Dominic touched the sapphire ring on his middle finger, and his judgment became clearer.
If the Dragon of Frost is Chaos Gods, no matter how well it disguises itself, the savage tribe could not possibly maintain such a normal mental state after months of being immersed in faith.
They would become bloodthirsty, paranoid, or addicted to some extreme emotion, and would never live as peacefully and work in an orderly manner as they do now.
Even the children's laughter was as pure as the wind on an icy plain.
It neither harvests souls nor feeds on negative emotions; in fact, it shelters this icy plain.
So what exactly is its purpose?
A giant native Xenos? But what kind of native creature could possess a retinue of followers and even establish contact with the human governor?
The mystery is like a thick fog over an ice field; the further you go, the denser it becomes.
The Sisters of Silence beside him gently touched his arm and gestured.
There's a patrol team ahead.
Dominic immediately gathered his thoughts and pressed himself against the ice wall, holding his breath.
Three savage warriors, each wielding an ice spear, marched past in formation, their steps steady and their expressions focused, yet they remained completely unaware of the intruders so close at hand.
The combination of optical cloaking devices and the Sisters of Silence ' untouchable force field makes for an almost unsolvable stealth combination in this primitive settlement lacking advanced detection equipment.
The three continued their advance deeper into the ice city.
The closer you get to the center, the more exquisite the architecture becomes.
Fine carvings began to appear on the originally rough ice walls, mostly in the shape of coiled dragons and snow patterns, with simple and smooth lines, carrying a primitive religious beauty.
There were more patrolling soldiers, all of them burly and vigilant, clearly indicating that the core area was heavily guarded.
Dominic's goal was clear: to find a place for worship.
The core of a people's beliefs is forever hidden in the temple.
The truth about the Dragon of Frost and the secret of the Frost Soldier are most likely hidden in the most central sacrificial site of the City of Teeth.
Sure enough, after walking for about half an hour further in, a sealed-off ice valley appeared at the end of the horizon.
At the entrance to the Ice Valley stood two ice pillars, each over ten meters tall, their surfaces covered with dragon-shaped totems. Twenty elite warriors guarded the entrance.
They were clad in snow-white animal hide armor, their faces painted with blue patterns, and they carried steel spears that could only be produced by modern industry.
Standing upright, his gaze swept across the surroundings meticulously, not missing a single detail, not even the smallest crack in the ice.
There are no signs at the entrance to the valley, but both the strict guards and the religious patterns on the icicles speak volumes.
This is one of the temples of the City of Teeth.
Dominic gestured, and the three of them began to climb up the icy slopes along the side of the valley.
The ice wall was slippery and steep, a deadly situation for ordinary people, but it was not a difficult task for the Imperium Major General and the Sisters of Silence who had received rigorous training.
Using the icicles as cover, they silently crossed the blockade at the valley entrance and landed in the shadows inside the valley.
It's colder inside the valley than outside.
The chill seeped into my bones like needles through the seams of the cloak, and even the water vapor from my breath condensed into tiny ice crystals.
A straight ice path leads to the deepest cave in the valley, with neat ice sculptures lining both sides of the path.
Half of them are dragon-shaped, and the other half are armored human figures, each with a different posture, but all facing the direction of the cave, as if on a pilgrimage.
Something's not right.
Cassandra, the Sisters of Silence on the left, suddenly stopped and made a gesture.
He raised his hand and pressed it behind his ear, his brows furrowing slightly.
As Blanks, her perception of Psychic Power fluctuations is far more acute than that of ordinary people.
Dominic lowered his voice. "What's wrong?"
" The Psychic Power residue here..." Cassandra quickly signed, her expression somewhat puzzled.
"It feels very familiar; it's very similar to the atmosphere of the Plague Cleansing Cult's stronghold in Lower City."
Dominic's pupils constricted slightly.
Plague Cleansing Cult?
He instantly thought of those Genestealer, and the apostles in grey robes in the Lower City monastery.
Could the Dragon of Frost Temple in the Iceborne Plains and the Plague Cleansing Cult in the Lower City be the same thing?
The thought had barely crossed his mind when he forcibly suppressed it.
impossible.
Genestealer are the vanguard of the Tyranids, always hiding in the shadows to reproduce and parasitize, never engaging in primal worship openly, much less transforming into " Dragon God " to protect their territory.
Their goal is to undermine civilization from within and pave the way for the arrival of the Zerg swarm; there's no reason for them to help humans eliminate the Orks and maintain order.
But Cassandra's perception never fails.
Dominic suppressed his surprise and doubt and gestured for them to continue.
The three of them moved silently along the ice path and soon arrived at the cave entrance.
There were no guards at the cave entrance; a thick curtain of ice beads hung down, blocking the view between the inside and outside.
Stepping inside through the ice curtain, an even deeper chill washes over you.
The cave was very empty, not at all like the scene I had imagined, filled with incense smoke and worshippers. Instead, it was eerily quiet.
The ice walls on both sides are covered with murals depicting dragons soaring through the snow and soldiers charging on the battlefield.
The brushstrokes are bold and the colors are monotonous, yet they possess a primal, impactful quality.
Walking a few dozen steps further in, a stone platform appeared in the center of the cave. Dark brown dried bloodstains remained on the platform, and several animal bones and ice crystals were scattered around it, clearly indicating that it was a place where sacrifices were held.
Blood sacrifice.
Dominic glanced at the pattern of the bloodstains and judged that the sacrifice was not large-scale and that animal blood was used rather than human sacrifice.
This further confirmed his previous judgment: although this belief had a primitive and barbaric aspect, it was not evil.
Cassandra's brow furrowed even more.
The sense of familiarity with Psychic Power is growing stronger.
It was like... like they had stepped into the core stronghold of another Plague Cleansing Cult.
The Psychic Power fluctuations here are colder and more subdued, as if they were frozen beneath a layer of ice.
Dominic didn't stop.
His gaze fell on the ice wall at the deepest part of the cave.
It looks like an ordinary ice wall, but upon closer inspection, you can see that the texture of the ice wall is out of place with the surroundings.
Moreover, the seams were extremely well hidden; if he hadn't studied warships for many years and been extremely sensitive to structural details, he would never have noticed them.
It's a hidden door.
He stepped forward, placed his hand on the ice wall, and applied slight pressure with his palm.
A slight tremor came from the ice; it was clearly hollow inside.
Two nuns immediately stepped forward, and the three of them worked together, applying force along the seam.
The heavy ice door creaked and groaned, like a giant beast that had been sleeping for a thousand years slowly opening its eyes, and a dark crack gradually widened in the ice wall.
A chill surged out from the cracks, carrying an almost deathly coldness.
Dominic pulled out a flashlight from his waist, adjusting the beam to its lowest setting to illuminate the world behind the door.
The moment the scene in his field of vision became clear, his breath caught in his throat, and a slight chill ran down his spine.
Behind the door was a massive, suffocating underground ice hall.
The dome is hundreds of meters high, with countless icicles hanging down like a frozen rain curtain.
At the very center of the dome hangs a giant Ice Lotus, several meters in diameter, with layers upon layers of petals, crystal clear.
A faint blue flame was embedded in the heart of the lotus, its light not bright, but steadily illuminating the entire hall.
A soft blue light poured down, coating everything in the scene with a cool, glazed hue.
Beneath the Ice Lotus, on the floor of the hall, sat thousands of figures, all neatly arranged in a cross-legged position.