Shepherd Tantra

Chapter 1159 Snake Man
"——Sir, please come in!!"

"Don't worry, sir. We will keep the carriage for you!"

"I swear in the name of the Scale of the Ancestral Serpent that no property will be lost!"

Anar was greatly shocked by the unusually respectful, even flattering attitude of the snakemen guarding the temple.

…Is this a snake man???
Are these the snake people who always have stern faces and cold and unkind attitudes?
Anar felt like she was dreaming at the moment.

She was originally very reluctant to bring Aiwass and his group to the Snake Temple.

That feeling is like meeting a big shot who is on a secret visit, and he is in the mood to see your home - and it just so happens that you have a relative at home who is impolite, tactless and obviously dissatisfied with the big shot.

At times like this, I'm really afraid of something happening. It's not right to bring it, and it's not right not to bring it...

When I got there, I saw that it was an acquaintance.

This foul-mouthed family member is actually a close friend of the big shot, a buddy!
Before Anar entered the temple, she looked back outside with a look of disappointment and confusion.

At this moment, all you can see outside is the yellow sand that covers the sky.

It is said that the texture of the sand is like warm snow. However, Anar has been to the planet many times and has never seen snow.

The only thing they have in common is probably that there are countless corpses buried beneath them.

Anar could no longer remember how many people she had seen disappear into the sand. Many of them had nothing to do with her, but some did. Sometimes, when she walked on the sand, she would occasionally have the illusion that a hand suddenly emerged and grabbed her ankle.

The wind was not too strong today and the sky was clear. The town in the distance was already faintly visible.

She turned around and walked towards the interior of the temple as usual.

Although the snake people of the temple invited everyone to stop and rest for a night, not many people actually came to rest. For example, Isabel did not come down for safety reasons, and Ligeia was also protecting her closely.

Apart from Anar, the only ones who followed Aiwass down were Lily hiding in the shadows, the ritualist Iben, Zhutang and Mu.

In the dark snake temple, which was like a tomb passage, dim candles were burning on both sides. As soon as I entered the temple from the hot sand, I could feel a faint cold wind blowing through my chest and back.

Shadows flickered with the candlelight, and the figures of the people were reflected on the wall. It looked like some kind of shadow play.

Two snake men swam slowly ahead.

They were all skinny men with dark skin. On their rough skin, which was darker than bronze, one could see dense black snake scales. The skin without scales had obvious scars, bleeding marks, and wrinkles. Their upper bodies were only covered with leather vests. Their exposed arms were protected by snake scales, and below the waist was a huge snake tail.

Their faces were not handsome, and were even a little ugly - snake people generally had high cheekbones, thin and square cheeks, and a protruding chin. From the front, they looked like an elongated hexagon, and from the side, they looked like the moon.

——To be specific, it is the shoe-horn-faced version of Zhu Yuanzhang.

Lizardmen are very similar to snakemen. They both have scales, tails, cold pupils, and rough skin.

But lizardmen are much taller and stronger than snakemen, and are closer to strong elves; while snakemen have only human upper bodies and snake tails in their lower bodies.

Moreover, both male and female lizardmen are ferocious and ugly, and look like crocodiles. Lizardmen do not have their own writing system, they use the writing system and language of snakemen, and generally live with snakemen tribes, but there are also tribes that survive independently. Occasionally, there will be particularly smart wizards and ritualists among the lizardmen, just like trolls.

Generally speaking, intermarriage between snake people and lizard people is a taboo of varying degrees.

Because the upper elves in the snake-people society cannot accept offspring with legs, and the half-bloods are too thin for the lizardmen, so both sides don't like them very much... This is different from the dilemma encountered by half-elves. After all, it is really difficult for snake-people and lizardmen to survive.

Unlike lizardmen, snakemen look more like ordinary humans, but are usually shriveled and darker - this is not because they are weak, but because they are simply not full. Snakemen have a large appetite and have the ability to "overeat", becoming stronger by eating too much.

Only those priests who are able to eat enough will have taller bodies, straighter backs, and fair, soft and elastic skin.

Therefore, unlike the Lizardmen, half of whom are bandits and worship force and muscles; in the snake people's society, the better looking, taller, and more human-like you are, the higher your status.

