Late at night, in the mountains of Ambarino.

Recently, there has been some commotion within the "Seventh Generation" sect, in the words of the cultists, one of the important aides of Virgil Edwards the "Shepherd" and a group of unbaptized newcomers who have been attacked by the evil world, and they have died heroically in resisting the attack, and one of the "Twelve Prophets", Lord Obadiah Feich, has been sacrificed by the wicked men in exchange for ill-gotten gains.

In fact, on the whole, for the "seventh generation" sect, which has nearly 1,000 members, the loss of more than 20 people is not even a bone and bones, but the arrest of Obadia Feige is a huge loss for the leadership of the sect.

Generally speaking, in the absence of the current leadership, the vast majority of similar cult organizations will choose to hide and keep a low profile until the relevant positions are filled, and then revert to their previous style.

However, the "shepherd" Virgil Edwards did not have such intentions, but in the name of "revenge" and "purification of the world", he issued an order to greatly expand the power of the sect, so his other cadres began to be active in Ambarino and New Hanover.

Tonight, in the Ambarino Mountains, a number of members of the "Seventh Generation" gathered at the call of the missionary Bethany de la Mer, one of the direct leaders of the denomination's expansion, near a secret meeting point of the "Seventh Generation" denomination, in order to baptize the new members, to inscribe stigmata and to convey to all the congregants the latest instructions from His Excellency the Shepherd.

And these, for an average bounty hunter, are just inconsequential junk information, information that bounty hunters need to care about, as the profession name suggests, the amount of the bounty, and the location of the prey.

At this time, in the Ambarino Mountains, near the camp where the members of the "Seventh Generation" sect gathered, Brandi, dressed in a black suit and wearing a bright red tie, quietly hid in the dense bushes, observing the situation in the camp with binoculars.

"1,2,3,4......" he observed, muttering to himself as he nodded, "43...... It seems that there are quite a few lambs gathered in this area. ”

Brandi put down the binoculars and thought to himself: "These people are all equipped with weapons, it is absolutely unrealistic to fight hard, and besides, there is no way to determine the specific location of the target now, in case the movement is too big and the snake is startled, this deal will be ruined." ”

After analyzing the situation, Brandi immediately finalized the plan. He quietly moved to the side of Da Li, who was tethered to him not far away, took the bow and arrow that Charles had given him from his horse, turned his head, looked at the brightly lit camp of the cultists, and whispered, "Let me show you what a silent assassin is." ”

Cultist camp.

William Peterson was a dutiful miner in Annisberg, his wife worked as a laundry worker in the town's laundry, and they had a son, a clever boy. Although this family of three is not wealthy, it can even be said that they are poor, but fortunately, they can make ends meet, and their small life is also very warm.

Unfortunately, the good times were short-lived. There were people dead in the mine, and it was the foreman who died, and the three Russo brothers, who had a very bad relationship with the foreman, committed the crime, but by this time, they had fled. It is said that the three men were later arrested, then escaped from prison, formed a gang with each other, went further and further down the path of crime, and were even offered a very high reward by the federal government, but these had nothing to do with Peterson.

He only knew that after this incident, the remaining miners in the entire mine were investigated by the police, and although he was not registered with the sheriff, he was suspected of colluding with the Russo brothers because of his always kind personality. So, five days after that murder, he lost his job.

Having lost their jobs and reputations, the Peterson family had no place to stay in Anissberg, and the family of three had to live in the mountains near Anissberg.

After a month of lack of food and clothing, his son starved to death in his wife's arms.

And his wife, who had been so much the talk of the people of Anissberg for her beauty, had become a disheveled, delirious madman after that night, and had disappeared into the vast primeval forests of Ambarino on a stormy night.

Since then, the legend of ghosts has appeared in the primeval forests of New Hanover and Ambarino, and at the same time, a man in search of ghosts has appeared.

He had found her many times and lost her many times.

