Isidor nodded. Although his current strength had greatly improved, he would still be in danger if he faced the Thousand Winged Demon Lord's world-destroying cannon. If Zam'drol's power was the same as that guy's, he would definitely not be his opponent. Then the only way was to try to prevent his resurrection.
"Anyway, now we have to stop the sacrifice while collecting information about Esna. With her knowledge, maybe we can continue to fight against the Demon Lord," said Isidor.
"I believe you can do it. You can do just as well even without your sister." Emmeline said, leaning lightly on Isidor's chest. Not only did she sincerely believe so, but she was also simply seeking comfort.
Chapter 115: A Spoon of Broth
Isidor's arrival caused a brief panic in the country of Hibran, but as Isidor canceled the summoning of the evil creature, the captain of the guard and the king also came forward to maintain order, the people of Hibran soon calmed down on the surface.
After the riots subsided, the king controlled by the tentacles quickly announced his two major decisions: canceling the Great Festival and opening up trade with the Goblin Kingdom. Although many people speculated that King Hebran was forced to sign the agreement, the good news of canceling the Great Festival obviously made the locals happier. Many people who were persecuted by the Great Festival cheered, and even the captain of the guard went to the tavern to have a few more drinks to celebrate the king's good governance.
Meanwhile, Isidor was gathering information about the sacrifice with Emilyne.
Because of the king's special permission, no one in the entire royal city dared to neglect it. In addition, Isidor was generous and used fantasy construction to create silver bars as gifts, so the intelligence collection work was also very smooth.
"In the beginning, there was indeed no custom of offering sacrifices. The Hibran people did not believe in gods, but only worshipped the Mother Earth who gave birth to them throughout their lives. The king's authority was nominally granted by the Mother Earth. But our culture believes that as long as mushrooms are cultivated underground, it is a worship of the Mother Earth, and there has never been a custom of offering sacrifices. Although several other sub-human ethnic groups living in this country have the habit of offering sacrifices, they usually use grains, fruits, or poultry and animal meat for sacrifice. There is no such thing as human sacrifice, let alone such horrific things as sacrificing babies and internal organs."
In response to Isidor's question, the prime minister, who had just received a large piece of silver, told him everything he knew without hesitation.
"So what caused the king to suddenly change his mind?" Isidor asked.
"Well...to be honest, I don't know much about this. I only know that the king suddenly shouted loudly in his bedroom one night and seemed extremely frightened. When we brought people there, we didn't find anything unusual and His Majesty was unharmed. But starting from the next day, he issued the regulations for the grand sacrifice." The palace prime minister guessed.
"About when?"
"It took less than a month from the issuance to the implementation. This cruel order was met with strong backlash, and less than one-tenth of the amount was completed in a month. That's why the king arranged his most loyal guards to do this. But even so, it has caused many tragedies of broken families and deaths. In my opinion, if it continues, a large-scale rebellion is only a matter of time." The prime minister replied.
Isidor looked at Emmeline and silently calculated in his mind that the event of the beginning of the great festival was almost when he first arrived in the Goblin Kingdom. So when he was running around to unite the four tribes, Zamdrol had already started preparing for his resurrection ceremony. If he had acted a little slower, the Demon Lord might have been resurrected.
"So, does this situation also exist in nearby countries?" Isidor asked again.
"I haven't heard of this. Our country has very close trade relations with several neighboring sub-human countries. If other countries also have such horrific policies, these businessmen who are sensitive to wind direction machines will definitely spread the news everywhere." The prime minister replied.
"Very good, this is what you deserve." Isidor said, and then he constructed a palm-sized silver block and threw it to the prime minister.
"Thank you for your reward, Your Excellency. Please do not tell these words to His Majesty the King." The Prime Minister said with a smile.
"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. And there is one more thing - has anyone seen an elf around here recently? A creature like her?" Isidor asked, pointing at Emmeline.
