Chapter 83: The Snake Wood Carving Delivering the Message

Jier's words lacked credibility, but now that the three of them were stripped and bound, and the other party was fully dressed and capable of ending their lives at any moment, there was no need for him to deceive them.

Especially judging by the tone of his speech, it seemed as if he wanted to reconcile.

One of the somewhat weakened bound Hunters gasped for a moment before speaking: "What... do you mean?"

Jier also spoke candidly: "I just learned from you that your primary goal now is to defeat the Evil God behind the parasitic monsters, right?"

The three Hunters, including the young Hunter who had been captured last night and still had his mouth gagged, all nodded together.

"That is good. I am temporarily hired by the Heir to the Baron of Sasi County, Bell-Sasi, and our mission is also to deal with the root cause that has caused such heavy losses to Sasi County. We are going to strike at Momona Village and destroy the enemy's lair. Originally, we intended to destroy the source from which the parasitic monsters emerged—most likely some kind of Altar for sacrificing to an Evil God—to sever the means by which the parasitic monsters appear in Sasi County."

"But the appearance of your Hunting God Church is actually an excellent opportunity!"

Jier held up a finger and said solemnly: "Since your Hunting God Church is confident in dealing with an Evil God, that is perfect. As long as you add the support of the forces from both Bell and myself, your current operation to crusade against the Evil God—a Great Hunt—will surely be completed!"

He gestured with his fingers, bringing his index finger and thumb slightly closer: "And compared to a powerful Evil God that is hostile to Humans, the ancient, weak deity that once relied on me to escape your pursuit is really nothing at all."

Jier smiled awkwardly but politely: "Wouldn't it be better to leave Him for the next operation to hunt a deity? After all, how can hunting an aged and weak prey compare to hunting a deity with full wings?"

This made a lot of sense; at least these three Church Hunters quite agreed with Jier's words, because some time ago, the Priests told them that they were changing the target of this Great Hunt from the original ancient, primitive deity to the Alien Evil God they had encountered here, and these Hunters were all incredibly excited.

Everyone is willing to do something in a great event, rather than just routinely participating in simple tasks arranged within the Church to please the gods.

After all, the Great Hunt of the Hunting God Church happens once every ten years; even a young Hunter brought in by elders in their teens can participate at most three times in a lifetime, and after reaching their forties, it is basically difficult for their bodies to meet the requirements for participating in the Great Hunt.

For many years before, many generations of Church Hunters participated in the kind of activity of hunting weak deities, and they had more than once told their juniors of the regret of never having participated in an intense hunting activity in their lives.

Therefore, when Jier said that he and Bell would lead their team to fully support their Church's hunting operation, these three Church Hunters were naturally happy.

"But... it is not up to us to decide."

The oldest of the three Church Hunters gasped and spoke.

Their two physiques were truly formidable; they had only recently eaten food containing Poison Mushroom Powder and suffered from severe diarrhea, and were subsequently tortured, yet their physical strength and spirit recovered not long after.

"Who decides?" Jier asked immediately.

The three looked at each other; the youngest Church Hunter looked reluctant, but his mouth was gagged, so he could not voice his objection, and even if he could speak, how could he, as a Church Hunter, interfere with the judgment of the Church Priest?

In the Hunting God Church, Priests and Church Hunters have an absolute superior-subordinate relationship, and Church Hunters are mostly subordinate to a fixed Priest; unless that Priest retires due to old age, the Church Hunters must obey the management and orders of the Priests.

High-end hunting is a very dangerous matter, so the Hunters participating in it must possess extremely high obedience.

Hunters who are too flighty or disobedient are marginalized within the Hunting God Church; large-scale hunting operations will never call them, and they can only hunt small Monsters in small places for their whole lives, with no hunting proof worth showing off.

If, if this hunt for the Alien Evil God succeeds, all the Church Hunters who participated in the operation can proudly boast to others in the Church in the future that they once assisted in hunting an Alien Evil God hostile to Humans; this is a major merit that can allow one to enter the Divine Kingdom of the god after death.

It is said that in the Divine Kingdom of the Hunting God, it is boundless, containing all the terrains and environments of the world, and it records and keeps all the prey the Church has ever hunted. There, every Hunter can enjoy endless adventures, challenging all kinds of enemies and prey.

Finally, the two Hunters whose mouths were not gagged said: "The three Priests leading this Great Hunt operation decide."