He had found her on the shores of Moonstone Lake, where she was lying in front of the steaming hot pool, gulping down the sulphur-rich water. He grabbed her, but she broke free of him and fled, like a frightened wolf.

He had found her in the cave hidden behind the Pool of Bliss, wallowing in agony in the polluted water, her skin so horribly polluted that she no longer took on a human form, like a terrible monster. He carried her back to his makeshift camp, but only one night later, she was gone.

The last time he and her meet, in the primeval forest near the Viking Necropolis, she has completely turned into a mad beast, and a pack of wild wolves wants to hunt him down. He didn't want to kill her, he even wanted to die like this, so that he could be reunited with his wife and children in heaven, but the instinct to survive made him raise the machete he carried with him.

Knife after knife, until all living creatures except him were cut into a pile of flesh, and then he fell to his knees in despair, and wailed.

He didn't know how long he had been wandering in the primeval forest, and no one knew that the rumored person looking for the ghost had turned out to be a ghost as well.

Until one day, he fainted in front of a group of strangely dressed people, and when he woke up again, he naturally took these strangers for his brothers and sisters.

He accepted their mad teachings and believed in them, believing that everything he had experienced was created by this evil and filthy world, and that this world needed to be reshaped with blood and fire by people like them.

Now, what he needs to do is to stick to his post, patrol the area he is responsible for, and ensure the safety of other comrades in the camp.

Not far from the depths of the dense forest, there seems to be a strange movement.

Peterson was keenly aware of something was wrong, but he wasn't sure if the movement was a threat. So, he picked up his gun and approached the anomalous jungle alertly.

Peterson walked into the forest, which was as quiet as a wilderness night.

He thought it was his delusion just now, until the next second, a rope strangled his neck.

"Relax, relax," the voice clinging to him was like a nightmare, "don't struggle, don't resist, think about the good things you've been through, think about your family, whether you've lost them or not, think of heaven, bliss, or anything like that." ”

Peterson became more and more breathless, but his consciousness was more relaxed and lighter than ever, and the resentment and anger accumulated from his past experiences and misdeeds after joining the church seemed to be gradually fading away as his consciousness dissipated.

In a trance, he seemed to see his wife and children, his son was still so smart and energetic, and the wife holding his hand was as young and beautiful as when he first met.

The struggle of the body in his arms slowly weakened, and the stiff body slowly softened. Brandi slowly retracted the rope and reached out to probe the strange man's snort, which was faint, but fortunately, it was still there.

"Looks like you've listened to me," said Brandy, leaning down to look at the man he had strangled in, "and if you take it easy when you're suddenly strangled, you might be able to avoid death." ”

As a result, no one in the camp noticed that there was a familiar partner missing from the camp.

As if none of them had noticed, their companions were being brought down one by one by an elusive black shadow, dragged away, hidden out of sight.

Brandy tiptoed to the edge of a tent, grabbed a stone from the ground, and quietly threw it out, and in the camp, a congregant who was sitting by the fire heard the unusual movement, stood up, and walked in the direction of the noise.

He walked over to the thrown stone, picked it up, looked at the stone with some confusion, and looked around, but as soon as a blurry black figure appeared in his field of vision, his neck was pierced by a sharp arrow.

Brandi leaned over to the cultist he had just dealt with, pulled the arrow out of his neck, and groped around the man's body for a while, getting nothing of use except a few coins.

He kicked the body away and looked up, and there was only one person left drowsy next to the nearest fire, and although there were a few people nearby doing their jobs, no one noticed it.

So Brandi drew his bow and shot an arrow through the head of the congregation, who was unconsciously nodding his head, and then, as he had done before, he quietly walked over to the corpse, pulled out the arrow, and groped around the corpse.

Suddenly, he heard footsteps approaching, and by now, it was too late to retreat, let alone hide the body.

After finishing his patrol, Kevin Cooper changed shifts and returned to his tent to relax with some drinks with his friends Peter Jr. and Jefferson.

However, when he returned to the warm fire, he did not see his two friends. Where can they go now when they are not assigned to the class?

