Shadow of the Evil God

As he thrust his body forward, Cesar felt his breathing grow heavier, until, finally, after injecting a massive dose of venom, he let out a forced breath. He kissed her towering breasts, squeezing them with his hands while his lips and tongue indulged in the still-flexible, erect nipples. They swelled red as if engorged with blood, growing larger and larger as his tongue teased them. She moaned softly, and a honey-like liquid gradually oozed from them, moistening his dry tongue and throat.

It must be said that her entire body seemed to be shaped for pleasure.

"Look, Master, this is what requires the most concentration." The dog held his head against his chest and whispered in his ear, "Don't you think you are much more awake now than before?"

Cesar panted and shook his head, feeling the softness of her skin brush against his cheek, quite intoxicating. Of course, he felt this guy was just making excuses, but he didn't have the energy to refute. Strands of his own scent emanated from the hidden path behind her, visible along the crack of her buttocks, the folds stained with a sticky white. It had stretched so wide that it seemed like it could swallow a hand, and now it was still shrinking inwards.

"I've been wondering lately whether a lot of your sudden behavior is actually your own thoughts or just another form of mimicry," Cesar said. "Have you ever thought about what you are lately?"

"It's hard for me to say, Master."

"It's hard for you to answer anything I ask you."

"Should I have phrased it better?"

"Can?"

"I can try," she said with a wink.

......

If you think about it, using someone else's quiet room, perhaps used for pilgrimage, as a bedroom is not very ethical. However, if you think about the fact that corpse eaters will soon pass by and destroy the quiet room, it seems that the ethics are not important.

With this thought, Cesar pulled on his cloak again and pulled out Legosius's map for reference. He found he had reached the farthest southwest he had expected. Next, he had to follow the gaps in the mountains into the territory behind Cleface's lines. He would have a chance to escape only when the destruction caused by the corpse-eaters attracted Cleface's attention and they became entangled with the hastily arriving soldiers.

Of course, this is the best-case scenario.

Chapter 298: House in the Abyss

After leaving Iskrig's stone chamber, Cesar continued his journey for over three days along the edge of the Sanctuary Abyss. He avoided all human activity, circumvented military blockades, and even avoided several paths that could have served as logistical routes. Not only were humans rare, but even animals were scarce along the way. Finally, with Iskrig's longbow, they managed to hunt a few eagles to fill their stomachs.

Perhaps due to their proximity to the abyss, the nights were pitch black, and the daytime skies were overcast. The mountains seemed to possess a hazy, almost invisible visage, reminding him of the true dragons of Kuna legend, those long-gone ancient rulers. Though they had become mountains, they too would wither and wither under the erosion of time, their once robust features gradually crumbling under the erosion of wind and sun.

Cesar used his sword to carve up the roasted eagle meat, satisfying his hunger after three days of long travel. As for the dog, she lay on his chest, sucking the blood from his neck, all the while tearing at his wound with her sharp teeth, bringing a slight intoxication and slight pain. In fact, from that day on, she had completely stopped eating anything else.

The mountains were steep, and there were no hybrid beastmen on the hunting trail. Only the flesh puppets that could climb freely on the cliffs of the wilderness carried the corpse-eating hunters and shamans along the way.

It's time to move towards a settled area.

Although Cesar had been doing his best to avoid densely populated areas, his journey westward had already brought him close to the territory where many important towns of Clifas were located. Simply escaping from sin was not an option. He expected to pass through many imperial outposts, some similar in nature to Sodoris, responsible for transporting and transferring military supplies, while others, similar to the villages and towns he had reorganized in Gonzales, served as sources of military production and logistical supplies.

Cesar compared the terrain and determined his position on Legosius's map, then decided to adjust his route and walk away from the Sheltering Abyss towards the gentle slope in the north.

