheekbones, and its eye sockets are much larger than ours."

The young shaman pointed at the skeleton in Reslaufer's hand and gestured to his half-wolf face. Although his face was covered with hair and the skull had several signs of damage, the similarities and differences between the two could still be seen.

"Uncle Leslaufer, where did you find this?" Angelita asked hurriedly. They had been looking for some kind of cave entrance, but the appearance of this skull seemed to remind them of something.

Reslaufer and a few others immediately came to the place where the skull was exposed due to rolling. The Black Flame Greatsword was used as a shovel. After prying open a huge rock a few times, the part that was once connected to the skull suddenly appeared in front of everyone - it was half a skeleton. Like the skull, although it looked similar to a human at first glance, it had many non-human parts.

Among the skeleton, which only has the pelvis and the parts above it left, an exquisite silver hand mirror is particularly eye-catching. After seeing the light of day again, it immediately reflects the sunlight and becomes extremely shiny.

"The work of an upstart." Angelita held it up with a handkerchief. After examining it for just a moment, she came to this conclusion. "A true noble would never use such a vulgar thing. It would only make people laugh."

Although others had not received relevant education, at least they could see the almost showy decorations on the hand mirror. The silversmith who made it seemed afraid that others would not know his level of skill, and the skeleton holding it seemed afraid that others would not know how rich she was when she was alive.

But how could such a beastman be buried here? Her skeleton was broken and misplaced, so it seemed she hadn't voluntarily chosen to rest here. There was almost nothing else around her. If all her accessories had been looted, why would a single hand mirror be left here?

Angelita carefully observed the pattern on the hand mirror. When she turned the small object over, she finally made a discovery: "Look, there are words on it!"

"It's our writing!" Fate recognized it at a glance. "It's ours... Before the Matt Dynasty, we and the other beastmen who used to live nearby created a writing system that was unique to us. But later, as the other beastmen moved away, we lost our last place that could still be called a 'town'. These words lost their value. I can still read them, but only the tribe leader and the former shaman can hear and write them..."

"Then read it quickly--" Bella was about to urge, but was stopped by Vondar.

"Let him reminisce for a while. Alas," the dwarf, who had also lost his past glory, shook his head. "You beastmen still have an empire to complain about, but we have nothing. We can't even return to the Crucible City."

Chapter 111: Secret Passage on the Stone Mountain

The Crucible, the last glory of the ancient Dwarven Empire, is also the closest lost city to the present. Those Dwarven elders who are old enough may still remember the scenes of their migration from the Crucible when they were still infants.

From this perspective, the dwarves are far superior to these beastmen, whose very existence depends on other creatures. After all, the latter's expansion is the result of the widespread spread of the "beast plague" among humans and other races in the past. However, that elusive sadness of the past is ultimately shared.

"It records the location of the 'Holy Land.'" After a brief moment of reminiscence, Fate translated the symbols in the Imperial language. "Perhaps this beastman came here in search of the Holy Land and died here."

"Is this so-called holy place the altar where you received revelation?" Bella asked.

"I'm not sure," Fate shook his head. "Perhaps there's only one way to verify this. Please follow me."

After figuring out the relationship between their current location and the clues on the silver hand mirror, the werewolf shaman led a few people towards the mountainside, where an unremarkable slope was waiting for them, waiting for the shaman to raise the silver hand mirror and recite a string of spells that he himself did not understand.

"Wuziwacha, Suo, Zuma Kami, Vio! (The believers come with the tokens and open the altar)"

"It feels less like... Makabaka." The poet muttered something else, but her words were clearly of no use. With a resounding sound like rock breaking, an unknown force tore open a gap in the slope, wide enough for the two to enter side by side. A cold, damp wind blew out, as if welcoming the believers who had returned after so many years.

"It succeeded. I have accomplished my mission." Fate breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't know the meaning of the spell, he just recited it by imitation. He didn't even know if the pronunciation was correct. He didn't expect that he would succeed in one try.

"It seems the people who built this place don't mind people with accents, haha." Vondar raised his cork shield and walked in first. "Light the torches, Barty. Those of you who can't see clearly in the dark, just follow me."

Like elves, dwarves' vision is also adapted to dim and low-light environments, but this vision cannot distinguish colors, and everything can only be distinguished in grayscale and black and white. Therefore, dwarves do not mind the illumination of torches.

Reslaufer didn't say much. The darkness was indeed not a good place for him to perform. If there was a dwarf in front of him, he would have enough time to react even if he encountered danger.

Angelita agreed and was about to take out something needed to start a fire, but Daisy held her hand.

"Why waste your time on that?" the poet winked mischievously. "You have a spellcaster here—there must be light!"

As the sound of a piano rang out, the battle axe in the hand of the dwarf walking in front immediately "lit up", emitting a soft light that illuminated everything around.

"You won't need any torches from now on. Just let me do this kind of work!"

"That's not necessarily true. You still have to play the piano. Look at mine." Bella took out a torch from her backpack and snapped her fingers. The torch automatically started burning without any fire source. "How about it? Isn't mine more convenient than your spell?"

The spellcasters in the team started comparing themselves to each other, but the expressions of the other three became strange: "Um...why didn't I see you using these when we went into the Xinmu City sewers before?"

Daisy and Bella immediately fell silent, and after a while they both laughed and turned their heads away.

“I forgot… I forgot…” “I’m deformed… Ahahaha…”

"I thought only the mages in the towers would forget their spells," Vondar said, waving his axe, which had become as bright as a torch. "Never mind that. Follow us, everyone!"

Daisy and Angelita naturally walked at the back of the team again. The werewolf shaman wanted to get closer to the girl, but his attempt was quickly seen through by Reslaufer, who carried him like a child to the second position in front, sandwiched between the dwarf and Reslaufer himself.

Don't expose your back to wild beasts, even werewolves.

This hidden altar was quite extensive, likely hollowing out nearly a third of the rocky mountain. The road wound downward, its destination unknown. However, precisely because of this, the group encountered almost no living creatures during the first half of the journey, let alone hostile ones. The largest of the creatures roaming around them was a giant millipede as long as a human arm.

The squirrel Tiaotiao squatted on the druid's shoulder, shivering all over. It was not time for it to shed its fur yet. The temperature here was a little too low for it, and the dark and unfamiliar environment was too dangerous for a squirrel.

"Don't be afraid, we are all here," Bella stretched out her finger and stroked the top of the little creature's head with her fingertips. Tiaotiao, who never considered herself a "pet", surprisingly did not slap it away this time. Instead, she hugged the druid's warm and slightly calloused knuckles with her little paws, trying to get more warmth from it.

Suddenly, the squirrel sensed that the light at the entrance seemed to dim for a moment, but before she could figure out what was going on, the feeling disappeared like a dream.

Squirrels are not stupidly intelligent, but they do have bad memories, and Tiaotiao quickly chose to put this matter behind her, just like the ten of the twelve caches she had buried in the winter.

It did not tell anyone about this illusion, so no one would notice it. However, Vondar Halfhill, who was walking in the front, stopped, bent down and picked up something to show Leslauf behind him.

"How strange," the dwarf said, his voice filled with confusion. "We didn't see any other footprints on the way here, did we? Why is there a boot here?"