Warhammer

"I'm not such a devout believer." Rhine said without raising his head, his eyes still fixed on the map.

"But from childhood to adulthood, all the people and all the education I have received have instilled in me this truth: God Emperor Sigmar, He is omnipotent, omniscient and eternal..."

Rhine paused at the end of his words, then raised his head and looked at Leah with an indescribable look. The wood elf had an extraordinary and beautiful face after taking off her hood, and the pointed elven ears that symbolized her racial origin.

"But I also always knew that He was not the only God."

This statement is viewed differently by different people in the empire.

If one is an extreme Sigma fanatic, the kind that even Sigma himself would say: I think you are a bit too extreme.jpg, then he would definitely regard this as blasphemy, and hold up torches and hammers to burn anyone who dares to deny Sigma's status as the only God.

If you ask him that Sigmar is the only god, what is Ulric the White Wolf God? What about Tal, the god of nature? Shalaya, Lanold, Mor... Most of the time, before you get to this point, the fanatics will directly plan to fight, but if they can't win or can't do it, they can only cover their ears in frustration, pretending not to hear the blasphemous remarks, and then quickly start to run.

If it is a little more formal, it will be emphasized that the God-Emperor Sigmar is the only official God of the Empire. All other gods have their own dignity, but because the imperial people are descendants of Sigmar, Sigmar has an absolute status within the Empire.

The powerful and noble class with a slightly broader vision will naturally not be instigated by the fanatics. They may indeed believe in Sigmar devoutly, but it does not mean that they will deny the existence and status of other gods. The Temple of Ulric in Middenheim accepts donations from nobles and wealthy businessmen from all over the world every year. The belief in Mannarn is widely spread in all areas related to the ocean...

"If the evil god influences the mortal world again, it is reasonable for the tribe to produce tens of thousands of troops within two years, and there will even be more in the future..."

Rhine took a deep breath, and his mood couldn't calm down for a long time.

He did not tell the Estalia people about this speculation.

It's too dangerous. It's like a box of bombs that may explode at any time. It's placed next to them. Moreover, it's a box of shells with their own consciousness. They are now pretending to be on their side, but who knows when they will tear off their disguise, spread corruption, swallow up the souls of all ordered beings in one gulp, and please the evil god.

Given the organization and practices of the Northern Parliament, Rhine could not guarantee, first of all, that his conjecture could convince all of them. After all, he had no hard evidence. Secondly, it was hard for him to imagine what kind of uncontrollable expressions these people, who were still fighting among themselves even when the greenskins attacked them at their doorstep and were constantly arguing over which faction should get more shares, would make when they heard the news, and then ignite the Chaos Beastmen.

By then, the situation in the entire Estalia will be absolutely comparable to being hit by a cannonball into an exploded cesspool.

Rhine could only silently send one urgent letter after another to rush back to Altdorf to report the news, hoping that the court and the church could make a judgment on whether to raise the banner of the holy war that had not been launched for hundreds of years.

But he looked at Leia's face. The female elf's expression was still calm, as calm as a lake, and she was determined within.

"I believe you, but I have to go in. It has a deep connection with us."

She blinked, her emerald eyes flashing with complex emotions. Rhine didn't know who the "we" the elf female Leah was referring to was, but probably, it was not her and Rhine, nor this imperial army.

After a long silence, Rhine nodded with some difficulty.

"I will propose to the Estalia people to send a small team to enter Pina in an official capacity to contact the tribe, under the pretext of cooperating to eliminate the greenskins. You will follow the team. They seem to be lying low for now. On the surface, they are still allies standing with the Estalia people, and their identities as Chaos followers have not been revealed. This way you will be much safer."

"The previous few times, the Estalia delegations all escaped unscathed. It seems that they are still rational. At least they have no intention of breaking up with the Estalia now."

He didn't want Leah to leave, or rather, he didn't want Leah to leave for the forest which, in Rhine's mind, was like a demonic realm covered in mist and green.

Even if the wood elf said that she was going to return to Osun, and they would never meet again until they were in this lifetime, he would not be bothered and would just see her off politely.

But the forest, the beastmen...

With the precedent of Celestine and the capture of the suspected paladin, he subconsciously did not want anyone else to fall into the hands of those beasts.

