Tomorrow was the Empire's once-in-a-decade big day.
The Carnival Festival.
This festival had many years of tradition, and it was said that the earliest could be traced back to thousands of years ago.
The original version of the festival was to worship an evil god called Sada Hegara. Since the beginning of the festival a thousand years ago, the animals of the Empire had been madly worshipping this evil god. Morning, noon, and evening prayers were not missed, and it could be said to be fanatical.
The name of the evil god could not be simulated with any vocal cords, so they engraved the evil god's Latin transliteration on every building in the Empire, and even the symbols of the evil cult and altars could be seen everywhere.
Every ten years, the Church would borrow the circus's space and hold a festival in the center of the circus.
The more they believed in the evil god, the crueler the content of the festival was.
For example, the Carnival Festival.
The content of their festival was a bit like the Aztec civilization in ancient Central America in the real world. They would choose a satisfactory sacrifice for the evil god, and then force the sacrifice to drink hallucinogens. If the evil god was not satisfied, they would use a sharp knife to cut open the sacrifice's chest, take out the still beating heart, and put it on the altar. If the evil god was satisfied, then the sacrifice would be tied to a pile of firewood, lit up with a fire, and burned fiercely as an offering to the god in the sky.
What was even more terrifying was that this cruel ritual had been continued and never changed.
Because in historical records, they had really summoned the evil god, and even … the evil god had fulfilled their wishes.
The appearance of miracles would only make the believers more fanatical, devout, and crazy.
The day before the festival, the sky fell into darkness, and there was no daylight.
This was the abnormal weather caused by the Church's powerful wizards, because the Invocation of God spell could only be performed at night.
"Oh … Listening to the noise outside, it seems that many guests have arrived?"
The wild boar's ears twitched, and heard the cheers outside the circus tent.
The circus leader with a mane was letting the servants comb his hair and apply a thick layer of hair gel.
As the Church's partner, the circus leader naturally had to attend.
"Yes, Leader, many guests have arrived."
The fox doctor, who had been bossing the humans around in the veterinary hospital earlier, was now obediently styling the circus's leader. The scalpel in his hand flew, and the mane was neatly trimmed.
"Are the performing humans ready?"
When the circus rabbit manager came in to report, the wild boar belched lazily.
"Yes, everything has been handed over to the Church. They said that they would arrange everything."
"Hmph." The leader of the circus snorted, "If it weren't for the big shots and the Duke coming tonight …"
In the past, the Church held ceremonies directly in the square. Only with the special approval of the King could they borrow the venue of the Royal Circus.
"You don't have to worry about that. If we can't achieve what we did twenty years ago, the royal family will definitely punish the Order after the ceremony." Rabbit skillfully flattered, "The circus is backed by the royal family. Even if this batch of humans were to die here and the church is convicted, His Majesty will not forget the credit of the circus for taming these humans."
The circus also managed the underground farm on a daily basis. Some of the humans that were carefully cultivated were bought by the nobles and kept as pets in their mansions. Some of them were detained by the circus and locked in cages to train day and night to become circus performers.
This time, the carnival ceremony also needed these humans to perform to liven up the atmosphere.
He just didn't know if those annoying fellows in the Church would do anything to these carefully cultivated performers.
"Indeed, this year, the Church caught two blue-bloods from the outside who are said to be highly compatible. Don't worry, this year should only need those two offerings and the livestock paid by each participant. "
The wild boar didn't say anything, but the expression on his face became more relaxed.
He waved his trotters, "Okay, go backstage and supervise the preparations for today's ceremony. Don't make any mistakes."
At 12 o 'clock tonight, the carnival ceremony would be held as scheduled.
All the animals in this Super S Level Instance Dungeon, regardless of whether they were nobles or civilians, would go to the square to participate in this grand ceremony that was held once every ten years.
Now, the square was decorated with colorful lanterns everywhere. It had a sense of antiquity and absurdity like New York in the 1970s. Further away, an orchestra wearing knitted hats made of human hair held flutes and cellos, playing unknown and strange cheerful music in the corner of the circus.
Countless animals gathered around the circus. They all wore exaggerated costumes and black pointed hats of the same style on their heads.
Some of these animals came in carriages, while others came on foot. But no matter how they came, they had a human in their hands with chains and collars. The human's back was branded with the word "horse", "pig", "chicken", "duck", and "goose". There were so many of them.
The members of the Church waiting outside the square checked the animals' identities one by one and took the chains.
"Don't cut in line, don't cut in line. One offering for one person."
