In fact, Levi's heart was far from being as calm as he seemed on the surface, on the contrary, his mood was extremely complicated, and the joy of smelling a rare opportunity and the heaviness of carrying a huge risk caused his thoughts to fall into a brief blank.

However, in just a few breaths of eye contact with Keeve, he had cleared his mind and needed to determine a few things.

Clearing his throat, Levi spoke casually:

"Among the few origin powers, the inheritance of the blood banquet is an extremely special existence, it is not like the [tyrant] and other origin forces that rely on blood to pass on to the descendants, but is engraved with the original power, and it is almost completely preserved in the mask."

Gavin slowly walked up to Levi's and stared into his eyes, "Who are you?" ”

Levi's expression didn't change in the slightest, and he pointed to the robe on his body: "As you can see, I am a magic apprentice of the Kingdom Bachelor's Mansion and a collection appraiser. ”

"Origin power is not the study of magic." Gavin's eyes were like a cold viper, unleashing threats and malice without emotion, "You know the Blood-Drinking Shroud well. ”

Levi said, "Stanley—"

"I think you've got something wrong." Gavin interrupted Levi's, "I just want to know who wears this mask. ”

Levi was silent for a second and replied, "Will you believe what I say?" ”

Gavin scoffed.

Levi said lightly: "Let me put it another way, do you dare to believe me?" ”

He looked into Gavin's eyes, and the latter's eyelids jumped slightly.

"Looks like I need to sober you up." Gavin said coldly, "Tie him up—"

"Wait." The voice of Ogre Kief rang out.

Gavin looked back at Keef, who sniffed and said, "It's okay to hear him say more." ”

The atmosphere became a little subtle, but the change was fleeting. Gavin didn't say much, just took two steps back with a blank face, and made a gesture of deafness.

Slightly verified two guesses, good.

Levi said while thinking, "Lord Ogre, although the Blood-Drinking Hood is not a holy thing, there are many rumors about it, but most of them are buried in the long river of history. ”

"Legend has it that Stanley peeled off his own face bones on his deathbed and poured the power of origin into the bones, so that anyone who got his hands could hear the whispers of the cruel hunter, and even after he was dead, he instinctively needed to sip blood through the mouthparts of the bones to please his vain self."

"This facial bone, known as the Blood-Drinking Hood, has aroused the greed of many, for those who acquire it are able to achieve strength comparable to Stanley's in a short period of time...... However, Stanley's mask is only a carrier, and there are two conditions for obtaining the Blood Feast, one is that the host must wear the mask once, and the other is that the host must be satisfied with the mask. ”

"When the inheritance is complete, the origin power in the mask enters the host's body, and the mask will stop babbling."

Levi took two steps forward, bent down to pick up the mask on the ground, and after a few seconds, he smiled and said, "I didn't hear the babbling." ”

Gavin listened to Levi's description with a gloomy face, and he had the impression that the fat man who only knew about violence and eating didn't have such a good patience.

"How strong is that guy named Stanley?"

After listening to Levi's statement, Keefe asked a question that surprised Gavin and most of the people present, but Levi was not surprised, and instead smiled.

"The chief mage of the kingdom, the archmage Icarus." Levi said, "Under the right circumstances, Stanley was able to hunt him down." ”

"Good." Keefe licked* his thick lips.

Levi pondered for a moment and continued, "If you want to extract the power of the blood feast from the host's body, you need to perform the ritual with the steps of prayer, smearing the blood of the crow, etc., and then pour the host's heart's blood on the mask, and the ritual is limited to a single time. ”

In other words, there is only one chance, and the host will die.

Cezel, who was lying on the ground like a wild dog, clenched his fists slightly, but did not hide from Levi's eyes.

The information just mentioned is a summary of Levi's recollections from ancient books and folklore, including miscellaneous works such as The Catalogue of Origins, The Bloody Rites of Leoric, and The Sinner and the Sage.

Gavin, who was in attendance, snorted, and said mockingly: "After going around in such a big circle, I still have to figure out who the so-called host is." ”

Levi nodded and said, "You're right. ”

He looked at the tall Kief, put his hand on his chest and bowed, and said, "Lord Ogre, although I don't have any skills, I happen to know everything about the Blood-Drinking Hood. I'm willing to help you access the power of the Blood Feast, whether it's to identify the host or the ritual of extraction, it's not a problem for me - I'm willing to give it to you. ”

Levi's tone was so sincere that even Gavin was stunned.