Finally, he no longer had to look down into the endless darkness of the abyss. However, the path down from the ridge was much steeper than when he had first climbed the mountain. The cliffs were almost vertical, and he didn't dare to set foot there easily. At the foot of the mountain was a large forest. The ancient trees seemed to have never been cut down, and they were so close together that from a distance, the gaps between the trees were not even as wide as the trunks.

Cesar thought of his first night in the wilderness, and of the more ancient forest. The forest there was all broadleaf trees, while here it was mostly rough-barked pines and cypresses, straight as stone monuments, but with sharp gray needles leaning towards the distance, as if trying to escape the darkness that sheltered the abyss.

The ancient trees towered majestically, a sight completely different from the long-logged forests surrounding Gural Fortress. Truth be told, these lush trees were perfect for felling, surely yielding abundant timber of excellent quality. They had been able to thrive for millennia thanks to the nearby mountains, which made inaccessible to humans.

Cesar followed the ridge, searching for a gentle slope downhill. Halfway around the bend, he stumbled upon a massive tree, growing from the base of the mountain to the edge of the ridge. The tree was at least as wide as a massive stone tower, and its canopy was so dense it looked like it could completely obscure the dog pit. Without a second thought, he grabbed a branch that coiled around the ridge. He pressed on, climbing straight to the very top of the canopy.

It was a breathtaking sight. Overlooking the world from the top of a giant tree was completely different from gazing into the distance from atop a mountain ridge. He climbed along the treetops, feeling as if he had crossed at least half the distance of the pit. When he reached the other side, he found himself suspended above an abyss. A mist of smoke rose from the abyss, merging into the mists of the mountainside and disappearing without a trace. Standing in the treetops, which stretched above the abyss, he could see a house on the side closer to the abyss.

The house was sunken into the cliff, invisible from the ridge, and the smoke rose from it, like ghosts rising from a chimney, spiraling upward and gradually fading into nothingness.

This place was eerie. The mountains themselves were impenetrable and inaccessible, and the cliffs bordering the abyss were no place for humans. The fact that it had settled there, with smoke rising from its chimney, must have signified some unspeakable existence. Cesar knew he shouldn't have been complicit, but the urge to explore was unbearable. A greater terror was gathering behind him, so he didn't care about this isolated terror.

Cesar decided to change his route and head for the house on the edge of the abyss, but finding the path there proved more difficult than he had imagined. The rock face was more than precipitous. If he had a wizard with him, perhaps he could have asked Firth or Diana to lead him there, but that was out of the question now. On the other hand, who knew what kind of ruin the house on the edge of the abyss would become once the corpse-eaters followed his footsteps.

He wandered the treetops for a long time, searching for a path down, until he finally found a trail. It was incredibly narrow, hidden between boulders and impossible to spot from the ridge. When he reached the trail, he saw sword marks left by Iskrig on the rocks nearby. Clearly, this was the path Ajeh's father had walked and marked.

Although the path was winding and difficult to navigate, with many sections only a foot wide and a missed step leading to a fall into the abyss, it was fair to say that a passing mage would have no difficulty finding this place. Diana said she had observed the movements of the Sanctuary Abyss, and if she passed by using magic, it would be impossible for her to fail to discover the hut on the edge of the abyss, not to mention the Kuna Iskrig's frequent visits.

So it's because of the Kuna people

Only the Kuna people can see through some unspeakable cover and see the houses on the cliff?

Cesar thought of the dark-haired Ajeh, and the memories and traces they had left in each other's souls, and he couldn't help but feel deeply confused. Was it just a soul-meeting? Not only did the Kuna's remnant of memory mistake him for one of their own, but he could even discern this hidden path, a path only Iskrig had traversed?

He really wanted to pull the other Ajiehe out of his body, open her brain, and read all her memories page by page.

Cesar slowly descended, discovering man-carved stone steps on the hidden path. Shallow pits on either side of the cliff face provided space for hands and feet, like ladders for support. If someone lived in the house, they could indeed use the shallow pits and stone steps to navigate the vertical cliff face. But looking down, the endless abyss inevitably made one feel terrified and dizzy.

