Chapter 118: Astonishing News from Sasi County, Jier's Account

"It has been a while since I last saw you, Knight Jier. I am very glad that you successfully settled those numerous young refugees; if they had remained here, or at White Stone Pass, it would have caused great trouble." Old Mr. Bantuolisa wore a faint smile on his face and took the initiative to step forward and perform a merchant's salute to Jier.

Jier also simply touched his chest with a clenched fist, then pulled Mr. Bantuolisa over to the surrendered soldiers who were about to be handed over.

He let the old gentleman squeeze the arm muscles of these soldiers and inspect their excellent physical condition at close range: "How is it? These are all soldiers defeated by me. As for their origins, you can have someone ask them themselves later. Heh heh, I guarantee it will be a story that surprises you."

Afterwards, the two walked together toward the interior of the Merchant Guild. Jier's several subordinates remained in the lobby of the Golden Sickle Merchant Guild to wait, while those surrendered soldiers, strung together by ropes, were taken away under the guard of seven or eight shop assistants. They would be taken to a temporary jail nearby, and subsequently, they would have to undergo parasite treatment and the cleaning of their body hair.

The middle-level steward who had been in charge of this transaction previously followed carefully behind Jier and Mr. Bantuolisa, listening to their casual pleasantries, but he would not casually interrupt at this time.

"You must have encountered a lot of trouble with the affairs in Sasi County, right? Otherwise, just making a trip to Sasi County wouldn't take such a long time to go and return?" Mr. Bantuolisa was clearly very familiar with the time it took to travel between Duoen Town and Yemei Town. Even if Jier's team was not a transport caravan of the Merchant Guild, but consisted of hundreds of walking refugees, it should not have taken that much time to walk the entire journey there and back.

"You are right. These past days have truly been long enough, and many things have happened."

Jier shook his head and briefly spoke about the Parasitic Vine Monster, the hidden Dwarf village, and the rescue of the Changmai Cunzi villagers.

Clearly, this well-informed old gentleman already knew about the batch of Dwarf mercenaries in Jier's team. Although these people were not the professional alien warriors he had just heard about, was there a big difference between ordinary Dwarves and Dwarf warriors? They were all armored, so this was clearly unimportant. At the same time, he did not care about the survival of a remote village like Changmai Cunzi or what had happened there; instead, the news of the Parasitic Vine Monster spreading in Sasi County made him feel nervous.

"Parasitic Vine Monster? I once encountered snake-like creatures in the swamps of the Central Province that could parasitize and control human bodies, but how do vines parasitize human bodies?" He was somewhat surprised. It was not until the two found a place to sit on the top floor of this Merchant Guild that Jier briefly explained the terrifying nature of this Parasitic Vine Monster.

This was an open reception area on the top floor of the Golden Sickle Merchant Guild. There were also some resting Merchant Guild stewards and other merchants who had come to discuss trades around. Originally, the people here were each discussing their own affairs, but before long, everyone stopped talking and gathered around Jier, listening to him recount the affairs of Sasi County.

The crowd exclaimed from time to time, shocked that such a terrifying thing had happened in a place not too far from Duoen Town. Mr. Bantuolisa's expression remained unchanged, but his tightly clenched hands betrayed his nervousness.

However, since Jier had already been able to bring the extra surrendered soldiers from Sasi County, it was clear that this terrifying parasitic monster had already been dealt with.

At least it had been suppressed, right?

"The ending of the matter definitely exceeds your imagination!" Jier said decisively: "In the face of a fully mobilized Sasi County, especially with the addition of myself and my warrior subordinates, we finally launched a counterattack."

Jier specifically brought up the initiator and designer of the counterattack plan, Bell-Sasi, to boost the reputation of his young friend: "The Heir of the Sasi Family, Bell-Sasi, formulated a counterattack plan and organized the strength of Yemei Town and the civilians outside the town. The powerful churches in the town all sent out all the main Priests they could spare, and the temporarily increased Town Guards in the town also sent two or three hundred people to set out, plus the elite soldiers of his family, the various young men and women of the Knight Families, and their squires. This included the Armed Civilians of more villages, as well as my team."

"With such a large combat force, plus several local Merchant Guilds that provided full material support from the town, we launched a lively and determined counterattack battle a few days ago."

Jier gestured: "We divided into three routes. Bell-Sasi led the local elite forces to stick to the direction of the monster's lair northwest of the town, firmly blocking new monsters from entering Sasi County. The Sun God Church led a team of forces separately to march north, while I led my warrior subordinates, as well as some temporarily recruited caravan guards and shop thugs from the town who had no work, to go south to recover other villages..."