Alva looked puzzled: "Levi, you ......"

Gavin said sympathetically, "Very well, so who is the host?" ”

Levi ignored them, he maintained a bowing posture and said slowly, "I just want to tell this secret, I just want to tell the ogre-sama. ”

"You bastard......" Gavin sneered, "whatever you're trying to do is useless, tell the host now." ”

Levi was indifferent to his words.

Keef, who was sitting above, moved his ass, and his brutal little eyes showed a look of satisfaction.

"Come up and tell me."

"As you wish, sir."

Levi walked up to Keef's side without hurry, and even though Keef was sitting in a chair, Levi was as tall as his head. Under everyone's gaze, Levi brought his mouth to Keeve's ear and muttered something that took a full minute to finish.

"Get him a piece of paper and a pen." Keef said angrily.

Alva watched dumbfounded as Levi scribbled a long list of things on a piece of paper, handed it to the ogre, and calmly walked back.

"You'd better not play tricks on me." Ogre Keef warned.

"I would never do that." Levi assured.

Keefe nodded, and he pointed his thick finger at Levi and ordered, "Uncuff this guy, send the three of them back to the cell, and get him another bucket of human blood." ”

Gavin had a suspicious look on his face, and he said to Keef, "Your Excellency, ...... you do this?"

"Do as I say." Keef waved his hand.

After Levi's and the others were sent away, Keef ordered his men to prepare what was written on paper immediately.

Gavin glanced at the contents of the paper and stomped his foot anxiously.

"My lord, you shouldn't trust that person, this may be a trap." Gavin said with a gloomy face, "Most of what is written on this piece of paper is undocumented, and it is enough to follow the ritual steps I have gathered. ”

"I don't need you to teach me." Keef snorted, "If he dares to deceive me, I'll kill him." ”

"If something goes wrong, Mistress Pelly will blame ......"

Keefe suddenly slapped the armrest hard, and there was a loud bang in the hall.

"You didn't tell me there was such a power hidden in that mask, right, Gavin?"

Hearing Keeve's words, Gavin closed his mouth and didn't dare to say anything more, just gritted his teeth angrily.

Not long after Levi and the others returned to their cells, a butcher came in with a tin bucket, and the red blood in the bucket was as thick as fruit pulp, and it was slowly shaking.

Cizer and Alva were chained to the foot of the wall, and only Levi was free of his shackles and sat comfortably on the side.

Since returning to his cell, Alva has tried to talk to Levi, but Levi has been leaning against the wall as if he couldn't hear him.

Cezel, who had been beaten several times, didn't say a word, and no one knew what he was thinking.

In an atmosphere of strange silence, Levi pondered what had just happened in the hall, silently reviewing it in his mind.

While in the hall, his thoughts were divided into three main parts: inferring the event itself, inferring everyone in the event, and most basically, recalling the Stanley mask -

According to the heterogeneous name Nephitali, it can be inferred that the prostitute* came from the desert of the west, and the area was not desertified thousands of years ago, and was near the withered wasteland, which is consistent with the origin of the blood-drinking cover.

Speculating on the course of the incident, Ogre Kief originally planned to avenge his son, but accidentally found traces of the Blood Raven from Nephitali's body, as for what the traces were, there is not enough information to know...... But this provided an incentive for the ogres to seize Cizer even if they did not hesitate to invade the nobility.

After obtaining the useless mask, Ogre Keef is unable to determine whose Blood Feast power is on him, which provides for the temporary survival of Cezel, Alva, and himself.

Through Kief's attention to the content of his speech, it can be seen that he does not know much about the Blood-Drinking Hood, and there must be a person around him who is responsible for collecting information, and that person has a certain level of knowledge and understands the importance of the Blood-Drinking Hood.

Judging from Gavin's upright posture and habits of words and deeds, Levi has reason to suspect that he is a soldier from the command of the Marquis of Viper, exercising the duty of supervision, since Gavin and Keef are not all the way, there is room for things to be turned around.

Finally, through the method of elimination, Levi can roughly conclude that the blood feast is in Cezel's body, but does not rule out other possibilities.