Who would build a house in such a secluded place? Considering that Eskrigg often visited, the situation became even more complicated.

Chapter 299 Human Sacrifice

......

Along the way, Cesar was so focused on observing the path that he had no energy to look down at the dark, empty abyss below him. However, precisely because of this, he clearly realized that the stone wall he was climbing was a huge section at the edge of the world. The birth of time separated the original world, one part rising to form a wasteland of uncertain reality, while the other sank to form an orderly reality. The wound they tore was this sheltering abyss.

He continued down, pondering the deeper meaning of the Kuna myths. Perhaps many things were completely different from his preconceived notions. Perhaps the time and history of this world were no older than the giant trees he had walked along.

Indeed, trees go through a process of rooting and growth, but does this process only apply to trees that later establish roots? Could it be that before the creation of time, incredible ancient trees and eternally still true dragons were already rooted in the earth?

Lately, Cesar has been caught up in similar mysteries. When he descended to the middle of the cliff face, he discovered a seemingly regular pattern in the rock fractures, and the path he was climbing down happened to pass right through them. He felt these patterns were connected to the real dragon, and that they weren't seen elsewhere because the real dragon, after its demise, had become part of the world, weathered by wind and sun. However, this cliff face was different. Next to it lay the abyss of nothingness, and perhaps it held a trace of the real dragon.

He longed to see the remains of a real dragon, but when he got down, he realized he was just dreaming. He was too close to the rock face as he descended, and couldn't see the whole thing. When he finally reached the bottom and looked up, the pattern was too far away to make out any details, only countless intricate patterns.

Cesar felt like an insect crawling on the murals in the cathedral. If he got too close, he could only see the tiny textures. If he stood too far away, he could not take in the whole mural and every tiny detail on it with his limited vision.

Despite this, he still discerned a clue. He discovered that the intricate patterns on the cliffs actually had a pattern, forming a series of ever-changing figures extending in all directions. Upon closer inspection, it seemed as if invisible chains bound them together, revealing a magical life force he couldn't understand. They resembled the patterns of the divine scripture mastered by Diana—the so-called Castalic.

At first, Cesar thought it was divine writing, but then he realized it was actually a script born from the faith of Anarik. It didn't belong to this world; it belonged to Anarik, an incomprehensible, alien god beyond this world. As for the real dragons before him, in a sense, they were the world itself. They were mountains, oceans, clouds, lakes, anything they could imagine.

If Analik's sacred text can be developed into a magic system in the hands of the Kuna people, then what about the traces of the true dragon? Can it be developed into another magic system?

Cesar thought of Zavulon, and the devastation his students had wreaked on another plate. As a true dragon that hadn't yet grown up, a creature that existed at the beginning of time, if anyone could pass on the legacy of the true dragon to humans as magic, he and his compatriots might be the most suitable.

Now when I recall the difference between the two plate mages, I think of one spell system that will make spells spread like a plague, causing huge disasters like the laws of the world itself, which will not dissipate for a long time; the other spell system is incompatible with the world itself, and may even antagonize the laws of the world's operation. If it is not maintained, it will disappear on its own. Many things become understandable at once.

He looked at the lines on the cliff face and realized his obsession had touched upon a glimmer of truth. The lines threaded through the cracks of the cliff, as if they had existed since the beginning of time, protected from wear and tear by the nothingness that sheltered the abyss, finally catching his eye.

However, Cesar was no mage. Even if he stopped to observe, he could discern no magic or truth. Perhaps humans were inherently incapable of comprehending the earliest forms of magic. Tracing back to the dawn of time, perhaps it was an ancient White Nightmare like Legosius who passed the sacred texts to the Kuna, or perhaps it was a true dragon like Zavulon, who never reached maturity, who passed on the remains of the true dragon to the humans of another plate.

