After I died, my personal maid rebelled.

After finishing his work, Isolde calmed his breathing, gave a brief instruction to the others, and then retreated to the edge of the group.

More than the elven curse, she was concerned about what humanity would face next. If possible, she still wanted to find Lucas, even just from afar, just to catch a glimpse of him.

"What do you mean? So you need devout faith?" Annie chuckled, slapping her thigh with laughter. "Congratulations everyone, you've hit the jackpot! Thanks to someone, the goddess's reputation here is worse than a dog's."

The more she tried to suppress her laughter, the uglier Diana's expression became.

The plan was all set up: the savior saint Isolde would be responsible for protecting the elves' lives, Lilith, who wielded the power of death, would search for the source of the curse and find a solution, and the rest of the people would cooperate with the two.

Isolde certainly knew what to do; this technique wasn't her invention either, as the Great Sage had already used it during his time in the royal city.

Hiding the elves in the pool of life blood is the best solution at present, enough to buy them time to break the curse.

However, the prerequisites for entering the blood pool left everyone somewhat bewildered.

As the saying goes, faith is hard to collapse, and once it collapses, it is even harder to rebuild.

"There's no other way but for us to persuade them. Is hatred more important than life? Even if it's just pretending to be devout..."

"Faith can be feigned?" Sylvie interrupted Thorne before Annie could speak. "In a world where gods truly exist, there are no deceitful people to fool you. Besides, how many people can you persuade by yourself? Don't waste your breath; leave this to Lilith."

Sylvie stretched, spat out the foxtail grass from her mouth, and raised an eyebrow at Lilith.

Lilith lowered her head and remained silent. Intelligent people don't need to communicate too much. Deception can only be done by gods to living beings, and fooling can only be done by gods to living beings.

Lilith, who wields the power of death, has the ability to enter the deep consciousness of others. Interfering with dreams and altering memories are her specialties.

"What do you mean? Why should we give it to Lilith?" Diana asked, puzzled. As an incarnation of the curse, she could sense the difference in treatment.

"Have you ever owned cats or dogs, Diana?" Sylvie smiled calmly. "The smarter and more social an animal is, the easier it is to tame. As long as we maintain a strong deterrent effect and set up proper reward and punishment mechanisms, we can mass-produce obedient and well-behaved pets."

Annie nodded and continued.

"What she means is that the goddess looks at us the way we look at our pet cats. Before, the goddess used confrontational interactions, which made us stressed. So now she plans to use Lilith, the cat toy, to coax us back into obedient little babies."

"Thank you for the translation, Annie, you're always so thoughtful." Sylvie interlaced two fingers and winked mischievously.

Annie gave her a thumbs up. "You're welcome. It's what I should do."

The "thoughtful" Annie starkly reveals the true face of the goddess, showing that many people only realize the meaninglessness of their lives when facing themselves late at night.

Don't comfort yourself with the idea that life is a wilderness. We pets are actually all carefully planned out. Our self-imposed exile and wandering are just another ordinary scene in the eyes of our owners.

Once you understand the issues between owners and pets, you can see through problems like marriage, war, medical care, and education at a glance.

People are just unwilling to admit it, and even if they do, they choose to forget it. But when they see the sun the next day, they are full of energy again, as if they have regained the whole world.

The so-called optimistic and cheerful spirit will only crumble when faced with the harsh reality of material things.

Lilith's "cat toy" job began. In fact, everyone found that she was no different from usual, except that she would occasionally stop and stand still, as if she was dealing with something.

On the morning of October 8th, the first elf opened his door and, without hesitation or wavering, jumped into the deep pit in the square, splashing up thick, oily water.

"In good condition, their faith is strong," Isolde made an objective assessment. Regardless of the future fate of these elves, their lives were temporarily spared.

Once there's a first one, there's a second, and a third.

During the lull in the wind, countless sprites rushed wildly into the deep pit, filling the large pool, which was over ten meters deep and twenty meters in radius, with specks of blood spilling onto the surface.

Diana raised her finger to the sky and activated her power. Countless swords clashed and intertwined, forming a huge iron pot lid that heavily covered the deep pit, stirring up thick dust.

"Everything is difficult at the beginning. Although this is just a small town, we have indeed taken the first step."

As the applause drew closer, Sylvie, with a smile on her face, led the carriage out of the gray mist. Before coming, she had been quite worried about these people, wondering if they could actually accomplish something.

Now it seems that her worries were unnecessary; those chosen by the goddess all possess some kind of skill.

"Let's continue. We must find the source of the curse. The other three races are waiting for us to save them."

……

Knock knock knock! Knock knock knock knock knock knock!

The electric drill bit shattered the rock, bursting forth with blinding flashes of light.

The panting dwarf removed the iron mask from his face, his gaze piercing through the tunnel to the densely packed figures on the shore that obscured his view.

The dwarf wearing the steel helmet couldn't understand why so many people had come to watch him just as he was doing his ordinary work.

"What are you all looking at? Haven't you seen this before?" He wiped the sweat from his palms on his beard, held up a power drill bigger than his head, and looked at the crowd with a puzzled expression.

Catherine coughed lightly. She usually spent most of her time in the southern part of the Central District, unaware that the production tools in the Northern Territory had evolved another generation.

I must say, it looks quite interesting.

"Keep up the good work, and come up for a drink of water if you get tired." Catherine led Lucas and the others to another construction site, continuing to be onlookers.

The power matrix not far away was steaming with heat. Who would have thought that a letter from Catherine would lead Commander Garwin to dismantle an existing power matrix and casually dispatch a construction team of tens of thousands of people to the Elven capital?

The construction team leader was an elderly dwarf who seemed to have a bad temper, but was actually quite kind.

His proposed solution was to excavate shallow underground facilities and then cover the exterior of the elves' existing dwellings with a monolithic reinforced concrete structure.

Moreover, due to the unique hardness of Elf Wood, they can greatly reduce the construction period.

The key is the design of the ventilation ducts. The air inlets must extend vertically underground, and then giant fans powered by an electrical matrix enter the fortified city through a network of ducts to perfectly avoid natural winds.

As she watched the concrete pillars, each several meters thick, rise, Catherine turned to Lucas and gave him instructions.

"Once the first underground city is completed, you'll have to work hard and lead the cavalry in specially made carriages to capture the elves scattered in other areas."

"I estimate that the Goddess Army has already entered the Elf Kingdom, along with the Elf rebels hiding within the country. You should take more people with you when you travel, just in case."

Lucas nodded. Recently, the Special Forces had been unable to gather more intelligence. Helping the elves was a pretense; capturing the manipulator behind them was the top priority.

"Yes, I understand."