6 Overthinking

The Dog-headed People Mountain Village was surrounded by greenery and erected wooden houses. The black night crow was perched on the treetop. Its body was frozen as it closed its eyes, faking its death.

The black-robed people knelt with all fours on the ground. They were shaking uncontrollably while they felt a chill go down their backs.

The closer the people were to the well, the more horrified they felt.

There seemed to be invisible tentacles moving around outside their bodies. These tentacles would penetrate any holes they encountered, thus it was extremely uncomfortable. 

The Dog-headed Priest had his forehead stuck to the ground. He had never lifted his head since the cloud of mysterious mist appeared above the well.

One shall not stare directly at God, especially an evil one like Cthulhu that made people maniacal. People with low mental resistance would go insane if they looked at Cthulhu.

The Dog-headed Priest had followed a powerful ghost's guidance, offering their village's future star to Cthulhu. They hoped that Boss Ke would help them.

After the dog basin was placed into the well, the unknown terrifying atmosphere gradually faded. The cold, creepy aura faded slowly too. The dog-headed people no longer felt tentacles penetrating their noses, ears, mouths, and anuses.

Had the sacrifice ceremony ended?

All of them were anxious. Neither did they dare to lift their heads, nor did they dare to speak or move their bodies.

Someone moved his butt after feeling sore an hour later. Nobody went maniacal or died of sudden death. They realized that Boss Ke had left.

The Dog-headed Priest praised Cthulhu's godly name while staying where he was. He stayed put quietly for five seconds after chanting. Then, he lifted his head slowly and looked above the well from the corner of his eye.

There was no mysterious mist or terrifying figure. The evil god was gone.

He got up slowly and moved his stiff body around.

He stretched half of his body into the well to find that the dog basin containing the entire village's hope was no longer there.

"Villagers, the Great Old One has accepted our sacrifice. He's accepted our sacrifice. Our sacrifice has succeeded!" The Dog-headed Priest removed his mask and shed tears. 

The backbones of the village were very happy to hear that. They rushed to the well and checked the water in it. They did not see the dog basin.

"The adventurers must've been obliterated!" an old man said in an optimistic manner.

"I'll patrol with the team."

Thrilled, the dog-headed people had found their new motivation to live.

Before this, they had been in despair that the village would have no descendants. After all, they would have one less descendant whenever one of them died.

Never had they thought the black ghost would have come to tell them to attract Cthulhu's attention by merely believing in him and offering a sacrifice. He would answer the believers' request, fulfilling their insignificant wish.

The people of the Dog-headed People Mountain Village were terrified of evil gods. After all, believing in an evil god was very dangerous.

Rumor had it that many villages that believed in evil gods would suffer terrible consequences. They would flourish for a period of time, and something horrifying would happen to them. Some vanished into thin air and were nowhere to be found.

The priest would not have made up his mind to offer a sacrifice to the evil god if not for those adventurers that had caused chaos in their village and taken all of their women.

Fortunately, the sacrifice this time was completed successfully and nobody died.

Half a day later, the dog-headed people's patrol returned.

The old priest guarded the village entrance. He took two steps to walk the usual three steps and asked immediately, "How is it? Have they been destroyed?"

"The female adventurers are still alive. The adventurers weren't destroyed," the people from the patrol shook their heads and said, appearing upset.

"Why is that? Didn't we offer the sacrifice? Is our request too much that the Great Old One thinks our sacrifice doesn't match our request?"

Panic soon spread when they knew that the female adventurers were still out there. It made them extremely uncomfortable.

"It's the end of our village."

"Oh no, we've lost our village's last hope now."

"There's no more future for us!"

The dog-headed people wiped their tears from the corner of their eyes. They looked depressed as if they had aged ten years at that moment.

"Everyone, please listen to me." The priest stood out at that moment. He said with bloodshot eyes, "It's not easy to offer our sacrifice to the evil god. Even a blood sacrifice might not summon the evil god successfully. We gave Him our village's hope, but it's merely an insignificant ant to Him. It doesn't match a legitimate sacrifice. I think our belief isn't sincere enough, and our sacrifice isn't rare enough. We must make another sacrifice!"

"Master Priest, what sacrifice can we offer to please the evil god?" someone asked while losing his composure.

"I've no idea. That's why we must give our all to figure it out." The priest shook his head. He was just a regular priest, and it was his first time offering a sacrifice to the evil god. It was already considered a great outcome that nobody in the village had died.

One of the patrol members said after some hesitation, "I heard that the Cat-faced People Mountain Village offered a sacrifice to the Great Old One too."

"What? They did a sacrificial ceremony too!"

A bunch of dog-headed people gathered.

"How many of them died?" the older dog-headed man asked immediately.

The patrol member shook his head and said, "Nobody died. They sacrificed their village treasure."

"Did they succeed?"

"I think they didn't get the Great Old One's response either. However, the cat-faced people had a nightmare last night. I heard it was so terrifying that it felt like hell on earth. Many older people went crazy when they woke up from the nightmare."

The people could not help but feel a chill rise from the bottom of their hearts after hearing such a thing.

Sacrificing to the evil god was never the best choice. One would get bad luck lingering them if the consequences were light, and if it was severe, everyone might be killed.

Only fanatics that wished to destroy the world loved summoning the evil god.

Because the Dog-headed People Mountain Village had all of their women taken away by the adventurers, they were eager to destroy all of the female adventurers too.

That happened to be the same as the insane idea of wanting to destroy the world. That was their main motivation for risking their lives as their last resort.

At that moment, the dog-headed general of the village hit the ground with his walking stick. "Our ultimate goal, in the end, is for the adventurers to pay for what they did with their blood. It's a much-needed blood-shedding path that we'll take!

"We'll capture a batch of adventurers the next time. Force them to kneel and face the sacrificial ceremony directly. Give them a taste of a nightmare!"

The people's eyes lit up upon hearing the dog-headed general's new strategy.

"This plan sounds pretty good."

Someone asked, "Why don't we offer the adventurers as the sacrifice? They definitely won't live until the next day when they see the evil god's face."

"You dumba*s! That will only anger the Master Evil God. Everyone in our village will be killed. Do you really think that anything can be offered as a sacrifice!?" The dog-headed general struck the ground with the walking stick, feeling disappointed by what the villager said.

"Those adventurers are rotten! They think highly of themselves and are defiant. They'll anger Master Evil God easily. We can't do anything foolish."

They came to a realization after hearing the dog-headed general's explanation.

"It makes sense, it makes sense."

"Master General is right about that."

The bunch of dog-headed people scratched the back of their heads, feeling embarrassed by their foolish ideas.

Soon, the people of the Dog-headed People Mountain Village found a new goal to work on: capturing adventurers alive!

Far away on Earth, Ke Meng looked at his mission list. He was preparing for the review mission. He had no idea that those believers of the evil god assumed that their sacrifice was not rare enough and that their belief was not sincere enough. Other than that, he did not have any idea that the adventurer who showed up next would be unfortunate as the villagers would capture her!