Looking at the gray stone slab in the depths of the temple, everyone slowly leaned in. When I got closer, I found that this stone slab was carved with magnificent narrative reliefs.

Those simple and powerful lines outline countless scenes of extraordinary vividness, some hunting behemoths, some waging wars, and some performing large-scale sacrifices. These coherent images are strung together, as if silently telling the past that happened in this land, as well as those stories that have long been forgotten and lost in the long river of time.

Sovereign hesitated, but trembled and stroked his palm over the magnificent reliefs. For a moment, it seemed as if some wonderful power touched his soul, and the feeling was thick and deep, but it was beating with a shocking warmth. Perhaps the people who once lived here did not expect that thousands of years later, a group of strange visitors would once again bow down to their incomparable creation.

Berosio leaned against the outer stone pillars, hiding his form in the darkness, seemingly inexplicably resistant to the light cast by the patio. "Little one, the back of the slate is full of strange writing, if that's writing......" he said to Thomas, seemingly thinking of him as a scholar rather than a warrior, "it would be better if you could recognize it!"

Sovereign and the others were stunned for a moment, and soon came to the back of the stone slab. Sure enough, as Belosio said, the back of this huge stone slab was neatly engraved with countless lines of strangely shaped words. These scripts are markedly different from the current Elolin Continental, they are more complex and archaic.

"The Lord God is above! This is the ancient continent language of the Middle Ages! With the end of the Middle Ages, this language has disappeared for more than a thousand years, along with the last footprints of the gods!" Thomas said excitedly as he looked at the words, and his fingers trembling uncontrollably, "so complete and clear! I have never seen it even in the ancient books and books of the Holy See!"

"Can you recognize that?" asked Old Sean in a somewhat nervous tone, and the eyes of the others were focused on Thomas, even the hopeless Berosio leaned in.

"I, I can give it a try...... Thomas replied, biting his lip.

Hearing Thomas's affirmative reply, everyone's eyes lit up, and their hearts were full of curiosity, eager to know what had happened in this land, who had built this great city, and why she had been abandoned once and for all.

The temple was silent, and Thomas's gaze slowly moved with the words deep in the stone tablet, and his voice echoed low between the stone pillars, with a slight trill, telling a story that had been dusty for a long time.

Two thousand six hundred years after the Second Age, the Kujitan people, who had ended their tribal wars, finally ushered in a long-lost peace. They built a vast empire in the dense forests that had thrived for generations, and gave their empire a great name, Tak Az, which means "shadow of fate".

This empire stretched from the Sea of the Sunset in the west, the Echo Canyon in the east, the Orsk Mountains in the north, and the Orc frontier in the south. They built a massive capital city in the heart of the empire, with stone-brick walkways that could accommodate dozens of giant beasts, wide squares that could accommodate tens of thousands of people, and towering stone tops that even surpassed the crown of verdant forests. The capital of the empire was called Texcut, which means "the first city".

After this massive project, they drove thousands of slaves and erected a magnificent temple in the middle of the city with huge stones from Ursk, in honor of the supreme god of the Kujitan people, the god of fate, Isseriel.

In this capital city like no other, they use the power of the main god to foresee fate and control their souls with mysterious sorcery. Broken branches can become sharp feathered arrows, and pitch-black dirt can make powerful golems. They have created the most splendid civilizations. Astronomy, mathematics, agriculture, art, writing, the achievements of the Kujitan people surpassed even all the races of the same era.

In this way, this empire from the depths of the dense forest has prospered in peace, and has gone through more than a thousand years in the admiring eyes of the world.

However, the end of the Second Age sounded the death knell of the fall of the Empire. The forests on which they depended began to wither and wither, the miracles of the Lord God vanished, and in this increasingly broken land, the Kujitan people lost the guidance of their fate, and their empire was clouded with a lingering haze.

In order to redeem the favor of the Lord God, and to appease the wrath of the Lord God, the Kujitan people built an even more magnificent temple in the middle of their holy lake, Lake Rotoya, Taittingchi. It is dedicated to Iserrel, the Lord God of Fate, and to the Holy Relic found in the early years of the Third Age, the "Slice of Destiny".

In that temple, countless slave captives were killed on the spot, and countless gold, silver, and precious stones were poured into the lake, but no amount of sacrifice could stop the empire from declining. The people of Kujitan at the bottom began to flee, and countless villages were abandoned and deserted. The glory of the empire has become a legend, and no one wants to talk about it again.

