Chapter 8: Forest Banshee! The End of the Old Era

Night falls.

A rustling sound suddenly came from the dense forest, followed by a burly figure wearing a gray hood, light gray studded leather chainmail, brown arm guards on both hands, black fingerless gloves, bandages wrapped around his waist, and gray leather long pants on his lower body.

Under his hood was a pair of cold, ruthless eyes. When he narrowed his eyes slightly, his pupils changed like a cat, presenting a contour close to vertical pupils, but closer to the legendary dragon pupils.

This fierce figure seemed to possess an unusually keen sense of smell. A cloth bag hung from his waist, seeping with dark red blood, looking like a head from the contour.

"The breath of witchcraft."

This fierce figure drew his long sword, squatted down to check the corpses on the ground, and his expression was surprised: "One-hit kill? Frankish throwing axe?"

"An old hand."

He looted a bag from the ranger's corpse, which was food, a bit like highland barley flour. He picked up a wisp and tasted it, soon eating half of it with a water bottle. Then this person walked out of the forest, running at high speed along the country road, his agility far exceeding barbarian berserkers, completely relying on instinct to avoid obstacles along the way.

Running wildly all the way.

This agile figure finally stopped where a group of crows stayed. He pressed his palm on the sword hilt, observed the surroundings vigilantly, and finally squatted down, seeming to be searching for something.

But he seemed to have gained nothing.

This figure didn't want to give up. He took down the cloth bag from his waist, took out a hideous head covered with black thorns and hair, pried open the head with a long sword, dug out a small lump of dark yellow substance that seemed like grease, and finally fiddled with a few bottles and jars and drank it. His eyes directly turned into vertical dragon eyes, chasing the traces invisible to mortal eyes and arriving at the river channel.

"Crow Queen-Triss."

This figure instantly turned his head to look at a group of crows staying on the tree branch not far away, his expression extremely solemn, muttering: "Unexpectedly, I could track down one of the founders of the witch gathering."

The ground trembled slightly.

There was the neighing of warhorses in the distance, looking like hundreds of riders.

This fierce figure hesitated slightly, but chose to avoid and leave. His personal combat power was indeed amazing, but he was not the opponent of the army. He didn't take three or five warriors in his eyes, but he had a hard time with ten or so people, and if he encountered a small team of soldiers, he would likely be surrounded and killed by the army.

If he faced these hundreds of cavalry head-on, they could trample him into a pool of meat.

The moon rose, light red, ominous.

The convoy abandoned the goods and traveled day and night, finally arriving at a resting point before it was too dark to walk.

Deng Ken didn't dare to relax his vigilance, closed his eyes and dozed off. Everyone only rested for three hours, and set off again at dawn. The wounded in the team had already fallen into a coma, breathing weakly on the carriage, and didn't know how long they could hold on.

Finally, on the afternoon of the second day, the convoy saw a small town from afar.

Upon inquiry, everyone had arrived at the northern province of Pannonia.

For Deng Ken, he had only fled for three days, but for other refugees in the convoy, they had fled for five full days, and for a while, many people burst into tears of survival.

The guards sent the leader to the town, urgently looking for a herbalist to save him.

Some people's wounds were only simply bandaged, and now they were festering, and the guard leader was seriously losing blood. If he wasn't treated quickly, it was estimated that he could eat a banquet in these two days.

After the Empire conquered the northern barbarians, it also absorbed part of their cultural traditions.

The herbalists in the north were unique within the Empire's territory, and their medical level far exceeded other regions, because their predecessors were the priests of the Celts, that is, the legendary Druids. Nowadays, among many barbarian tribes, the Celts have weakened, and most of the Gaul region has been completely assimilated by the Empire, but their herbal science has been passed down in the way of doctors.

The barbarians in the Empire's mouth today mainly refer to the Germans. The West Germans are familiar barbarians and have been conquered by the Empire for hundreds of years, forming the ruling group of the five major tribes. The North Germans settled in cold regions and are a branch of the raw barbarians, often harassing and attacking the Empire's borders.

Besides, barbarians have many tribal branches. The Empire's cultural tradition is extremely arrogant, treating most surrounding tribal nations as barbarians.

At present, the barbarian mercenary armies of the Empire are the most capable of fighting, with the Franks being the most capable.

During the peak of the Empire, they once mobilized 36 legions, nearly 300,000 troops, to launch conquest wars against surrounding barbarians. Basically, the familiar barbarians who integrated into the Empire were those who accepted the Empire's cultural transformation at that time. During the reign of Constantine I, a large number of barbarians also moved into the Empire, and they gradually became the backbone of the army. This part of the barbarians became the backbone of the army after being assimilated by the Empire.

