How come this arcanist is invincible?

Chapter 94 Sacrificial Ritual

"Not bad perception," Rufus said, his tone unreadable. "How did you detect me?"

"Does it matter?" Kane slowly drew his scimitar.

Rufus chuckled, his voice muffled and distorted through his helmet:

"That's right, then come back with me."

Continue your unfinished mission.

"Continue the Stigmata ritual, and then summon that demon, Aurath, whose true name is uncertain?"

Kane retorted, a mocking smile playing on his lips.

"It seems you already know."

Rufus's smile vanished instantly.

"I don't care about those trivial matters, but your journey ends here."

Kane gripped his scimitar, revealing his gleaming white teeth:

"You and your colleagues probably don't get along very well, do you?"

"Oh? Why do you say that?"

Rufus raised his shield, assuming a defensive stance.

"If our relationship wasn't so bad, why would they let you face me alone? It's practically suicide."

Before Kane could finish speaking, he suddenly moved and swung his sword down.

On the other side, Rufus's iron boots shattered the stone slabs, and using the momentum of his charge, he rammed into Kane like a battering ram, carrying his gilded sword and shield.

The shield tip was aimed directly at Kane's chest with tremendous force.

Kane twisted to the side and parried with his sword, the scimitar scraping against the shield with a harsh screech.

The two were locked in combat in an instant.

Rufus's gaze suddenly sharpened, and he roared, "Cleave!"

The sword blade, accompanied by a sharp gust of wind, slashed down, striking the ground and leaving a deep dent.

"Prepare to have your arms and legs chopped off!"

Rufus grinned menacingly and intensified his attacks.

Just then, Kane shouted in a low voice:

"Cloud and Mist Technique!"

A thick white fog instantly spread between the two of them, obscuring their vision.

Rufus scoffed:

"A mere first-level spell? We've been fighting the Drow for years, we're used to blind combat!"

Before he could finish speaking, a strange noise suddenly came from the pile of rubble beside him!

So he turned around and slashed angrily with his sword!

The dull thud of a sword blade piercing flesh rang out; it was the deathly pale corpse of a drow.

The corpse's arm was severed instantly.

"It's a secondary reanimated corpse!"

Rufus's face darkened, alarm bells rang in his mind, and a sharp pain shot through his back.

Kane's scimitar had already slashed a deep gash in his back, and blood instantly soaked through his light armor.

In the mist, Rufus blindly brandished his sword and shield.

Kane, however, kept his eyes closed, using water manipulation to sense the opponent's location while simultaneously using his mage hand to manipulate the rubble to confuse them.

He was like a hunter in the shadows, occasionally using his scimitar to precisely slice through the weak points of Rufus's armor, creating wounds that were neither too deep nor too shallow, but which bled profusely.

"We can't kill him; we have to keep him alive and extract information from him."

Kane calmly calculated in his mind.

Just as he saw his opportunity and prepared to strike Rufus's weapon away, a hoarse roar came from the mist:

"Bell! How long are you going to hide?!"

Kane's expression changed drastically as a giant crossbow bolt suddenly pierced through the clouds, whizzing past his ear.

The strong wind carried by the crossbow bolts dispersed most of the fog.

Kane looked up and saw the ranger Bell leading a squad of lightly armored scouts, aiming their crossbows at him.

Rufus covered his wound with a cruel smile on his face.

"You traitor! You didn't expect that, did you?"

Rufus shouted to the crowd:

"This deadling of the Night's Watch has committed treason, colluded with the Drow, and leaked military secrets!"

We want him alive! Cut off his hands and feet and take him back to camp for disposal!

Before he finished speaking, dozens of light crossbow bolts came whistling through the air.

Kane didn't hesitate at all; his blood surged instantly.

His figure became a blurry afterimage, tumbling and spinning among the ruins, but he was still grazed by several weapons.

Without changing his expression, he used the ruins, broken walls, and fallen beams as cover to flee deeper into the city.

The shouts, warning whistles, and chaotic footsteps of Nord soldiers surrounded them from all directions.

Kane remained calm; he had anticipated all of this.

Thanks to his immortality and the ability to recover his strength, he was not afraid of being pursued.

But just as he was about to continue his escape as planned,

Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of a familiar figure standing in the corner—it was the drowsy child he had released earlier.

The toddler was waving gently at him, signaling him to come over.

Kane hesitated for a moment, then, hearing the approaching sounds of pursuers, nodded and quickly ran to the gap.

The toddler gestured for him to bend down and crawl into the gap.

Once Kane entered, he immediately lowered the stone slab above his head to block out the footsteps and shouts of the pursuers.

The passage was deep and narrow, filled with damp earth and a faint smell of blood.

Just as Kane was about to ask a question, the child raised his finger and made a "shh" gesture.

Kane's eyes flickered slightly, and sure enough, he heard hurried footsteps and search sounds coming from above the stone slab.

Only when the sound faded into the distance did the child nod to signal him to follow.

The two walked along the dark passage, the walls of which were covered with murals.

Kane observed carefully in the dim light:

In the first painting, numerous drow are offering sacrifices to Rose, the spider queen in the form of a giant spider.

In the second painting, a spider devours a giant web, and drows emerge from the ground, slaughtering humans.

The content of the third painting was deliberately erased, leaving only blurry traces;

The fourth painting depicts humans slaughtering the drow, with the ground littered with drow corpses and the wailing of their people.

In the fifth painting, Rose, the Spider Queen, is curled up and fast asleep.

"These murals... record the history of the Drow? From worshipping Rose and slaughtering the land races, to being counterattacked by humans and the goddess falling into silence."

But what exactly is hidden in the third image that was erased?