"They are 'The Grand One' Lord Mardo, 'Defender of the Grass Sea' Lord Fijierkesi, and our own 'Northlander' Lord Clark."

"Your idea must be conveyed to Lord Clark; only after he knows, and the three Priests have discussed it, can they judge your meaning."

The two of them said in turn.

Jier shrugged: "Then how do we notify them? Relying on human messengers? Or using flying eagles?" He guessed that the Hunting God likely raised some hunting eagles that could fly in the sky to deliver messages; on one hand, hunting eagles could assist in hunting, and on the other, they delivered messages without fear of being attacked by other birds in the air, which would cause the message to fail to be delivered.

But Jier did not expect that he had guessed wrong.

"On each of our bodies, there is a wooden Snake Wood Carving; praying to it and reciting the Prayer praising the Hunting God can make it come alive, and they will quickly deliver the message," one Hunter said.

The other person knew Jier might have misunderstood something, so he added: "Don't underestimate them; these things are very magical. They will find dark places to burrow into on their own, then disappear, quickly crossing long distances to appear directly in the dark places beside the Priest."

Jier hurriedly found the items on the three of them. Of course, to convey goodwill, Jier untied the three, had people give them some new clothes to wear, and returned the Hunting Bows with the Bowstring removed to the three of them.

The two Hunters who had eaten Jier's spiked flatbread could not wear their original clothes until they were washed clean.

Other personal belongings and various oddly shaped Arrow were still being held by Jier.

From the three people's personal belongings, only two coiled Snake Wood Carvings were found. Jier held this palm-sized object, examined it for a while, and handed one to the other party.

"If you have any message to convey, you can wait a moment and write it on the Scroll spat out by this living wooden snake."

The Church Hunter added, then this person knelt on the ground and whispered to the small coiled wooden snake. Jier listened carefully and found it was a simple Prayer, seemingly a Prayer of praise to a certain animal deity under the Hunting God.

Soon, under Jier's gaze, this small wooden carving placed on the ground trembled slightly, and then the entire wooden carving quickly displayed vivid colors; a small, dull-looking wooden snake began to move its head left and right, turning into the appearance of a real snake.

It flicked its tongue, slowly looked around at the people nearby, then opened its mouth and spat out a Scroll as big as its head toward the Church Hunter who was praying to it.

This Scroll was only the size of a thumb and looked like it could not hold much content.

The Church Hunter picked up the Scroll from the ground and handed it to Jier: "If you want to convey any content to the Priest, write it yourself. But please, if you want to explain our situation, please gloss over it briefly, I beg you."

Jier nodded knowingly. He knew that the three of them being defeated and controlled by him like this was a very shameful thing. People all need dignity; as long as he and his people do not talk about it, and these three are tight-lipped among themselves, there will be no problem as long as they can hold out until after dealing with the Evil God.

If the process of the three of them being captured so embarrassingly is known by the superior Priests before the Evil God is resolved, then the three of them will likely not have the opportunity to participate in the crusade against the Evil God. And if this matter is kept hidden, after the three participate in the crusade against the Evil God, by virtue of having participated in the crusade against the Evil God, no one will say anything more about the three being captured.

After all, compared to crusading against an Evil God, being captured by Jier, the original prey, due to carelessness, is not a big problem.

Jier took the Scroll, pulled open the blank Scroll, walked to the side to borrow paper and pen from the Yemei Town government official accompanying the team, and only then, after thinking for a while, wrote down the content to be delivered to the Hunting God Church.

Banbo Wood Village, inside the treehouse at the center.

From time to time, a few Hunters resting on the ground would go out to replace their companions patrolling the surroundings.

These Church Hunters who followed the three Priests had remarkable means; ordinary parasitic monsters would just be free kills when encountering them, and only some powerful flowering monsters could bring them a little bit of trouble.

But that was only a little bit of trouble.

If it were not for dealing with the Evil God that appeared in Momona Village, just by the means of these Church Hunters, they would have easily destroyed Momona Village along with a large area of surrounding mountain forest long ago.

In fact, this Great Hunt was originally expected to take more than a year, starting from the intentional release of the Great Bird deity, then continuously exterminating the faith of the Great Bird deity that spread along the way, giving the other party strong pressure all the way, allowing a deity that might fall at any time to display all its skills before death.

