"Unknown Curiosity..."

Caelan gazed at the malevolent statue in front of him, the Unknown Curiosity acquired in Lizardman Village seeming to emanate an unspeakably sinister aura.

The statue's surface was rough and uneven, covered in twisted textures and strange symbols that seemed to tell some ancient and forbidden tale.

From an artistic point of view, Caelan found the statue hideous, the lines were rough and the shapes blurred, it was impossible to tell what kind of image it was trying to portray.

Nevertheless, Caelan decided to make the most of the evil statue. He attempted to bring it to the Arcane Treasure Exchange for trade.

A line of exchange information slowly appeared on the light screen of the exchange:

[Unknown Curiosity - Evil Statue, redeemable for 4500 points].

Seeing this number, Caelan couldn't help but twitch out of the corner of his eye as he muttered under his breath, "This is too much of a loss, the Unknown Curiosity that was so hard to obtain can only be exchanged for so few resource points.

4500 resource points was indeed a considerable fortune for the current Caelan, but it was only temporary. As Caelan's development took off, such a sum would seem insignificant. There was a bit of resentment in his heart, after all, he had worked so hard for this and now he could only get so little in return.

Caelan checked his resource information:

[Resource points: 3700 points].

After some consideration, Caelan decides not to sell the Malevolent Statue, but to have it appraised instead. In the Arcane Treasure Exchange, the appraisal cost of the Malevolent Statue is shown as

[Unknown Curiosity - Malevolent Statue, Appraisal Price: 1200 points].

"1200 Resource Points, a bit expensive, but not unacceptable," Caelan said to himself. "Alright, start the appraisal!"

[Appraisal fee: -1200 points. Remaining: 2500 points].

As the appraisal began, the skies of Dark Abyss seemed to respond to the movement. A golden light pierced through the ever-spinning black and red vortex and shone above the Malevolent Statue.

In an instant, the statue in front of Caelan began to disintegrate, countless pieces of stone slowly breaking apart until a black shard floated in the air.

[Evaluation completed].

[You have received: Faith Fragment (Contaminated) ×1!]

"Faith Fragment?" said Caelan in surprise, "Isn't that something only Faith Lords use? Why do those stupid, ugly lizardmen have it?"

Caelan, seeing such a thing for the first time with his own eyes, wondered as he picked up the black shard.

In an instant, countless images flooded into Caelan's mind like a tidal wave.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Lizardmen hunted weak animals and splashed their blood on the statue.

Lizardmen breed baby Lizardmen and then tie their helpless victims to the statue and abuse them.

Lizardmen raid other tribes and smear their organs and blood on the statues.

...

Caelan didn't know exactly how many images flashed before his eyes, but he knew.

Each image revealed the vileness and cruelty of the lizardmen race, who had no idea that the statue they worshipped had no deity at all.

All the cruel sacrifices and prayers they make are completely ineffective.

The stupid Lizardmen, in such a cruel and twisted way, appeared to be worshipping an imaginary "God", but in reality, they pleased themselves.

A strange phenomenon happened.

Despite the fact that the statue did not represent any real deity, the grief of the dying was so intense due to the number of lives that had died before it, and the negative emotions released by the lizardman, that the statue began to gather the power of faith.

Blood, death, slavery, bullying, rage ......

These negative emotions gathered into a ball inside the statue and contaminated each other, giving birth to the current Malevolent Statue, which is why this Faith Fragment was contaminated.

If the Lizardman had chosen only one pure faith to worship the statue, the Faith Fragment might not have been contaminated.

This tainted Fragment of Faith was worthless to Caelan.

"A great loss!"

"This fragment is contaminated and worthless! 1200 resource points wasted for nothing."

Even though the Faith Fragment was usually of high value, especially to Faith Lords, it had to be uncontaminated.

Not only was a contaminated Faith Fragment useless to Caelan, but even the Arcane Treasure Exchange wouldn't recycle such an item, and Caelan didn't currently have the ability to purify the fragment.

This meant that the Faith Fragment, which Caelan had worked so hard to obtain, had become a hot potato for a while. It could not be converted into the instant combat power Caelan needed, nor could it be converted back into resource points.

Just as Caelan was feeling a little depressed and regretful, he suddenly remembered a special existence - the Basic Building: Abyssal Sacrifice Table!

It was capable of sacrificing all valuable items in exchange for Abyssal Treasures!

"Right, I almost forgot."

It was actually no wonder that Caelan had forgotten about the Abyssal Sacrifice Table for so long. Compared to the Abyssal Hatchery and the Abyssal Gate, the Abyssal Sacrifice Table had a lower value in the early stages. Caelan's resources are limited in the early stages, so he can't spend a lot of points to exchange valuable items for the Abyssal Sacrifice Table "lottery". Also, given the chaotic nature of the Dark Abyss, who knows what Abyssal treasures he might draw from the Sacrifice Table?

The Abyssal Sacrifice Table was like a gambling table, Caelan didn't like uncertainty, he wasn't a gambler, and he wouldn't bet on himself to be the lucky winner.

But now the Abyssal Sacrifice Table seems to be the best choice!

"Since the Abyssal Sacrifice Table can sacrifice anything of value, the tainted Faith Fragment must be one of them."

Caelan placed the Faith Fragment on the sacrificial table.

[Item detected: Faith Fragment (contaminated). Offer as Sacrifice?]

Caelan agreed and followed the instructions to recite a mysterious incantation.

The sacrifice, began!

The black and red vortex in the sky seemed to speed up its rotation.

It was as if the Dark Abyss itself longed for this first sacrifice. ......

And just as Caelan concentrated on sacrificing the tainted Faith Fragment.

Demon after demon fell, far away on the Eternal Continent.

Whoosh!

A sharp arrow, cloaked in a pale green glow, shot violently from the forest's depths.

Shadowy and deadly.

Thud!

In the next second, the arrow pierced the skull of a lesser demon, nailing its torso to the trunk of the giant tree it had originally prepared to burn. It was like a broken doll nailed to a tree.

But before its companions could laugh at the poor little demon, more arrows quickly shot out of its back.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The remaining three Lesser Demons were also nailed to the tree.

In less than two seconds, the four Lesser Demons sent to scout the path and gather resources died silently in the forest.

And that was just the beginning.

Meanwhile, another group of demons, consisting of a lesser demon and a native demon, were heading towards the rare iron mine that could refine the precious metal, Dark Iron.

[INFO]

There are many kinds of precious metals in this area, such as Dark Iron, Star Steel, Adamantine, Mithril, and so on.

Their values vary greatly. Among them, Dark Iron is the most common precious metal, Dark Iron is one of the incubation materials for level-11 Troop Demon Artisan.

With less than 20 of them, they can't afford to run this iron mine normally.

Their purpose was simply to kill some level-1 metal slime nearby and bring their corpses back to the Dark Abyss.

However, just as this group of demons was slowly approaching the basalt iron mine along the path that had been opened a long time ago.

Suddenly, dozens of robust and powerful centaur warriors, shouting slogans and wielding sharp, curved swords, rushed towards the unsuspecting demon team from both sides of the dense forest.