Volume 6 Prologue (2)
To Sitramina's surprise, the food provided was quite large. Although it was some rotten tortillas, corn dumplings and bitter sauce, Avilistri and Quetspari were delicious. In their hometown, they needed to get up early and work all day to eat such food, but now they only need to keep quiet in this dark room and not speak loudly.
Every afternoon, they were taken out by the soldiers, and dozens of people entered an indoor bathhouse in groups to take a bath. The bathtub was made of stone, and several stone ditches introduced fresh water from a distance. They were taught to use a crushed plant to wipe the body so that the body could be cleaner. After Sitramina tried it, she found that the effect was indeed as the Aztlans said, not only were the dirt all removed, but the skin could even bring a scent of grass.
Although taking a bath with dozens of men was extremely shameful and difficult to talk about for Sitramina, once she refused, the soldiers of Aztlan would point the spear tip at her. Later she learned that the Aztlans believed that not taking a bath would spread disease. Sitramina and others were important sacrifices, and they did not want anyone in this group to get infected with the plague.
About a week later, a man in black clothes, black trousers and black cloak walked in with a group of Aztland soldiers. His clothes were embroidered with skulls and necklaces of teeth hanging around his neck. These outfits mean that he was a priest. Both skulls and teeth symbolize the priest's duties - human sacrifice.
"Today is Tracasipelvalistry's Day. To worship the skinned man Sipe Totec of the spring, we need some human skins of warriors who died in battle." The priest said, "Are you anyone who volunteers to fight before God?"
"If you want to peel us, come right!" cried Sitralmina, "Anyway, we will be sacrificed sooner or later, and we will not fight our own people to live a few more days!"
"It is not to let you kill each other, but to our warriors." The priest said, "Although you are prisoners of war, we will still prepare exquisite weapons for you. The gods testified that when neither side uses magic, as long as you defeat our warriors, they will be the ones that are skinned. This time we need five human skins, and you send five people to fight our warriors in a wheel battle. The loser is skinned, and the winner engages in the next duel until the five human skins are filled!"
This sentence made the desperate prisoners of war see a glimmer of hope. Avilistry, who had been hanging his head, suddenly stood up and said, "Since it is a battle of glory witnessed by the gods, let me come first!"
But Sitramina still doesn't trust the priest's words: "One-on-one, five games in total, you won't be skinned if you win? Are you telling the truth? What if we keep winning? What are you going to do?"
"Swear to God, as long as you can always win on Tracasipelistry, you will live forever."
So Sitramina also stood up: "Give me a coat, I'm going to participate too."
"You?" the priest looked Sitramina from head to toe, and finally his eyes lingered on her chest. "Woman, you don't need to survive this way. If you don't want to be sacrificed, just swear to be a slave, there will be a lot of people willing to ask you."
"Do you think I will fail in a one-on-one fight?" Sitralmina covered her chest and gritted her teeth, "Tell you, I am a disciple of Master Quilakiri!"
As soon as he heard this, the priest's expression changed suddenly. He moved his eyes away from Sitralmina's chest and turned sideways to make a "please" gesture: "Since that's the case, you are the protagonist of this Tracasipelvalistri Festival. I think the great Sun King is willing to come and watch the battle of Master Quilachiri's disciples."
Except for Avilistry and Sitralmina, the remaining prisoners of war were not willing to stand up. The black-clothed priest frowned and picked out three of the most powerful ones from the crowd, allowing Aztland soldiers to force them out.
Under the leadership of the priest, they began to climb the huge pyramid made of amazing stones.
From the bottom of the pyramid to the top, there are hundreds of steps. Looking up at the bottom of the pyramid, you can see that at the top of the pyramid, there are two altars standing nearest to the sky in the entire city. There are two main gods of Aztland, one is Vizilo Pochtli, the god of sun and war, and the other is Kchalkoater, the god of rain and civilization.
When they walked to half of the pyramid, the prisoners of war faintly smelled a foul smell floating down from the top of the pyramid. As they kept climbing up, the stench became stronger and stronger. Soon after, the steps under their feet showed a fast black blood. The higher they walked, the more blood clots there were on the steps. The dozens of steps at the top were completely covered by the black blood clots. From a distance, they looked like a black waterfall flowing down from the top of the tower.
The weather was not very good, and the cold wind brought a bone-black coolness to Sitramina. Although there were people in her own tribe who offered sacrifices, only about five or six people were not sacrificed every year, which was simply in comparison with Aztlan in terms of scale. Just looking at this black waterfall, there were at least more than ten thousand prisoners of war sacrificed on the top of this tower!
Instead of climbing to the top of the pyramid, Sitramina and others were taken to a platform halfway up the pyramid. There was a huge round stone, and a hideous avatar was carved in the center of the round stone. It was Tralt Kutley, the god of earth, who had devoured everything she created until she was killed by the god of civilization, Kcharcoater. The gods used her body to create mountains, valleys and rivers, but she kept wailing day and night because of her tragic encounter. Unless she kept providing her with fresh human blood, the earth could not produce food.
One side of the rock is close to the cliffs of the pyramid, the other side is close to the steps that the prisoners of war climbed up, and there are seats on both sides. There are thousands of people on the table, most of which are Aztland's nobles and rich people. The next duel will be held on this rock for the group to watch and have fun.
Seeing Sitramina's unclothed body, a whistle came from the group of nobles. Although Sitramina had been dressed like this for a long time, most of her companions would avoid their eyes kindly and pretend not to see it. The strong reactions of the Aztlan nobles made her cover her chest in embarrassment, but this action only made the whistle even louder.
When the black-clad priest was holding a set of clothes to hand them to Sitramina, the nobles shouted:
"Don't give her clothes, just let her fight like this!"
Chapter completed!