Most of the legions that can still fight in the Empire today are barbarian generals.

The Empire's orthodoxy is really in the barbarians!

In hundreds of years, the corruption from top to bottom has made the Empire weaker and weaker, and they have long since lost the ambition and bravery of conquering the continent that year.

"It seems this is likely Earth in a parallel universe."

As soon as Deng Ken entered the town, he saw the cross of the church. Polytheism had withdrawn from the stage of history, and the Empire's state religion was now Catholicism. The witch hunt was initially initiated by the church, but it was not aimed at witches at the beginning, but at hitting all heretics, including the polytheism that was once the orthodoxy of the Empire.

Since the promulgation of the 'Edict of Milan', in the history of more than a hundred years, monotheism had occupied an absolute advantage, and polytheism gradually disappeared, until the last altar was demolished.

The priestly inheritance left over from the polytheistic period was judged by many as male and female witches who used witchcraft. This was the origin of the 'witch hunt' launched in advance.

Simply put, it was more like unifying faith, cutting down mountains and breaking temples, and rooting out.

It was also from that time that rumors about supernatural power became less and less.

Everyone found an inn to rest.

Everything here was still quite different from the Earth in Deng Ken's memory, but he needed to collect more information to understand more deeply.

Alma Gun ran around diligently to serve, and Deng Ken couldn't look at it anymore. He threw him two silver coins to find a doctor to treat the arrow wound on his butt. This guy's wound cracked, and his butt was still bleeding, but he gritted his teeth and acted like a dog-legged guy serving left and right.

After Deng Ken entered the room to rest, he began to organize his spoils.

There were not many things he could bring, mainly coins. During the Augustus period, the Empire clarified the monetary system of gold, silver, and copper. The most common was the denarius silver coin, and later several small silver coins were minted as auxiliary coins. The patterns of early denarius silver coins were different, but later they were unified as the head of Augustus, and the back was the Triumphal Arch, which was also the most common type of silver coin at present.

6 gold, 56 silver, and some copper coins.

One gold coin came from the sinister knight, three from the barbarian routed soldiers, and two were searched from the rangers, but one gold coin was printed with a bearded head wearing a crown, and I don't know which country's currency it was. It might be a gold coin from the Mesopotamia region.

Most of the silver coins were denarius, and a small amount of other countries' currency was searched from the rangers.

Clang, clang, clang.

Deng Ken put away the coins in front of him. This was all his family wealth right now.

After entering the town, the food was much better. The staple food was dry bread, a bit like a baguette, originating from the Frankish region, served with smoked meat vegetable soup, plus a small sausage. Accommodation and three meals a day cost two silver coins. It seemed that the purchasing power of silver coins was not very high.

After all, the annual salary of an Empire infantryman was about 225 denarii.

In these years, the Empire has been in endless war. In fact, many soldiers didn't receive much salary. Once they fought, not many people sold their lives for the Empire.

"The silver content doesn't seem high. This Empire is going to finish!"

Deng Ken picked up a silver coin and looked at it, and threw it back into the money bag casually. He wasn't a 'refined Roman' in his previous life. If the Empire finishes, it finishes. He didn't mind pushing it. Now the Empire is supported by barbarian armies. When the barbarians don't do it, the Empire's collapse is in an instant.

Night falls.

Deng Ken sat cross-legged and meditated to enter God's eye view, pondering what functions his cheat hadn't developed yet.

According to his understanding, the soul he transmigrated with was bound to that void dimensional space, and the human body was the key for him to enter the reality world. If the human body died, he could only sleep in that void for an unknown amount of time, maybe he would sleep to death inside.

Deng Ken felt that his soul was still a mortal soul, and the human body should be a very important tool for him now.

Consciousness entered the void.

Under God's eye view, all the population of the town was marked. The most eye-catching was still the witch living in the room next to the inn. That skull mark was really too bright, just like a world-class BOSS moving around.

Other units were scattered in every corner of the map, with quite a few one-star marks, and a two-star unit, marked as 'Retired Centurion'.

Deng Ken was curiously observing the information of this town with God's eye view.

Suddenly.

On the edge of the map, a striking golden three-star mark unit appeared. His dress was quite capable, hood, chainmail, long sword on his back, silently climbing over the wooden wall and entering the town.

—Witcher (Dragon-blooded) 【Neutral Unit】!

Hiss!

The three gold stars on this guy were so bright.

If using the perspective of playing Medieval Total War before, this guy was at least an elite unit, with the strength to solo a small team of soldiers. As for the witch in the convoy, she was undoubtedly a hero unit, unfathomable in strength, and the strongest supernatural individual Deng Ken had seen so far.

