Mythology: Ragnarok

It turns out that the moment Agred put down his weapon, he used the crystal on his staff to cast the high-level blood magic 'Explosive Blood Boil'. This magic can make the target's blood violent and unstable until it reaches a critical point and then explodes completely. It is a powerful area-of-effect attack, but it can only be used to clear out small minions. It is completely useless against some races with abnormally strong single-target physiques, such as dragons and titans.

“Speak! Who orchestrated all of this behind the scenes?” Agreed tapped the monster’s head with his staff and asked again.

It turned its head to the side, remaining silent, displaying an air of unyielding defiance.

Argreed scoffed, walked over, placed his hand on the man's head, and activated the Soul Searching spell.

Are you kidding me? You think I won't understand just because you shut up? With your limited understanding of the world, what are you bragging about? If you're going to say it yourself, I'll give you a chance to live. If you don't want it, then don't blame me.

Agreed quickly obtained the information he wanted, and then, with a slight exertion, detonated the soul of the Eto monster, blasting its head to pieces. Everyone saw that he had been reckless, so I gave him a chance. (Actually, soul searching wouldn't kill him; Agreed's actions here were somewhat influenced by personal grudges.)

Pushkin then quickly asked, "What did you see?"

After sorting through the memories of the Etemon, Agreed said with a grave expression, "We're in big trouble. According to the Etemon's memories, I can confirm that the beast tide that has broken out across the human kingdoms is closely related to the Mind Flayers."

Pushkin exclaimed in surprise, "Mind flayers?! I thought they were just monsters from folklore. Why would they do this? They have no connection with humans!"

Argrede looked up at Pushkin and explained, “Because their power comes from the evil god they worship, and in order to gain power they need to sacrifice their lives to their god. The power of the evil god is very mysterious, it is a strange system that is incompatible with our understanding. The more vibrant and powerful the lives that his followers sacrifice to him, the more power those followers can obtain.”

Pushkin exclaimed in sudden realization, "You mean they're sacrificing the entire human race as a sacrifice!"

Agreed nodded in agreement, and Pushkin, seeing this, hurriedly said anxiously, "Then we must stop them, otherwise humanity may really become extinct on this continent!"

Agreed continued, "And they must still be imprisoning many disaster victims there. Remember what I said? Human sacrifices bring more benefits, so they must be capturing as many live sacrifices as possible to offer to the evil god."

Pushkin slapped his forehead and exclaimed, "How could I not have thought of that? No matter how much a monster eats, it wouldn't eat every last bone. We've traveled to so many countries and haven't found this suspicious point. It's all my fault for being so incompetent."

Agreed comforted him, "Don't blame yourself. We were all focused on saving people and no one thought about this. Let your brothers come and rescue the survivors here first. We need to plan the search for the mind flayers and the rescue of the hostages in a more thorough way."

Pushkin nodded, then summoned the unicorn horse, mounted it, and went to find his men.

Agreed watched Pushkin's departing figure and sighed deeply. The gods worshipped by mind flayers are very strange. As for evil gods, I'll tell you a name you're more familiar with, and you'll understand. Some civilizations call them 'Cthulhu' and have written a half-true, half-false mythology system specifically for them.

The Cthulhu Mythos's evil gods are not easy to reason with; they are all extremely licentious and vengeful deities. Agreed is not afraid of mind flayers, but he is afraid that the Cthulhu gods will send avatars to this world. He is not powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with the gods right now.

Pushkin quickly summoned his men to rescue the survivors from the spider web. Since these people were originally food reserves for mind flayers and their offspring, their bodies were not injected with the dissolving toxin. They were simply knocked unconscious by the anesthetic toxin carried in the spider web and were basically not in any danger.

Argreed then used his magical protective spell to wake everyone from their anesthesia. The Knights then escorted the fifty-seven survivors (the others were probably eaten by the spiders) to a nearby city.

At night, the soldiers would go to the nearby stables to change their horses. In each country they visited, they needed to go to the nearby stables to buy horses to use as riding vehicles during rescue operations so that their own horses could rest. Otherwise, even war beasts would die from exhaustion under such high-intensity work.

With the country's rescue mission nearing its end, the extra horses purchased would soon be sold back to the horse market by the Knights of Light. Most of the merchants were grateful for the Knights' support, so they were generally willing to buy back the horses at the original price, which could be considered a form of indirect support for the Knights.

that night

Pushkin and Agreed sat in a corner of the tavern, drinking and chatting.

After taking a sip of wine, Pushkin asked, "Speaking of which... do you know what happened to your teacher Presidium? I left Augustus after that incident, so I don't know much about what happened to your teacher afterward."

Agreed took a deep breath and said as if lost in memories, "He died. The Mage King sentenced him to death the year after we escaped. On the day of the execution, there were ten forbidden spellcasters guarding the execution site. I... didn't even have the ability to see him one last time. Later, I bribed the mortician who cleaned up the execution site to bury him."

Pushkin asked, puzzled, "Speaking of which, you've lived in Avalon for so many years and made a name for yourself, you couldn't possibly have escaped the watchful eyes of the Augustan royal family, could you? Why haven't they come looking for you yet?"

Agreed took a swig of strong liquor, wiped his mouth, and said, "I made a deal with the devil. I made everyone who knows about it except you and Milton forget what we look like, then we can just run off to some random place and hide. If we change our names a little, no one will be able to find us."

Pushkin stood up in shock and shouted, "The devil!"

Pushkin then realized he had overreacted, so he quickly sat down and whispered, "Do you know what a terrible thing you're dealing with?! You're insane!"

Agreed looked at him and smiled, saying, "Demons are actually the opposite of what you think. Most demons who are willing to make a deal with you are very principled. At least the demons under the Sin of Greed are very reliable and value their reputation."

Pushkin still shook his head in disbelief and said skeptically, "I don't believe those evil fellows have any so-called virtue."

Agreed just shook his head with a wry smile and said, "You're trapped by stereotypes. Believe me, my friend, if demons have no virtues, then humans certainly don't either. If it weren't for the lack of power, humans would definitely be far more evil than demons."