Volume 1: Stranger in a Strange Land Chapter 22 Moon Worship
"you……"
Sigmund pointed at the man in front of him with trembling hands, his mouth opened wide, not knowing what to say.
"Don't worry, you won't die."
William drew his sword and spoke calmly.
As if to confirm what he said, the boy named Colter who was lying on the ground coughed at this time.
"How did he…"
The rest of Sigmund's words were cut off by the straight sword that was inserted into his throat. The man who claimed to be the presiding judge looked down at him, and a faint silver light overflowed from his eyes.
Magic Chanter...
This person is a magic caster.
It was a strange feeling as if an iron sword was pulling deep into his throat. Sigmund felt that he was having difficulty breathing, and a taste of rust spread in his mouth.
What happened?
"laugh……"
The sword was pulled out of his throat. He subconsciously touched his throat, but found that there was not a drop of blood on his hand.
He felt a strange sensation as if something was crawling deep in his throat, and the intense feeling of nausea made him kneel directly on the ground. He supported himself on the ground with his hands and vomited with a "wow".
A spider half the size of a palm came out of his mouth mixed with saliva, stomach fluid and blood. As soon as it fell to the ground, it curled up into a ball and trembled slightly. After a while, it stopped struggling.
Colter, who was lying on the ground beside him, was also coughing violently. Sigmons turned his head to look at him. In the boy's breathless coughing, a spider curled up into a ball of hair was also coughed out by him.
"What is that?"
"Look again at where you are now."
William said.
Sigmunds raised his head upon hearing this and saw everything not far away.
In his memory, this should be the narrow passage in the No. 9 mine tunnel.
But now, he was at the door of a hall.
A small hill made of countless skulls stood in the center of the hall. Dozens of glowing spirits floated in the air. The pounding sounds of shovels had stopped at some point, and dozens of miners stopped their work and looked at the three of them.
In front of the Skull Hill, there are three statues of goddesses that exude an indescribable evil aura.
One is a statue of a plump, beautiful girl with festering skin; one is a statue of a queen wearing a tattered black robe, eight spider legs on her back and a silver crown on her head; the last one is a statue of a dancer covered with a layer of seductive gauze, half of her face is that of a withered old man, and the other half is that of a young and beautiful girl.
"Mine Tunnel No. 7? The ruins? How is this possible? I remember it was at Tunnel No. 9..."
Sigmund muttered to himself, and then his eyes fell on the spider he had spit out earlier.
"Because of this?"
"The Soul-Eating Spider Demon will linger in places where there are conspiracies. Once it parasitizes a person's body, it can distort the person's cognition."
William replied.
"Also, you should be thankful that you haven't been parasitized for too long. They haven't built a nest in your body yet, otherwise even Judgment II wouldn't be able to save you."
As he spoke, he swung the straight sword in his hand, leaving a line of dark green liquid on the ground.
Judgment Two probably refers to the name of the weapon in his hand.
Strange name.
"What...are they?"
"I've already told you that the Soul-Eating Spider Demon is a type of Moon Realm monster. Have you heard of it?"
Sigmunds shook his head.
"That's right... I couldn't understand why you didn't know what the Moon Realm monsters were. But after seeing this temple, I have some clues."
As William spoke, he took out a magic medium from the space rift.
Why have all the deeds about William Kane and the End Watcher been passed down - whether it was sealing the seven disasters, repelling the expeditionary force of Daemon Continent, or purifying the tide of undead that ravaged the entire continent, all other deeds have been passed down to this day.
But why is it that no one knows about his greatest achievement, that he led the End Watchers to repel the invasion of the Moon Realm three times?
Even people nowadays don’t know what the Moon Realm Monster is.
"I see... Lady Hungry and Corrupted, Queen of Whispers, Lord of Nightmares. These three were all members of the faith of the Void Kings who once wreaked havoc in the Blackwater Kingdom. Their temples should have been overturned by the End Watchers, and their faith should have been extinguished. But now they have been dug up and worshipped again."
The man who claimed to be the presiding judge spoke with great emotion, his eyes seemed to be recalling something very distant.
The End Watcher?
When Sigmons was a child, he worked in a tavern and often heard bards singing ancient and modern heroic epics. So naturally he had heard of the End Watchers, the name of the heroic group that had saved the continent of Vic many times.
But what do they have to do with what is happening before their eyes?
In the hall, more than a dozen spirits landed one after another. They maintained roughly a human shape, but wailing human faces kept appearing on their bodies.
Dozens of miners also surrounded them cautiously with shovels in their hands.
"Hey, are they also controlled by those spiders? And what are those ghost-like things? Will they attack us?"
Sigmons asked as he helped Colter up and kept backing away.
"You may not believe it, but the Moon Realm does not want to destroy the present world."
The man came forward and said something incomprehensible.
"What's the meaning?"
Sigmund asked doubtfully.
"The Moon Realm is a reflection of thought. Their existence depends on the existence of the real world. In other words, if all sentient creatures in the real world become extinct, they will also be destroyed. So they pursue is not simple destruction, but to expand the influence of their own domain among mortals. For example, the Lady of Hunger and Corruption hopes that there will be more hunger and abnormal decay in the world, and the Queen of Whispering hopes that there will be more conspiracies, betrayals and assassinations among mortals."
William said, tapping the staff in his hand.
"The rulers of the Moon Realm, the Void Kings, except for a few born destroyers whose domains symbolize destruction, are mostly reluctant to conquer the world themselves. They prefer to secretly manipulate other mortals to strengthen the power of their own domains. For example, the former Blackwater Kingdom was famous for plotting assassinations and studying necromancy. The fundamental reason for this was that the beliefs of the Lady of Hunger and Corruption and the Queen of Whispers were prevalent here."
In fact, it was not just the Blackwater Kingdom. The nobles of the entire Vic Continent secretly worshipped the Moon Realm, and various cruel black magic rituals emerged in the upper class. The rulers might even deliberately start wars or create famines just to please the illusory kings they believed in and seek their favor.
Exchanging the suffering of your people for power and stability of your rule is a much easier path than working hard to become an excellent ruler.
The main plot of the entire "End Watcher" in the early and middle stages was that the protagonist team traveled among the seven kingdoms of the continent, exposing those Moon Realm believers hidden among the high-ranking officials one by one and trying them in public.
The name of the Thirteen Judges gradually became known to the world, and until the end of the game, all the Moon Realm worship forces on the Vic continent were uprooted by them. And through the signing of the Graycastle Agreement, the Void Kings also promised not to actively spread their beliefs in the world.
And today, a thousand years later, William saw the scene before him.
Statues of three Void Kings hidden deep in the mines, miners possessed by Soul-Eating Spiders, and nightmare spirits summoned from the souls of innocent dead.
All of this told him that today, a thousand years later, the faith in the Moon Realm had been revived.
Why was my achievement of repelling and sealing the Moon Realm the only one erased from history?
This is the answer.
"It's back to the way it was before..."
William let out a long sigh, then raised the magic medium in his hand, with electric light flashing on it.
"Then I have to go through the level again, right?"