Chapter 14: Ewen and Leah

Leah Issa shuttled through the forest, her agile figure flashing on the branches.

A ghostly figure.

Rhine persuaded the Estalia people, and the coalition forces to encircle and suppress the greenskins temporarily formed an armed delegation, and set off with the goal of requesting the tribe to dispatch border troops to cooperate and eliminate the greenskins from both sides.

The wood elf Leia naturally mixed in with this army, but she was not a person who followed the rules.

Although she moved with the delegation, she would often sneak out quietly to check the surrounding situation, and the beastmen who led the way were unaware of this.

There was nothing important or secret in the outer area except for some sentry posts, but Leia always had a strange feeling in her heart.

There was a force calling her from somewhere, summoning Leah to go inside the forest.

When this feeling first appeared, the wood elf worried that she was being bewitched by evil forces, and even secretly left the expeditionary force and sneaked back to Bilbarri, where she privately revealed her identity to the Elf Embassy of Osuen and asked her compatriots stationed there to hold a small purification ceremony and divination spell for her, which was completed after praying for a day and a night in front of the Corona Wheel of the Gods of Heaven.

Leia was certain that the calling she received was not from some evil spell, so there must be something in the Pina Forest that was related to her. This connection was so important that it was calling her over even from a distance of thousands of miles.

After leaving Osuun, Leia had a mission, but she was not restricted by many constraints. Her original mission had a lot of freedom, to the point where she could do whatever she wanted.

But leaving Rhine, a collaborator that Leah could accept and with whom she already had a certain emotional foundation, to enter a forest full of dangers involving Chaos Gods and Beastmen, these two elements together would definitely make any wood elf instinctively feel bored and wary.

There are still great risks.

It is possible that he would really end up like Rhine had warned him not to do but had already done, falling into the hands of the beastmen, just like his cousin Celestine and the man whose true identity could not be confirmed but was most likely the paladin who had been captured before.

Human and elf women captured by the beastmen...

Works involving the above three tags are widely circulated, from private banquets under the court of Ossuun, to low-key salons in Altdorf, and even as far as the ice and snow court of Kislev.

The most equal and friendly professions and groups between elves and humans are the emerging industries that gradually developed after the Great War:

There are erotic writers and book illustrators, as well as some "Atriti performers" who use photo stones and magic to create "dramas" with complicated and confusing plots, ups and downs, love-hate entanglements, conspiracies, assassinations, love betrayal, etc. Generally, there is one man and multiple women, but there are also multiple men and multiple women, and multiple women and one man.

Atriti is an elven goddess who symbolizes pleasure and temptation. She belongs to the underground pantheon. She looks very similar to Slaanesh but is actually a serious god (sizhen).

Apart from the fact that the elf authors think that humans do not pay much attention to the plot and are sometimes too straightforward and crude, and the human authors sometimes think that the elf works are slow to get into the main story and prefer themes such as betrayal, infidelity, coercion, and depravity, the group as a whole is very harmonious, and they can even discuss the plot and style together in private.

Thanks to their hard work and wisdom, the interesting, loving, bloody and juice-filled stories between beastmen, humans and elven women have been widely circulated and welcomed by the public. As an adult female elf who can be sent out to carry out missions, Leia is not the kind of person who is ascetic and sexually cold. Naturally, she has learned a lot of these very, very special knowledge in various private gatherings, small groups and salon clubs in Osun.

Even though the heroines in the stories are usually from her tribe.

Even Leah has several very exquisite masterpieces in her own collection that suit her taste.

So in this regard, Leah knows better than Rhine what kind of treatment she might encounter if she really encounters danger...

The elf warrior woman is fearless!

But the calling was so, so...

It makes people curious, yearning and eager!

Just like a wanderer who has been away for many years, he sees the candlelight lit in his hometown village at night from afar, and the blurry figure, which is exactly the same as the mother in his memory, is standing at the intersection, looking eagerly into the distance.

It is also like a traveler who has been thirsty in the desert for a long time, seeing the end of the yellow sand, the looming outline of an oasis, and the emerald green creations full of vitality, satisfying the traveler's desire for life.

All the promises and all the satisfaction are contained therein.

