The soldiers blocked all the main thoroughfares and shut down the Grey Elves' merchant house, but that didn't stop the gossip and the little bit of truth in the gossip from fermenting among the common people - soon countless stories of darkness, gore, ritual rituals, and heresies spread throughout the town, and the skeletons that were lifted out of the merchant house at night seemed to confirm everyone's claims.

Bodwin Franklin, Duke of the West, arrived at the scene in a low-key manner under the escort of the soldiers, frowning, looking at the merchant house in front of him, which still smelled of blood, and the ignorant fools in the distance.

There is no need for a duke to personally follow what is happening in a small town, but at the time of the incident, Bodwin Franklin happened to be winter hunting in the hunting grounds near the town of Kingwood.

Recently, cultists in various parts of the kingdom have been making trouble, and the king has sent news not long ago that he should be careful of cult rebellion, and there have indeed been several disturbing horrors in the western realm, and Duke Patrickin Franklin is worried about this—so he chose to come to this secluded place for winter hunting to relax, but he did not expect that the cult incident seemed to be specifically against him, and at this juncture, it appeared under his nose.

"My lord," said one of his cronies, leaning over from the side and lowering his voice, "to disperse the untouchables?" ”

"They're just ignorant, they don't know what horror is," said Bardwin, in a bad mood, "I had the soldiers block the road to save the lives of those fools, but since they're too stupid to understand this, let them gather outside the street, and don't interfere with the situation." ”

"Yes, my lord, your kindness is touching," said the cronie, bowing his head, "and you will go in yourself...... Take a look? ”

"That's what I'm here for."

Bai Dewen pushed open the door of the merchant hall, and a strong bloody aura immediately hit his face.

Dried up dark red blood was everywhere in the storehouse, and there was blood on the floor, on the walls, on the roof, even on every table, chair, every ornament, every windowsill—it was as if a madman had dipped all the blood and carefully applied it to every surface.

And between the blood stains that have solidified, you can see the humanoid marks with a darker color, which is extremely weird.

"What's the matter with these imprints?" Bodwin Franklin sensed subtle fluctuations in his magic from the imprint and asked.

"It's the result of corrosion, my lord," a man dressed as a priest stepped out of the crowd and said respectfully in front of the Duke of the West, "Judging from the traces of the scene, the people who were affected by the evil magic or participated in the cult sacrifices first performed a frenzied self-mutilation in this hall and smeared their own blood on all corners of the room, and then they gathered in these locations, and the remaining blood in their bodies began to boil and rot under the influence of evil magic, The flesh that flowed from them formed these corrosive marks, so all we saw when we came here were bones. ”

Anger appeared on the Duke of the West's face: "I don't want to know too many details, I just want to know who did it." ”

"This is the typical sacrifice ground of the Society of the Dead," replied the priest of the Light, "they worship the destruction of living flesh and limbs, embrace death, and in my judgment, the cultists who performed this evil sacrifice are among the bones collected at the scene—a blood sacrifice of this magnitude, the cultists will choose to destroy themselves with their victims to achieve their goals to the fullest." ”

The Duke of the West looked into the eyes of the priest: "Their purpose? What is their purpose? ”

"They should be planning to create a plague and walk the plague to the western realm of the kingdom and the moss forest at the same time," the priest pointed to the nearby walls, on those walls contaminated with blood, faintly visible pale golden holy light runes were flickering slightly, and wisps of black qi were quickly dissipating under the holy light, "When I arrived here, the entire building was already filled with the smell of the plague, fortunately, the Lord guided me to discover the conspiracy of the cultists in advance, I was able to dispel this evil magic that was about to take shape in the first place, and set up a purification enchantment. My lord, there is no need to worry about the plague now. ”

"These depraved and twisted freaks! Their souls should be taken away by the devil and never run out of hell! Bodwin Franklin was rarely angry, but he managed to maintain his demeanor and nodded to the Light Priest, "Father, you saved the lives of this town, and everyone around it!" You deserve my thanks and reward. ”

"The purification of evil is the way which the Lord has given us," said the priest compassionately, "and I am more worried about the mad cultists attacking the areas that have not been protected by our Lord than for personal gain." ”

"Near this merchant house is the Church of the Blood God, but the priests there don't know anything about the evil happening around them," the Duke of the Westside shook his head, "The first to arrive were the few priests of the Holy Light that you led......"

"I don't blame those Blood God emissaries," the Light Priest immediately spoke, "It's just that their magic doesn't come in handy at this time. The power of the God of Light is focused on fighting evil, and we just happen to be in the right hands. ”

The Duke of the Westland gave a thoughtful look: "Fight against evil...... The cultists in the kingdom are becoming more and more rampant, and what we need at this time is the power to fight evil......"

