The enchanted Mithril chainmail was eventually acquired by a wandering knight - he was not the strongest, but as a rule, overly expensive rewards had a symbolic meaning, and knights who had not yet sworn an oath to someone might be considered willing to be loyal to the one who bestowed him the honor, while knights who had already offered their swords and shields to their lord, archduke, or king would have their loyalty questioned if they accepted the gift - After all, in people's perception, it is impossible for a true knight to accept such a great favor without thinking about how to repay it.

Of course, Dermon was not happy with the result, he didn't even try to recruit the wandering knight, and he had to cast a small spell to make himself smile during the celebration that followed.

He resolutely canceled some of the false rituals that Demont considered ridiculous and boring, such as the husband and wife sharing a colander to drink a pot of soup, he didn't think that this woman with elven blood next to him would be a smart person who could keep up with him, and he didn't need such a smart person.

It's just that some of the processes can't be omitted, and in this continent where mortals and gods are closely related, only animals, slaves, and goblins without the concept of marriage and family will ignore any god and go to mate and give birth to their cubs - but as a spellcaster, Demont can only say that he retains at least the most basic respect for the gods - Elves and half-elves would swear by Angelis, the god of life, when they made a marriage contract with their lovers, but Dermon didn't want to hear that, and he didn't like Rosada, who had been entrenched in the White Tower for nearly a thousand years, but it would be ironic to complete his wedding in the temple of Woking, and finally he decided to sacrifice to Gredi, the god of marriage and life, and ask her for the protection of marriage and children.

More than a hundred years ago, when people made a marriage contract, the god they worshipped was Flo, because marriage is the crystallization of love, and when they wanted to have children, they prayed to Chati, because this benevolent goddess witnessed the multiplication and growth of every seed, but I don't know when you could only see the men who came to have fun and the prostitutes who depended on the former for their survival, and the priests of Flo who were almost indistinguishable from prostitutes...... Similarly, no one knows when maidens and women who prayed for love, marriage, and even children began to worship Gredi, a powerful and mysterious female deity.

Gredy was a goddess of darkness and fire, her temple was made entirely of black stone, except for the large iron doors, with only narrow vents above the walls, in which natural light could hardly penetrate and could only be lit by scorching torches, stoves, and cetacean lamps, and her priests were strong and arrogant in their bright red silk robes, jewels, and heavily scented perfume.

Her human form, her icon, had a beautiful head and a graceful body— Except for her belly, the huge belly that bulged high and was irregularly round like a crude mud ball, twisting and protruding all over the sphere, like a monster that could destroy an entire city or country, neither proportionate nor aesthetically devoid of beauty, but when they were combined, people couldn't help but be drawn in, and they couldn't take their eyes off the strange perverted body, ugly and beautiful for even a moment.

The stone altar that preceded the icon could easily hold a bull or a giant bear, with a wide, deep blood groove around it, and twelve iron rings fixed to the edges—and the priests of Greti brought a pregnant ewe to the altar, tied its hooves with ropes tied to iron hooves, and made it lie on its back, exposing its swollen belly, which had been dehaired and cleaned, and bleated and bleated with tears, as if she had guessed her unfortunate fate.

The priest of Gredy held an obsidian knife in his hand, and slowly but smoothly slipped open the ewe's belly - in fact, only the knife that had just gone down required some force, and the ewe carried many young sheep, whose skin and muscles had been stretched so thin and tight that at last it almost cracked on its own - the priest smiled and put his hand into the ewe's **, and brought out the fetus that had grown hair but did not open its eyes, and then another ...... There are two of them! The onlookers all clapped their palms in joy.

"Why are they so happy?" asked Cremar in a low voice, he, along with Berdwin, and Kerry, were all honored guests, and had the privilege of being at the forefront of this cruel and strange show—not very pleasant, the air in the temple was already hot and muddy, and the stench of blood and entrails, feces and urine from the sacrifices, the precious spices that the priests threw into the furnace, and the smell of human body and bad breath...... And so on, when mixed together, it can almost suffocate a healthy and strong giant to death in an instant.

