Alien world

Chapter 1682, Section 315: Saving the Rat King
"However, even this kind of erroneous belief has the power of faith. Does that mean it's possible to acquire faith by manipulating the consciousness of believers?"

"Faiths are not mutually exclusive, but you are the Son of God, and as the spokesperson for women, you can indeed distort the consciousness of believers and transfer their faith to yourself."

The Skeleton King said that those who did this in history were all ambitious god-slayers, but their endings were not good—after all, those who raised the divine fire through betrayal were bound to be betrayed in return.

"Never mind, I'm not in that much of a hurry anyway."

Not to mention that this practice is extremely chaotic for the sectarian community, if other churches found out about it, Annan would be universally condemned.

In turbulent times, no one would criticize him for building a pantheon that was all shell and no soul, but if he were to distort the faith, they could show Annan what a holy war was all about.

"There is another way, which is to turn her into an undead, then we won't have to worry about the lifespan limit."

“Mr. Skeleton King, I think I’m a good person,” Annan said tactfully.

The Skeleton King silently gazed at the orcs, ratmen, and succubi walking on the street, offering no comment.

Because of the old woman's mistaken beliefs, Annan couldn't even get to know his only two followers, so he let her maintain her current habits.

Note that upon returning to the King in the North's summons, the eldest sister did not mention her brother Reeves again.

The news of Annam summoning the King of the North did not cause much of a stir, except for a brief mention in the Voice of Freedom and the newspapers of the Kingdom of Dimon.

With the North gone, talking about the King of the North is no different from talking about a fallen monarch; even discussions about him are mostly sarcastic. Just like now, when people talk about Annam, they refer to him as "that champion sorcerer," "that Annamite," or "the lord of the Free City," not the King of the North.

Although "King of the North" sounds more impressive.

Of the twelve kings of the North, three are in Free City, two are in the Kingdom of Dimon, two died during the Chaos invasion, and of the remaining five kings, three can still be contacted—the last two have vanished without a trace.

Perhaps he died somewhere; after all, nobles who leave their territories are essentially walking money bags, so it's highly likely they've gone into hiding. If they were paying attention to the outside world, they would have seen the news in the newspapers that Annam was summoning the King of the North.

If you haven't paid attention... it means you're too busy to help, and even if you did, you wouldn't be able to.

Annam was the "last glory" of the thirteen kings of the North.

With time still remaining before the Twelve Kings of the North gather, Annan turned his attention back to the Rodent Clan, and to his surprise, the first to send back a message was Little Smo.

"You mean, you found a rat king in the sea?"

"Yes, Your Excellency Annan."

"Are there sea rats on the continent of Allen?"

He had seen some seals before at Star Moon Bay. Those guys weren't afraid of people. They would lie on the beach in broad daylight and wouldn't move even if you kicked them.

As for how Annan knew—it was because his second sister, Lera, kept kicking them, thinking that the seals were stealing his fish.

"It's either a sea rat or the rat king of the Red-Eyed Clan."

Rewind to when Annan met the old woman; the far north presented a strange situation: the Rodent Clan and the demons were at peace, the outpost and the Rodent Clan were at peace, and the demons and the outpost were in a balance. The demons, ratmen, and humans, who should have been fighting to the death, were all at a standstill. The ratmen were building nests, the humans were roaming the seas, and demon patrols were flying in the sky—it was unclear what they were patrolling for.

The relationships behind the scenes are even more complex: ratmen cooperate with humans and collude with demons. Humans cooperate with ratmen and maintain a tacit understanding with demons. Demons cooperate with ratmen and treat humans as their own.

Amidst this bizarre balance, the sea creatures following the fleet discovered a Rat King on the seabed.

It was trapped beneath a pile of underwater rocks, unconscious. Protected by a fel shield, it was still alive, but near death.

Everyone at the outpost looked up at Little Smo. After a moment's thought, he decisively said, "Save it."

If the rodent clans and demons were fighting to the death, the newly discovered Rat King would simply be spoils to be sent back to Free City. But now, the Stunn ratmen and demons have formed an alliance, seemingly plotting something, which clearly doesn't fit Free City's plan to "stir things up."

At this point, the still-living Red-Eyed Rat King became the breakthrough point.

The sea creatures cleared away the rubble, tied ropes to the Rat King, and were secretly pulled back to the outpost by a three-masted sailboat on the sea.

To conceal this massive creature, they even erected a 20-meter-high tent using fasteners.

The Rat King was brought back, but its Fel Shield shattered along the way, causing its condition to decline further. The next question is how to revive it.

Logically speaking, being swept into the vortex and soaked in near-freezing water for several days should have either frozen to death or suffocated. Even with a fel energy shield protecting him, he would only be hanging on by a thread.

And indeed, the mages of the Retribution Legion exhausted their magic but still couldn't bring the Rat King back from the brink of death; his heartbeat only broke every few minutes.

At this point, Maria came in person, examined him, and told Little Smo that all the ratmen's power came from food, including their recovery.

The outpost immediately set up more than a dozen iron pots. There was no special skill involved; they simply put water in, then threw in oil, flour, and meat, stirred it into a paste, soaked it in the sea to cool for a while, poured it into a basin, and then had the soldiers carry it up the scaffolding, pry open the Rat King's mouth, and feed it liquid food.

The rat people know the rat people best. When about 300 kilograms of high-calorie liquid food was poured in, the rat king's heart rate immediately increased several times, from once every few minutes to several times a minute.

With repeated feeding, the rat king's heartbeat was no longer slow or weak, and it woke up a few times before falling back into a deep sleep.

During this time, the outpost delivered several troop of rodents to the Rodent Clan as agreed, and the rodents were completely unaware of the camp standing not far away.

On the fifth day after the Rat King was rescued, its waking hours began to increase significantly, and it was able to eat on its own.

The "chefs" no longer spend tens of minutes "cooking" the food. Instead, they use local ingredients, grilling the fish caught by the sea creatures and then putting them in the pot. To say they are grilled is just to say that the surface is browned and looks like they are ready to eat.

The Rat King didn't care about that. It was starving and desperately needed food to recover. Besides, a bunch of small fish weighing dozens of pounds were no different from berries to it. No matter how delicious they were, they would taste nothing when it was licked with its tongue.

However, as it recovered, the Rat King lost its harmless appearance from when it first woke up and began to show its fangs, almost eating the warriors who fed it several times.

Upon learning this, Little Smo threw it back into the deep sea, let it soak for half a day, and then fished the half-frozen Rat King out. After several times, the Rat King's eyes became clear, and it stopped baring its teeth, realizing that the humans in front of it were not the slave rats that could be used as snacks.

(End of this chapter)