The identity of the core members of the Church was very easy to identify because they were the only ones who wore black cloaks and pointed hats. They hid themselves behind the darkness, and even their faces couldn't be seen clearly.
A little hamster skipped and held its mother's hand, pointing at the ice cream on the ice cream cart.
"Mom, I want to eat that!"
"Okay, we'll go buy it now."
The big hamster patted its head and handed over the reins in its hand. Then, it brought the little hamster over there to buy snacks.
The black cloak pulled the reins, and the human who had been crawling on the ground on both hands and feet was dragged onto the scale.
He kicked it impatiently. "Only sixty pounds … You're really sending away beggars. This pig has been raised to look so skinny. Throw it to the secondary offering."
Another black cloak's gaze moved back from the frozen human blood ice cream cart behind him. He obediently held the human's reins and classified it into the stable of secondary offerings.
Although it was called a stable, it was actually a boundary that was hastily enclosed with wooden fences.
The humans inside were all ugly, with their mouths wide open, their eyes unfocused, and saliva dripping from their mouths.
These humans didn't have much value. They were born to be raised as livestock for animals to eat, so naturally, they couldn't receive language education like the good-looking humans.
"There are so many offerings. It should be enough."
The second black-cloaked figure glanced at the densely packed humans in the stable and asked in a seemingly casual manner.
"No, it's not enough. It's far from twenty years ago."
The first black cloak casually glanced and continued to deal with the next guests.
Any grand ceremony required enough offerings, especially to summon the incarnation of the Supreme God in the "Sussex Manuscript."
"Why do I feel like there weren't as many offerings twenty years ago as there are now?"
The black cloak Zong Jiu began to lie.
As he lied, he also used a language spell on the subsystem.
It was known that the survivors twenty years ago also had the ten-sided dice. If the Zong Jiu threw charm, he would need to go through a charm contest with this member of the church. If the other party's psychological skills were high, and the Zong Jiu's charm failed, then he and Tokumon worked so hard to knock out a survivor, take off his clothes, and disguise themselves as this would be equivalent to wasting all their efforts. It was not worth it.
[Language 21/30, your throw was successful.]
[So you began to beat around the bush and used words to test the other party without leaving any trace to obtain more information.]
[Note, the other party also has the ten-sided dice and KP. If the other party notices a problem and uses psychology on you, it is very likely that your language spell will be exposed.]
However, the real members of the church didn't notice the loopholes in his words.
"Twenty years ago, the offerings were all pigs, cows, and sheep. How can they be the same as the 'pigs, cows, and sheep' now?
"Besides, have you forgotten what happened ten years ago? If 'he' is not satisfied with the offerings, disaster will descend. If we continue to believe in 'him', the world will become more and more crazy. If we continue to stay in this world, it will only become more distorted. It's better to risk it all and escape the infinite cycle. "
Finally, he got some information.
The Zong Jiu sighed in his heart.
In the past few hours, he and Tukumon had been trying to break into the inner circle of the circus while the other tried to break into the inner circle of the church.
Tokumon, on the other hand, had accidentally chosen a role in the circus. Now, he probably didn't know what to do. The Zong Jiu was also miserable. This member of the church seemed to be a survivor who wasn't valued in the group and didn't have much right to speak. After participating in a short meeting in the church's conference room, he was sent to the square to look at the tickets. There were no clues at all and so much time was wasted.
Now, there was only half a day until the ten-sided dice's energy was exhausted.
They still needed more information.
It was also at this time that Tokumon, on the other side, learned another piece of extremely bad news.
When it rains, it pours. When people are unlucky, they can't even drink cold water.
In the study below the circus, the higher-ups of the church were counting the offerings to be used in the ceremony and chatting casually.
Just now, the Yin Yang Master saw them carrying human blood and brushes to the circus stage and drawing a summoning array on the stage.
Once the summoning array was completed, he and Magician wouldn't have any room to resist and would definitely be summoned again.
Before that, they had to hurry and find a way to contact the main system.
"Escape? That's impossible. "
One of them casually picked up a pen and drew a red cross on the heads of the offerings. Then, he ordered his subordinates to bring the offerings down and warm up the altar with a layer of fresh blood.
"We didn't prepare these two offerings for the incarnation to descend."
"Only when the Supreme God descends here can it be possible to fulfill the wish."
"Of course, if the Supreme God descends, the two survivors might really be able to contact the main system."
"But don't forget, only a satisfactory offering can make the Supreme God descend. Isn't this why we spent so much effort to pull them over from the main system? "
"He's very satisfied with the offerings this time."