Based on the above considerations, Levi succeeded in arousing the greed of Ogre Keef for the power of the Blood Feast, and weakened Keeve's trust in Gavin, the number one think-tank, to gain space for himself to implement other means.

After three minutes of review, Levi stood up, walked over to Alva, and reached for the inside of his clothes.

"What are you doing...... Alva looked at Levi in horror, "you don't mean that to me, do you?" ”

Levi found a palm-sized silver flask from his most intimate pocket and said with satisfaction, "I know you like to hide wine on your body, and it's a blessing that you haven't been stolen." ”

"Is it time to drink?" Alva wanted to laugh a little, but he couldn't.

Levi unscrewed the lid of the jug, poured the syrup clean, and then walked over to the barrel of human blood, rolled up his sleeves and crouched down, pouring the blood into the jug.

Alva asked, puzzled, "What are you going to do?" ”

"Make extra preparations." Levi replied.

He tightened the lid and put it in his arms, then came to Cizer with the bucket and sat down.

"It's you, isn't it?" Levi asked, "The one who gets the blood feast." ”

Cizer replied coldly, "Do you think I'll tell you?" ”

"It's understandable, I have gained unimaginable power, but I want to die immediately, I feel unwilling for you." Levi laughed and said, "Actually, what you need most is time." ”

I don't know if Cizer understood what Levi meant, but neither of them spoke again, as if the conversation was over.

Alva looked at Levi's side face and asked, "What did you just say to that fat man?" ”

"It doesn't matter." "I told him to collect a lot of messy ritual materials, which should delay some time." ”

Listening to Levi's words, Cizer raised his head slightly, his eyes flickering.

"Procrastinating for time? Is that all? Alva wasn't convinced.

"I also told him I could tell who the host was, but I needed to go back to the cell and add a bucket of human blood," Levi said. ”

Alva was about to continue asking questions, when Levi smiled and said, "Of course this is a lie to him." ”

Levi looked Cizer in the eye and said, "Things won't come to an end until they get what they want from you." ”

Cizer said, "I'm sorry, I misunderstood you......"

"Keef's pursuit of you is not a small matter, and it involves the disappearance of the nobles, and someone must have noticed the strangeness in it." "Even if the person who disappeared was only the son of a baron...... Maybe someone will come here to find out, and that's what I'm trying to procrastinate. ”

Alva gritted his teeth and said, "I hope my father will come soon." ”

"With the situation of the Stewart family, I'm afraid I can't deal with Keef." Levi glanced at Alva, "But this is Slom, and there are a lot of powerful people who don't take Keef seriously, and maybe there are curious nobles who come to try their luck." ”

Cizer said as he pondered, "But you mentioned that behind Keef is the Marquis of Peli...... No one wants to offend him for curiosity. ”

He looked a little dejected.

"Yes, but from Kieve's point of view, would he use the power of the Marquis of Pelly to kidnap a nobleman? This is no small matter. "If anyone can pay attention to these details, they will realize that you have a value in you that drives Keefe mad and makes the Viper Marquis hearty." ”

Cizer's eyes lit up with a glimmer of hope: "Will anyone really come?" ”

"Don't underestimate Slom, this is the royal capital." Levi said meaningfully, "But I must remind you that whether it is Keef or the other big people, in the final analysis, if you take the power of the Blood Feast from you, you will still die." ”

Alva muttered, "How can this be......"

Levi sighed softly and said, "Whether they can get the blood feast or not, the fate of Alva and I is hard to say...... Now, once the host's affairs have a result, whether to kill us or not is a matter of words for them. ”

After a pause, he looked directly at Cizer and said, "So, are you the host or not, Cezel?" ”

Cizer clenched his fists, his face hesitant, Levi's every word drilled into his heart like a nail, making him feel complicated. After taking a deep breath, Cizer calmly looked Levi's in the eye and said, "After getting the mask from Nefitari, she told me to put on the mask when it was critical, and she said that it might save my life, or it might kill me. ”

He paused, then continued, "I heard a faint whisper as I took the mask, a voice full of longing, but I couldn't make out what the whisper was about. ”

Alva opened his mouth and couldn't help but ask, "So you-"

"I had almost died several times before I met you, and in the mood of a desperate fight, I put on that mask and heard a man's voice in my ears, and this time it was clear......," Cezel recalled, "but it was brief, but I did hear it, he said...... He thirsted for blood. ”

Levi listened quietly and did not interject, while Alva had already listened and urged, "And then?" ”

Cizer pointed to his ear: "That sound is like some kind of witchcraft, it makes my heart beat faster, and the blood in my body seems to be able to be manipulated by me, no longer flowing out of the wound, and then ...... I don't remember, when I woke up, I was already lying in that maple forest, the sound was gone, I no longer felt the blood back, the wound was still bleeding. ”

"Stanley's babbling......" Levi touched his nose, "I see." ”

Obviously, the host of the Blood Feast is Cizer.

