Yixin Lanhai stood on the wide winged platform, facing the horseskin hanging on the wall in a daze.

After the whole horse skin was cut in half, it was hung with iron nails inside and out in the holes in the wall. Two-thirds of the way down are large blank spaces, and above, part of the dark brown leather is sandy red from the soaking of blood, two names destined to go down in history. At the top of the list is the name of the initiator of this trial foursome. She wrote the six characters of Hades, Light and Shaluo Hunt in a free and flying manner, and the font was full of muscles and bones, and the edge was exposed. Followed by a single name, the word Chengjiao is full of font, and the strokes are round and powerful, so that people can look at its words and suddenly recognize their hearts.

I've been standing here for a long time. The midday sun was scorching, and his ears were filled with the hoarse chirping of the cicadas, but the noisy background sound was nothing compared to the chaotic thoughts in his head. In Yixin's opinion, what had happened in just one morning today had almost wiped out all the illusions he had had in the Golden Crow Temple for the past thirteen years. At this time, countless legends and histories related to the trial whistled through his mind.

The legend of the return of the gods in the Book of Bright History is generally considered to be the origin of the "trial".

The first great witch who led the remnants of humanity to flee turned to the sky in the blood and fire that destroyed the earth, praying for the gods to return to save humanity. As the days passed, men, women, old people, and children starved to death, died of disease, burned to death by magma and flames, torn and swallowed by devastating beasts, killed or plundered by scaly eaters and psychedelic witches...... The gods remained silent and did not respond. On the fortieth day, the Great Witch killed the horse that had accompanied her to death, skinned the horse, and threw her two sons and two daughters into the lava wrapped in horse skins and sacrificed to the gods.

The gods were touched by the great witch's sincerity in destroying her home and relieving her trouble.

The three siblings of the Supreme Blood - the sun goddess Apollona, the moon goddess Almis, the god of wine Dios, and the powerful husband of Almis, the god of death Tadarus, appeared in front of the Great Witch.

"God saves himself", the gods finally decided to help those who still have faith in desperate situations.

In the decisive battle of ten days and ten nights, when the three gods died in battle and the world was about to fall into the abyss, the golden black firebird took the ring seal on the sword of the goddess Apollona, and the goddess drew her sword to split the earth and rise the mountain of sighs. Beast destroyers, scaly eaters, and psychedelic enchantresses have fallen into shadows and ashes along with the corpse of Dionysus and his fiefdom, while the blood-soaked islands of the Kamiland have returned to the light and become the home of humanity.

Although the towering Mountains of Sigh temporarily isolate the threat of the Shadow Land, the Goto Islands are not at peace. The Early History of the Divine Continent (manuscript), The Year of Chaos (manuscript, fragment), and Records of the Dark Events (manuscript and fragment) are all recorded in the history books or miscellaneous records of the early days of the Divine Land.

One of the most well-known accounts was written by one of the most accomplished historians before the Great Unification, the hand of Xie Niu Fengdi of the Isle of War. In the book "The Legend and History of God of War Island", written in the year 315 of the Divine Rule, he recreated the process of the four people of God of War Island killing the hundred-legged beast. In order to restore the historical truth as much as possible, Xie Niu Feng Di consulted and searched all the relevant historical materials, incomplete biographies and unclear legends that could be found in that era, and even painstakingly rearranged the genealogy of the Feng Di family. As a result, the relevant chapters in this book are considered to be the most detailed and reliable account of "the first slaughter of a beast by man since the Age of the Gods".

According to the book, the hundred-legged monster hatched from the eggs left over from the war between man and god, and for decades survived by competing with the bloodthirsty forest to eat corpses. After finally growing into a powerful adult destroyer, it often haunts God of War Island in the dark night, attacking villages and devouring livestock and villagers. In order to save the people from the nightmare of the night, and to prevent the village from resounding with elegy and weeping, four brave young men form a team and are determined to go to the Eternal Forest on the edge of the Isle of War to slay the Destroyer.

