The group walked through the forest for a while when Baron suddenly felt a vibration in his chest.

His spirits lifted. It was the Demon Hunter medal he had won from Ludwig. The Immortal Church was probably nearby.

The air was perpetually damp from the dense vegetation.

After hacking away the tangled undergrowth with his blade, the Demon Hunter scouting ahead was about to advance when Andre pushed him down.

"Everyone, get down!"

All the Demon Hunters, well-trained, dropped to the ground.

Yalilan crouched and moved forward, peering through the bushes. Baron leaned in as well, his brow furrowing instinctively at the scene beyond the thicket.

It was a place styled like a village. The buildings were all temporary camps, arranged in an orderly but scattered fashion. On racks outside the camp, the internal organs of some kind of animal were being air-dried.

People were systematically collecting the dried organs from the racks. Then, one by one, they shouldered their bags and departed from the camp in a different direction, looking like refugees fleeing a famine.

They all wore tattered gray robes embroidered with poppy patterns. They were the Undead Cultists of the Immortal Church.

"Where’s Louis Squad?"

Andre looked at the Copper Bell in his hand, which was used for orientation—the same model Faraday had given Baron. "We have to find them and rendezvous," he said.

No one answered.

Andre saw Yalilan, Baron, and the others staring blankly in one direction. He followed their gaze and sucked in a sharp breath.

As the crowd dispersed in the distance, a large, altar-like platform became visible. On it stood dozens of tall, asterisk-shaped frames, with something tied to them.

Andre activated his Hunter’s Eye, which was close to the Bronze Tier, and strained his vision. Only then did he realize those were people who had been disemboweled, their internal organs and intestines completely removed.

One could easily guess where the organs being air-dried in the camp had come from.

Many of the younger Demon Hunters in the ranks saw this, their faces twitching and eyes jumping uncontrollably.

Though they had killed plenty of Demon Beasts, they had never seen a scene like this.

Maguire muttered, "They’re just a bunch of bastards."

A fire burned in his chest; he was itching to draw his blade at once.

Yalilan’s eyes trembled as her gaze swept over the corpses on the asterisk-shaped frames, one by one.

Finally, her pupils contracted sharply, stopping on three figures dressed in Hunting Outfits.

It was Louis Squad.

The chests of all three had also been hollowed out. Their eyes were wide with fury, unable to rest in peace. One could only imagine the agony they had suffered before death.

Baron even saw that the Copper Bell on one of their waists was still vibrating, resonating with the one in Andre’s hand. He figured the residual Spiritual Power was still reporting its location.

"Those animals! I’ll kill every last one of them!"

Even Andre, who had maintained an air of mystery, was clearly struggling to keep his composure at this sight.

The three members of Louis Squad had been his brothers in his old gang, and they were core members who had followed him to join the temporary Rose Hunting Group that Yalilan had formed.

And now they were dead, just like this... The veins on Andre’s forehead bulged, twitching like snakes.

’I’ve failed them.’

He secretly resolved in his heart that he must avenge them!

On the altar, Cultists in Yellow Robes—clearly of a high Tier—were stuffing the air-dried organs back into the corpses on the asterisk-shaped frames, then sealing them up with a strange kind of thread.

’A special ritual of the Immortal Church?’ Baron’s gaze swept over the victims, and then his eyes suddenly froze.

He recognized many faces among them. They were the Demon Hunters from the Iron Thorn Gang, the same group that had pursued them when the Little Nun used the wrong kind of Gold Coin right after they had entered Fude City.

The Demon Hunters from the Iron Thorn Gang!

Baron identified them one by one, and his heart sank. He had a sinking feeling that the worst had already happened.

Yalilan noticed his expression and asked what was wrong.

Baron explained what he had seen, and Zod added:

"No wonder we haven’t seen anyone from the Iron Thorn Gang all day. Don’t tell me they’ve all been used as offerings and sacrificed to the Immortal Goddess by these Cultists."