Without the revelations of beings closely connected to Analik and the True Dragon, perhaps all humans would be as clueless as he was now, completely clueless no matter how hard they looked. Ultimately, they would be left to admire these bizarre patterns and designs with the same artistic eye as Cesar.

Once Cesar had traversed this steep path, the path beyond, nestled between the crevices of the cliffs, became much easier. He had to duck, but at least he didn't have to climb the steep slope anymore. He then walked up a few more stone steps, which became less narrow. It felt as if he were standing on flat ground. He looked up, filled with wonder, as if the house itself contained the entire world.

When he looked up, he saw the dark abyss; when he looked down, he saw the bottomless abyss. On both sides were cliffs where he could not stand. Only a small gap on the cliff was the entire world where people could live.

Cesar stopped to observe, but he did not see any traces of people near the house, and the smoke from the cooking stove had disappeared. However, since he had come to this place, there was no reason for him not to explore. For many days, he had been walking on the ridges blown by the cold wind, sleeping in the desolate night sky, and wandering on the edge of death and hunting. And in this place where it was most unlikely that there would be traces of people, he found traces of people. He

I was reminded again of the comfort of human life. It is not just a thought, but it is already within reach.

Even Iskrig's simple animal skin and stone bed made him reluctant to leave, so how much more satisfying would he be to live in a house with curling smoke?

The house was made of stone, seemingly carved from the ground, with a thatched roof weighed down by stones. In short, it was the simplest and most primitive of dwellings, the kind hunters and farmers would live in, perhaps even hermits. He stood at the door and called out, but received no response. He then called out several more times, but there was still no response. All sound gradually faded at the edge of the abyss, until only silence remained.

Cesar, unable to bear it any longer, pushed the door open and walked in, followed by the dog. By the time a woman approached the door, he had already stepped inside. She had a delicate and elegant face, and upon seeing it, Cesar realized she was definitely not a peasant woman or a hunter. Of course, her dress was indeed tattered, and although it was cleaned up, it was actually not much different from a beggar's rags.

After a while, a round-faced little boy poked his head out and looked out from under his mother's dress. Both of them had brown hair and brown eyes, and looked like they were from the French. His eyes were wide open, and there was a hint of fear in his eyes when he looked at him.

Cesar realized that he was too big.

"I am a knight," he said, "and I lost my way in the mountains. I'm sorry if I frightened you, but I just..."

The woman, who didn't look like a peasant woman, nodded and sidestepped to invite him in, seemingly without suspicion or question. Cesar felt strange, but he stepped inside anyway. The place was filled with a strange, meaty smell, which he hadn't noticed from outside. Smoke from the hearth rose to the roof, which he hadn't seen from outside. The stone house had no windows, its light coming only from the hearth. An old man, nearing death, lay in bed, and when he saw the stranger enter, he struggled.

The old man's voice trembled, "Tribe, tribe..."

Tribe? This place doesn't look like the Sasule people's grassland, does it?

The unknown woman walked over and comforted the old man, then turned back and said, "My husband is out hunting, but they will be back soon."

"I won't stay long, ma'am," Cesar replied. "I just want to know why there are houses built on the edge of the abyss. If anyone could really use this road to go hunting, he must be a great man."

The woman nodded and seemed about to reply, but the little boy behind her, clinging to her skirt, shouted first, "Have you seen Soin, sir? One of us must be sent to the temple dedicated to the white devil! The tribe can't survive!"

Before Cesar could react, the boy was slapped in the face. The boy started crying. He had just been grabbing his mother's dress, but in the blink of an eye he ran to the most secluded corner farthest away from her and curled up in a ball.

Only then did he realize what was happening. If he hadn't possessed the memories of the black-haired Ajeh, and hadn't known that during the Kuna dynasty, the various Frank tribes regularly offered human sacrifices, he wouldn't have been able to grasp the clues immediately. But was the person before him a remnant of memory? He didn't think so. It was far different from the shadowy figure he had seen in the wasteland. Besides, how could such an ignorant boy have left behind a remnant of memory?