According to Xie Niu Fengdi, the date of the incident is roughly between the 80th and 90th years of the Divine Rule, and due to the age and extremely limited information, the names of the four young people are no longer available. But there are two things that can be determined about their identity information after research.

First, each of the four young men has their own strengths. Because in many legends and historical book fragments, they are directly called witches, medicine girls, spirit men, and warrior men according to their specialties.

Second, among the two men and two women in the foursome, the martial man and the doctor are brothers and sisters. Although the shrine maiden and the spirit man are not blood siblings, they form a "blood alliance close friend" by drinking each other's blood and swearing to live and die together. This move was originally intended to boost morale and unity, but it did not expect to become not only the key to the victory of the quartet, but also a model for future generations to follow.

The four sons traveled southwest from the hinterland of the Isle of Wars, not only crossing the desert of uninhabited sandstone deserts but also fighting bandits and bandits, before finally arriving at the bloodthirsty forest at the foot of Mount Sigh after three days.

The four of them, whose strength and tacit understanding had improved greatly during the journey, thought that they would be able to kill the beast when they worked together, but they didn't expect that the hundred-legged beast was so strong that it dared to appear from the forest to hunt for food when the sky was still bright because of its perennial predation on living people and livestock and the eating of fresh corpses. The foursome, who went to reconnoiter near the Bloodthirsty Forest before it was dark, encountered the Destroyer unsuspectingly. The medicine girl who was slightly inferior in strength among the four should be swallowed by the demon beast in one bite. The remaining three decided to retreat first, and the most heroic warrior took the initiative to lead the demon beast away, but was torn apart and devoured by it after a short fight.

In a matter of moments, the quartet was half dead.

Although the remaining two did not collapse in despair, they had no hope of escaping this fate, and only wanted to die with the beast. But after all, facing the bloody battle is not the business of the spirit man and the witch, Rao has the belief that he will die, and the two are quickly forced into a desperate situation. Fortunately, the two never let go of their fighting spirit. Ever since the beginning of the encounter, the shrine maiden has been making seals, calling for wind and rain. The spirit man opened his spiritual eyes while fighting, searching for all available power. At a time when the danger is imminent, the proverb "God saves the self-helper" shows its power again. The witch prayed for a golden light from the sun goddess to fix the hundred-legged beast in place, and the spirit man caught the blood in the body of the medicine woman in the belly of the beast, and deduced that the place where the body of the doctor girl was located was the "blood umbilicus" of the beast. The shrine maiden tried her best to fix the beast destruction, and the spirit man struck with all his might!

In the blink of an eye, the tide of events has reversed!

The huge body of the hundred-legged beast collapsed and exploded from the wound of the "blood umbilicus", and the demon beast that had harmed God of War Island for many years finally turned into a blood mist in the sky.

Later, the surviving miko maidens and spirit men of the foursome were married, and the two were the founders of the oldest family in the history of Kamiru, the Blade Family.

As Xie Niu Feng Di pointed out in the book "The Legend and History of God of War Island", the "foursome killed the hundred-legged beast" had a profound impact not only on God of War Island, but also throughout the history of Kamiriku.

In the short term, the deeds of the foursome quickly spread in the five islands, and many brave and resourceful young people on each island rose up one after another to follow the example of the four sons of the God of War Island, forming a team in the way of witchcraft, martial arts, spirit, and medicine to kill the monsters that caused disaster in all directions. In about a hundred years, the traces of the destruction of beasts gradually disappeared on the five islands.

In the long run, the rulers of each island recognized to varying degrees the necessity of self-cultivation in martial arts, self-healing medicine, spirituality in connection with life and death, and worship of the gods for the survival and development of the regime. There has been a boom in the establishment of martial arts halls, medical centers, temples, temples and other places to cultivate talents.

The next era that had an important impact on the formation of the "trial" was around the time of the unification of the five islands, that is, before and after the "Battle of the Mountain". There are many records related to this, but the research that focuses on the "origin of trials" mainly appears in the required reading lists such as "The Legend of the Purple Dye and the Blade", "The Great Tribulation: The Great Unification", "The Chronicles of the Kinwuin Temple", and "The Legend of the Guardian of the Islands".