Jier briefly explained this process. Although he did not go into detail, he still indicated that in the battle to recover villages over several days of high-speed travel by carriage, their group had killed hundreds of Parasitic Vine Monsters, as well as a not-insignificant number of flower-headed monsters.

He also mentioned the matter of the Sun God Church's team attracting a large number of monster forces to the north side of the town, and Jier going over to rescue them.

"Finally, we swept through all the villages in Northern Sasi County and gathered everyone's strength in a village called Celebration Cunzi, northwest of the town."

"That village has a good name!" Mr. Bantuolisa nodded and said.

Jier also nodded, then spoke of the climax of the counterattack.

"The team was divided into two groups. Most of the forces approached Momona Cunzi along the main road from the main trade route, while I led elite warriors to cut across the mountains and forests in a straight line on the map, heading straight for Momona Cunzi against the forces sent by the Parasitic Vine Monster. And near Momona Cunzi, we accidentally encountered an unexpected third-party force—people from the Hunting God Church."

Speaking of this, Jier noticed that old Mr. Bantuolisa frowned. Clearly, there was something to this, but Jier did not ask about this on the spot, instead continuing: "After communication and exchange, we learned that the Hunting God Church was conducting its once-in-a-decade Great Hunting Ritual at this time. They had finally set their sights on the Alien Evil God behind the Parasitic Vine Monster, preparing to take this opportunity to deal with this alien deity who was hostile to humans."

Everyone present gasped in low voices. A deity—even if it was an alien Evil God hostile to humans—was an existence that ordinary people would not even dare to imagine. And the Hunting God Church actually dared to hunt and deal with such an existence; how did they dare? Did they have the ability to do so?

Old Mr. Bantuolisa looked at Knight Jier, who was telling an increasingly outrageous story, yet he himself did not have much doubt about the authenticity of the story. After all, there were simply too many people involved in this story. It was not some unknown little story that happened to a small adventure team of a few people, but a grand story that involved the survival and livelihood of thousands upon thousands of people.

The story Jier told could be verified by going to Sasi County, which was not very far away. If Jier's story was true, then it was clearly very easy to verify. And as a senior management member of the Duoen Town Chamber of Commerce Union, he also recalled that there had indeed been no caravans or news from Sasi County for a very long time recently.

One must know that there was a considerable amount of mineral dye mining in northern Sasi County, and there were several Merchant Guilds that made a living and traded based on this. Furthermore, Sasi County was a grain-producing region regardless of whether it was north or south. In the current state of war, the fact that such a grain-producing region had not transported large quantities of grain outward was itself very abnormal.

He had previously thought that Sasi County was not selling grain outward because it was located in a remote area, the logistics cost of grain was too high, and the loss on the road was too severe, so they had given up on grain sales and trade during this wartime period.

After all, the Bolisi-fa Ling, which was also a major grain producer nearby, was currently experiencing a local peasant rebellion. Tens of thousands of peasants had rebelled due to high taxes and had even counter-encircled Borisfa City. Even now, both sides were still in a stalemate.

Mr. Bantuolisa actually felt somewhat skeptical about this stalemate state. After all, the suppression forces within the town could not possibly be unable to suppress peasants numbering around ten thousand. Even if most of the army had been taken away by the Viscount of Borisfa to participate in the war, could the city not find a few warriors of Knight Rank?

Taking advantage of the night to go out and kill the leaders of the rebellious peasants should have been enough to suppress the rebellion in a few moves. That it was still in a stalemate was mostly because the rebellious peasants had no leaders, and large-scale strikes against the rebellious peasants might affect the local population and future grain revenue; the local Noble in charge was simply unwilling.

Returning to the topic, Mr. Bantuolisa withdrew his wandering thoughts and continued to listen to Jier recount the story of the three forces joining together to attack Momona Cunzi located in the mountains and forests.

"There was not a single living person left in the entire village. As the place where the Parasitic Vine Monster first broke out, this place seemed to have been controlled by the Evil God, who was impersonating other deity images, long before the incident happened. He built a huge Altar in a Rongdong under the village, and also set up evil sacrificial rituals in the village. The village's resistance was very fierce, even though all three of our parties brought out our true skills for the attack."

"Each church blessed everyone participating in the attack with numerous and varied Battle Divine Arts. The warriors' weapons flashed with white light, their Armor emitted flowing light, and because of the full support of the Sun God Church, it was as bright as day even at night! The Agricultural God Church blessed the warriors with Divine Arts to restore physical strength, and the Church of the God of Wealth also made everyone spirited and increased their courage. They would not be scared by the various terrifying-looking parasitic monsters!"

