Chapter 523: Sacrifice
“National Treasure Box… what could this be?”
Sitting in a café, Doro looked at the asset list in Nephnis’s hand, a spark of curiosity rising within her about what exactly was inside this so-called National Treasure Box. She was suddenly very interested in it.
“Mazale is the last prince of the Baruch Dynasty, and if the Baruch Dynasty had not been overthrown, then Mazale would have been the next king. This National Treasure Box is likely something passed down through generations of Baruch kings. What kind of item could sustain a nation for hundreds of years?”
Thinking to herself with her chin resting on her hand, Doro became intrigued by this royal family’s heirloom. From the list in Nephnis’s hand, Mazale’s assets, while numerous, consisted mainly of mundane wealth. Besides this so-called treasure box, she hardly saw any items that could be considered extraordinary. Doro became curious about what was contained inside the box.
After a brief contemplation, Doro decided to have the distant Neve retrieve the supposed National Treasure Box for her to investigate.
After issuing a command to Neve, Doro settled back, sipping coffee while reading, waiting for her return. After about an hour, the now transformed Nephnis hurried into the café and took a seat across from Doro on the second floor. After catching her breath, she excitedly spoke to Doro.
“Miss Doro… we hit the jackpot! That fat prince is loaded! With those assets, we could eat and drink without worry for a lifetime!”
With stars in her eyes, Nephnis spoke candidly, her expression betraying her joy. Doro responded calmly after taking a sip of her coffee.
“Well, he is a prince, after all. Though fallen from grace, he still has something.”
“Yeah… I thought that guy might have some money, but I didn’t expect him to have this much! It’s way more than what we’ve gotten through our usual… ‘methods’…”
Nephnis continued to lament the fortune, and as she gradually embraced her identity as a thief, a certain trait within her seemed to awaken, leading to a marked increase in her obsession with treasure. Doro couldn’t help but admire Nephnis’s lineage as a tomb raider.
They chatted a bit more, and since Nephnis had contributed to this operation, Doro directly rewarded her with fifteen hundred pounds from Mazale’s inheritance. Now, Nephnis couldn’t wait to go shopping. After giving her some final instructions, Nephnis quickly left the café, leaving behind a medium-sized square package wrapped in white cloth on the table. Clearly, this was the National Treasure Box that Nephnis had just retrieved from the Artisan Guild’s base.
Doro glanced at the package on the table, slowly finishing her coffee before standing up and taking the package to the restroom. After placing it into her Magic Box, she exited the restroom and left the café.
Next, Doro hailed a carriage and quickly returned to her hotel. Once in her room, she set the package on the table and opened it.
Upon unwrapping the white cloth, Doro found a metal box engraved with intricate patterns, including the Baruch guardian scorpion, markings of the Baruch royal family, and other symbols of authority. The box was quite large, and Doro felt its considerable weight, which further piqued her curiosity about its contents.
However, she didn’t rush to open the box. To prevent any potential traps or curses from being triggered, she set up a divination array on the spot to check for any dangers when opening it. Since the Baruch Dynasty’s counter-divination system was already in shambles, and this box didn’t have other factions providing it with personal counter-divination like Mazale and Ma Aide, Doro successfully confirmed that there was no danger inside after a single divination attempt. She finally began to try to open the box.
However, the process wasn’t smooth. Initially, Doro attempted to open the box directly, but it wouldn’t budge. After careful inspection, she noticed a small hole resembling a lock on one side, seemingly for a key. Just as she was frustrated at the lack of a key, an idea struck her.
Doro opened her Magic Box and rummaged through it until she found a metal seal, a stamp she had obtained from Mazale, the seal of the King of Baruch. Just a while ago, she had used this stamp to certify Mazale’s will.
After retrieving the seal, Doro fiddled with it for a moment. Then, she twisted the handle of the stamp forcefully, and as she turned it, a key-like metal piece extended from the handle.
Doro inserted this key into the box’s lock and turned it. With a satisfying click, she pulled out the key, lifted the box’s lid, and revealed what was inside: a bundled animal skin scroll.
“It’s a scroll…”
Looking at the item inside the box, Doro murmured, then unfolded the scroll for inspection. As it opened, dense writing filled her vision. Fortunately, it was in Northern Ufeiga, not ancient Northern Ufeiga, so Doro could read it relatively well.