Kevin didn't think about it, and sat on the ground with his ass, ready to rest, but when he went down, he sat on a puddle of wet stuff.

He stood up like an electric shock, and found that he had just sat on a puddle of liquid, and he crouched down, his fingers a little stained, and in the light of the fire, he found that his fingers were dyed crimson.

Kevin realized that something was wrong, and when he had just returned all the way, he noticed that there seemed to be a lot fewer people in the camp, which he thought was a delusion, but now it seems that something terrible is happening.

As soon as he wanted to shout, he was tightly wrapped around his neck by a pair of extremely powerful arms, he struggled, coughed, and wanted to make at least a little shout to attract the attention of his nearby friends, but the next second, he was dragged into the tent behind him, and in a trance, he saw little Peter lying in the tent, his eyes closed, and a terrible piercing wound on his head.

He felt his throat sliced open by a sharp object, and it hurt a little, but it didn't hurt as much as he imagined, and what really made him feel fear from the bottom of his heart was that he clearly felt that life was flowing madly out of his body.

"It turns out that those who have had their throats cut by me feel this way before they die?" A moment before he became unconscious, this thought popped into Kevin's mind.

Brandi thrust his hunting knife back into its scabbard and gently wiped the liquid from his head, which was a mixture of his own sweat and the blood of his enemies.

He crept out of his tent and hid himself in the darkness again before the rest of the congregation noticed anything unusual.

After several back-and-forth attempts, the camp, which was originally filled with dozens of people performing their duties, became a dead place filled with the smell of blood and corpses.

However, when the number of people in the camp dropped sharply to a dozen people, some people began to find clues one after another, of course, a camp that originally had forty-three people inexplicably lost more than half of the people at once, and the remaining living people did not find anything abnormal, it was most likely because there was something wrong with the brain.

It's just that these people barely had a chance to make a sound, and they were executed by Brandi one by one in various ways, so that when the last person left in the camp noticed the anomaly, there was not a single conscious living person left in the camp except for him.

Scott Valentino looked at the young man standing across from him, armed with a revolver aimed at him, with a look of horror.

The man's black suit and white shirt under his coat were stained with blood, like a devil who had come out of the depths of hell, and the color of his bright red tie at the collar became more vivid in the firelight.

Scott was holding only a rusty knife in his hand, and his revolver was now in the open space a few meters away from him.

"You should know more than they do, seeing that you are dressed differently than everyone else here," said the man who looked like a demon of hell, "and you have three words to tell me where Bethany Dramel is." ”

"You...... Who are you? ”

"One sentence."

"I ...... I warn you, if you dare to kill me, we will not ......"

"Two sentences."

"I ...... I see, it turns out that the prophecy is true, and you are ...... if you say that you are not needed You must be ......"

"Bang!"

The gunshot rang out, and Scott had a clear bullet hole on his head, and his body slowly softened, and the blood slowly flowed into the fire, causing the flames to crackle and burn.

"Where does all this nonsense come from?" Brandi stepped forward angrily, fumbling around the still fresh corpse for a while, and finally found a small note.

He opened the note, read it carefully by the light of the fire, and a satisfied smile curled up on the corner of his mouth: "Sure enough, I expected it to be good, you can indeed provide me with more information." ”

Brandi was about to turn away, when suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind, he looked back at the corpse, and the smile on the corner of his mouth became a little sly: "But I think you can help me more in other ways, don't you?" ”

A hidden cave tucked away in the nearby mountains, less than half a mile from the camp.

The cave has clearly been altered, and the walls have been polished and strengthened to ensure its stability and the comfort of the people who live there.

The cave is not deep, and it only takes a dozen steps along the narrow and winding cave road to open up.

In the center of the cave, seven stone statues of the goddess stand in the middle of the stone chamber, which are in the same posture but with different facial expressions, joy, compassion, anger, indifference, sadness, weeping, hatred, just like all beings.

