While the soldiers of the fortresses throughout the Green Valley were celebrating the grand harvest festival, another city far away in the wilderness was also gathering for an ancient celebration, albeit much more "traditional".

The wind swept the fallen leaves, and the cold moonlight also shone on the tribe of the Red Horse Clan, the largest ancient clan in this land.

Wearing a delicate sheep's horn helmet and a bloody wolf skin, the Great Chief of the Red Horse walked out of the chieftain's hall, surrounded by his most trusted warriors and relatives - naturally, Gracchus, who had "visited" the fortress as an emissary, followed humbly to the Great Chief's left hand side, without the slightest arrogance.

But the Grand Chief of the Red Horse didn't even glance at him, and all his attention was on the altar in the center of the settlement. The hanging red horse totem swayed back and forth in the wind, as if it were really a horse galloping in the dark night - the sound of the horn was its neighing, and the sound of the drum was the gallop of iron hooves!

The Golden Altar was already crowded with people - not only the entire clan had come to take part in the celebration, but even the war tribes that had effectively loyal to them and sought refuge in them. Tens of thousands of tribesmen and barbarian warriors, countless tribal totems of all sizes can make anyone believe that the entire southern Hantu tribe is already here!

There was a deep frenzy in the cheers, and the faces of all the people were filled with almost mad excitement, and they kept dancing to the ancient carols and the trembling drums. Wave after wave of "storms" was set off around the altar. Even loud voices can be drowned out in an instant. Even the warriors of the Guards who were still trying to maintain order. Neither the spear nor the shield in his hand could calm down the already utterly chaotic order.

This is power, power, anyone who stands in the way should be crushed! The same fanatical Grand Chief of the Red Horse, trying his best to maintain his excitement, climbed the altar from the only path in the crowd, and suddenly waved his hand behind him, and Gracchus and the others who followed him immediately knelt on the ground, and the music suddenly stopped. The cheering crowd spread outward like a fluctuating tidal wave, centered around the altar, and bowed respectfully at the feet of the great chief.

The ancient settlement, where the altar has stood for an unknown number of generations, the dried blood is still as bright as new - the powerful Red Horse clan is completely different from those small settlements, and you can get hordes of sacrificial priests and ancestral spirits anytime and anywhere, so that the clan can grow stronger, and let the ancestral spirits protect them in every battle.

And for this time the sacrifice was prepared in advance, and it was also unprecedented grandeur - the captured merchants and mercenaries from Turin. Wandering knights, and even a few nobles from the countryside. And many more, the traitors of the tribe who had betrayed the Akama clan, knelt down in front of the altar, waiting for the crimson stone platform to be filled with blood once more.

The dancing priests lifted the sacrifice and pressed it on the stone platform, and Gracchus, who was standing next to him, presented the sacrificial knife to the great chieftain, and the solemn face of the Grand Chief of the Red Horse suddenly waved, and the silver knife light flashed in mid-air under the light of the countless butter braziers around, and opened his arms with a bit of sadness, and it seemed that even the air around him was solemn.

"O ancestral spirit who rides the red horse galloping through the dome, open your eyes, your descendants are being mutilated by these vicious devils!"

"The Turineans, who believe in evil monsters and ugly sins, are defiling our ancient homeland!"

"They mutilated young children, defiled women, intimidated the elderly, enslaved the young, turned the proud and proud Hantu people into their slaves, and used these ugly devils as cattle and horses!"

"The ancient clans were slaughtered by them one by one, and their homes were burned in the flames!"

"Open your eyes, open your eyes and see, show the way for your descendants!"

The Grand Chief of the Red Horse roared in a mournful voice, and every time he said a word the altar was accompanied by the clamor of a mountain and a tsunami, and the angry roar seemed to have tore through the dark sky.

The chaotic roar, the anger and sorrow that permeated the entire altar, the noisy roar became more and more neat, and the Great Chief of the Red Horse, who was standing in front of the altar, pointed at the sharp blade in his hand, and all the roars turned into the same sentence.

"Blood debt and blood payment!"

"Blood Debt and Blood Repayment-!!!"

"Ahhh

The miserable shout was mixed with the big chief's excited and excited roar, and the sharp tip of the knife directly tore through the flesh and blood outside, as if the big chief who couldn't wait broke the ribs on the outside roughly, and his right hand reached into the chest cavity that was still exuding heat, and pulled out the hot heart directly!

Not caring about the blood stained all over his body, the big chieftain who was clutching his heart tightly turned around and stood in front of everyone, and he was greeted by the cheers of the whole square!

The fanatical tribesmen raised their hands and danced to the eerie rhythm of the drums. The priests standing around the altar busily chopped the still twitching corpses into pieces, and the blood that spurted out had filled a large wooden barrel and splashed it under the altar, leaving the head on the altar.

But this is not the end, one head after another was cut off, one heart after another was dug out, the hideous heads were piled up on the altar, the gurgling blood flowed around the altar, pushing the surrounding atmosphere to a climax again and again, and the excited and frenzied shouts never stopped for a moment!

By the early morning of the next day, the whole sacrifice had already ended. On the uninhabited altar, a tall hill of human heads is piled up, or it can be described in another word - Jingguan!

The entire square of the settlement was already full of blood, and the blood that had not dissipated for a long time could even reach the calf, and the fragments of the corpses soaked in it emitted a thick stench, but there were still many priests kneeling in the blood, holding human skin drums to beat strange rhythms, and chanting sacrificial prayers in low voices.

Standing at the edge of the square, Gracchus stood at the edge of the square, looking at the corpses, but his eyes were filled with disgust - as a mercenary, he had traveled to many places, the castles and countryside of Turin, the bustling city-states of Dominica, the exotic lands of the West Coast, and the different civilizations of the island states...... But no matter what land it is, this kind of human sacrifice will be seen as barbaric and ignorant.

He had only regarded these prejudices as someone else's, but over time he had to admit that there was some truth - even in the Turin, which they hated, the captives they captured were either sold for money or used as slaves, and there had never been such a move.

But this was the custom and the tradition, and Gracchus knew very well that the Great Chief would waste the slaves and the tribal tribute, and that he would also hold this sacrifice in order to unite all the forces of the entire Red Horse Clan - that damned Edward Wetwood had become so clear that they would either surrender or go to war, and there would be no second way at all!

"It's been more than ten years, and I have the impression that even the big tribes in the north have never held such a grand sacrifice, the ancestral spirits must be very happy, right?" Just when he was still in a trance, the same tired big chief also walked over, patted Gragu on the shoulder, and there was a bit of hope in his tone: "It will definitely bless us with a great victory, Brother Gracchu!"

"Yes, the time has come to punish the Turinetes - the fierce snowstorm will make the Turinetes feel the wrath of the ancestral spirits, and they will all die in this winter. Gracchus, whose eyes were burning, nodded, and replied, half in agreement and half solemnly.

"The red horse totem will inevitably float on the tower of that fortress!" (To be continued.) )