"Elves? Sorry, I don't think there exist. Elves are just legends to us. If I hadn't seen this lady with my own eyes, I wouldn't even believe that they really exist." The Prime Minister shook his head.
"Thank you very much." Isidore nodded and took Emmeline to a side hall in the palace to rest.
In order to investigate the information about the priest and Emmeline, they had been running around for a whole day and were now a little tired. Isidor closed the door, summoned a few evil creatures to guard him, and then lay down on the bed to take a nap.
Just as he was dozing off, he suddenly heard a tinkling sound. He opened his eyes and saw a middle-aged woman knocking on the soup bowl with a spoon. When she saw that he woke up, she called him to drink the broth.
Isidor had not gotten enough sleep yet, and waved his hand impatiently, signaling the woman to go down, but the woman did not leave, but continued to bang on the soup bowl.
"Please, this is fresh broth, just have a sip! Just one sip will do, it's a token of my appreciation!" the woman begged while knocking.
Seeing her miserable expression, Isidor felt a little sorry for her and thought he could just drink a sip of the broth and send her away, so he asked her to bring the broth over.
"Thank you! Thank you so much!" The old woman walked forward with surprise and handed the soup bowl and spoon to Isidor.
Isidor took the soup bowl and looked at it. He saw a layer of oil floating on it and some meat foam could be vaguely seen in the soup. It looked like an ordinary broth.
He used a spoon to scoop, but the spoon was leaking, and the amount he scooped up leaked out. Seeing this, the woman apologized quickly and asked Isidor to wait here for a while while she went to find a spoon that didn't leak.
Isido sat there holding the soup bowl, feeling a little depressed, waiting. After waiting for a while, he suddenly realized that his face reflected in the soup bowl was not a human face, but a large tumor with facial features!
Isidor was startled, and when he looked carefully, he found that his appearance had returned to normal. Could it be that he had seen it wrong? Just as he was thinking this, the meat in the soup bowl seemed to have become more and bigger. Moreover, they were gathered together in clumps, as if they were growing together.
Isidor was horrified, but fortunately, he was also a person who could summon evil things, so he had some resistance to such strange things. Therefore, he was not frightened to the point of losing his composure.
He put down the soup bowl and was about to call Emmeline to ask about the situation. Suddenly, the woman came out from behind the door. Her head and left hand were gone, but in her right hand she was holding a "spoon" made of a skull and arm bones, and she staggered towards Isidor.
"Sir, I couldn't find the spoon... You can use this one. You must finish the drink, or I will be letting you down!" The woman approached Isidor while making a strange sound from her throat.
Isidor knew something was wrong and was about to use shock waves to repel her, but found that he couldn't use it at all; he then thought of using fantasy construction to make weapons, but he didn't expect that the fantasy construction that could be used at the bottom of the abyss could not be used here.
Seeing that the woman was already approaching him, Isidor had no choice but to push her away, then stood up and ran out the door.
Chapter 117 Endless Nightmare
Isidor pushed the door open and ran out to the street, but there was no one on the street, and there were empty rough houses on all sides. He didn't know where to go, nor did he know where he was.
Behind him, the woman was banging on the soup bowl and chasing after him. The meat foam in the bowl had slowly gathered into a lump of meat, which was wriggling and trying to leave the bowl.
In such a strange scene, Isidor gradually realized that this was probably a dream. But the strange thing was that usually when people realize that this is a dream, they will wake up quickly, but Isidor did not have the slightest intention of waking up.
Seeing that the woman had caught up with him, Isidor became a little anxious and simply pushed her to the ground.
There was a crisp sound, and the soup bowl fell to the ground, spilling the broth all over the floor. The meat in the soup actually began to take root in the ground like some kind of plant.
Isidor felt that there must be something strange about this piece of meat, otherwise the woman would not have wanted him to eat it. He was determined to wipe it out to prevent future troubles, but he did not dare to touch this disgusting thing directly with his hands.