Under the stone statue, a woman in a black robe held a beautifully decorated dagger, her eyes closed, her hands open, as if to take the world into her arms, in front of her, there are two men and a woman, the woman in the center has a look of piety and expectation, and the men kneeling on both sides have a fresh cut on their foreheads, and even fresh blood flows out of it, leaving vertical and horizontal marks on their faces, but they don't seem to feel anything about it, just look at the one standing under the statue of the goddess with a fanatical face, A black-robed woman whose body seemed to be shrouded in a divine aura.

"Tell the Goddess that we are meeting here today for the sake of giving our new companion the eternal protection of the Goddess to help her to be brave, fearless, and invincible in the arduous struggle of the near future," said the black-robed woman, holding her hands aloft, reciting the words of prayer, and she opened her closed eyes and looked at the kneeling woman in front of her, "Kneeling one, the Goddess asks her through my mouth, will you bow down to the great cause of my teaching, and die?" ”

"I do." The kneeling woman said without hesitation.

"Are you willing to give your life to defend the glory of the goddess?"

"I do."

"Very well," the black-robed woman put down her hands, nodded, and said, "The goddess will use my hand to grant you the blessing of gifts, and may you not dishonor your oath today and become a loyal guardian of my religion." ”

As the dagger in the black-robed woman's hand was about to cut through the woman's forehead, an untimely voice interrupted the ritual of the sacred and the strange: "Sorry to interrupt, missionary, but I think our baptism can be over. ”

The black-robed woman looked at the uninvited guest with some confusion and annoyance, and said, "Scott, you should know that one of the main points of our gathering today is to inscribe stigmata for our new brothers and sisters, and you should also understand that interrupting the ceremony at such a time is one of the greatest acts of blasphemy against the Goddess and Her Excellency the Shepherd, and if you do not give a suitable reason now, I will definitely sue Your Excellency the Shepherd and give you the most severe punishment." ”

"The reason is simple, Bethany de la Mer," Scott said, slowly removing his hood to reveal Brandy's smiling face, "you're going to be finished." ”

"It's an intruder!" Bethany Dramel cried out in a panic, "The time has come to show your piety and loyalty, believers, kill him!" ”

Upon hearing Bethany Dramel's order, the three kneeling believers hurriedly got up, pulled out their revolvers hidden under their robes and fired wildly at the intruder.

Brandi took off his robe before they could shoot, and threw it casually, obstructing the other party's vision, and the indiscriminate shots from the opposite side all fell into the air.

The trio frantically shot the bullets in the chamber of the gun, only to shoot the robe to a thousand holes, and when they pulled the trigger only with a crisp "click", Brandy had a good chance to fight back.

Three gunshots, almost in unison, set a clear hole in the eyebrows of the three Protestants, and Brandy turned the revolver in his hand and stared at Bethany Dramel with a defiant look on his face.

Bethany Dramel saw the man in front of him kill the three gun-wielding believers in less than three seconds, like a god of killing, and knew that there was no way back. She tightened the dagger in her hand, shouted, and rushed at the young man, the tip of the dagger about to enter the man's chest and abdomen.

"Smack! Syllable! ”

Brandi was armed with a revolver, but instead of firing a shot, he fired his bow from side to side like a mouth, and two heavy blows landed on Bethany Demmel's face, knocking her unconscious.

"OK, it's another $300." Brandi removed the rope from his waist, tied Bethany Dramel tightly, carried it over his shoulders, and carried it away.

In the early morning of the next day, a search and arrest team composed of the Valentine police, the New Hanover State Marshal, and the Mounted Police, based on the information provided by the bounty hunter "Angel Eye", found a stronghold of the "Seventh Generation" sect in the Ambarino Mountains, because it seemed to have been washed in blood, so they did not make much effort, but took away the surviving members of the "Seventh Generation" sect, and set fire to the cave where the statues of the seven goddesses stood. It also recorded the great achievements of these heroic people who defended the people's happy life, which is both a fame and a political achievement.