Joel followed the old man's ghost, holding a dirty glass lantern in his hand, and the dim fire swayed in the darkness as if it would be extinguished at any time.

"I noticed just now," although Joel kept silent, the old man still kept talking, "Did your blood burn?"

Joel did not answer. To be honest, he didn't want to talk about this topic. The place where he would not be stabbed by the wood was no longer bleeding. Instead, it was burns. He was still numb from the pain caused by the burn, but he still felt irritated.

"Is this a curse?" the old man asked again, but Joel still didn't answer, so the old man nodded and said he agreed, "It's a rare curse. This should be a curse of gods, right?"

Originally, he didn't plan to pay attention to this ghost. Joel had been thinking secretly and found an exit and then tried to get rid of him. But in the end, Joel sighed secretly, and he replied in a cold tone, "How are you sure?"

"Don't look at me like this, I'm quite knowledgeable about curses," the old man was very satisfied with Joel's reply, and seemed to care about the offense in his tone. "No matter how hard a mortal tries, curses cannot directly change reality. Only the curse of gods can be done. For example, the Liwenhem family, who offended the "Queen of the Plagues", was cursed by gods, and plagues would gather wherever their bloodlines go." The old man paused, "Who is the god who cursed you?"

"Goddess of Disasters, Ogmimoshu." Joel seemed to taste the ashes when he pronounced this name, and the mark on his back that he had never seen before seemed to exude a heat that burned his skin.

"Three Disaster God." The old man nodded thoughtfully. He always looked thoughtful, but in fact, it might be the same. Joel felt that the old man was not as old as he looked on. Although it was strange to say that, Joel felt that the old man's soul was much younger than actually looked.

"The God of Disaster Emoromoxiu, the goddess of disaster Ogmimoxiu, the god of disaster Hemamoxiu. The three posthumous sons of the ancient god." The old man murmured to himself, nodding his head, "It seems that he hasn't forgotten yet..."

"Ancient God?" Joel frowned. This word rarely appears, even in a song about gods. In the legendary battle of the gods, what is divided into two camps. In order to overthrow the new god camp of the god king and the old god camp of the god king, the later result was as praised by later generations. The god king was defeated. He fell from the world tree into the sea. The burning god king evaporated the sea, and the evaporated sea water rose to the sky to form a sea of ​​clouds that separated the gods and the mortal world, and the continent of Adam became so vast now. After the God King was defeated, he led the army to the end of the battle.

The old god who held him was deprived of his divine nature and name, and became an existence collectively called ancient gods by later generations. The stories that are circulating today end here. No one knows where the ancient gods go. Some people say they were killed by the new gods, and some people say they were imprisoned. When there are many different opinions, the church that claims to be the spokespersons of the gods stood up. They forbid people to discuss this topic (perhaps because of this story is lost). However, even so, until now, there are still scholars who are still studying such myths in private (although most scholars disdain to study stories).

"The ancient gods whose names have been forgotten, and the famous gods now have no less than the ancient gods." The old man said, "There are no gods representing loyalty among the positions of the gods today. Haven't you discovered it?"

Joel did not answer, but he did hear such a saying: people know that there is no God representing loyalty, so some people infer that it is not that there is no God representing loyalty, but that the God who represents loyalty stood on the side of the God King in the battle of the gods. As a result, after the defeat, he was deprived of his name and forgotten by people.

"According to my investigation, the guard pedestal is the children of the ancient god who represents the loyalty." The old man said lightly.

The guard throne, the twin brother and sister god, is the guardian god of guardians, and can also be regarded as a god with many believers.

"Investigation? Can this kind of thing be investigated?" Joel asked suspiciously. According to his inference, the old man was only a figure in the bloody era five hundred years ago. Whether at that time or now, more than 10,000 years have passed since the Battle of the Gods. Joel felt that it was a fool to learn the truth at that time.

But the old man's answer confused Joel. "Of course we can investigate." The old man said confidently, "In the north, farther north than the Widow Mountains, there are still people who believe in ancient gods, and even the names of ancient gods are circulated."

"North? Impossible." Joel flatly denied that his years of experience in the north told him that this was impossible. The snow bandits on the Widow Mountains were already the humans that Joel felt closest to monsters. They were able to spend the cold winter on the Widow Mountains with poor supplies. This is a place that all people in the northern borders have to admire. The Widow Mountains are already so cold. Perhaps there may be distant relatives of the snow bandits on the snowfield not far north of the Widow Mountains. But no matter what, if you go north, it is definitely not a place where people can survive. Joel dares to make such a conclusion.

But as if he had seen through Joel's thoughts, the old man smiled and shook his head, "Don't be so sure about everything."

Joel glanced at the old man suspiciously and said nothing.