This was part of the originally planned Great Hunt.

The only team directly tracking was the team of 'Northlander' Priest Clark, while the other two Priests led their men to clear out the faith groups of the Great Bird deity that had spread along the way. This included civilians who believed in it by mistake, wild ownerless bird flocks, some bird Monsters conquered by the Great Bird deity, and so on.

The whole process was not only a hunt, a long ritual to please the gods, but also a training and practical test for their respective Church Hunters.

And as the higher-ranking 'The Grand One' Priest Mardo, he would choose the right time, judge that the Great Bird deity had no new tricks, and lead his men to strike, completely killing the poor Great Bird deity.

Offering this ancient, primitive, and backward deity as a rare and precious sacrifice to their great Hunting God.

The Hunting God has few believers, and although the Church is a righteous god church, it is mostly established in remote and backward areas. What allows it to become a powerful and famous Human deity is the Great Hunt held simultaneously in various places every ten years.

The three Priests sitting on chairs, each with their eyes closed, were at this moment concentrating on manipulating Divine Power, working together to assist the old Priest Mardo in creating and stabilizing that special Arrow capable of dealing with a deity.

A small snake crawled out from the shadows of the room, quickly slithering to the feet of Priest Clark, flicking its tongue softly.

Seeing that it was a communication sent by his subordinate, the young Priest Clark opened his eyes, looked down, and immediately recognized the small snake at his feet as one carried by one of the two men sent to deal with Jier.

"They must have successfully completed the mission and are reporting back to me."

He thought this, then lowered his head and reached out his hand.

Every small snake Wooden Carving used for communication is different; in fact, every small snake Wooden Carving is personally carved by the Priest to whom the Church Hunter belongs. Therefore, by just taking one look at the appearance of the small snake at their feet, most Priests can quickly recognize which of their subordinates sent the intelligence report.

The brightly colored small snake immediately opened its mouth to spit out a thumb-sized Scroll, then transformed into a Wooden Carving and coiled up.

But Priest Clark only opened and glanced at the Scroll in his hand, and his eyes widened significantly; he even stood up in an agitated state.

"What is it?"

The Old Priest Mardo in the middle chair did not even open his eyes as he asked casually.

"Hiss—how should I put this."

Priest Clark was extremely embarrassed at this moment; he was very ashamed to speak the message on the Scroll, but the content was something that had to be told to his companions, yet he would inevitably lose face and be unable to hold his head up in front of the other two.

"If you think it is necessary, then say it. If you feel it is not suitable for others to overhear, then let the Hunters go outside the house to stretch their bodies. After all, they have been sitting for a whole night; many of them should move their bodies to warm up for the upcoming Great Hunt."

The Old Priest said this calmly, as if nothing could make him feel surprised.

On the other side, the middle-aged Priest did not pay any attention to Clark's affairs, instead focusing on minimizing the consumption of his own Divine Power while providing it to the Old Priest. After all, every bit of Divine Power is an important resource; saving a little here and a little there would likely save enough Divine Power to craft one Magic Arrow.

And for the Hunters under his command to have one more powerful Magic Arrow naturally meant that they could do more things. Correspondingly, it also meant that the influence and strength of him, the Priest, were that much stronger.

Of course, the quantity of Magic Arrows is important, but sometimes the diversity and the Monster materials used to craft the Magic Arrows are also important.

Priest Clark once had a Demon Horn Magic Arrow under his command, a powerful Magic Arrow crafted from the rare horn of a Demon. Unfortunately, the Hunter he valued highly had died while tracking that young Knight known as 'Little Crow'.

The originally infinitely powerful Magic Arrow was also wasted for no reason on a worthless stretch of Shulin; if it had been kept until now, that Hunter who wielded the Demon Horn Magic Arrow would surely be among the main force of Hunters crusading against the Evil God.

It could not be said to be completely worthless; at least that Shulin, which had been burned to white ash, made the Hunters and Priests who subsequently checked the situation understand that the Demon Horn Magic Arrow, which was rarely used in the past, was truly terrifying in power.

But precisely because it was too terrifying, the Hunter who released the Magic Arrow likely died under their own Magic Arrow as well.

It is a pity that the Demon Horn Magic Arrow burns the Spirit of life; the Hunters who died under the Demon Flame likely had their Spirits used as fuel, transformed into flames, and burned away.

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