Shadow of the Evil God

"A demon passed through this place." After thinking it over, Cesar gave the most direct answer.

"A demon. Um... a demon. Tsk, a demon," the mercenary captain said. Her tone shifted, albeit only slightly. "That might be true, but there are so many kinds of demons in this world. If something looks strange or terrifying, people will call it a demon, regardless of its true nature. Does your little witch know exactly what kind of demon it is?"

"She doesn't know either," Cesar said, and seeing the other woman's eyebrows raise, he added, "If she could see the demon, she could describe what it is."

"I see," she nodded. "What do you say, Sir Knight? Should we continue on?"

“我总是会站在最前方。群6!#999四:9三6?壹!999”神殿骑士的话音就像在用铁锤砸钉子。

"Well then," the mercenary captain finally commented, looking somewhat annoyed, "we'll soon find out what that thing is. So are you prepared to not step back, even if it means your life is in vain, and take your little witch with you to see that thing clearly, and then help this taciturn fellow relay the information to us?"

Cesar only

Can say he has.

The captain nodded again, turned her eyes, scanned the mercenaries under her command, and then looked deeper into the dark depths of the mine. The pair of transparent blue eyes turned again, and Cesar found himself being held tightly by this man.

Stared at.

"Everyone," she smiled and turned away. Although she was speaking to her mercenaries, Cesar felt she was speaking to someone else present. "You should all remember that when I, Ceshia, select members for my team, even if it's just a short mission, I don't want to make any mistakes and don't want to choose members who shouldn't be selected. Since I chose you as the spearheads and you didn't refuse, I hope that no matter what happens next, no matter what situation arises, you will not hesitate. I order you to speak out all the discomfort and strangeness you feel. Don't pretend to endure it or hide it in private, okay? If you say a few less words later, you will never have the chance to have a grand conversation with others at the wine table for the rest of your life."

It seemed that if he had not been a fake hereditary noble, and a powerful military noble, this captain would have been more than just sarcastic, and would have drawn his sword to his neck to issue a warning and threat.

Granley patted Cesar's shoulder and said, "Just standing here is a manifestation of courage. There's no need to worry too much."

What a disaster! I don't know if this Ceshia has sharp senses and can even hear other people's whispers, or if she is particularly good at observing people's words and expressions and can judge a person's thoughts from subtle expressions and body movements.

Cesar hoped it was the latter, because the former was too absurd. With such ability, why would he just be a mercenary captain in a subcontracting mercenary group?

Chapter 20 We may not be able to go back

......

As he passed through an abandoned mine tunnel that went deep into the pit, Cesar felt a shadow passing through him, like the scorch marks left by flames burning a piece of paper, and he just stepped over the charred and broken part of the paper.

At that moment, he felt an indescribable fear, as if he had suddenly fallen off a cliff, plummeting into the dark, lightless seabed. Everything around him transformed into heavy water, pressing down on him. He wasn't afraid of the darkness and silence of the place, nor was he afraid of the uncertain journey ahead. He was simply terrified for no reason, his heart gripped by an uncontrollable fear.

Fear always has a seed from which it originates. People first have the image of darkness and death, and then fear arises from this image. But his fear at this moment had no origin; it was simply an abstract emotion that infused his thoughts and oppressed his body, making his steps feel slow, his knees weak, and his fingers tremble.

"The fact that you can perceive scars of this magnitude proves you're more perceptive than others." Firth cast a glance at his side, seemingly wrapping her clothes tighter. "When I told you to feel the scars of the world, I was just saying it. But now it seems, uh... at least you have the qualifications to enter. This qualification was a requirement for entry into my ancestral school, and it's still the requirement for the Origin Society today."

"You really like to talk casually."

“I sometimes speak without thinking too much.”

But, qualifications...