"It seems these supernatural units are all neutral camps."

"Do they keep a distance from the secular world?"

Deng Ken carefully observed through God's eye view and confirmed that the other party only had one sword, not carrying a silver sword and a steel sword with him.

Strength is very strong!

This guy wandered around the town, just like Assassin's Creed. A running jump, grabbing the eaves, rotating 180 degrees, relying on powerful core strength to turn over, just in an instant, he jumped onto the roof.

Such a high-difficulty action was simply not something an ordinary person could do.

That Witcher approached the inn, but he hesitated in the alley. Deng Ken zoomed in and adjusted the brightness, seeing the other party have an action of weighing the money bag, and then he turned and drilled into the shed next to him, lying directly on the straw pile in the livestock shed.

The time is approaching 2:00 AM. It's not cost-effective to stay in the inn at this time. Looking at the other party's actions, Deng Ken guessed it was to save money, and it might also be convenient to monitor nearby.

"Denarius depreciates, Witchers don't have much money?" Deng Ken wanted to laugh a little.

As expected of the Empire.

A slight movement came from next door. The witch's mark moved. She walked out of the room, stood in the corridor, then paused for a few seconds, then stood still in front of Deng Ken's door for a while, and then silently walked toward the outside of the inn.

"Should I follow and see?"

The witch had already left the inn, Deng Ken hesitated slightly and followed.

Under God's eye view, he didn't need to follow too closely, as long as he didn't leave the map field of vision, the witch shouldn't be able to find him.

Deng Ken's mind controlled the character, following quietly from the side perspective, with an interval of about 150 meters.

Livestock shed, haystack, the Witcher with the golden three-star mark turned over and got up.

"Are the five senses so keen?" Deng Ken was highly alert instantly.

But under God's eye view, the Witcher also hunched his body and followed quietly, keeping a distance of about fifty meters, acting very carefully, as if afraid of being discovered by Deng Ken.

This is one following one.

The witch had no footsteps when acting, just like a ghost drifting. If Deng Ken hadn't opened the cheat, he wouldn't have found it at all. The Witcher didn't track the witch, but noticed Deng Ken's footsteps, so he indirectly tracked the witch's traces.

"What is she going to do?" Deng Ken was slightly puzzled.

The witch left the town all the way and entered the dense forest. If he hadn't opened God's eye view, Deng Ken would have lost her long ago.

Don't know how far she walked, a moon

A tall oak tree appeared ahead.

Under Deng Ken's God's-eye view, the witch had already removed her mask, revealing a face so beautiful it was almost eerie, as if she were not human, but rather a legendary succubus who bewitched all living things. The skin on her exposed neck and collarbone was so white it almost reflected light, a cold, porcelain-like pallor; even the most pampered noblewomen of this era rarely possessed such skin.

"High Priestess, save me!"

Just then, a hazy phantom emerged within the open woodland ahead, presenting the silhouette of a beautiful woman. Her form gradually became clear as she stepped out from the reflection of the oak tree and knelt directly before the witch, pleading, "Save me!"

Huh?!

Deng Ken's pupils dilated slightly.

——Forest Nymph (Dryad) 【Neutral】!

Forest nymphs in Greek mythology, also known as dryads or forest goddesses, refer to natural spirits who are of lower status, young, and beautiful. They live on mountain peaks (Oreads), by springs and rivers (Naiads), or within forest trees (Dryads). They symbolize the irrational, animalistic side of human nature. Legend has it that every oak tree is inhabited by a spirit, and these spirits convey oracles to humans through forest nymphs.

Another supernatural unit.

However, she only has a one-star rating; I fear her combat power is nothing to speak of.

The witch frowned slightly and shook her head, saying, "I am not a priestess."

"The era of priestesses has already passed."

Just as the forest nymph revealed a trace of pity and despair, the witch added softly, "What danger have you encountered?"

Hearing the witch's words, the forest nymph seemed to have grasped at a final straw, her voice sorrowful: "Witch hunters!"

"The Church's witch hunters."

"They want to exterminate us all!"

"A very powerful witch hunter has arrived here, and he will absolutely not let me go!"

"My lady, save me."

Hearing the forest nymph's words, Deng Ken subconsciously turned his head to glance at the monster hunter following behind. After entering the forest, he had lost track of him, falling a hundred or two hundred meters behind, but he seemed skilled at tracking and was slowly catching up again.

However, he seemed to have tracked the wrong location, bypassing Deng Ken and heading straight toward the witch.

………………