Finally, in the year 224 of the Third Age, the last king, who claimed to have been re-inspired by the Lord God, left his homeland with his priests and the few remaining subjects, and disappeared into the vast land of Eloraine, and disappeared into the river of years, never to be seen again.

......

Thomas's voice grew lower and lower, and on a line of handwriting engraved at the bottom, he slowly read the final story of the declining empire. "In the face of fate, no one lives forever. ”

The crowd around Thomas was silent and silent, or rather, they didn't know what to say, and perhaps silence was the best expression for now.

For mortals who only occupy a moment in time, fate, history, glory, and defeat seem to be a series of propositions that are far away and mysterious beyond their reach. In the face of such a proposition, you can only let out a long and speechless sigh in the indifferent brushstrokes it leaves. Because it doesn't need to be interpreted, it doesn't need to be understood, and it doesn't need empathy.

"What about the Kujitan who were the last to leave?" asked Paislin, sighing softly.

Thomas shook his head. "I don't know, maybe...... Maybe it's gone. He pointed to the end of the inscription on the tablet, "All accounts came to an abrupt end in the year 224 of the new calendar, and no one knew where they went." ”

Kuhl looked at his partner with some dismay. "An empire that has lasted for almost two thousand years, and if it says it will perish, it will perish?"

"There are many examples like this...... Thomas said, stroking the slate, "the Takaz Empire of the Kujitan is not the first, nor will it be the last. ”

"What happened on the continent of Elolyn at the end of the Middle Ages, at the end of the Second Age?" Sovereign looked at Thomas and asked, "Why didn't even such a huge empire survive and end up dying?"

Thomas smiled wryly and scratched his hair. "Honestly? I don't know, as far as I can see, no one can explain what happened during that period. As he spoke, he looked up at Sovereign, "Since then, the gods have not shown miracles on earth until ...... Until that time in the Forest of Songs. ”

Sovereign was stunned for a moment, but then smiled disapprovingly, for it seemed to him that the so-called "miracle" was the beginning of all nightmares.

"Thomas is right, Pope Kasrosoni and I have spoken more than once about what happened at the end of the Second Age, and we have consulted countless texts of the Holy See, but nothing has been found. "It seems that the history of the continent suddenly broke at that node, and then began the Third Age, which is now the New Calendar. ”

At this moment, a slapping sound attracted everyone's attention, and it turned out to be Belosio. "Don't talk about boring history there," his gaze was a little inexplicably angry, "doesn't anyone care about me? Ten years here, I have been guarding the answer like a blind man for ten years! Hell! It seems that it is an important thing to prepare a scholar in a mercenary group!"

Sovereign and the others smiled awkwardly, they didn't seem to want to continue the topic.

"Little one, are you interested, if the curse on us is successfully lifted after the matter is resolved, why don't we join the Thorn Force Mercenary Regiment? Berosio looked at Thomas and invited seriously, "Gold is not a problem, ancient books are not a problem, I can guarantee that you will be the most famous scholar in the kingdom of Orem!!"

Thomas's face turned pale and he subconsciously shook his head, but soon realized that such a refusal seemed inappropriate, and he didn't want to provoke the powerful and somewhat moody mercenary king.

"Hah! you rejected me!" Berohio grinned viciously, "but that's okay! Just when Thomas thought he could breathe a sigh of relief, the mercenary king added subtly, "I have time!

Before Thomas could speak, Tandra, who was standing next to him, pressed twice on his restless shoulder, and then asked Berosio, "I'm afraid you didn't bring us here to learn history, so what does this tablet have to do with your curse and the blood of Soveland?"

"Hah! That's a crucial question...... "Berosio turned back to the front of the slate, "I'm not interested in knowing the history of the Kujitans. But the story that follows is not all that is told in this tablet!" he said, pointing to the lower right corner of the narrative relief, near the end, "There are a few pictures here, and I am sure that once you see them, you will know why." ”

Berosio is right, no amount of glorious history of the Kujitan people can substantively solve the current predicament of Solweran and others. So after hearing Belosio's words, everyone immediately looked in the direction he was pointing.

But what he saw afterwards made everyone present cold, as if the blood in his body instantly coagulated. At the end of the narrative relief, two abrupt portraits depict a man with three scars on his chest, leading his men to prostrate in front of a tall temple, with black smoke floating above their heads.

In the next scene, the man with three scars stands up, arms outstretched forward, and his open palms seem to take something. Opposite him, a young man with a dotted crown carved out of the void crown on the top of his head was slicing his arm open with a sharp shard, blood dripping down into the stone bowl below.