Cesar glanced around at the others, finding no reaction from them. He began to doubt his own supposed credentials. If even the Knights Templar of Hierre hadn't reacted, then why had he? Was it because his embrace of Analik's path had gradually transformed his soul? When he'd escaped from the Earl's castle, passing through tunnels teeming with monsters on either side, he'd felt nothing.

No matter how you think about it, the weirdness under the Earl's Castle would be much more exaggerated than this place.

He put the question aside for the moment. "Since I can feel it, does that mean the scars of reality are deepening, and the demons are drawing closer?" he asked.

Phils nodded, appearing calm, but Cesar saw that she had wrapped her clothes tighter around her, as if she were trying to hold back the pain. Her face grew paler, but she said nothing, remained silent, and simply stared into the dark tunnel with expressionless blue eyes, wrapping her clothes tighter and tighter, using numbness and patience to hide her easily wounded pride.

Judging from her current performance, being a mage in her lineage is an extremely grueling profession, both mentally and mentally. On the one hand, their magical system easily damages the solid structure of reality. On the other hand, while scarring reality, they also experience these scars themselves, like a special kind of pain.

After spending so much time with Firth, Cesar discovered that she was never willing to talk about her experience learning magic, nor was she willing to talk about how she assisted Corinne and the Count in the castle's underground, which was full of evil monsters. After all, the scars in that place must be extremely terrible.

This kind of thing is actually like a person living alone in a haunted house, suppressing his fear and not turning his head, trying to ignore the ghosts appearing behind him. Even if he escapes later, he will not want to talk about his past painful experiences.

What Firth had experienced beneath that monster-infested castle, and how she had managed to maintain her sanity and self-awareness, without collapsing, were all things she knew. If Cesar ever learned of these events, it wouldn't be through his inquiries, but through her own willingness to share them.

Cesar took two steps forward and came to Granli, warning them that the distance between them and the demon was getting closer and closer.

The soldier nodded sternly, and the mercenary captain signaled his mercenaries to remain alert. Everyone tensed, preparing for the approaching battle.

When Cesar turned around, he found that Phil's fingers were pointing at him.

She was twitching, clearly enduring a more intense sensation than his own. He picked up her left hand and squeezed it as a warning. She subconsciously tightened her grip on his hand, suppressing the trembling of his fingers.

"Does every demon inspire such perverse fear?" he asked her.

"No, there are many kinds of demons, and the discomfort they cause is also many kinds. Fear is only a small part of it. There are also some kinds that people also regard as demons, but..."

Phils's tone was like that of a teacher imparting knowledge to ignorant noble children, but Cesar knew who she was hinting at.

He glanced at the disguised Libio and thought, her defining feature lies not only in her flawless mimicry but also in her complete lack of magical abilities. She acquires human memories much as humans acquire nutrients from animal carcasses. Her mimicry itself seems to be a mortal instinct, completely unrelated to magic. Once complete, she becomes even more ordinary than ordinary people. Unless someone rips her face open and verifies her flesh and blood structure, there's no way to uncover her true identity.

Even if Gou Zi pretended to be Bai Yan and stood in front of Sean and Corini, they would have to tear off Bai Yan's face to confirm whether she was a human or a fake one.

From this point of view, even if Gouzi is indeed a demon as Baiyan said, he is an extremely strange kind of demon. Perhaps what the mercenary captain said is right. There are actually no demons in this world. It's just that people think some creatures look strange and terrifying, so they call them demons, regardless of their actual nature.

The final result is that the devil becomes a vague concept of a basket of rotten vegetables, into which all disgusting rotten vegetable stems are put.

However, one thing was clear at the moment: the traces left by the demon were terrifying him and oppressing him with an increasingly heavy shadow.

Cesar could intellectually understand the cause of his fear, but that didn't help him resist its effects. His internal organs were twitching, his hair was standing on end, he felt cold all over, and his breathing became stagnant and slow. These feelings were getting stronger and stronger as they followed the demon's trail... stronger and stronger.