Andre said, "Ferdinand was already a Bronze Tier years ago. He must be cooperating with the Immortal Church like this to receive the Immortal Goddess’s blessing through these sacrifices. He’s probably hoping it will help him absorb the Magic Potion for his promotion and finally break through to Silver Tier."

’Breaking through to Silver Tier...’ Baron remembered the Return Gold Coin he carried. Ferdinand had gone to such great lengths for that coin, but now he had secretly left the city. It seemed Ferdinand understood that time was of the essence and was planning to risk it all.

If he succeeded... Baron’s gaze turned cold. "Looking at these Cultists, they were clearly notified in advance. Someone from the City Defense Team must have sent word."

"So what do we do now? Surround them?" Maguire asked, already eager for a fight.

The younger Demon Hunters looked at the organs scattered on the ground, barely able to contain their rage.

"What do you mean, ’what do we do’?" Baron frowned, drawing his twin pistols. "We find our chance, and we kill them all."

As soon as he spoke, Demon Hunter L shot forward. Just as he was about to be spotted, he ducked into one of the tents. A moment later, after a Cultist entered the tent, he emerged, now wearing the gray robe of an Undead Cultist.

The others exchanged a look. Leaving one team to cover their rear and another to return to Fude City and report to the City Government, the remaining Demon Hunters all followed suit.

Andre, who had been about to scold Baron for his recklessness, could only swallow his words and follow an Undead Cultist into a tent to change clothes.

In no time, the camp was filled with a new group of Undead Cultists who supposedly hadn’t left yet.

No, it wasn’t that there were more of them. The Undead Cultists who had been "replaced" by the Demon Hunters were well and truly dead.

After all, not every Undead Cultist was actually an Undead.

Yalilan nodded to the group. "Spread out. Infiltrate first. We’ll make our move once we figure out what they’re doing."

She glanced expressionlessly at the corner of a piece of clothing sticking out from one of the tents, which bore the insignia of the Iron Thorn Gang.

Things were quite clear by now. The next step was to find Ferdinand.

The Demon Hunters followed the direction the Cultists were heading and blended in, soon arriving at the platform they had seen earlier—the one resembling an altar, with many asterisk-shaped frames erected on it.

Those few men dressed like Priests in Yellow Robes were still engaged in their previous activity: placing the air-dried organs into the opened chests of the corpses and then sewing them shut with a special kind of silver thread.

It turned out Baron’s earlier worry that the Cultists might flee was unnecessary. They all stopped around the altar, looking up at it with expressions of inviolable sanctity.

Being closer, they could see more clearly. They could also smell the stench of corpses rotting under the sun. Some of the younger Demon Hunters felt their stomachs churn.

Baron, however, felt fine. It was probably because he had lost his sense of smell for blood. He even had the presence of mind to start observing the "Native Cultists" around him.

Like all the other assorted cultists Baron had met before—the Dragon Devourer Cultists, the Lamb Nuns, and so on—these Cultists wore looks of unnatural fanaticism.

Baron noticed they were all middle-aged or elderly. Their dark, wrinkled faces gave away their approximate age, yet their hands had few wrinkles, clearly indicating they weren’t workers or farmers who regularly performed manual labor.

But on second thought, it made sense to Baron. The lives of most workers and farmers were already hard enough; why would they wish for such a bitter existence to last even longer?

Andre suddenly came up to him. "Those Yellow-robed Priests... I just got a clear look at a few of them. They’re all wealthy merchants and high-ranking officials from Fude City. The one in the middle is the biggest steel merchant in Fude City..."

"Were they at the banquet last night?" Yalilan asked.

Andre replied, "No. They’re the ones who haven’t been exposed..."

He was about to say more, but he saw the Yellow-robed Priests on the platform finish sewing up the last corpse and suddenly begin to chant a prayer in praise of the Immortal Goddess.

To translate it into Baron’s terms, it was basically: "We wouldn’t be here today without the Immortal Goddess. Now the Immortal Goddess needs us, so we should do our part for her revival, and while she’s at it, maybe she can perform a miracle for us."