"Are you a warrior?" the woman asked, "a warrior who travels with a sword and is not afraid of being sacrificed?" Cesar found that she did not understand what a knight was, and warrior, this was a completely Kuna term with an unimaginable long history.

"I am," Cesar said.

"Then I suppose she is your squire?"

He patted Gouzi's shoulder and said, "For many years, I have traveled with a sword. This is a poor child I rescued a while ago. I brought her with me because I had nowhere else to go. Now, she has mastered many sword-wielding skills. Does your husband also wield a sword?"

She smiled when she heard that, and it seemed that her tense nerves had eased a lot. "He does everything. In such a steep place, he has to do everything."

"It doesn't sound like you guys have always lived here."

"No," she said, "we are trying to escape..."

"Your son just said that one of them must be sacrificed, or the tribe will be in great trouble. What do you mean? Will the Kuna punish you?"

Chapter 300 Uncle Cesar and His Good Niece

Even though he hadn't grasped the full picture, Cesar spoke naturally. For him, weaving stories based on what others said, even before he understood the situation, was as easy as breathing.

"My son..." the woman hesitated. "He's always been clueless, but what he said just now is true. My family lives in seclusion, but the tribe came to my husband and asked him to sacrifice a child. It's said that his younger brother, who is still in the tribe, shirked the responsibility and left the task of sacrificing the child to him—to someone who was no longer affiliated with the tribe."

Cesar glanced at the little boy huddled beside the bed. "Soin is his sister?" he asked. "Have you two decided who you want to sacrifice?"

"We've never considered this, and we don't want to sacrifice anyone," the woman said. "We were planning to escape, but the road is unpredictable. Soin often climbs the cliffs with her father and can also hunt with a bow and arrow. But he's still very young and has never left this house."

"You want to entrust him to someone else," said Cesar.

"Are you from the Endless Grasslands? I see you have different features from ours. I also heard that it's different from the Kuna territory, not as cruel and ruthless as that place, and there's no need to sacrifice the tribe's children to the Kuna demons."

"That's where I came from."

The woman's eyes widened. "I don't know your customs... Do you think my child is fit to wield a sword?"

Cesar shook his head. "It's hard for me to judge, but honestly, are you sure you want to leave him to a stranger? We've only just met."

"Indeed, time is short, but I believe that finding this cliff means destiny is sealed. Even if we don't escape, even if the tribe eventually captures us, at least one child will survive. Moreover, you are from the other side of the grasslands. You can take him to a land where the Kuna people don't set foot. From now on, the child will no longer be afraid of being sacrificed to the white devil."

"The Endless Grasslands are rarely visited by people. I'm afraid it's not a place where a child can thrive."

"Even so, it's better than where we are now."

Cesar felt she was hiding something, but she was covering it up well. He carefully considered his words, trying to find something odd and suspicious in them. "Then why don't you come with me?" he asked.

She smiled with a hint of sadness. "We bear the mark of this land. We don't want to, and we can't, leave. But the child is still very young. He doesn't even understand this world. Everything in his soul is just obscure imagination and ethereal words. He can grow up in another land and become a completely different person. Those past imaginations can remain in his imagination forever."

This was such a mystical answer that Cesar didn't know how to refute her. If this person had appealed to rational considerations, he would have had many ways to respond, peeling off her lies layer by layer, stripping off her disguises like clothes, until only the truth remained, that is, the naked soul itself.

But she didn't. She appealed to the beliefs of the primitive tribe, which meant that unless he also understood the beliefs of the primitive tribe and used the beliefs themselves to refute the beliefs, he would have no way to question or ask questions.

As the woman spoke of her ancient faith, Cesar became aware of the sounds of someone else. The man's heartbeat was soft, like a hunter holding his breath in the forest to avoid startling a rabbit. But he couldn't hear any breathing, only the slow beat that mingled with the fire and the old man's harsh breathing. A normal person wouldn't have been able to hear it.