The abandoned mine tunnel was deep and winding. The wooden beams supporting the inner walls on both sides were already rotten, and the ground was damp. As they turned the next corner, Ceshia signaled them to stop and then took a black-painted longbow from one of her men. Cesar saw her raise the bow, took a deep breath, pushed forward with her left arm, pulled back with her right arm, and with considerable force, stretched the bowstring into a crescent shape.

Standing so close, Cesar could hear the bowstring's unusually sharp tug-tug sound. He concluded that even if he used all four of his limbs, stepping on the bowstring with his feet and pulling the bow upward with both hands, he wouldn't be able to fully draw the black bow.

As the bowstring's arc widened, the mercenary captain's shoulders tensed and lifted, then slowly dropped back. His shoulder muscles must have initially absorbed the pressure, gradually transferring it to his upper back muscles. The bowstring, made from the sinew of an unknown animal, gradually stretched and tightened until it reached a near-full moon.

Seshia's eyes were wide open, staring into the distance emotionlessly. Her right index, middle, and ring fingers were hooked around the bowstring, with her thumb resting on her chin. The bowstring even gently touched her bright red upper lip, as if coordinating the movement of her limbs and the longbow.

Her posture was perfect, the pressure on her bow at its peak. Cesar saw her fingers release the string instantly. The bowstring snapped, and the arrow whistled out, the air ripping with a piercing sound, like a heavy spear being thrown. In the distance, a humanoid figure was struck by the arrow, sent flying and pinned to the mine wall.

Cecia removed her leather-gloved right hand and rested it on her waist. Her red hair burned like fire in the mines. Her lips parted, and she flicked her tongue, making a tsk-tsk sound, complaining about something. "A few of you come up with me to check the situation. The rest of you, stay alert," she said.

Leaving aside archery technique, even if Cesar tried to draw the bow like the mercenary captain, he'd have to stab himself more than once. In this era, the factors that determine the level and status of a longbowman are actually equally powerful and skillful; neither is superior nor inferior. Judging from the people he'd recently interacted with, only the grassland sword dancers possessed more exaggerated and expressive power; it was hard to say for anyone else.

Of course, the average strength of a longbowman is much higher than that of someone using a sword, spear, or club. The probability of having women in this profession is much lower than in other professions.

After nailing their target to the wall, they slowly approached and discovered it was a blue-clad guard. His eye sockets were empty and black, and his skin was extremely shriveled, clinging to his bones, like a dried-out mummy.

Judging from the point of impact, the body had been hanging from the roof of the mine before Sethia shot the arrow. But there were no ropes or hinges at the top. Could it be floating there? Was it a demon that killed him and tortured him into this state?

After careful observation, Cesar discovered more incomprehensible phenomena. He found that the man looked a little blurry, as if there was a layer of fog between them. When the mercenary captain lifted the jaw of the corpse with his sword, he also heard an inarticulate groan. The groan seemed to come from the skin of the blue guard's corpse.

It emanated from everywhere, as if after the person's consciousness died and his soul left, his flesh and blood still retained the memory of the extreme pain before death.

After looking at the corpse for a while, his eyes showed

He saw an incomprehensible phenomenon: a circular shadow with sharp teeth hovering at the edge of his vision, trying to approach the center. He repeatedly tried to focus on it, but it was always unclear. No matter where he turned his eyes, it was there. They passed the corpse and continued on their way. Along the way, Cesar suddenly turned around more than once, because he kept thinking that something was floating behind him and screaming hoarsely.

Sometimes he felt that it was his own shadow that was causing trouble, for it dragged strange shapes along the curved walls of the mine, long and twisted, like a strange evil creature.

This feeling...

"You'd better not care about those vague things and the inexplicable feelings in your heart." Fields squeezed his hand and said.

"Explain it more clearly?"

"This..." She hesitated. "It's too much trouble to explain clearly. Anyway, just don't take it to heart for now, okay? Although it is a bit dangerous, it's nothing compared to the demons before. When we get back, I'll tell you slowly."