So he used all his skills in turn. Although most of them were ineffective, he was surprised to find that Evil Destiny could be used.
"If fantasy construction doesn't work, then evil coming is okay? These monsters are all real!" Isidor felt a little strange, but still summoned a burning flamehound, which spit out fireballs from its mouth and burned the meat into ashes.
Seeing the piece of meat being dealt with so easily, Isidor couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. However, the next moment, the Flamehound suddenly froze, wailing and falling down.
Isidor took a closer look and saw that the dog's body was densely covered with tiny sperm. These sperm grew from the ground, and the ends were deeply embedded in the dog's body, as if they were constantly absorbing something.
The flamehound, which was more than a meter tall, instantly turned into a pool of flesh and blood and merged into the ground.
Suddenly, Isidor discovered that the entire surrounding environment had undergone tremendous changes: the originally desolate rough house suddenly began to grow many pieces of flesh that were not only internal organs but also eyeballs, the sky also turned blood red, and the entire earth began to grow tiny **.
Isidor was horrified and had to run away. He knew that all this was not real, but he could not wake up.
Just as he was running at high speed, a middle-aged man wearing a mask suddenly appeared beside him. Although his steps were small and he didn't walk very fast, for some reason he was able to keep parallel with Isidor.
"The only way to wake up from this dream is to end your life. I believe you have the courage to do it. Come on! I will help you escape from this dream!" The uncle said, holding the blade in his hand, and handed Isidor a butcher knife.
Isidor took the knife and uncontrollably put the knife on his neck with his arms. Seeing that his hands were out of control, Isidor immediately realized that the masked man seemed to have bad intentions, and hurriedly summoned tentacles to hold down his hands and threw the knife aside.
However, the moment the tentacles appeared, they were immediately swallowed up by the ubiquitous flesh. Then a crack appeared on the ground, swallowing Isidor like a big mouth, and both sides of the crack were covered with wriggling flesh.
Isidor knew something was wrong and didn't dare to hold back any longer. He grabbed the ground and climbed out with all his strength, then immediately ran to a place where the epidemic had not yet spread.
There were strange creatures blocking the way from time to time along the way. Although Isidor could not use any skills, he still relied on his excellent physical ability to overcome them and finally escaped to a dark place.
There was finally no more police here, but the middle-aged man in the mask had already been waiting for him there.
"Are you tired? If you are, take a rest." The masked man said, moving a rattan chair woven with flesh and blood from behind him and pushing it in front of Isidor.
Isidor threw a punch without saying a word, and the punch hit the mask and smashed the man's head to pieces.
Although he smashed the opponent's head with one punch, Isidor's fist did not feel like he had broken any hard object - does this guy have no skull?
"Hehe, hehe. Keep beating me until you can't move anymore." The masked man reached his hand into the cavity and stirred it for a while, and soon took out a masked head.
Seeing that he had the ability to regenerate, Isidor did not dare to hold back any longer and beat the man into a pulp with his fists and kicks.
However, as soon as he stopped, the man recovered in an instant.
"Give up, you know this is a dream. It's useless no matter how hard you fight." The man laughed strangely.
"Who are you?" Isidor asked with a frown.
"Haha, haven't we already greeted each other? Well, you are almost tired of fighting, right? Let me eat you! As long as I devour your soul, I can be resurrected to the world in a perfect posture." The masked man said with a wild laugh.
"Are you the Demon Lord? Are you Zamdrow?" Isidor asked in surprise.
"Haha, it seems that you still have some brains. How about we make a deal? I will let you leave the dream and promise not to attack you again. In exchange, you have to give me Esna's soul." Zamdrol took off his mask, revealing an extremely ugly face - it can't even be called a face, it is simply a product of postmodern visual art made up of wet garbage.
"Do you think I will believe your lies? Besides, I can't just hand over Esna's soul to you just because I say so." Isidor said disdainfully.