These two guards were obviously of lower status.

Although the lower body of a snake person is a snake, it is not easy to determine how to calculate their height.

But at least these two temple guards were shorter and thinner than almost everyone else present. Without their tails straightened, they were only about 1.6 meters tall.

There were some special marks on their faces. They didn't look like slave brands, but more like some kind of religious symbols. They looked like battle scars in the form of tattoos, and they had a strange deterrent effect that made people dare not look at them for long.

This brand is actually a kind of "beauty" for the snake people. Because they become temple guards, they are allowed to be branded with religious symbols, which symbolizes that they have a higher status than their peers with the same appearance and height.

They held a strange weapon similar to a spear in their hands. But compared to a spear, it was closer to an "umbrella" or a "mace" - because the metal cone accounted for nearly half of the weapon.

As they gradually walked deeper into the temple, the candlelight around them became dimmer.

"It should be OK here."

Aiwass suddenly spoke, but his tone was very calm: "We are already far away from those people.

"——What's going on?"

Hearing this, Anar was startled and looked up.

W-what do you mean?
"We need to go a little further, my lord."

The temple guards' tone was still polite and respectful, but without the initial enthusiasm and fanaticism. Instead, it was more impatient and hurried.

Anar's heart skipped a beat, and she felt a clear sense of uneasiness. ——Because she had seen similar situations before.

In other words, almost every Parthian has seen it.

The ritualist Iben sighed deeply, somewhat sadly: "What a familiar feeling..."

Anar glanced at his fellow tribesman and thought to himself that it was indeed true.

Indeed, almost every Parthian had this feeling—it was like the feeling of betraying a rebel.

When the resistance organizations went to replenish supplies or go back to see their families, they were received with extraordinary enthusiasm. Then they were led to a certain place, or drugged in the mud tea, or left where they were. Eventually, they would be captured by the good master's people or slave traders.

The person who betrayed them could be a close friend of decades, the boss on the roadside who always gave them an extra half cup of muddy tea, or even their own relatives - their father or mother, or their older brother or sister.

Betrayal is the underlying color of this desert.

No integrity can withstand the test of being a freeman and a slave. The more you struggle on the line of survival, the more you envy and hate the freemen who can freely draw water... and the feeling of being served by slaves and manipulating other people's lives at will.

Everybody hated slave owners.

But everyone also wanted to be a slave owner.

And right now, these snake people, perhaps they haven't done these things for a long time...their intentions are revealed a little too obviously.

If the methods of these desert people were so crude, they would have been discovered long ago.

"Why not just stop here?"

Aiwass's voice was gentle but unquestionable.

When the two snakemen heard this, they turned around in shock and anger, looked at Aiwass and clenched their weapons.

"Don't blame them, I'm the one looking for you."

As complex snake-people language sounded, a beautiful female snake-people who obviously did not belong to this remote temple swam out.

She had long black hair, fair skin, and towering breasts. She looked to be about two meters tall, with a silk veil covering her face, which blocked the upper half of her face. She was also wearing a dark red dress decorated with many gold ornaments.

These gold ornaments collide with each other as the female snake person swims, making sounds like wind chimes.

"I'm a little disappointed."

Aiwass stared at her and spoke softly, "I thought it would be someone taller who would come looking for me."

"for example?"

The female snake person asked.

"For example, Ah Huan."

Aiwass said with a chuckle.

"Be bold!"

"Overstepping!"

The two snake guards immediately looked at Aiwass with great anger.

They apparently did not know Aiwass's identity.

But the female snake person seemed to know something.

She just raised her hand slightly, and the two snake men painfully dropped their weapons and silently curled up into two spicy strips like bicycle locks.

"--presumptuous."

Her voice was hoarse and soft, yet it held an inexplicable majesty.

She bowed respectfully and nodded slightly to Aiwass: "Are you satisfied with the punishment of these blind people?"

"May I have your name."

Aiwass did not answer, but asked back.

"Donya."

The female snake person replied.

"Do you know who I am?"

Aiwass asked again.

“You are a descendant of the Prophet Jacob.”

Dongya said respectfully and politely: "Honorable...holy entity."

(End of this chapter)