"Oh, by the way, you're not married," said Berdwin, holding up his hand as if to touch his beard, but in fact holding the lavender bag hidden in his pocket under his nose, "they were praying for Gredy to bless the newlyweds with as many children as soon as possible—a kind of divination," He watched as the priest threw the not yet fully dead ewe and its lamb in a blood-soaked blackened rattan basket and gave it to the other one, and after the priest had taken only one lamb out of its belly, the people sighed in disappointment: "The marriage contract is required to offer gold and pregnant animals to the temple, sheep, deer, horses, or bears, and the priests will cut open their bellies under the watchful eye of Gredi, and the number of cubs in the belly of the sacrifice is the number of their future children. If there are many, then the largest number will prevail. He looked sideways at the bottom of the altar, where nearly a hundred pot-bellied ewes knelt with the doe, beside them were the same kind that had been discarded, their hooves pouting high, and a few lambs were not yet dead, they were wriggling and struggling, and their noses and mouths were moving as if they were trying to extract the last bit of heat and milk from their mother's cold body.

"It seems that the new consul of the White Tower is quite confident in his masculine abilities. Half sarcastically and half disgusted, Baldwin said, "He must have wanted a big number." ”

As Baldwin said, all the pregnant ewes and doe were slaughtered, and the priest dug out four sleek fetuses from the belly of a wailing doe, the largest one, and she pulled out the doe's **, rummaged out the hot placenta, and with the help of Demon, forced the faceless Anrui to eat it.

Cremar pursed his lips and turned his head away, Kerry was watching it all, his cobalt blue eyes filled with unspeakable pity—but he didn't know to whom it belonged.

The three of them breathed a sigh of relief when they were able to leave Gredi's temple, the fresh air outside was a life-saving medicine, and the people walked beside them, talking with joy about the four children that the lord and the archon would have, because the four deer fetuses were three males and one female, so they also thought that Anrui and Demont would have three sons and a daughter, some insisted that they would have a daughter first, and some decided that this daughter would not be born until the three brothers had grown up, but most of them were men, and their wives were clustered at the other end, vying to buy the dissected ewes from Reverend Gredi's apprentices, doe and their children, according to the words of the priest, they can nourish the body and enhance the reproductive ability, especially those little cubs, if you want to have a strong son, take a little male cub, you want to have a beautiful daughter, then this little doe with big eyes is really suitable for you.

"There's dinner next," Birdwin scratched at his unkempt but shiny dark gray curls in annoyance, "I suspect Dermon didn't have enough money for the meat to organize the dinner - to be honest, I'm a little sick to my stomach for anything he brings out right now." ”

"But I've heard about it...... Your Excellency," said a young knight, one of Baldwin's henchmen, "they ...... Will be invited at the dinner...... Flo's Priest. ”

"Ah, maybe not," Berdwin winked at him meaningfully, "well, I'm sure I'll go to the dinner party, and I'll take you with me." ”

The young knight blushed.

"Flo's priest?" said Cremar, the woman who had poured poison into the holy cistern of Rosada was serving Flo, and he did not think that the people of the White Tower would be so magnanimous, even if they were indeed very beautiful and seductive.

"The ones we've seen have already run away smartly. Carey explained: "These must have been invited by Demont from somewhere else. ”

Flo's priest exclaimed in surprise and quickly ducked into the shadows of the pillar.

"What's wrong?Memi?" her companion looked down, and she didn't see anything that would frighten her—instead, standing there talking to the mage Antonio of the White Tower were three men of great merit, knights, elves, and a black-haired young man in a white robe, who might have been a priest of a good god.

"Oh, yes, really, all good, anything," Mhimmy's companion muttered, licking his lips, "No need for a gift - they are the best gift - Mhimmy, do you think that cute black-haired kid will be a chick?"

"I don't know," said Meemy, with a pretty white eye, "I just know that my nose hurts when I see him." ”

"I think I need to take a sip of his blood," said Asmodeos, "and then perhaps I will remember who he is." ”

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