When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#659 - The Underground Palace under Tiannv City

The stone door slowly opened, and water droplets slid down the moss-covered walls, bringing with it the pungent smell of damp rot and sulfur.

Franconian clogs stepped on the cold stairs, Otattila pressed her hands in front of her lower abdomen, and her white, close-fitting long dress swayed in the damp, cold wind.

Passing through the underground corridor, she stopped and stood before the cliff inside the mountain.

No one would have thought that beneath the Temple of the Celestial Maiden, nestled in the low mountains, lay an abyss-like pit, as if capable of swallowing people whole into a bottomless fiery hell.

This pit was about seventy or eighty meters in radius and thirty meters deep, with a Z-shaped stone staircase leading all the way to the bottom.

The pit was quite strange; rather than a pit, it was more like an inverted half-tower.

By the light of the torch in her hand, Otattila could clearly see that the pit was not a regular circle but a semicircle.

Directly in front of her was an almost vertical cliff face, as if someone had split it in two with a sword.

Raising the torch that emitted an orange glow, the faint scent of pine resin lingered in the air. She didn't wait long before hearing a series of hissing sounds from the darkness.

"I need to pass through," Otattila said calmly to the dark abyss.

Amidst the rustling sounds of snakes slithering, a pair of blue, spindle-shaped pupils suddenly emerged from the darkness.

"Your name."

"Otattila Li Ratavia." Otattila pricked her finger with a needle and squeezed a drop of blood onto the mottled moss-covered stone slab.

A blue snake tongue swept over the blood. After a moment, a cold, whistling voice came from the darkness: "You may pass."

As guards, these long-tailed lizardmen, or rather, snakemen, had been dutifully fulfilling their duties since Otattila first came here.

But she knew all too well the cruel methods these terrifying snakemen would use to devour the flesh and blood of intruders.

Grasping the torch tightly, Otattila's knuckles turned slightly white from the force.

Although her face remained indifferent, her heartbeat quickened slightly as she stepped onto the stairs.

In the stuffy, damp air, within the empty pit, only Otattila's crisp footsteps echoed.

On these square stone steps, half embedded in the rock wall and half suspended in the air, the torchlight shone on the rock face, reflecting a gray-blue luster in the orange glow.

When Otattila first stepped onto these stairs at the age of thirty, she still felt fear and panic, but now, at seventy, only indifference and detachment remained.

As the lifelong Speaker of the Witch Council, the first thing Otattila did upon taking office was to come here, just as the first thing a Pope does after being elected is to put on the triregnum.

Similarly, Otattila and the Pope had to take the secrets of the underground palace and the triregnum to the fiery hell or heaven.

Although this was the most important place in Celestial Maiden City, Otattila didn't come often.

After all, Grandma Cynthia was crazy and her temper was never good.

She could completely understand that anyone who stayed in this dark underground palace for hundreds or thousands of years would go mad.

Understanding was one thing, but it didn't mean she could change Grandma Cynthia's situation, so Otattila didn't come often.

But today, she had no choice but to come.

Under the threat of the Holy War in the Lilac Corridor, she needed enough power to protect herself, and also needed to gain wisdom from this neurotic elder.

The sugar-grain trade, the Thousand River Valley relationship, the war clouds, the Sacred Axis – these things exhausted Otattila, who was solely devoted to maintaining peace in Black Serpent Bay.

Her original intention was to support Moliati. As a mind witch who was difficult to detect, the integration of Thousand River Valley and Black Serpent Bay should have been a huge step for Black Serpent Bay.

Unfortunately, this credit was snatched away by another group disguised as heretical members of the Misella faith, forcing power to continue being shared externally.

Given this group's style and their search for the Order of the Scales, Otattila couldn't help but suspect that their Holy Grandson was actually from the Order of the Scales.

Therefore, she was somewhat opposed to the Sacred Axis.

Compared to the unfamiliar Horne, she preferred Luless's daughter – the more familiar Moliati.

But Moliati's attitude was actually to share power with Horne, which even made Otattila suspect that the secret letter had been switched.

Now, however, she had to consider Horne's existence and its impact.

Not only because of the sugar-grain trade proposed by this Holy Grandson and the talent for wealth accumulation and politics he displayed after coming to power, but also because of the nearly ten thousand alchemists under his command.

Otattila's Witch Council had not been able to control nearly ten thousand alchemists.

According to existing intelligence, this Salvation Army had three witches – Jeanne, who wielded lightning magic; Hilov, who used divination microscopy; and that hermaphrodite witch, Horne.

When Otattila initially obtained this information from Pasrik, she was actually skeptical.

Under the principle that "a witch must be a woman," believing that a man could become a witch was too contrary to common sense, so a hermaphrodite was more believable.

However, Pasrik's own credibility made this information rather unreliable.

However, after confirmation from Moliati's letter, Otattila finally had to believe it.

The witch born of the first witch, the first hermaphrodite witch – Thousand River Valley was truly a magical place.

The damp and foul-smelling wind blew against her face, waking Otattila from her reverie. She had finally reached the bottom of the underground palace.

Faintly visible wisps of smoke drifted in the dim light of Otattila's torch, casting the surrounding rugged rock walls in shifting light and shadow.

In the torchlight, shadows flickered on the rocks, and the wind whistled through the cracks in the rocks, making strange, eerie noises.

Although there was only a single torch at the moment, the huge shadow crouching on the circular platform at the bottom of the pit could still be seen.

Raising the torch and slowly stepping forward, Otattila took a deep breath: "Grandma Cynthia, we need blood."

Suddenly, there was a slight disturbance at the edge of the torchlight, and a low, heavy breathing sound came from the darkness, heavy and slow.

At the very bottom of the pit, illuminated by the dim torchlight, the huge creature crouching on the cold ground raised its slender neck, exhaling a puff of hot steam.

Pale red scales seemed to be coated with a layer of amber, reflecting a golden-red light in the torchlight.

A triangular head, majestic golden serpent pupils, and occasional flames darting from its mouth and nose.

This was undoubtedly a dragon, a dragon thought to have gone extinct before the arrival of the El!

The rumors were true – there really was a dragon beneath Celestial Maiden City.

However, contrary to the rumors, this dragon was not imprisoned or chained, but was free to move its body.

Its wings drooped on the ground, covered in dust and cracks.

If the dwarves of the Dragon Worship Sect came here, they would surely cry out the dragon's name and kowtow madly, but Otattila simply stood up straight and said quietly: "We need more blood."

"Blood! Ah, only blood!"

"My old blood is about to be drained dry for you!"