Before the unification of the Kamiriku Dynasty, the five islands had to fight against pirates on the endless sea for many years, and they also had to deal with the occasional raids and wars between the islands. Therefore, in addition to the light family, which monopolizes the two rich islands of Medicine God Island and Sun God Island, can be called the four schools at the same time, the other three islands are obviously biased towards the development of martial arts and sacrificial science.

In the 500th year of the gods, the army of the Shadow Land attacked. In the face of demon soldiers and beasts, Goto abandoned his past suspicions and joined forces to fight the enemy. However, although the "Face God Four" who turned the tide at that time - Light Golden Wing of Yakujin Island, Blade Dyspa Purple Dye of God of War Island, Morimori Tenmu of Reijin Island, and Hades Kaba of Seagod Island still fought as a four-person team, they could no longer follow the ancient system of "four schools protecting each other". The four of them all have extremely high attainments in martial arts, but only the eldest daughter of the Light family, Light Jinyi, can still be called "both four learnings", and she has also become the first hot spring temple town hall witch of the main god island after the unification of the five islands.

In the year 515 of the Divine Rule, Purple Dye Fengdi went to the Golden Crow Island of the Flame Lake of the Sun God Island to establish the Golden Crow Temple. Born in the oldest family in the Goshimas, the first generation of the Academy's Purple Dye Blade, who has a deep family history, combined his own experience with the legend created by Kamiku and the deeds of his ancestors who killed and destroyed beasts, and extracted many elements from them, creating a tradition of "trials" for the Golden Crowin to select top talents.

As long as they can pass three trials in a year, they can obtain the full Crowin emblem without taking any courses or exams, and they can also enter the Goto Zhendao Temple directly as the best graduates.

Since the establishment of the institute 100 years ago, as the first university in the five islands, tens of thousands of outstanding talents have been sent to all parts of Shenlu, and the students who have passed the trial have written a strong chapter in the history of Shenlu with the posture of dragon leaping and phoenix singing. Examples of early trial students, such as Wuyun Yin Gravel, the founder of the martial arts training ground of Yakushin Island, Pestello Delin, who served as the military commander of God of War Island from 526 to 548, and the current god of Poseidon Island, the god of North Wind, are undoubtedly the pillars and pillars of the gods. And in the five islands, everyone knows about it, and everyone knows about it, the "strongest foursome" who passed the trial in the year of Shentong 598. The four people who graduated from the Golden Crow Academy in a year each cultivated in the Zhendao Temple for a short time, and all of them obtained the status of the guardian level of the Shenlu Islands - Jin Ye is the current Hot Spring Palace, Light Poria is the current Alder Temple, Hades Long Ran is the former military commander of the God of War Island, and Wind Blade Sun Wheel Sand Python is the former military commander of the Sea God Island.

Although most of the above content comes from authoritative scriptures or famous works, it is by no means a history that only those who have read poetry and books can understand. Even children who have not gone to school or illiterate vulgar people can hear stories about it from the songs, narrative poems, and gossip of the elders that spread throughout the Goto Islands. Unlike the rigorous arguments of scholars, the legends scattered around the five islands focus more on unfolding in a frightening way details that are not detailed in the historical sources.

For example, the tragic state of the war horse that was skinned alive by the first Great Witch Maiden and her own flesh and blood thrown into the hot magma as a sacrifice; For example, the unimaginable horror of the Hundred-legged Beast and the tragic fate arranged by the gods for the "Four Sons of the Isle of War"; For example, no more than 12 out of 10 young men who are determined to go and kill the beast will return safely.

Based on such bloody legends and tragic characters, how can the "trial of the four" formed in reality be a smooth path to the pinnacle of power?

Yixin Blue Sea thought bitterly as he faced the horseskin on the wall.

Those are just sensational legends!

He tried to convince himself in this way, but there were many more well-known historical facts that made it impossible for him to deceive himself.