…………

Leia felt that there was a great distance between herself and the delegation. The further away she was, the more likely she was to encounter dangerous situations. If the distance was close enough, she would still have a chance to escape back to the team. At least she could use the delegation to make the tribe hesitate, or use those people to escape.

But she had been calculating the distance she had travelled. Now she and the team had taken almost half an hour to travel, and they could only hurry if they moved at full speed and no one stopped them.

The deep and somewhat gloomy unfamiliar forest made Leia feel a little scared. She realized that the fog that appeared out of nowhere had enveloped the entire forest. In this situation, her vision and perception were greatly disturbed. Any movement would make her alert, which greatly consumed Leia's physical strength.

At the same time, the female elf's psychological endurance was also put to various tests.

Sometimes, the images and plots seen in different works would suddenly pop up in Leah's mind, making her face blush and her body tense.

But she was getting closer to her goal, or part of it, and the premonition in her heart was growing stronger.

"In front, right in front!"

Leia encouraged herself and quickened her movements.

In pursuit of that revelation, Leia ignored many things, including the environment along the way, such as the changes in the forest, some rare and magnificent flowers, overly dense vegetation, and wild beasts that were so common that they were almost rampant, as well as the abnormally strong magical wind.

A revelation from somewhere told her that soon she was close to her goal and would find something that would reveal the purpose of this unexpected journey.

"call"

Leah heard the sound of running water and was startled.

She nimbly climbed up the tree, crossed the slope in front of her, and saw the scene below:

A circular area that has been cleared by humans. The water flowing down from the mountain stream gathered into a clear spring in the area. In the middle of the spring was a statue of an unknown goddess, and the base was just submerged by the spring water.

A beautiful woman in white clothes and a garland on her head waded into the clear spring, stood in front of the statue, bowed her head and clasped her hands in front of her, as if praying.

There were also several women who looked like maids standing on the land beside the spring, waiting quietly.

A team of human warriors stood on both sides, leaning on their swords, kneeling on one knee on the ground behind the woman, with their heads bowed and silent.

Leah's pupils shrank suddenly.

"That is!"

"Clang!" A knight suddenly drew his sword and stood up, looking in the direction of Leia.

It was discovered!

Leia's heart tightened, and she retreated first!

"Stop!"

Just as Leia was about to lubricate her feet and ignore any summoning or revelation, the woman standing in the spring suddenly spoke, and her ethereal voice spread all around.

The sharp blade held by the knight drooped down, but it was still not sheathed. Leia's heart tightened again. No matter what, it seemed that the other party already knew her.

I just don't know what the relationship is between this group of humans and the tribal beastmen.

"I know you are there, please come out and see me, this is the arrangement of the goddess."

The woman was still standing in the spring, looking in the direction of Leah with a sincere attitude.

The wood elf hesitated for a while. The other party knew of her arrival and was not one of those beastmen. After hearing the woman speak, the sense of calling in Leia's heart became stronger. She realized that what she was chasing might be obtained through this woman. She was conflicted in her heart, but finally gritted her teeth and chose to take the risk.

She jumped off the branch where she was hiding, stepped on the grass, and officially came into everyone's sight.

"My name is Iwen, a priest of the goddess."

Leia took a few steps forward and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the warriors did not move. However, she did not relax her guard at all and was ready to run away at any time if the situation became bad.

"My name is Rhine."

The woman who called herself Iwen chuckled and said nothing. She walked to the shore and got ashore with the help of the maids. She stepped on the grass barefoot, leaving traces of water, like a morning after a light rain.

"Your arrival is the revelation of the goddess. Don't worry. Our meeting is arranged by her." Iven comforted Leia. The maids raised the curtain to block the surroundings, and others changed the soaked veil for the priestess.

"If it's convenient, could you tell me the goddess's name?"

Leia glanced at the statue and was about to ask the other party about the way, when suddenly a bolt of lightning seemed to strike her mind.

That statue...that statue...

Ivan chuckled, the sound coming through the curtain.

At the same time, the name also came to Leia's mind.

"Her name is Lilith."

