Chapter 34, Desire and Belief
In the rapid advance, it was not that no race thought about resisting. A mixed goblin tribe with hobgoblins and bugbears as the ruling class took the lead in standing up.
They were also responsible for the first major defeat of the Skaven since they entered the forest in full force.
A force of five thousand Skaven, led by Good Eye's Skaven Warlord, faced off against this combined goblin force.
Then the armies of the hobgoblins and bugbears rushed into the team and beheaded the rat warlord, followed by an unquestionable rout.
The rat warriors and the young rat men ran away in the forest, and they were all gone in one go.
Regarding this situation, the ratman's performance was not as expected by the bugbear leader.
Not even much fear.
Not long after, all the rat troops in the forest got the news and rushed towards the area with red eyes.
A total of four rat armies of five thousand rat warriors came, led by the rat lord Good Eyes and his younger brothers, three rat warlords.
A team of 20,000 rat men was formed.
There are also so many young rat people that you can barely see them all as auxiliary troops.
After acquiring the resources in the forest area, the number of rat people doubled at a rate of two months.
This allows the Skaven to easily pull out a large, loose force.
It's a very pure feeling that makes people's hair stand on end just in terms of quantity.
Although these gathered rat troops did not attack the goblin tribe.
The red-eyed warlords, instead, led their own rat-men and began to hunt down the fleeing rat-men warriors and young rat-men all over the mountains and plains.
Soon after, a long team of slave rats, escorted by rat priests, set off towards the mountains with the forest as the starting point.
After everything was settled, the rat warlords turned their attention to the goblin camp in front of them again.
There were no twists and turns. The huge rat-man army successfully overwhelmed this mixed goblin tribe, which was already quite large in the forest.
At the same time, perhaps because this time, too many slaves and sacrifices were obtained, which even exceeded the requirements of the white mouse.
The priests made some plans to store sacrifices, after killing the unruly hobgoblins and bugbears.
A large number of short ordinary goblins were also brought back to the mountains on ropes as slaves.
Of course, the rat warlords who did this did not gain anything. In exchange, the priests would exchange the blood mushrooms in their hands for sacrifices and slaves.
This would save them from the harsh demands of the White Rats, and also allow the Skaven warlords to work harder.
Under the temptation of blood mushrooms, they did not even hesitate to send the fleeing rat troops of the dead rat warlord to the priests in exchange for mushrooms.
Under the operation of such rat priests and warlords.
The number of slave rats began to expand rapidly, which further promoted the construction of more tunnels and deeper caves by the rat people.
There are more mushroom growing rooms, nurseries, production rooms, storage rooms, and the winding mineral veins that are gradually being dug out deep in the mountains.
With the help of excavation experts, the Rat People naturally tinkered with an uncomplicated ventilation system.
As a result, they dug deeper and deeper.
But this is not the most important thing.
Among that series of projects, the most ambitious and the one being excavated by the most slave rats was the temple project directed by White Rat himself.
Countless slave rats are floating in the blood lake. They are not sacrifices, they are all still alive slave rats, or they are not all sacrifices.
While the slave rat was rising and falling, it used its sharp claws to dig out and widen the size of the blood lake, making the originally small underground lake fully double in size.
Of course, this process is not easy, especially under the watchful eye of the rat priests and overseers. Many skinny slave rats sank into the blood lake and then floated without breath. By the way, they were used as sacrifices. Waiting for the blood mushrooms to grow on his body.
After being picked several times, it turned into a skeleton and sank to the bottom of the blood lake.
During the continuous excavation, huge stone steps, one after another, have appeared under the blood lake.
The White Rat wants to dig out a huge pyramid sunk in a lake of blood.
Du Yuan's altar and divine stone pillar were set up on the top platform of the pyramid.
This is undoubtedly a big project, but the rat obviously doesn't care what the cost of this project is.
He watched feverishly as the pyramid in front of him slowly took shape.
Indescribable happiness brewed in his heart, which was his gift to the gods.
He couldn't help but relax even a little bit. Even though he was now the leader of the ratmen, he was no longer an energetic young ratman.
But the white rat will still jump into the blood lake every day, and in the constant ups and downs, determine whether there are any errors in the slowly forming pyramid.
The devout white mouse looks forward to the completion of the pyramid in front of him.
In terms of piety, Bai Shu is indeed the most fanatical rat man among the rat men for his belief in Du Yuan.
But taking a step closer, Du Yuan felt a little suspense about going from a fanatic believer to a saint. Not only him, but also many priests among the Ratmen who were also fanatic believers were unlikely to become saints.
Because compared to fanatics, saints do not need simple fanatic faith, but they need to have their own thoughts in the fanaticism, and even be able to give opinions to gods and help gods make up for their shortcomings.
Of course, it is not difficult to put forward conditions, make suggestions, and make up for deficiencies, but the difficulty lies in that you must have devout and unreserved faith, and then meet these conditions.
Only then can they be called saints.
That is why Du Yuan felt that Bai Shu could not do it, and even other rat priests found it difficult to do so.
Because these guys are more eager for blood mushrooms, eager for gifts, very fanatical desires, devout desires or greed.
Until the desire and greed, and the gifts that can only be obtained because of Du Yuan are mixed together, they can't tell whether it is their own irrepressible greed or their fanatical belief in Du Yuan.
These rats became fanatics.
It is difficult to judge whether this can be regarded as a kind of piety. However, since the Ratman fanatics born in this way are both pious and fanatical, and can also provide faith value, although it cannot be said to be a pious belief, it is still succumbing to desire.
Put the desire on Du Yuan.
Then Du Yuan just ignores such awkwardness, but he is sure that he can't become a saint in this way.
However, Bai Shu is indeed a pious believer of Du Yuan, not the kind of fanatic ratman who confuses desire and thirst, but the problem lies in Bai Shu's piety, which is too pious to fanaticism.
He can't become a saint either.
However, because of this piety, sometimes Du Yuan will not interrupt his decision, especially for the point of faith.
This is the concession of the gods to the believers.
Although, he may not know that his gods are actually more helpless about his actions.