But he heard it.

Cesar was sure someone was huddled between the wooden beams and straw above him, the compartment where the roof of the house held miscellaneous items. He felt that if a person was still alive, heartbeat and breathing should not be contradictory. But what if heartbeat and breathing were handled by two separate parts, and the two parts were not in the same place?

The woman got up to tend to the old man, then prepared dinner by the fire. Cesar unsheathed his bundle and slammed it against the wooden table like a rock. The heartbeat inside suddenly intensified, the same reaction one would experience when banging one's head against a door. As he'd expected, it was Isley.

He carefully unwrapped the bundle, letting strands of black hair fall into his hands. At the same time, he felt his heartbeat rising above him, and a pair of bare feet, no longer still, slowly walked towards the wooden ladder against the wall.

Cesar wondered how Isri could have the nerve to confront him alone, but she did descend the ladder. She was tall, almost as tall as Cecia, and her build was as taut and powerful as Cecia's. She was the archetypal swordsman of noble birth, though more accurately, a knight. Her cloak was as tattered and stained as ever, and, as he had expected, she had her tightly fitting helmet tucked around her neck, pretending she still had a head.

Before she even turned, he recognized her completely. Although they had rarely touched in reality, in that dreamlike place, he knew her from the inside out. When her headless body turned around, Cesar lifted a little of her head, which had been waiting in the darkness for so long, and faced him. Black hair fell down, and a pair of gray eyes suddenly opened.

"I should have known it was you, Uncle Cesar," her head said.

But the body stood on the wooden ladder without moving.

"I'm the one who should be saying this. Besides, you arrived earlier than me. How did you find yourself here?"

"I simply thought someone would take this route, so I came here before Cleface blocked it. Don't you think this place is interesting? It exists in the past, not the present. Inside the gate is the dynasty of the ancestors, temples of human sacrifice and white nightmares, and the beastmen hadn't even been born yet; and outside, you are luring the corpse-eaters to raid Cleface's territory—what a good tactic, isn't it, Uncle Cesar? If I were you, I wouldn't go off on a tangent and let my curiosity get the best of me."

"I'm not indulging my curiosity; this house is calling me. Of course, it could also be calling you. It's indeed calling to anyone who approaches the cliff today. Don't you care about this mysterious fate and calling?"

"It's not important," Isley said. "Not compared to what I want to do."

"From the moment you glanced up and saw me on the streets of Anglan, you've been trying to kill me."

"You're thinking of accusing me now, uncle? Yes, you're right. Things are often that simple."

Chapter 301 From the Past to the Future

"Your lies aren't careful enough," Cesar said.

Yisili's eyes widened. "What do you want to say?"

"I'm saying that before you even knew I existed, you wanted to kill someone you imagined Thane cared about. Who I am, what I've done, it doesn't matter. You just want to put your imaginary image on someone and kill that fool. That way, you'll feel like you've made a huge effort and sacrifice for your hatred."

"That's a good point, I admit, but I don't care. No matter what you say, no matter what rhetoric you use, I'll say I don't care, Uncle Cesar. I know your reputation, and I won't fall for your rhetoric."

"So," Cesar pondered, "you want to kill me no matter what. No matter who I am, no matter what I've done, no matter the cost or the damage you suffer, you're going to do it. Do you think this is the meaning and pursuit of your life?"

He waited for Isley to speak, but she remained silent. "So," he continued, "even if I explained everything to you, laid it all out, you wouldn't care. You wouldn't want to understand the situation, you wouldn't want to think about it. You just want to fulfill your own fantasy and find comfort in it?"

She didn't blink, as if her head hadn't fallen into his hands. "Our teachings say that it is our weaknesses and flaws that make us human, Cesar. I accept that and won't be swayed by your words. Even if I can't kill you, I will do everything in my power to hinder you."