"You don't have to do it yourself. Just nod your agreement. I have my own way to reclaim her soul." Zamdrol replied.
"Is Esna's soul so important to you?" Isidor asked curiously.
"Haha, actually it doesn't matter to me. Although she does pose a little threat to us, it is insignificant to the overall situation. It's just that one of us pays more attention to her. Oops, I seem to have said something I shouldn't have said - what is your answer? Great Prophet: Sir Isidor." Zamdrol grinned.
"My answer is: Fuck you!" Isidor said, punching Zhamdrol in the face.
"Since it is a dream, there is no reason why I can't wake up." Isidor said, summoning an evil creature to swallow Zamdrow's body in one gulp.
"Haha, you clearly know this is useless." Zamdrol said, and stretched out countless claws from his inside, and ate the evil creature summoned by Isidor.
"Haha, sister, haha, can't you change the way you laugh?" Isidor said, frantically summoning evil creatures. With his current magic value of 550, if he didn't care about the quality, he could summon tens of thousands of evil creatures.
As the saying goes, there is no limit to the number of people, and the same is true for evil creatures. As the number of evil creatures continued to increase, the swallowing of the ** finally couldn't keep up. The evil creatures ran around everywhere, tearing Zam'drow's body to pieces. Although more and more evil creatures were eaten by the **, the overall number was still increasing.
“Haha, although you can summon evil creatures into nightmares, the evil creatures you can summon are limited after all. Once your magic power is exhausted, they will sooner or later become food in my mouth.” Zamdrol sneered.
"You are wrong. If summoning evil creatures does not consume real magic power, then I can naturally summon them indefinitely; if it really consumes magic power, then someone around me will notice the abnormality and wake me up from the outside." Isidor shook his head.
Before he finished speaking, a crack suddenly appeared in the sky, and a dazzling light shone in. The light gathered around Isidor, dispelling all the evil around him, and Isidor's body gradually floated up, slowly flying into the air.
"Huh, you actually found a way to crack it. But don't worry, you will still dream eventually. As long as you can sleep, the nightmare will never end. You can escape ten thousand times, but if you make a mistake once, the nightmare in your eyes will become reality." Zamdrol said to Isidor angrily.
"Thank you for the hospitality. I will be well prepared next time I come." Isidor responded bluntly.
Chapter 117 Best-selling Life Potion
After being swallowed by the dazzling white light, Isidor slowly opened his eyes and saw Emmeline sitting on him, shaking her shoulders nervously.
"Wake up, what's wrong with you?" Emmeline shouted anxiously.
"It's okay, I'm awake." Isidor felt a little dizzy from the shaking, so he grabbed Emmeline's hands and asked her to stop shaking.
"You scared me to death! I was sleeping in the middle of the night and suddenly I realized that you looked a little strange. I thought you were having a nightmare at first, but in the early morning, your magic power suddenly decreased rapidly, but you still didn't wake up. I felt something was wrong, so I splashed some water on your face and woke you up forcibly." Emmeline breathed a sigh of relief, stepped off Isidor's body, and took the towel to wipe his face.
"Thank you for waking me up, otherwise there would be real trouble." Isidor wiped the water stains off his face and told Emmeline exactly what he had experienced in his dream.
"Can the Demon Lord actually launch an attack in a dream? This is troublesome. We can't not sleep, right?" Emmeline said worriedly.
"It's not that there is no way. Your sister should have told you, right? The first demon king we met used mental attacks. But even an invisible and intangible mental attack still needs a carrier to launch. So I think the demon king's real body should be nearby, or at least not too far away. As long as we find the real body, we will win." Isidor said.
"Really? But how can we find the real body? How about we dig up the palace and dig deep into the ground?" said Emmeline.
"That's a possible solution, but the palace is so big that I'd probably be dead by the time you finish digging it. And we can't be sure that this guy is in the palace," said Isidor.