"We may not be able to go back."

Phils' eyes widened. She always had that expression when she was furious. "Then after we die, I'll stay with you and talk to you slowly, okay?"

Next came the bodies. They found every blue-clad guard the priest had taken with him when he fled. Each body floated in mid-air, then, one by one, was nailed to the mine wall by Captain Ceshia's longbow. Their eyes had vanished without a trace, and their bodies were shrunken like mummies, as if the energy that sustained them had been drained away. Whenever Cesar cast his gaze upon them, they seemed blurry, as if shrouded in a mist.

The circular shadow lingering at the edge of his vision grew clearer and clearer, almost like a mouth full of sharp teeth, rotating and biting. Countless cries and sighs lingered between those teeth, mixing with the sound of their footsteps. He could hardly distinguish which side was the real crowd and which was the absurd fantasy.

Cesar suddenly felt he could sense its presence. The demonic entity at the end also sensed them. A burning sensation gradually approached, yet it carried no trace of warmth. Although he still couldn't feel the scars of the world, he could sense the unmistakable fear. That fear spread like fog to his feet, even visible to the naked eye.

The longbow was fully drawn, and an arrow shot into the air like lightning, piercing the body of something on the spot. If his heart was not filled with inexplicable fear, Cesar might have smiled, just as a mockery, because what Captain Ceshia shot through was not a demon, but a half-dead victim.

Black fog swirled, and arrows with triangular tips pierced it, propelling a miserable body from within and impaling it on the roof of the mine. The body was decayed, but its eyeballs were still there, and its body had not yet completely turned to mummification. It was the temple priest who had escaped with his property. In front of the priest's body, impaled in the wall, a monstrous creature, hidden in the black fog, twisted into a ball and uttered bursts of screams.

Cesar watched as the creature turned toward the crowd and spread its wings, folded behind it like sickles, like a flower carved from glass. The movement was complete in an instant. Its body, framed by its wings, looked incredibly slender. Not only was it white as jade, it seemed to shimmer, a true work of art. However, its featureless head and the black hollow in its center, riddled with sharp teeth, indicated that even if it was a work of art, it wasn't human.

The mercenaries roared, as if forcing themselves to overcome their abnormal fear. Judging from their reaction, this so-called talent wasn't entirely a good thing. The mercenaries knew nothing, yet they were able to force themselves to overcome the fear of the unknown. He knew far more than they did, yet he could only feel the oppression and difficulty breathing like Phils.

Just as Ceshia drew his bow and arrow, and the Temple Knight and the disguised Libio drew their weapons, the demon suddenly rose into the air and opened its arms as if to hug them.

Before Cesar could see clearly, an irresistible fear filled his heart, like a drowning person suddenly choking on dirty water while struggling. For a moment, it overwhelmed all his judgment and thinking abilities that he had tried hard to maintain.

Chapter 21 The Fate of the Amulet

The demon's pose was familiar—head tilted back, body leaning forward, face and chest level, arms outstretched as if to embrace the world—and it was hard not to remind Cesar of religious murals. The so-called messengers of God, spreading their light upon the world, often adopted this pose.

He was imagining, and at this moment he could only indulge in meaningless imagination.

Cesar was bound by indescribable fear. He could neither move forward nor retreat to escape. Only all kinds of fantasies spread uncontrollably in his mind.

At this point, his consciousness was already shrouded and imprisoned by layers of fear, detached from the real world. He had lost the ability to observe and reflect on his current situation. Nothing, save a painful death, seemed capable of altering his condition. He could only stand there, motionless, enveloped in fear and lost in even more empty fantasies.

The mine tunnel was narrow and cramped, and at the end was a medium-sized cave. If they could rush in, they could trap their target in the cave. But at this moment, everyone had fallen into stillness, becoming prisoners, motionless.