The priest bowed his head deeply: "The servants of the God of Light will be duty-bound. ”

……

The cultists were plaguing the nobles of Ansu, but in the southern region, where they were the first to stir up trouble, the situation was gradually calming down.

It seems that after the successive setbacks of the Dead Society and the Eternal Sleepers, the dark cult has felt a little troubled by this desolate and backward region adjacent to the wasteland of Gondor, and with a large number of targets to choose from in the kingdom, they have temporarily abandoned their plans to continue working here.

Gawain couldn't guess the Cultist's thoughts, but he was happy to accept the rare moment of peace, and planned to take advantage of the opportunity to continue to light the tech tree in his territory.

The basic rune array that Jenny and Rebecca had resolved was gradually coming in handy.

On the desk in front of him, there is a general-purpose gauntlet that has been disassembled, this is the "I-type scorching ray gun" currently equipped by the soldiers in the territory, compared with the original rough test model, the inside of the gauntlet that has completed mass production is more rational, and the parts are more standardized and easy to replace, after opening its shell and a protective cover, you can see the modular rune trigger, magic capacitor, magic guide card slot and the scorching ray substrate located at the front end of the gauntlet, and in addition, There are also two free slots in the location of the guide card slot, which are the expandable areas designed according to Gawain's previous instructions to facilitate later transformation and upgrades.

Jenny and Rebecca stood at the table, and the latter took out a rune substrate and handed it over, "Here's this for you." ”

Gawain took the substrate, and on the edge of the hexagonal metal plate, he saw a neat line of steel stamped text: Universal Type I - Force Field Shield Module.

He opened the restriction clasp on the inner demon guide slot in the gauntlet and installed the new module in place, and with a slight click, several runes on the Force Field Shield module glowed faintly—the energy from the mana capacitor had successfully activated the new component.

Jenny explained, "After activating the Force Field Shield, the number of shots of the Scorching Ray will be halved, but the Force Field Shield is not a function that needs to be turned on all the time, and it can be deactivated by adding a new rune trigger. As an energy shield with a limited defensive area, it allows soldiers to only activate the force field shield when engaged in melee combat. ”

Rebecca followed up and added: "We originally planned to get a third-level eggshell shield directly, but then we found that the energy consumption was too high, and the gauntlet couldn't last a few minutes, so we had to get the second-level mana force field shield first!" ”

Gawain raised his eyelids and glanced at the iron-headed girl: "What the hell is the eggshell shield - that's the mage shield!" Don't just name it just because it looks like an eggshell, okay? ”

Rebecca scratched her hair, "Hey, hey, you know what I mean anyway......"

Gawain glanced at the girl nonchalantly: "How much has the function of the next generation of armor been realized?" ”

"Oh, we have successfully integrated the combat backpack and armor together, and it is detachable, so that the magic circle on the armor can be directly powered by the combat backpack, and if necessary, the backpack can also be discarded to reduce weight or replaced, because the cuirass is also equipped with a magic capacitor, so it can continue to fight for a period of time without the combat backpack," Rebecca said with great interest, while taking out the drawings she had drawn overnight to show Gawain, "Look, First of all, we integrated the first-level breeze shield into the breastplate, which has the lowest consumption, although it does not have much physical protection, but it can filter poisonous breath and blight-like spells, so that soldiers are safer in harsh environments, and then according to your prompts, we have also added heat insulation and weight reduction runes to the inner layer of the armor, these are all trick-level or first-level spells, and they can fully operate continuously when there is a combat backpack as an energy source......"

Rebecca excitedly described, Gawain nodded with satisfaction, although the implementation of some basic functions, but the idea of using a new type of magic circle to achieve the effect of similar enchanted weapons is obviously correct, but Rebecca stopped as she spoke, with a little frustrated expression on her face: "But you mentioned before adding a jet device behind the armor, the soldier only needs to shout 'Char!'" "I don't really have an eyebrow for the ability to charge forward while breathing fire, I want to add a fireball circle in the back, but I find that it will blow up all my teammates around me......"

Gawain almost choked himself to death with a mouthful of saliva: "Poof—didn't I tell you I was joking!?" ”

"But it sounds super cool!" Rebecca looked at Gawain with sparkling eyes, "And there's also a bunch of glowing streamers on the back of the armor, and you can shoot arcane missiles in all directions as long as you jump up three meters high......"

"You're going to forget all of this for me!!"