Shen Tangzhi approached the entrance of the cave and looked at it for a while, and said to us: "This should be a passage for disposing of corpses, and the black layer on the wall is human oil." And I think we were right at the beginning, this platform is indeed an altar, but its function is no different from that of the execution platform. ”

I said "oh", and suddenly understood that Shen Tangzhi was talking about human sacrifice.

The old knife slapped my arm: "Don't worry about yourself, I'm still in the clouds, what does Section Chief Shen mean?" ”

I explained that the high platform behind us was actually a sacrifice platform for the living, and that the deep hole in front of us was used to dispose of the corpse after the sacrifice was completed.

In ancient times, human martyrdom and human sacrifice were not uncommon.

Mozi. "Under the Burial" said: "The Son of Heaven killed, hundreds of people, dozens of widows; The generals and doctors were killed, dozens of people, and several widows. ”

This is the "specification" that illustrates human martyrdom.

For example: according to historical records, when Qin Mugong died, a total of 177 people were martyred for him, and even the three Che brothers, who were close ministers of Qin Mugong, were also among the dead, which shows the tragedy of martyrdom.

Human sacrifice is also a similar act, except that human sacrifice is to accompany the dead, while human sacrifice is to worship gods or ancestors, and the living are sacrificed.

Hyde interjected, "MR Ji, I must correct one of your mistakes - even in modern society, there are still some cult rituals that sacrifice living people to evil gods...... Every once in a while, somewhere in the world, something like this happens. ”

"That's just as well." I nodded in agreement, "The truth of this world is this: justice is sometimes late, but evil is eternal. ”

Shen Tang said: "Because we didn't find the corpses near the altar, Ji Guang and I judged that it was a human sacrifice, not a human martyrdom - but I just don't know to whom the ancestors of the ancient kingdom of Somol were sacrificing?" ”

I said, "We don't have to guess here, I think the answer lies in the huge sarcophagus in the middle of the temple." ”

In ancient times, the range of sacrifices was very wide, such as gods, earthly revelations, human ghosts, and ancestors.

Although according to the information I got before, if the ancestors of the ancient kingdom of Somol were subject to the mysterious country of the heavenly sea, then the object of their sacrifice may be a god or ruler of the country of the heavenly sea, but now with just one altar, I really can't figure it out.

The "cutting sacrifice" of beheading and the "burning sacrifice" of burning people are the most commonly used ritual methods, in addition to chopping, blood sacrifice, and burial alive.

As soon as I said this to Lao Dao, Lao Dao suddenly let out an "oh", he sniffed and said, "No wonder Lao Tzu felt that this place smelled of blood when he came here, it turned out that this was a murderous place...... Looking at those torture instruments, there are many patterns, and it is estimated that all the killing methods you mentioned have them. ”

After the old knife finished speaking, I also smelled a trace of blood, and I suddenly felt that something was wrong - the flesh and blood in that cave had been going on for thousands of years, how could it still exude such a fresh smell of blood?!

"Shen Tangzhi, get out of that hole! Be careful! "I shouted a warning.

At this moment, Shen Tangzhi suddenly let out an "ah" and suddenly retreated, only to bump into John who was standing behind her, and both of them fell to the ground......

I hurriedly shot the beam of light of the flashlight at the square corpse hole, and saw a miserable white claw sticking out of the corpse hole!

Immediately afterwards, a strange face like a snake's head emerged from the corpse cave, with a pair of yellow eyes on the snake's face, and its pupils erected like threads, flashing a strange light under the flashlight post-

"Get out of the way!"

The old knife reacted quickly, and at this time he had already removed the M4 carbine on his shoulder, and shot a round at the head of the basilisk!

The basilisk had already crawled out of half of its body, it stretched out one claw to protect its head, and the other claw slammed towards Shen Tangzhi, who fell to the ground!

"Oh God! It's got me, help, help me! ”

The basilisk grabbed one of John's ankles and dragged him to the ground, trying to drag him back into the burrow.

Shen Tangzhi held John's hands tightly and tried to save him, but the basilisk was extremely powerful, and the two were dragged together towards the mouth of the corpse cave.

"Da Da Da!"

Jiajie on the other side also opened fire.

The bullet hit the basilisk, and immediately opened several deep blood holes in its body, but these blood holes immediately began to heal at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the wounds caused by the first few shots of the old knife were even completely gone.

