Chapter 751 (1/2)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

“Have you all heard? In the last few days, there have been several massacres along the dividing line between the aristocratic party and merchant party. How appalling!”

A few adventurers were chatting in a small tavern. One of them who was dressed like a paladin might have drunk a drop too much, so he spoke a little loudly, “Really, it’s too terrifying!”

“Was it very scary?” a rough-hewn warrior asked. “We’ve only heard some vague news about a succession of a few mass murder cases…”

“Murder cases? Haha… Murder cases!” the paladin sneered. He shook his head vigorously, took a large gulp of wine and then said, “How are these murder cases! It’s a cult offering!”

Upon hearing this, silence instantly prevailed over this tavern which was quite a boisterous scene just a moment ago. Everyone shut their mouths and looked in the direction of this paladin.

To these old hands, murder cases were no big deal. Throughout their lifetime, they had their blades stained with blood as they drifted about seeking a living. Most of them had taken lives before, and more than one life at that. But cult offerings were different. Heretics killed people as sacrifices for the purpose of summoning devils to the mortal world. When the devils arrived in the mortal world, they were bound to cause great damage. The least serious thing would be the loss of lives in a village. But in the future, it might even be the loss of lives of an entire city of people.

In addition, they were not weak themselves. In the face of ordinary ruffians and scoundrels, the winner would not be known before a real fight, which was why they were unfazed by murder cases. But if facing devils, their strengths were not even worth mentioning. When the devils started out on a killing spree, these adventurers would not be any much stronger than ordinary humans. They would not necessarily be able to escape either.

This was why when they heard this phrase, everyone was shocked. Many of them immediately made up their minds that if there were indeed cult activities in this region, they would leave right away and as far as possible!

Of course, there were also some who were instantly excited about the opportunity to earn money or fame, or even the chance for them to perform chivalrous deeds. Fighting against cults was one of the few matters on which countries on the Main Plane took a unanimous stance. Once a certain organization was determined as a cult, there was nothing much that needed to be further said. The most lenient form of punishment was the extermination of all the heretics of the cult. A slightly harsher punishment included the implication of family and friends—for instance, situations where only the heretic of concern was killed were in fact, relatively few in comparison. Under normal circumstances, at least the closest family members, like parents, wives and children, would die together.

One of the most recent strikes against cults was His Majesty, the Void Mask’s annihilation of the “Isis” organization. Although everyone knew that this organization was backed by the Orc gods and that its members were not abyssal devils, Sui Xiong had nonetheless branded it as a cult. With no one willing to stand up to exonerate them, then naturally, the trouble would be to get them to accept death.

And from what this paladin had said, it was truly a cult creating the commotion at the border between the aristocratic party and merchant party this time around—they were already in the midst of bringing a cult offering into play.

“What is the specific situation?” asked a warrior who had come closer. His face was filled with worry.

The paladin who was almost 70% drunk sighed and said, “A few days ago, I set out from Copper Hand City and intended to head to Silver Shield City. One night, when I was staying in a small village… I won’t tell you the make of the village, anyway it’s meaningless to speak of it when there’s no one alive there. In the middle of the night, I suddenly awoke from sleep and felt a strong sense of danger…”

“A strong sense of danger?” asked that warrior, who froze in shock. “What danger could it be to be able to wake you up from sleep?”

“I’m not so sure myself. But my experience told me to hide. Only if I hid could I live,” said that paladin. He shook his head and took another gulp of wine, then said, “So I hastened to make the room look like I had woken up in the middle of the night and left in a hurry, then I hid under the bed.”

“But hiding under the bed is no guarantee for your safety. The bed board may not be able to cover your entire body, and someone might hear your breathing,” the warrior said.

The paladin smiled and said, “Of course I have my ways. But I won’t be telling you.”

So indeed, he did not share the exact method he had used to hide and merely continued to say, “I hid for an hour or so until the sense of danger I felt was finally gone before I climbed out from under the bed. Alas, the moment I came out from my hiding place, there was such a thick smell of blood!”

“The entire village was dead?” guessed a warrior who was sitting at the same table.