From Skaven to God of War

Chapter 268, Moving Forward

In a very short period of time, another human province fell. The pace of the ratmen was much faster than humans had expected.

It may also be that the turmoil that occurred throughout the Ratman Empire affected too many ratmen.

A massive escape from famine and a rush for survival occurred.

In order to survive, desperate guys are pouring into the main continent from all over the Ratman Empire, pouring into the front line of the war.

It is dark and solemn, guarded by temple guards at the metal pass connecting the two continents.

Countless gray-black ratmen gathered here.

This large-scale migration was also one of the reasons why the crisis was resolved so quickly. Countless ratmen left their hometowns and staggered across the endless wilderness.

This frees up a lot of space for those ratmen cities.

Along with the rapid death and loss of population, the famine was also rapidly alleviating.

However, embarking on a long journey requires more than just determination. Countless ratmen died in the wilderness. Most of the ratmen who made this decision died on the road, almost paving the way for a road of bones that runs through all the cities in the Ratman Kingdom.

Those who survived all gathered at this metal pass.

This fortress is not open all day. It is not only a fortress, but also a church.

Every day, when the huge skeleton bell hanging on the top of the fortress rings, the fortress will be closed and the temple guards will perform religious ceremonies during this time.

Bowing is a must, followed by offering sacrifices and sincere prayers. You can shout loudly or bow silently. A small hourglass will be turned upside down on the side, and everything must be completed before the sand in the hourglass falls completely.

This is a somewhat complicated and messy ritual.

Until now, no religious scripture truly belonging to Du Yuan has been published, and it is estimated that there will not be one for a long time.

The rats are undoubtedly pious, but the power of the cults in the Rat Empire is too dispersed and internally-driven. No one can truly convince everyone, so naturally no one is qualified to compile the rituals of the gods.

This resulted in the rat people's religious rituals being unexpectedly simple.

Often, a pillar with carved patterns or a few stones with some scribbled designs on them is the altar, and killing something on these altars is the sacrifice.

Many rat people expressed their dissatisfaction with this situation.

But the problem remains: no one can convince everyone, so no one can come up with a set of standardized rituals.

The Knights Temple were not satisfied with this either, and they were still groping for an answer.

What is disappointing is that no matter how they deduce this ritual, the situation is always similar. The complicated rituals seem to be like that, and the simple rituals also seem to be like that.

If the great god is willing to lower his gaze, even if the ceremony is simple, the gaze will still fall.

If the great god is unwilling to cast his gaze, even if the ritual is complicated, it will not attract the great god's attention in the slightest.

However, the temple guards did not give up. They were still perfecting their somewhat chaotic and complicated rituals and strictly adhering to them.

The last drop of sand in the hourglass fell, and at this moment a struggling human was beheaded by the temple guard holding a strange ritual knife. The look of fear on the falling head did not disappear.

The temple guards who were wielding swords did not look at the falling head. They straightened their backs, trying to straighten their backs. In front of them, a bright yellow metal pillar stood quietly.

Complex patterns spread across this metal pillar.

The ratmen priests who rushed to buy the blood gold mine in advance made a fortune. Regardless of whether the blood gold was favored by the gods, the temple guards really liked this bright and dazzling metal.

The head rolled into the bright red pool of blood, splashing waves, and then slowly floated up.

The last grain of sand fell, and the temple guards in front of the altar withdrew their gaze from the dazzling sacred pillar, and today's sacrificial ceremony ended.

The thick gears turned, and on both sides of the shore, the heavy doors of the dark fortress began to be slowly pulled up.

In the fortress on the other side of the vast grassland, the rats poured in through the opened gate. There were really a lot of these guys.

On the other side, in the other fortress, there were also some guys watching the opening of the heavy door.

There were also some ratmen and some ratman priests, but these guys seemed to be extremely cautious in their movements.

Some ratmen began to pour out of the open gate. These guys came here for various reasons. Not all of them were chasing war. Many of them just wanted to survive. They were thin and uneasy, with alert looks on their faces, and their desire to attack was clearly revealed.

Walking along the Avenue of Bones is not safe.

They are all humble guys.

These lowly fellows ran head-on into those weird rat-men priests.

At this moment, these humble guys were frightened. No matter what, they would understand and should understand how they should behave in front of these real big shots.

Panic appeared on their faces almost instantly, but the rat-man priests who were bumped by them were not angry at all. They were even friendly, with a hint of flattery and envy.

A bunch of weird guys.

In fact, it is true. They were not born in the Barren Mountains, nor were they born in the subcontinent where the Ratman Empire was established.

A tribe of ratmen from the main continent.

These ratmen were of great help in building the fortresses on both sides of the continent. Because they helped so much and so well, even after the two fortresses were lost, the temple guards still bought them in large numbers.

These strange rat-man priests are the lucky ones born among their fellow tribesmen from the main continent.

The suffering and torture that the rat-men are capable of inflicting is absolutely shocking and memorable, especially if you are a slave.

But it does not mean that there is no chance to change your destiny.

If you can believe in the great God devoutly, sincerely and seriously and become a glorious priest, then everything will be very different.

But what kind of guy would be able to bow down devoutly after suddenly becoming a slave?

You have to know that these guys are different from real slave rats. Slave rats have been facing this kind of situation since they were born. They have enough time to slowly adapt and have been struggling in hell all the time.

But these captured guys are different.