Waiting for the devil's punishment.

The white devil's movements were graceful and slow, with a kind of aristocratic beauty. It stretched out its pale claws and pointed at a mercenary filled with fear. Its posture was indescribable, as if it were a messenger from God.

The believers who would receive the gift were being chosen. A dark mist enveloped the chosen one, like a dark tide surging through the air, carrying him upwards, ultimately causing him to hover before the demon's claws.

Cesar watched the demon bend over the man, a posture he could have sworn was perfectly aligned with any religious mural. In the silence, the Chosen One's body swelled and turned pale like a corpse submerged in water. A mist of blood gushed from his throat, gushing out of his gaping mouth and squeezing open his eyes, which had bulged like toads.

Afterwards, the two eyeballs also shattered in the blood mist and turned into sticky mist.

Blood, fat, muscle, bone marrow, all the colorful structures of flesh and blood turned into mist, gushing out from the body, gathering in the black cavity on the demon's face and disappearing - it was draining the life out of the person. In just two or three breaths, the chosen one was reduced to a desiccated corpse.

One of the sacrifices had already perished, and everyone present remained motionless, save for the Temple Knight Granly, whose expression remained agonized, as if battling a nightmare deep within him. The demon lowered its calm head, gazing down at Granly with the hollow darkness of its face, like a rancher examining a recalcitrant animal in a pen.

It reached out to its side and pulled a heavy two-handed sword from behind the withered corpse, placing it on its claws. Then, like a sword-wielding angel, it slowly descended until its feet left the ground, nearing the cave entrance and hovering a meter in front of Granley.

The Temple Knight continued to struggle, his face contorted, but the demon had already placed his sword on his chest, slashing it back and forth, as if considering how to inflict the wound and extract his entrails. At that moment, the demon's right arm, holding the sword, and half of its wing suddenly fell away, tumbling down the mine tunnel. Its two-handed sword clattered and rolled wildly on the rock bed. The impersonator, Libio, shouted, clutching a one-handed sword stained with black blood, and faced the demon with a furious expression.

Could it be that the Faceless Ones were incapable of understanding fear? Cesar wondered. The dog hadn't been tricked at all; he was just pretending, using Granli as bait to lure the demon.

This loud cry broke the spell of silence. The Temple Knights were the first to break free, raising their swords. Mercenaries also drew their firearms and longbows, while those wielding swords and shields rushed forward towards the demon. It roared and retreated, and the surging black mist swept in with it, enveloping its wounded body and retreating deeper into the caverns.

"This is the White Nightmare!" Firth cried, "The demon the Kuna worship!"

Upon hearing this, the Temple Knight immediately shouted loudly, drawing his sword and charging forward: "Don't give the demon time to breathe! If we give it any opportunity, someone will be cursed and die!"

The mercenary captain's voice became even louder: "The mine tunnel is too narrow! Musketeers, don't fire randomly! Group one, kneel down, group two, bend over, group three, stand still, and fire at that damn black fog!"

The volley of musket fire was deafening, like a roar of thunder. Cesar had never experienced such a powerful sound up close before, and a frantic roar immediately rose from the black fog. After the volley, the musketeers busied themselves with biting open the powder cartridges on their belts and pouring them into their muskets, completing the reloading. The other mercenaries had already followed Granli forward.

They quickly pounced on the wounded demon, but it was difficult to truly approach. The so-called White Nightmare had gathered fear into a sealed ball, almost condensing it into a liquid state. If they touched it, the intense fear would seize them again. The four mercenaries collapsed at the first contact with the black fog. Two fell to their knees, shaking like epilepsy. The other two screamed and fled in panic, even crashing through the musketeers' formation.

Granli and the disguised Libio rushed forward despite their fear, while the mercenary captain Ceshia dragged the two unlucky guys who had fallen to their knees back.

"Is there any way?" Cesar pulled Phils back into a crevice.