The snake-headed monster was hunched over the ground like a lizard, still wearing a tattered mountaineering suit......

Sure enough, it's the snake Farado!

Seeing that Shen Tangzhi and John were about to be dragged into the corpse cave by Farador, who had turned into a basilisk, I also flew up and hugged one of Shen Tangzhi's legs, and Tenzin Kava also hugged Shen Tangzhi's other leg almost at the same time as me.

"Help!" Tenzin Kawa shouted to Poche and Yale, already stunned, standing aside.

The two of them woke up like a dream, and they also rushed up and grabbed me and Tenzin Kava respectively.

All of our weight and strength were stacked to finally withstand the strange power of the snake-turned-Ferrado.

But the boss yelled at me, "Aggie, I'm running out of bullets!" What to do? ”

When we climbed out of the bottom of the glacier, we had already met with Farador in his snake state, and knew that the bullet didn't actually do much damage to Farador, only to delay his attack.

And now that the old knife's bullets are about to run out, it is estimated that the bullets in Jiajie's magazine are also in a similar situation, and the current situation does not allow them to replace the bullets at all, and at that time, John will bear the brunt of the attack of the basilisk, and Shen Tangzhi will be next.

My head was instantly covered with drops of sweat, and my brain was running rapidly, when I suddenly saw that the neckline of the old knife's mountaineering suit revealed a touch of bright green-

Azure Gyokuro!

I suddenly thought of a way: "Old knife, quickly take your piece of azure jade dew and feed it to Farrado!" ”

"Wo Cao! When the hell are you still poor with me? Why the fuck should I feed him? "The old knife was a little unable to turn in an instant.

I'm almost going to faint, this old knife is usually quite alert, but once the blood is in the brain, why does the IQ drop rapidly?!

I had no choice but to shout again: "Azure Jade Dew can cure snake venom, and it should be able to restrain that monster!" ”

"Grass! Lao Tzu fought with you! ”

The old knife ran out of the last bullet in the M4 carbine magazine in his hand, and suddenly rushed towards Farrado in the snake state, and Jiajie on the side saw the old knife rushing forward, and also stopped firing.

Seeing that someone had taken the initiative to send it to the door, the basilisk immediately threw down John and threw himself at the old knife.

"Yes, come and eat me, Lao Tzu's TM's chicken is crunchy, don't you believe you try it?"

The old knife approached the basilisk, and his mouth kept provocative, regardless of whether the snake-turned-Farrado could understand it or not.

"Shhhh

The basilisk opened its jaw and bit towards the old knife.

"Come, grandpa will give you something good to eat!"

The old knife suddenly pulled the zipper of the mountaineering suit and took out the azure jade dew that he regarded as a treasure from his arms, and the basilisk instinctively shrank back when he saw the azure jade dew, but the old knife rushed to close the cage at the mouth of the snake, and stuffed the long stick-like azure jade dew into the basilisk's mouth!

"Click!"

The long stick is like a jade strip that is chewed by Farado in one bite!

The old knife rolled on the ground, dodging Farador's claws.

"Hiss——!"

In his snake state, Farrado let out a terrible scream, knocked down a row of iron frames full of various torture instruments, and then rolled on the ground, looking extremely painful.

I pulled up the frightened John and Shen Tangzhi from the ground and dodged aside with everyone.

The basilisk rolled on the ground for a minute or so, and finally stopped moving.

There was a pool of black blood on the ground, and "Zizi" was bubbling with black gas, and we already had the experience of Lobu's past, so we quickly held our breath.

Another three minutes passed, and the black blood on the ground turned into black gas, and the black gas rushed straight to the roof of the temple and dissipated without a trace.

We cautiously approached Farrado's corpse, only to see that he had completely lost his human form, like a four-legged snake in human clothes, but only a small half of his head remained, which looked extremely terrifying.

The old knife took a spear-like weapon from the knocked-down torture rack, stabbed Farador's corpse vigorously, and saw that it was motionless and completely dead, so he brought over the Azure Jade Dew, which was still half of the wreckage.

"My poor Baoyu, ......"

Looking at the Azure Jade Dew, which was damaged to a small part of it, the old knife looked like he wanted to cry without tears.

"What is this?"