In fact, many of the ratmen from the Mainland who have become slaves will often begin to actively look for ways to kill themselves after working for a period of time.

These guys are really excellent.

Cowardly, afraid to resist, and even more obedient than the real slave rats who have always been like this.

But it is equally difficult to bear such suffering.

But these guys became pious and fanatical in such an environment. These guys were even more fanatical than the average ratman priests.

After becoming ratmen priests, the temple guards would not force them excessively, and they essentially became free men.

But there seems to be something wrong with the mentality of these guys.

A true ratman priest would not be nice to a lowly guy, but they would.

To some extent, the Ratman Empire behind the metal fortress, that twisted and deformed country, became a kind of longing for them.

A very morbid longing.

These guys can whip their compatriots without hesitation, and those poor guys who were also captured can also show kind expressions to those humble guys who came here from the Ratman Empire.

But it doesn't seem to be a big problem, there are not many normal rat priests.

Such distorted emotions are not a big problem.

Anyway, they are indeed devout and fanatical.

These ratmen who continuously poured in through the pass became the best help in the rat war, and also served as the backup force.

The land resources and even the sacrifices in the Golden Province were swept away early on, and these guys didn't have many choices after arriving here.

This land is not as beautiful as they thought, at least in the Golden Province.

Those who are destined to starve to death will still starve to death, and there is no room for those who want to show their ambitions. It seems that nothing has changed that much.

Unless there is a spontaneous surge and people throw themselves into war.

Everything they wanted could be obtained in war.

It was clear what to do. When Shu Zhan waved the flag again, the first group of ratmen who joined the war and charged fearlessly were not the Eastern Expeditionary Force in Shu Zhan's hands, but these poor guys.

Of course, compared to the Eastern Expeditionary Force of the Rat War, or even compared to the armies in the hands of the rat warlords, this group of guys is really too much of a mob.

They were skinny, had no uniform equipment, and in most cases had no equipment at all.

But they immediately filled up the wilderness of the fallen province.

The skinny guys ran in the darkness, picking up the remaining ears of wheat in the fields, tearing apart scattered goblin settlements, catching dying fish in the water, and even ferocious beasts were their hunting targets.

Of course, they would also attack villages.

Their eyes were sunken deep in their sockets, and they were skin and bones, but there was no end to them, these noisy, sneaky, hungry ratmen.

Their arrival as the vanguard troops immediately made the situation in this province worse.

These guys are not strong, but there are too many of them, and they are too violent due to hunger.

After gathering enough numbers, they even dared to launch an attack on the central city of the province.

After occupying the Golden Province, Rat Warrior has three choices.

This corrupt and vast human empire has a total of fourteen land provinces, one maritime province, and three provinces bordering the Golden Province.

The terrain of the main continent is mostly complex, especially in the area close to the subcontinent, which is mainly hilly plains with some sparse mountains in some corners.

The terrain in this area is like this.

The three choices for the Rat War correspond to the three human provinces bordering the Golden Province.

In fact, the Golden Province gives us a glimpse of the purpose of this area.

Including the Golden Province, three of the four provinces in this area are standard grain-producing areas.

The suitable climate, the terrain without too many ups and downs, the roads with heavy investments, and the foreign races that have been in a slump since the pioneering era, all of these are excellent conditions, and even give the dangerous area on the border the name of gold.

But now it’s different. The rats have come, and for the first time in so many years, humans are facing an attack from another empire. At this time, the advantages they once had instantly turned into a trouble and a problem.

A smooth road without too many ups and downs in the terrain means one thing: smooth sailing.

When Shu Zhan arrived with the Eastern Expeditionary Force, the situation was unexpectedly similar.

These guys are even worse than the nobles in the Golden Province.

Just those lowly guys who swarmed in were enough to make these guys miserable. A large number of towns and villages were conquered before the Rat War even arrived. Large tracts of land fell and they huddled in the cities.

But there is a problem. Their city is far inferior to the extremely large and sturdy City of Surf.

The city is not that strong, but Shu Zhan has more cannon fodder in his hands.

On the sixth day of the siege, Shu Zhan climbed up the city wall himself. With the power of killing, he became stronger, and the climbing process was extremely simple, and he was almost invincible.

One by one, the magic knights fell in front of Shu Zhan, and the spells summoned by the army mages were all eliminated by a pitch-black flag.

The morale of the defenders on the city wall collapsed, and the city was doomed to fall.

What happened in the city of Surf was repeated again in this city.

War can indeed bring a lot to the rat people, especially a war that is won.

Those humble guys who served as pioneers can finally settle down temporarily.

At least it can accommodate a large part of them.

Those resources, minerals, glory, these will certainly not be theirs, but the land can be imagined.

All kinds of trophies, those vertical pupils, became the wealth held in the hands.

The economic shock has not yet completely subsided. In the process of recovery and stabilization, barter has become the current way of trading.

Dried cave mushrooms, which were usually looked down upon, were purchased in large quantities, and various armors and weapons also became objects of consideration.

Plundering has made these guys taste the sweetness, so naturally many of them have become restless.

Becoming a Skaven warlord, becoming a Skaven priest, is something most lowly fellows would never consider.

But it is at least possible to accumulate some blood mushrooms, get a piece of land from the temple guards, and become a rat farmer.

Especially now, when they are standing at the forefront of the war.

(End of this chapter)