Kane was puzzled, but didn't have time to investigate further.

The two continued through the passage and eventually arrived at an underground area untouched by the war.

This area appears to be the city's religious district, with taller and more exquisite buildings.

These buildings, constructed of pure black marble, exude a solemn and chilly atmosphere.

The scene in the wide square ahead was chilling.

Hundreds of corpses were neatly arranged, including humans, dwarves, half-elves, and quite a few drow.

In the heart area of ​​each corpse, a black wooden splinter emanating a putrid stench was inserted.

Most of the corpses had begun to decompose, and white maggots were emerging from them.

Clearly, this large-scale sacrifice has been going on for some time.

"They must have known about the Nord army's attack long ago, which is why they hastily held this sacrifice to Rose."

Kane's gaze fell on the corpse of a drow woman who had committed suicide in front of the square. She was dressed in gorgeous clothes and wore a Spiderblade badge on her chest.

"At least she was a core member of the Spiderblade family. Even she was sacrificed. It seems they already understood that this city could not be defended."

He shook his head slightly, thinking to himself:

"In the age of gods, such a sacrifice might have earned divine blessing, but now that the gods have disappeared, the ether in the material plane has declined rapidly, and high-level combat power has dwindled."

Humans rose to become the dominant species on the continent thanks to their powerful reproductive capacity. Other races, in order to survive, even had to intermarry with humans to increase their birth rates.

Such a sacrifice is futile.

The two walked to a stone temple with a spider totem. The child stopped and pointed to the temple gate.

"Go in here?"

Although Kane did not understand Drow, he understood the meaning from her gestures.

The toddler nodded vigorously, then stretched out his little hand and laboriously pushed open a crack in the door.

She slipped inside first, then poked her little head out from the doorway and waved to Kane.

Kane hesitated for a moment, gripped his scimitar, and stepped into the ancient and eerie Drow temple.

The temple passageways became even more secluded, and the murals on the walls had changed.

Most of them depict the drow weeping and praying amidst various hardships.

One of the drow began to undergo a terrifying mutation, gradually transforming into a "spider elf" who was half-human and half-spider, while the rest of their people knelt around her, cheering and worshipping.

"The spider form is Rose's punishment for the drow, but also a blessing that only a few can receive. The upper body remains in drow form, while the lower body is that of a giant spider."

Kane understood and continued walking forward, eventually arriving at a secret room.

In the center of the secret chamber, on a black altar, lay a dying old drow priest.

She was dressed in a magnificent priestess robe, with an obsidian dagger embedded in her chest, and black blood staining the altar.

The feet already show obvious signs of spider transformation, with the three legs having become the limbs of a spider, but the metamorphosis is far from complete.

"The ceremony failed."

Kane saw through the truth at a glance.

"Judging from the situation, this is the city's third-tier priest. No wonder he has never shown up. It turns out he is performing a spider transformation ritual here."

The old priest seemed to hear footsteps and slowly opened his eyes.

Those were deep-set, bloodshot red eyes, filled with exhaustion, pain, and a hint of hidden madness.

When she saw Kane, a human, she was first startled, then her gaze fell on the child next to Kane, and a look of doubt appeared in her eyes.

She spoke a few words quickly to the toddler in a hoarse, raspy language that sounded like she was rubbing stones.

The toddler turned to look at Kane, then back, responding in the same hurried tone. He pointed at Kane, then at the cellar where he was hiding, gesturing with his little hands.

After the conversation ended, the old priest suddenly spoke, and remarkably, he spoke in fluent Norde:

"Thank you, human male, you saved Agatha."

Kane shook his head: "I didn't save her, I just didn't kill her completely."

The old priest was about to say something more when his gaze suddenly fell on the ring on Kane's hand, revealing a complex look of mockery:

"Dead Apostles? No wonder... a thousand years ago, you were also driven to the Underdark to fight to the death."

Kane remained silent, listening to her murmurs.

The old priest took a few breaths, seemingly regaining some strength, and looked at Kane, slowly saying:

"Human male, you can... stay here until the fighting up here ends."

If... if you need, you can follow Agatha.

She glanced at the toddler and said, "Let's go to our deeper sanctuary."

Kane looked at her still-heaving chest, and a thought suddenly occurred to him. He stepped forward and said:

"If I may ask, could you please pass on a message to the other Drow families?"

The old priest opened his eyes. "What news?"

"This major offensive by the Nords against the Underdark was not the original intention of the Nord royal family, or at least not entirely so."

Kane spoke calmly, reciting his prepared statement, which he had already rehearsed countless times.

"The real instigator of the war was the patriarch of the cult of demons, an ally of the drow. He sent people disguised as envoys of the Nord royal family to incite hatred and provide intelligence."

The goal was to use the Nords to capture a large number of Drow prisoners for some kind of evil ritual, to summon demons and disrupt the situation across the entire continent.

He paused, noticing the old priest's sudden change in expression, and continued:

"The Nords are not a slave-owning state and have no need for slaves. Only rituals require so many people of foreign blood."

If necessary, I can prove it with a Styx oath or a lie-detecting spell.

Upon hearing this, the old priestess's expression changed drastically. She gritted her teeth, her chest heaving violently, clearly deep in thought.

After a long while, she gritted her teeth and pondered:

"The Stigmata Ritual... that's an evil ritual originating from the abyss, seemingly imitating the spider-transformation ritual of the goddess Rose..."

The suspicion in her eyes gradually turned into hatred. Clutching her wound, she said, "I will pass on your news to the other families."

She turned her head with difficulty to look at the child called Agatha, and gave a few urgent instructions in Drow.

Agatha nodded vigorously, gave the old priest one last worried look, then turned and ran quickly out of the secret chamber.