They walked through the dark corridor and came to the iron gate where Joel had entered. Perhaps because it had been opened before, the water outside began to penetrate through the rusty iron gate cracks. Walking past the iron gate, they came to the corridor on the other side. From here, corpses began to appear on the ground one after another.

"Who are these?" Joel asked the old man walking in front.

"The descendant or servant of the thief." The old man said nothing. Joel realized that the old man seemed very dissatisfied with these "the descendants of his housekeeper", although he roughly guessed what had happened.

Joel stepped over a corpse and raised the lantern. He found that the deeper the corridor, the more corpses there were around. Some of them lay horizontally in the middle of the road, while others fell against the wall. What happened that made so many people die suddenly together? Joel couldn't help but think of the corpse as he looked.

"You did this?" Joel asked vigilantly.

"That's right." The old man replied disapprovingly.

Seeing the old man's frank answer made Joel feel a little uneasy, but he continued to ask, "How long have you been like this?"

"This is like this? Is the ghost? If you stay underground for a long time, it will be easy to be unable to tell the time, but I think it should be almost three or four days." The old man replied truthfully. When Joel heard his tone, he didn't feel like he was lying.

"So how did these people die?" Joel asked again. If, according to what the old man said, these people came here after he died, and he was only recently resurrected, how did he kill so many people after he died? Joel recalled the place where he fell, which had accumulated eight feet thick bones.

The old man did not answer. The two continued to move forward, and more and more people died, and not only were their bodies wrapped in rags that were about to turn into dust, but also their bodies were corpses wearing rusty armor. Joel once again saw the knife of the fish-cutter. The doors on both sides of the road were mostly rotten, some were kicked down, some were cut, and there were scratches on the wall and door. An axe was inserted into the door that had been cut down on the lower half, and a man fell on the road and two spears were inserted into his body.

This time, Joel thought of this. Then he followed the old man to a spiral staircase. They walked up one after another. There were many corpses on the staircase, weapons and armor were everywhere, and many skeletons were not complete. Joel didn't know if it was his dead corpse or something happened later.

After walking up the spiral stairs, the old man walked to the upper floor. Joel looked at the spiral stairs that could continue to move upwards and hesitated for a while, but finally followed the old man over. Joel found that the battle started from this floor from massacre to fighting each other. People on both sides were holding weapons, and those wearing armor also showed signs of being cut down by an axe. The battle situation of the double rebels was quite tragic. The musty smell in the dust seemed to be a faint smell of blood, but Joel knew that this was just his illusion. These people had been dead for hundreds of years.

Although Joel wanted to ask clearly what happened here, according to what the old man said, he was only recently resurrected, so he may not know what happened here.

The atmosphere of death around him made Joel very uneasy. He followed the old man and turned one intersection after another. Joel found that although the corpses on the ground had been decayed for hundreds of years, the sound of fighting between them seemed to be carved into the walls and ground of the corridor. Every time he looked at a corpse, Joel felt that their howling and roar before death echoed in his ears.

"Do you know what family these people are loyal to?" the old man walking in front suddenly asked.

"Fish-setter." Joel replied in surprise.

"A family I haven't heard of, is it a new family?" The old man nodded thoughtfully again.

"It's a pirate family, but it disappeared long ago." Joel replied lightly.

"Pirates? This is interesting. I thought it was still far from North Roar Bay." The old man shook his head, "So is the Henson Delay family still there?"

"I don't know." Joel's answer made the old man silent for a moment. Joel remembered that he had heard the old man mention the name of the family before, after he saw the black sword in his hand "silence".

"Is the Henson Delay family the emblem a Buck?" Joel asked uncomfortable.

"That's right." The old man replied, "they are the side branches of the Sendre family, the royal family of the Vickweed Kingdom, and are in charge of the Frost Stone Fortress next to the royal city."

After hearing the old man's words, Joel began to remain silent, but the old man did not stop narrating because of this. "The Henson Drays family did not have such a high status at the beginning. They could not even be called a family at the beginning, but a hidden organization. At the beginning, the members of Henson Drays were all illegitimate children of members of the royal family. They were trained by their own blood as killers lurking in shadows and fog, and secretly dealt with the enemies that threatened the royal family for them. The family's heirloom, the black sword forged by cold iron, is the killer sword tailor-made for the first Henson Drays. It was attached with magic to erase the sound by the wizard of the Kingdom of Vickweed, so it would not be wielded when waving it.