"What should we do then?" Emmeline asked worriedly.
"The Thousand-Armed and Thousand-Eyed Demon Lord uses his fingers to launch mental attacks. I think this Demon Lord should be able to do something similar, or at least make some movements. When I fall asleep tonight, if you notice anything unusual, don't wake me up immediately. Instead, look for it privately to see if there is any unusual movement. Wake me up as soon as you find the real body." Isidor said.
"But wouldn't you be in danger of being devoured by nightmares?" asked Emmeline.
"It's not that easy for me to die. Besides, if I don't use myself as bait, what if he runs away? That guy wants my life. Letting him go will cause endless trouble." Isidor said with a smile.
"How can you still laugh? Have you ever thought that even if we find the Demon Lord, we may not be able to defeat him? As long as that guy is half as powerful as the Thousand-Winged Demon Lord Taimur, you and I will never be his opponent." Emilyne said.
"I'm sure we can win." Isidor said confidently.
"why?"
"Think about it carefully. If his strength is above ours, would he bother to resort to these little tricks? Can't he just come out and kill me openly?" Isidor said with a smile.
"That's right! I was so worried about you that I never thought of this possibility! Then just hold on a little longer tonight, and I will definitely find the real body!" Emmeline said, nodding vigorously.
At this moment, Isidor suddenly felt that she was really cute when she was serious. Compared with Esna, she had a more innocent beauty.
That day, Isidor and Emmeline were still gathering intelligence in the city. This time, they changed their target of inquiry to the merchants who traveled around the country and had much more experience than the locals. Many of them had seen elves, and some even had traded with elves.
But unfortunately, there was no news about Aisina.
However, in the process of communicating with the merchants, Isidor still obtained a useful piece of information: some people in the city have been purchasing a large amount of life potions recently. Many of them are also potion merchants, who transport large quantities of potions from other countries to sell here.
"They are very strange. They only want life potions and nothing else. But the physical abilities of the Xibulan people are not outstanding, and their adventurers mainly rely on magic and equipment to deal with monsters. The consumption of magic potions usually far exceeds that of life potions. But recently, the demand for life potions has skyrocketed four or five times, and people are still buying them even though the price has doubled." said a human businessman.
"Didn't you notice anything unusual?" Isidor asked.
"We businessmen only care about making money and have no interest in digging into the hidden stories behind it. However, many buyers are in a hurry and leave after buying a few. They don't look like adventurers, but just ordinary citizens. What's even more strange is that there are no big customers. They just buy in small quantities like this." The businessmen said in unison.
"What do they do with the goods they buy?" asked Isidor.
"I'm not sure about that. We are in a hurry to recoup our costs, so we basically don't sell in retail. We sell directly to local shops. They have both channels and storefronts. You can ask them about distribution." The merchants replied.
Isidor nodded, gave some silver to a few merchants as a gift, and then took Emilyne to the door of a shop selling potions.
What the merchants said was indeed true. The potion shop's business was extremely hot today. People came to the store from time to time and took out silver to buy life potions without saying a word.
Isidor pretended to pick out potions and observed the store for a while. He found that the people who came to buy medicine looked a little strange. Except for a few adventurers, most of the others had thin faces, and some were so thin that they looked like skin and bones. Although the people of Xibulan are generally thin, it is rare to be this thin.
Compared to their skinny faces, their bellies were a bit too bloated, not as big as those of freak pregnant women, but at least as big as beer bellies, which was extremely rare among the Hibran people.
"Let's follow and take a look." After looking for a while, Isidor put down the potion in his hand and walked out of the store. He summoned a camouflaged evil creature to block his sight, stared at an old woman who bought the potion, and followed her quietly.
The old woman returned home holding the potion as if she were holding something precious. Isidor couldn't follow her in, so he let a tentacle go in to detect the situation, and he obtained information by sharing his vision with the tentacle.