"I recognize it," Firth whispered, conveying the demon's true identity from beneath Count Thane's castle. She pulled out an amulet from her bosom, the very one the sword-wielding guard, White Eyes, had worn when he arrived beneath the castle. "This is the Overa Secret Stone. Originally intended to kill mages, it's also effective against Nightmares. You could find a way to get it..."

Cesar glanced at her thoughtfully.

"It's useless to an apprentice like me." She frowned, as if admitting she was just a junior apprentice made her unhappy. "The more advanced your magic skills, the more terrible the consequences will be if you encounter this thing."

Cesar took it, thinking that the fact that Fils had managed to carry the so-called Ovela Ritual Stone unscathed spoke volumes about her actual magical prowess. "Was it created by someone who hates mages?" he asked.

"No," she denied, "It is actually a kind of magic skill. In the past, the Ovela School was persecuted and hunted by other schools because of its research on this knowledge, and then they..."

"What's wrong?"

"Burned by the Casar Empire." said Phils.

Cesar felt that there was no need for Phils to say more. There was nothing much to say about this matter. It was nothing more than a group of persecuted mages accepting the olive branch of secular forces. Then, they pulled all their fellow mages together.

They jumped into the mud together. The birth of the Origin Society might have something to do with the birth of this thing.

The more unscrupulous those mages who mastered advanced skills were in the past, the greater the disasters they would encounter later.

Attack from the inside

Breaking up a group is always the most reliable way.

After receiving the amulet, Cesar approached the White Nightmare, shrouded in black fog, mace in hand. He knew the demon was monstrous and terrifying, but its unprotected, unarmored form couldn't withstand a sudden attack from the Faceless Ones. In its current state, if he could break through the fog, he could inflict more fatal damage.

While the dog couldn't perform the same insane acts as the White Nightmare, she ignored fear, and she could utilize their combat skills at a far higher level than their original masters. Libio was also a battle-hardened mercenary leader, and the brilliance of his memories in her hands surpassed even the most glorious of Libio's youth.

Before his death, Libio was an obese man obsessed with sensual pleasures, barely able to utter a single word. After his death, he became a strong and courageous master who never forgot to practice combat skills even in the midst of sensual pleasures. His courage allowed him to break free from the shackles of fear faster than Granli. Everyone, including the Knights Templar and his mercenary descendants, would misunderstand and view him in this way, mistaking the impersonator for the real Libio and taking pride in him.

This makes the matter particularly ironic.

Cesar held the amulet and moved forward. He immediately felt uncomfortable as he approached the demon. The amulet was really useless against fear. If it weren't for Phils's assurance that it had another purpose and Gouzi's claim that it made her feel uncomfortable, Cesar would have thought it was just a broken stone with pictures carved on it.

And honestly, his presence was simply adding to the chaos. His knees were weak, and he was shaking like he was having an epileptic seizure. His heart was beating so fast it threatened to explode. If it weren't for the two people blocking the way, the White Nightmare would have rushed over and drained the life out of him, turning him into a mummy.

Templar Knight Granli suppressed his fear and engaged it in close combat, but none of his attacks landed a single blow. But the Templar Knight couldn't retreat either, for if he did, the White Nightmare, carrying immense fear, would break through the encirclement and charge into the ranks of the Musketeers. If it drained a few more men, perhaps the broken arm would heal in the blink of an eye.

Because she couldn't show her true face, the disguised Libio had a hard time coping and could only fight White Nightmare within the scope of her abilities.

Perhaps because it had drained the life from so many blue-clad guards, the White Nightmare remained agile, unaffected by its injuries. The black mist surrounding it seemed to possess substance, resisting the attacks of muskets and swords. Granli screamed, gripping his longsword tightly. Finally finding the right moment, he swung it down with all his might. However, the blade suddenly slowed as it pierced the black mist, as if sinking into a sticky quagmire. The blow only created a small cut on the demon's skin.