After the Azure Jade Dew shattered, we found that it was originally hollow, and the old knife poured out a small transparent token in the shape of a shield from the crack, which was the one we had faintly seen in the Azure Jade Dew.

I took the shield-shaped token from the old knife's hand and saw that this jade plate was only the size of a keychain, and the material felt like jade, but the transparency and reflectivity were like crystals, and the two sides of the shield were engraved with a swirl-like rune in the yin and yang.

Shen Tangzhi and Tenzin Kawa also took turns looking at the token, but they couldn't say why, only Hyde said that he had seen Dr. Findlay's crystal bone earthly serpent statue, and the material of this token was very imaginary.

"These torture instruments are very strange......" The old knife looked at the "spear" in his hand, which was as thick as a child's arm, with a thick layer of rust and dust on it, all of which formed a similar "slurry", and after the old knife scraped the surface with an ice pick, he was surprised: "These things are not pig iron, but made of meteoric iron!" ”

He looked at the torture instruments hanging from the other iron racks and made sure that they were all forged from meteoric iron.

The old knife frowned and said, "This is too strange!" It stands to reason that if the technology of this ancient kingdom of Somol was not enough to smelt raw iron, then how could their technology of casting iron be so good? You see, the iron frames in these two rows, and the torture instruments on them, are not exquisite, but they are definitely not the kind of things that are so rough that they can only be called 'tools' in the Stone Age. Moreover, these iron tools ...... It doesn't add up to a few thousand pounds, right? ”

When I first saw the two rows of iron frames and the torture instruments on them, I thought they were all made of pig iron, just like old knives, but I didn't expect them to be all meteoric iron.

Here I have to explain why I and Lao Dao are so surprised.

Before artificial iron smelting, many ancient civilizations in the world that were born earlier had a history of occasionally using meteoric iron to make tools.

For example, in the pyramids of ancient Egypt, meteorite tubular beads have been found; , and a meteorite amulet with a silver handle. Fragments of meteorite iron have also been unearthed from the tomb of King of your in the valley of the two rivers. Arrowheads, knives, and tools made of meteorite iron were used in several ancient cultural centers in the Americas. In the Taixi ruins of the Shang Dynasty in China and the tomb of the Liujiahe merchants, copper Yue forged with meteorite iron was also found.

However, meteorite iron is meteor iron that fell from celestial bodies, and the nature of artificial ironmaking is fundamentally different, and there is no necessary causal connection between meteoric ironmaking and the invention of artificial ironmaking.

Did you find out? All meteorite iron tools are extremely simple, rough, small items, at that time was still the Stone Age ancient humans, can take advantage of the good ductility of iron, like making stone tools can be beaten and polished to make it, while pig iron products are completely different, that must be matched with the same technology of mining iron ore, smelting ore, and forging finished products!

What's more, tools must be used in order to produce tools!

For example, how were stone tools produced in the Stone Age? You'll have to smash one stone at another to carve out the shape you want.

How to produce the high-tech chips in modern computers and mobile phones? You have to have the right technology and the right ultra-high-precision lathe!

And what we see in front of us is completely unreasonable!

The ancestors of the ancient kingdom of Somol actually used Iron Age technology to choose a material that only Stone Age people would choose, and then produced it!

You know, between the Stone Age and the Iron Age, there is still a Bronze Age!

Shen Tangzhi thought for a while and gave us several situations: "For such a strange thing to happen, the first explanation is that within the territory of this ancient kingdom of Somol, there may be a huge piece of ancient meteorite, and the abundance of this open-pit meteorite ore is exaggerated enough to support its entire smelting and forging industrial chain; Second, for some special reason, the materials of these torture instruments cannot be made of other materials, and must be made of meteoric iron, which are all searched from all over the world, and the time span may have gone through thousands of years. ”

"Even though I know you're right, it's hard to imagine." I said, "The first case you mentioned ...... Such an exaggerated meteorite would definitely cause a super earthquake when it fell, and there was already a large-scale extinction of life, so why was there no corresponding discovery in myths and legends, history books, and archaeology? The second situation is also very exaggerated, according to the archaeological discoveries we currently know, the meteorite iron products found all over the world add up to almost a few hundred catties, but we have thousands of catties in front of us at once! It's even more dreamy......"

Shen Tangzhi shrugged at me, saying that she was also helpless, because she couldn't think of any other explanation.