It made a sound. According to records, Henson Dray officially became the leader of Henson Dray during a winter hunt after the Sendera family completely defeated his political enemies. At that time, King Vickway's illegitimate son shot an arrow while hunting a stag, which made the stag escape. The nobles present burst into laughter, and the one who laughed the loudest was the king. Just when the illegitimate son was embarrassed, the king said, 'That stag can actually avoid the arrow of a real killer, and maybe it is best to use it as your family emblem!' As soon as the king said, the laughter came to an abrupt end, and all the nobles were shocked, and the illegitimate son quickly knelt down and was granted the title."

Joel subconsciously reached out and touched the hilt of the sword around his waist. He didn't even know that the sword was carrying such a history. The killer's sword... Joel suddenly understood why the old man called him "killer" at the beginning.

"It seems you don't know this. I didn't expect that the powerful Kingdom of Vickwid was destroyed. What happened to destroy such a powerful kingdom?" the old man said, turning his head to look at Joel and asked.

"The legend says that the Kingdom of Vickweed sank into the lake overnight," Joel replied.

"Lake?" The old man was stunned, "So that's it, it was built because of the lake and destroyed because of the lake. Interesting, interesting." The old man said and turned his head, but his voice didn't sound like he felt it was interesting, but it was more of a kind of desolation.

That lake is not a simple lake. Joel recalled that the story tells that it was a hot spring lake, the entire lake was filled with heat, and the kingdom was built on it, and it survived in the cold northern border with the help of the temperature it emitted. And Joel thought bitterly that it has now become a stalemate of the north wind.

"What is the emblem of the Sendray family in the Kingdom of Guwickweed?" Joel suddenly asked. This incident was not mentioned in the stories and songs, and no one even knew the name of the family. People say that the history of Guwickweedweed has sunk into the lake with them.

"The white cross sword in the white cross box." The old man said slowly.

Joel recalled the eight statues in the flooded stone hall that entered through the stone gate. "Is it the emblem on the boy's statue?" Joel recalled the young man. The lifelike statue depicted his timidity and anxiety, and the big sword in his hand was taller than that.

"That's right," replied the old man, "his family power should be the most powerful of the 'elders'."

"Elder?" Joel was stunned, not a name he had ever heard of.

"The elder refers to the person who serves the ancient gods." The old man said, turning his head and looking at Joel, "so I told you before, 'Don't be so sure of everything'. The ancient kingdoms of the elders were fighting against the Holy Tree Army before the Bloody Age, but judging from what you don't know, their history should have been erased by the church, right? This can be encountered."

"Then the statue in that stone hall..."

"Yes, that's a statue of the leader of the Holy Tree Army and the leader of the elders. He was already there before I came, and this is one of the reasons that prompted me to stay in this place for research." The old man said, and took Joel up the stairs again.

Suddenly Joel remembered one of the statues mentioned by the old man, the statue of the woman with vines wrapped around her body. "You said... what is that woman's 'demigod'? What's going on?" Joel asked.

"What? Have you even lost your knowledge about 'demigods' now?" the old man said, shook his head, "Even if the magic age is over, you are too unfair." Joel did not say anything, but just waited for the old man to complain and continued, "Demigods, as the name suggests, they are just incomplete divine beings."

Joel had never heard of these things, and was never interested in them. But he remembered something that the Alps and Anthony had discussed before: the story and legend began to become reality. What they said, Joel had experienced it personally in that narrow tunnel. The monster holding the fish-cutting knife almost cut open his stomach, and the memories of the deep snowfield. He warned himself that he needed to know more of this kind of information, so that he might get a way to survive in the future.

"You mean that woman has a divine character?" Joel felt a little unbelievable, "So is a woman... actually a human?"

"She was once a human, the great forest queen. Later, she obtained the divine character and became a demigod." The old man said and shook his head. "In the past, many people were studying this and the way to obtain the 'divine character', but they undoubtedly failed."

"Can humans also obtain divine character?" Joel felt more and more absurd.

"You haven't seen that 'miracle' with your own eyes." The old man's words reminded Joel of the vines wrapped around the woman's statue, even in this deep and dark ground, it exudes vitality. "That is a totem," the old man said slowly, "The miracle caused by the divine nature of the demigod, as long as the demigod still exists, the totem will not disappear."

"You mean that woman is still talking?" Joel was stunned.

"I was also surprised by this. I had the honor of seeing her before. It was said that she had survived for centuries, but her appearance was still like a statue." The old man said helplessly, "It seems that maybe I underestimated the power of the demigod."

Joel felt more than just surprise at this moment. These things had always been a huge impact on him. If it weren't for his experience in the depths of the snowfield, he would have been disdainful to all of this.

A demigod who has lived in the world for hundreds or even thousands of years? How should such an existence be dealt with? Joel couldn't help but feel that it was too ethereal. No, this is not a question I should consider. Joel thought that the demigod would not pay attention to a small character like me. Thinking of this, he could only shake his head helplessly.
Chapter completed!