Ashen Dragon

But now, this "Holy Road" is stained with blood, littered with gruesome spider-elf corpses, and even the Holy Tree is tainted by evil forces, looking vastly different from how she remembered.

Yet, does she truly have the right to be called a Serenia person?

As Rhea stood dazed, Catherine approached and spoke in a gentle yet firm voice, "Come, Rhea, let us... end this tragedy together."

"A thousand years have passed; Serenia should return to its former glory."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Rhea lifted her head, gazing at the elf queen's delicate face and those eyes shimmering with a silver glow, nodding heavily.

In the blink of an eye, they stood before the thick trunk of the Holy Tree, ready to open the Ancient Wood Gate and enter.

This was the sacred place where the Ancient Elf King swore to the gods, establishing Serenia.

Only those with royal blood can open it.

The Ancient Wood Gate once exuded elegance and grandeur, full of natural beauty, with faces of ancient tree men appearing upon it.

But now, it is riddled with cracks, the edges bristling with fang-like thorns, resembling a gaping maw.

The corners of its mouth slightly uplifted, displaying a crimson hue, it appears twisted and distorted, with its crevices dark and deep, as if ready to devour those before it in the next moment.

But

"Swoosh—"

Traditionally, a sacrifice involves a spider-shaped blade with eight legs as razors (2d6 points of damage), spilling the blood of Zor believers and/or captured enemies. In other instances, it is with devotions sung, offering jewelry or other valuables to be incinerated in a brazier. In major, significant rituals, Rose's priests customarily use eight braziers to provide additional burning materials, paying tribute to Rose (the flames symbolize her eight legs). The most potent rituals offered to Rose are hard to describe in detail and are rarely witnessed by non-Drow.

Near the Sword Bay region are several well-known cities, such as Waterdeep City (Waterdeep), Elturel, and Neverwinter, with Waterdeep City built upon the former capital of the Elf Empire Ilfaen—Erin Vier old site. It houses many divine temples, and the Miracle Temple is the most magnificent Magic Goddess Temple in the game, featuring opulent towers adorned with various artworks and magical decorations, filled with lavish Baroque style, while Neverwinter veers more towards Gothic-style architecture, evolving from the early human settlement Aegostor over a century, while the story's main city Baldur's Gate, is the largest and most prosperous trade city in the Sword Bay region, a jumble of nobles, commoners, and thieves, becoming known as a 'hotbed of conspiracies' by adventurers. Baldur's Gate is named after a hero, Grey Harbor adventurer Bodlan, who explored beyond the Sword Sea, returned with wealth to Grey Harbor, and led a team to establish a city here.

Based on residents' social standings, Baldur's Gate is divided into the Upper City for nobles and the Lower City for commoners, with the Outer City scattered around Chenyi Mountain, and the gate dividing Upper and Lower City is called Bod Gate, the whole city is also named after it while also serving as a monument to the city's founder, Bodlan.

Currently, Baldur's Gate is ruled by a council of four, all titled Grand Duke, with one serving as the council leader. If voting results in a tie, Grand Duke Elder Ravenclaw decides. The Upper City's security is handled by the elite official police force known as the Guard, while other areas are managed by a mercenary group named "Flaming Fist." Grand Duke Elder Ravenclaw is also the highest leader of the mercenary group, headquartered at the Bodlan Sea Tower, the strongest fortress defending Baldur's Gate from sea invasions, and like a crescent embracing Baldur's Gate's economic lifeline—Gray Harbor, where hundreds of merchant ships enter and exit daily, bringing gold coins, along with greed and vice.

The Upper City sits on higher terrain, consisting of the Castle District, Temple District, Manoburn District, and Wide Alley District, with numerous religious buildings; the Miracle Hall and Supreme Miracle House are the God of Craft Gund's church centers in Baldur's Gate. Miracle Hall displays Gund's great inventions, while the Supreme Miracle House functions as a workshop. The Lower City primarily has stone houses divided into six districts, namely Sea Tower District, Blonrich District, Steep District, Crowded Side District, East Road District, and Branpton District, with the middle class generally residing in Blonrich District adjacent to the Upper City's nobility, whereas the East Road District near the Stone Lizard Gate leading to the Outer City is relatively more mixed, crowded with lively bars and cheap inns. Sea Tower District is a base for Flaming Fist Mercenary Group, from which its headquarters, Bodlan Sea Tower, lies atop the largest rocky offshore island, and Branpton District and Steep District are relatively run-down, being the living community for sailors and laborers. The Outer City is spread along the Chongsar River, filled with temporary constructions and slums. A landmark is a stone bridge spanning the Chongsar River—Flying Dragon Crossroad, crowded with many vendors, with even wooden boards extending the bridge, adding constructions above it; law and order don't exist here, not even Flaming Fist Mercenary Group can protect this area significantly, where destitute people or criminals unable to settle in the city gather.

Moss on the sewer arches glows with a ghostly green under the dim phosphorescent lantern, and the turbid sewage spills over boot soles, each step stirring a viscous "gurgle." Purple-black slime seeps from wall cracks, converging like veins towards the drainage outlet—this is the neurocorrosive substance unique to the Spirit Sucking Monster Nest, inhalation by ordinary people results in auditory hallucinations, as if countless tiny tendrils squirm inside ear canals. Suddenly, a "clicking" sound of bone displacement came from behind a broken cast iron pipe, as if something was twisting through narrow spaces. A sucking monster burst from the water, a pale humanoid body wrapped in detritus, its octopus-like head's tendrils vibrating at high frequency, releasing a visibly purple mind shock wave. The front guard's helmet caved in, and his eyeballs burst into a blood mist under cranial pressure; the second person had yet to scream before tendrils pierced his ear canal, spine extracted like a marionette's strings from its shell; the last survivor staggered back, firearm misfire's roar completely engulfed by a subsonic screech from the spirit sucking monster troop.

These sucking monsters clearly received tactical training. Two feigning individuals slapped water surfaces with tendrils, stirring a corrosive liquid mist to obscure vision; a third one hung upside down from the ceiling, attaching suction cups to the guard's skull, tendrils precisely piercing the occipital foramen—not immediately lethal but forcing the captive, like a puppet, to turn and load ammunition for his comrades with trembling hands. Meanwhile, a fourth sucking monster is carving open a fallen guard's chest cavity with bone blades at its knuckles, extracting a warm liver to insert into its mouthparts, pale yellow digestive juices dripping from its mandible, etching wisps of blue smoke on the ground.

Three patrolling guards had just raised their lanterns when the sewage suddenly exploded! Four sucking monsters

The parasitized hadn't fully died. A guard's remnants suddenly twitched and crawled up, a translucent spirit sucking monster larva tendril protruding from a neck gash, pupils dilating to a cloudy milky white. He picked up a dagger and stabbed at his former comrade, squeezing out a non-human synthesized sound from his throat: "Skull... offered to the main brain...". And the real horror had only just begun—distant sewage began boiling, more pale figures emerging, dragging a dozen captives wrapped in slime cocoons with their tendrils, the human faces beneath the cocoon writhing into soundless screams.

When the last gunshot echoed away, the sewer returned to dead silence. Only the floating tattered uniforms and still pulsating neurocorrosive mats testified to the massacre's occurrence. The spirit sucking monsters dragged captives into the depth of drainage pipes, their slimy cocoons occasionally twitching as if the 'seeds' inside were on the verge of breaking free. Meanwhile, in the main brain's psychic network, these new shell coordinates were transforming into a string of cold purple light, converging towards the massive pulsating shadow beneath Baldur's Gate.