After glancing at the information on the scroll, Doro figured out its contents.
“The Royal Sacrificial Book… this is a guide for sacrifices…”
The scroll in Doro’s hand detailed a sacrificial ceremony known as the “Royal Sacrifice,” intended for the founding king of Baruch, Rahmann Baruch.
According to legend, over nine hundred years ago, the original ruler of Adus, the Dofen Dynasty, steadfastly supported the true light lord and the Radiant Church during the holy war against the invasion of Northern Ufeiga. Due to the strong faith and military prowess of the entire nation, the Dofen Dynasty became one of the main forces of the Northern Ufeiga alliance fighting against the Radiant Church.
However, there was a significant power gap between the Northern Ufeiga alliance and the Radiant Church, which controlled the entire Main Continent. No matter how fiercely the alliance fought, they could not stop the advance of the crusaders. Just as the alliance felt despair, due to their heavy losses, the Radiant Church proposed a theoretical concession, accepting the unification of the true light lord and the Savior of Radiance to pacify the Northern Ufeiga nations. Under the pressure of the Radiant Church’s formidable strength, most Northern Ufeiga nations yielded, with only a few choosing to resist for the true lord’s ideology. Among them was Dofen’s Adus.
Later on, those who chose to resist were destroyed by the Radiant Church’s holy army. The Adus region fell into chaos, with warlords and bandits proliferating, and for two hundred years, four dynasties rose and fell amidst continuous turmoil.
Rahmann lived during this time. It is said that he was originally an ordinary shepherd, but due to some unexpected encounters while herding, he became an Extraordinary Being. He then founded a people’s protection group with his extraordinary powers to provide shelter for ordinary citizens amidst the bloody chaos while warring against various factions on Adus’s lands.
After years of conflict, Rahmann ascended, becoming a powerful Extraordinary Being of Red Tier Level. He eliminated all armed forces on the land of Adus and announced the establishment of the Baruch Dynasty, ruling for almost fifty years before retreating into the shadows to protect Baruch for over two hundred years, eventually passing away at nearly three hundred years of age.
After his d*ath, he was secretly buried according to his will in a place where he once encountered fortune, which he had previously constructed into a grand tomb. From then on, Rahmann’s tomb became a sacred site for the Baruch Dynasty.
From this Royal Sacrificial Book, Doro learned that every Baruch king’s coronation ceremony must take place at Rahmann’s tomb, where the king would be crowned, symbolizing that Rahmann bestowed supreme power of Adus upon the new king.
The location of the Rahmann Royal Tomb was known only to the royal high-ups of the Baruch Dynasty and the royal sacrifices. Whenever a new king ascended, they would bring the Royal Sacrificial Book and the king’s certificate to the tomb in secret, performing the ceremony there to gain the qualifications for kingship, and then return to Adis to hold a coronation ceremony before the public.
It is said that inside the Rahmann Royal Tomb, the new king would face the soul of Rahmann and undergo a trial before him. If the trial was passed, the new king would return to reign; if not, he would lose his right to ascend, and the second heir would undergo the trial as the new king, and so on until someone qualified. This ceremony is also known as the royal trial.
“The royal trial… I never expected this decaying and nearly extinct dynasty to have such a legacy. I wonder what kind of heir is needed to pass the trial. If this trial is stringent, requiring only the most outstanding ruler to succeed, then how did Baruch decay to this point?”
Looking at the Royal Sacrificial Book in front of her, Doro thought to herself, unable to imagine what kind of person like Mazale could pass such a trial. Besides him, Ma Aide didn’t seem to be a great catch either. Having let the nation fall to this state, the rest of the royal family probably were just as useless. How could they possibly enter the trial? If they could, how challenging could it be?
After a brief moment of contemplation, Doro refocused her attention on the Royal Sacrificial Book. Not only did it write about the origins of the royal sacrifice and the specific location of Rahmann’s tomb, but it also described the precise steps for conducting the royal sacrifice, including how to open the tomb and how to use the ritual tools to set up the ceremony.
Among these ritual tools, one intrigued Doro: the Phantom Pulling Lamp, the most important item in the entire ceremony.
According to the description in the Royal Sacrificial Book, the Phantom Pulling Lamp was a precious tool blessed by the deities, a treasure obtained by Rahmann in his lifetime, and a key node of the sacrificial ceremony; without it, the entire ritual could not commence.