"And the Church of the God of the Dead, which had been busy dealing with corpses, also sent Priests to use their powers, which were particularly effective against parasitic monsters, to break some of the monsters. Of course, I also killed many monsters, and in fact, the number I killed was the highest!"

Jier said proudly. As for the method of killing, he did not say much. After all, this was not a good place for him to brag about himself, and there was not even any wine or drink at hand, which was truly inappropriate.

"Then, the Hunting God Church launched a Magic Arrow strike with great power from the village wall, blowing the entire wall into the sky and charging directly to a large tree from which new parasitic monsters were constantly emerging. I, along with Bell-Sasi and the elite forces of the churches accompanying the army, twelve people in total, charged down along the tree hole from which the monsters emerged as the first wave of assault forces, with the people from the Hunting God Church following closely behind."

"We advanced all the way along the underground cave, killing the parasitic monsters that kept coming, and finally, in the depths of the underground Rongdong, we found an Altar that the Evil God had built there. On that Altar was a teleportation channel, maintained by the Evil God, which kept sending endless Parasitic Vine Monsters from who knows how far away."

Jier took a deep breath when he said this: "Afterwards, we launched an attack on the summoning Altar of that Evil God. At this time, the main force of the battle changed to the Hunting God Church, which had been conserving its strength. That was the most spectacular battle I have ever experienced in my life. Although I am still very young, that was also the second most spectacular scene I have ever seen in my life."

"Second most spectacular?" Mr. Bantuolisa was somewhat puzzled. If crusading against a deity could only be the second most spectacular scene that Jier, a young Knight from the Northwest Province, had ever seen, then what was the first most spectacular scene?

"Oh, in my hometown, Kendall County, there is a spring flood that erupts from the upper reaches of the river every spring, lasting for several days. It pushes a large amount of silt and debris to spread along the river channel and the plains beside the river channel. The most fertile large tracts of land in the entire Kendall County came about this way. And at that time, two Priestesses beloved by the God of the Lake and River would use the vast and great power of this nature deity to perform the God's Miracle of the deity within the scope of the entire Sasi County, protecting all human settlements and villages under the invasion of the flood."

Jier had a proud expression when he spoke of these things: "Everyone, if you have the opportunity to go to Sasi County in the Northwest Province, you must witness that scene. I guarantee it will not disappoint you! The lake water of the entire lake is miraculously guided into the sky by the power, and every place in the entire county can look up and see it. Then, that massive amount of lake water turns into a mirror, shining and releasing power to protect every human settlement from being disturbed by the flood that is several meters high."

The surrounding merchants and Merchant Guild stewards were all surprised that Jier's hometown had such a grand scene, and it sounded like it could happen once every year?

Mr. Bantuolisa smiled and said: "Lipuerde will definitely like that scene. (Lipuerde-Autosfiten, a Senior Steward of the Treasure House Merchant Guild, young but sickly.) Having heard about the situation in your hometown, Knight Jier, he will definitely go and see it."

Afterwards, Jier briefly recounted how the Hunting God Church hunted and dealt with that Alien Evil God. The people around were all astonished to hear that even the God of Hunting himself had come in the end.

Compared with Jier's story—no, his recent experiences—it seemed that Duoen Town was unexpectedly 'peaceful'! Those brutal and bloodthirsty Bandit Groups seemed to have become kind-hearted and friendly.

After all, no matter what, those Bandit Groups eyeing the wealthy Duoen Town were also Humans. If they encountered them and did not resist, they would not die; they would mostly be captured to extort money. But the Parasitic Vine Monster supported by the Alien Evil God was simply hostile to Humans; encountering them basically meant there was only a dead end.

From Jier's story, everyone could hear one thing: Sasi County had clearly lost a large number of people in this catastrophe. After all, the parasitic monsters that Jier and the others killed were all innocent human civilians!

Not to mention the matter of the entire Momona Cunzi, with hundreds of people, all dying, being sacrificed, and being parasitized.

And this was even after Jier skipped over the many casualties caused by conflicts between the thousands of villagers crowding outside Yemei Town.

"Truly astonishing! Knight Jier, I pay my respects to you! Thank you for the contribution you have made to human survival!" Mr. Bantuolisa stood up and paid his respects to Jier. At this time, the merchant's salute he performed was much more solemn; he not only specifically stepped back one step, but also opened one hand toward the sky, put the other hand behind his back, and bowed.

Others present also followed Mr. Bantuolisa in paying their respects. However, based on everyone's assessment of the credibility of Jier's story, some performed more formal and solemn salutes, while others were much more casual.

It was not that they did not believe that these things had happened in Sasi County; after all, such major events were easy to verify. They just did not quite believe that a young Knight like Jier, as he had just recounted, was brave and good at fighting in the story and was an indispensable member.

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