Chapter 15: Lilith Incarnates

Is there anything that can make people feel more relieved and safe than seeing a statue and altar of a god belonging to one's own race and faction in an unfamiliar and dangerous forest, with an elite group of religious warriors guarding the altar?

"It's hard, unbelievable..."

Leia walked to the statue, stood beside the priest Ewen, knelt on one knee, and prayed to the daughter of Father Asuryan and Mother Goddess Aisha, who was also the wife of God-King Asuryan in some legends, the Moon Girl, the goddess of dreams and wealth, the patron of prophets and seers, and the blesser of good luck and foresight.

Although a shocking revelation occurred in the Great War, the incarnation of Radlia Lilith, the goddess of mist, who was one of the high elves' gods in the sky and had deceived the entire human kingdom for thousands of years, instructed Teclis, the younger brother of the chosen Tyrion twins, to cause trouble everywhere, and even stabbed his own brother Tyrion and the Phoenix King Finubar in the back, which directly led to Tyrion turning evil and drawing his sword to become the incarnation of Cain, setting off a bloody civil war or unification war among the high elves.

She created a series of "dazzling" deeds. The former knight kingdom of Bretonnia was exposed because of Lilith's deception. After the truth was revealed, it fell into a long period of ideological confusion and is still in division and dispute. There are conflicting views on Lilith, including "elf witch, liar, fraudster, an evil god more hateful than the devil" and "Lilith is wrong, but the knowledge and ideas she taught are not wrong, and there is nothing wrong with following virtues."

However, within Osuun, no matter how much they complain, most of the elves, especially those like Leia, are traveling outside and are not on the island.

The worship of Lilith has become a traditional custom, because only Lilith's guidance can bless these wanderers in times of crisis and when they need good luck and help. She is a goddess who is very "merciful" to the elves. Sinners will pray to her, hoping that Lilith can forgive their sins so that their souls can be accepted by the Pantheon to avoid falling into the manipulation of evil gods.

In addition, the former Great Forest of Athel Loren, where Leah's tribe, the "Wood Elves", also widely worshipped Lilith.

Maybe it's because she is Aisha's daughter and the "rumored lover" of the great wood elf hero Alaros.

Although in an era when demons and even Chaos elements have become rare creatures, finding the real cultists and Chaos worshippers who have connections with demons among hundreds or thousands of various secret organizations and cult groups has always been a headache for the White Tower Magic Swordsmen.

The belief in gods is more inclined towards tradition, spiritual sustenance and secularity. However, as a wood elf in the conservative camp of the Great Elf Federation, although she herself is not conservative, she is inevitably influenced by her tribe. Compared with the Asur (high elves) who are lax, have low cohesion, and are changeable and complex, and the pragmatic, cold, changeable, but also prone to extreme fanatics, such as the Blood God Bride's Duruch (dark elves), her belief in gods is still a relatively pious "Asrai". (Wood Elf)

In this strange forest that may be seriously corrupted by Chaos, entering an area controlled by a Beastman tribe that is almost branded as Chaos worshippers, and seeing Lilith's altar and her priests at this time and place, Leah could not help but regard this as guidance from the gods.

If the person who appeared here was a beastman, she would never give up her trust so easily.

But if it is a human, the elves will always be more acceptable than an upright beast.

"Daughter of Aisha, Moonlight Maiden, the deity worshipped by my people, please remove the fog for me and point me to the direction of the answer..."

Leia prayed to Lilith in Elvish. Ivan, who was standing by, couldn't understand, but he didn't doubt it. He just stood there and waited quietly.

Leia raised her head and looked at the statue of Lilith hopefully. However, she knelt for a long time but there was no movement. The surroundings were very quiet. The warriors were like iron men who could not breathe. They completely sealed themselves in the armor. The priestess stood beside Leia, but she seemed to be unable to sense Iven's existence.

Doubts crept into Leia's heart. Naturally, she would not doubt Lilith. What she doubted was whether her action of asking for answers right away was too direct. Should she first prepare the sacrifices according to the traditional sacrificial and prayer ceremonies, choose an appropriate time, and bring her people to offer the sacrifices to the gods in exchange for blessings and guidance?

Leia still maintained the posture of kneeling on one knee, but her eyes were no longer focused on the statue of Lilith. She felt a little confused. Is there really such a process?