Alva looked at Cizer with some envy and some fear, and said, "I can't believe it, that's the power of the Origin Warrior, it's the demigod who never falls!" ”

Cizer raised his hands a little dazedly, those hands looked very weak in the shackles, in such a pair of hands, is there really the ability to kill the Grand Magus?

He smiled bitterly, put down his hands, and said self-deprecatingly: "It's ironic, I have obtained the power that many people dream of, but I have to give it away, and I have to ...... Die here. ”

He didn't want to accept the fate of being someone else's wedding dress, but there was no way to change it all, unless...... Self-termination.

Just as Cizer made a decision in his desperate struggle, Levi suddenly tapped him on the shoulder.

"Don't jump to conclusions." Levi's eyes were the same as usual, without too many special emotions, "Actually, there is a way to save your life." ”

Cizer looked at Levi's hand on his shoulder and looked up at him.

"As long as the ritual fails, or the mask is destroyed, you have a chance to survive." Levi said, "At least what awaits you is not a certain death. ”

"But...... How? ”

Levi didn't answer, he pointed to the iron bucket and said, "As the name suggests, the power of the Blood Feast is related to blood, and ingesting blood can give you great strength...... While Keef and his men weren't wary of this, in theory, you need human blood. ”

Cizer was a little dazed, he glanced at the iron bucket, and then at Levi: "Ingest?" ”

Levi shoved the bucket in front of Cezel, and the viscous blood shook in the bucket, bright red and blinding.

"It's not that complicated, drank it." Levi said with a smile.

Cizer grabbed the edge of the bucket and held it to his chest, smelling a pungent fishy smell. Staring at this "spectacular" barrel of human blood, a ridiculous thought rose in Cezel's heart: I don't know if the blood in the bucket is new or not?

"Let me explain the plan." While waiting for Cizer to feast on human blood, Levi whispered, "It's a bit of a rush, though. ”

He sat cross-legged, his fingers tapping lightly on his knees.

"That's right." As if suddenly remembering something, Levi turned to Alva and said, "If I die, remember to collect my body." ”

In the Ogre Kief's hall, the furnishings for the Blood Feast have been set up, and Keef, Gavin, and their men are quietly waiting for the ceremony to begin.

According to Levi's request, thirty white candles are placed in all directions with mysterious patterns, faintly forming a bird's claw-shaped pattern; In the middle of the hall, the cauldron on the stone pit had been removed and replaced by a small table containing a copper plate containing the crow's corpse, two ornate silver bowls, and a large pile of unnamed jars of herbs.

In front of the small table, a small pile of white bones stood high, and the bones were of different sizes. Above the pile of bones lay a red silk cloth, on which rested a hideous-looking human bone: a blood-drinking cover.

Three nuns from the church stood in a triangle shape around the pile of bones, each holding a scripture book, and they recited the scriptures with solemn expressions, their voices low and solemn.

The three of Levi came to the outside of the hall, and before entering the door, Cizer suddenly stopped Levi: "Wait." ”

Levi turned around and asked, "What's wrong?" ”

Cizer looked Levi's eyes with a determined expression.

"Whether I make it out alive or not, I'm ......," Cizer whispered, halfway through his words, but no more.

Levi looked at him quietly, without urging.

"I understand." Alva, who was at the back, sighed and said, "I can't help, but if I get out alive...... Shall we have a drink together? ”

Cizer gave Alva a grateful look, and the two looked at Levi together.

Being stared at by the two of them like this, a rare look of embarrassment appeared on Levi's face.

"Okay."

("Nevenmor, the Raven of the Blood Sacrifice, and the Baron of Trickery may have met earlier than we thought.") —General History of the Continent • The Dark Dynasty)