“An item blessed by the deities; this is a Divine Blessing Object! And listening to this name, it’s clearly the deities’ blessing from Silence! The Baruch royal family actually possesses such a fine item!?”
Gazing at the contents of the Royal Sacrificial Book, Doro’s eyes lit up with excitement. She hadn’t expected to find a clue about the Silence Divine Blessing Object here, and it was in the possession of the Baruch royal family.
As long as she confirmed which royal family possessed this item, wouldn’t it be easy to acquire it? Given the current state of the Baruch royal family, it wouldn’t be a challenge to take it from them.
Filled with such thoughts, Doro carefully began to observe the Royal Sacrificial Book, hoping to find precise clues about the Phantom Pulling Lamp. However, after finishing the sacrificial book, she felt a tinge of disappointment.
According to the sacrificial book, due to the immense importance and deep binding of the Phantom Pulling Lamp to the sacrificial ceremony, its storage location was inside the Rahmann Royal Tomb. Each time the ceremony began, the officiant needed to retrieve the Phantom Pulling Lamp from the tomb to conduct the ritual. After the ceremony concluded, the lamp was returned to the tomb, and the tomb was sealed again, waiting for the next ceremony to take it out.
This meant that the Phantom Pulling Lamp was not currently in the hands of any Baruch royal family member but quietly lay within the Rahmann Royal Tomb. If Doro wanted to obtain this Divine Blessing Object, she could only open the tomb to retrieve it. Luckily, this sacrificial book contained the hidden location of the tomb and how to unlock it.
Looking at the contents of the sacrificial book, Doro fell into a moment of deep thought. After pondering for a while, she couldn’t help but sigh.
“Looks like coming to Northern Ufeiga also means experiencing its intangible cultural heritage, a traditional sporting activity. I never expected that after interacting with so many tomb raiders in Northern Ufeiga… I would have a day where I personally go tomb raiding myself…”
…
Just as Doro was examining the Baruch National Treasure Box in her hotel, on the outskirts of the city of Kankdar, in the dense forest of the suburbs, a man with dark skin, wearing a Northern Ufeiga robe, was darting through the woods at incredible speed, unlike an ordinary person.
While running, he glanced back toward the trees and saw large plumes of blue smoke rising in the distance, seemingly from something burning. The direction he was looking was the secret villa where Robert resided on the outskirts of Kankdar, where Mazale’s undead had once been imprisoned.
“Ha… Ha… Why… why did the Judge suddenly launch a surprise attack? What happened with Robert? Why did he have a falling out with the Judge? Didn’t they have aligned positions on Mazale’s matter?”
After a long run, the man stopped, leaning against a tree, catching his breath and muttering to himself, his expression a mix of fatigue and confusion.
“This is bad… I need to report this quickly…”
Grinding his teeth, the man pushed his weary body and knelt on the ground, swiftly drawing a magic array. He then retrieved a vial from his clothing, containing a small amount of white powder.
Kneeling beside the magic array, he recited an incantation. After finishing, he opened the vial and sprinkled the powder, which ignited spontaneously in the air, releasing a large amount of white smoke. This smoke automatically coalesced above the magic array, eventually forming a hazy human figure resembling a ghost. After glancing at the man, the figure spoke.
“What’s the rush? Yakaru.”
“Something unexpected happened, my lord! The Robert base where I am was just raided by the Judiciary! I happened to be outside the base and escaped when I sensed something was wrong! I don’t know what caused Robert to have a falling out with the Judge from Sacred Summit!” the man explained. His words surprised the ghostly figure.
“What? What about Satraya? Where is she? Why are you the only one here?”
“I don’t know; Satraya suddenly went missing earlier. I just went out to look for her when the Judiciary arrived. All the others in the base were captured. I was lucky to escape, but I haven’t seen Satraya since.”
The man responded to the ghostly figure, who pondered for a moment before speaking again.
“What about the item? Did Robert and Ma Aide give us what we need?”
“That… that still hasn’t happened, my lord. According to Robert, that item is Baruch’s secret treasure and can only be held by the first prince. It seems Mazale stored it with those merchant scoundrels at the Artisan Guild before he died. After Mazale’s d*ath, they intended to handle this inheritance process themselves, but it’s quite complicated, and they haven’t finished yet, so the item is still with them.”
