To Sitralmina's surprise, the food provided to them was generous. Although it was some sour corn tortillas, corn gnocchi and bitter sauce, both Avilistri and Quitspari enjoyed the food. In their hometown, they had to get up early and work all day long in the dark to eat such food, but now they only need to stay quiet in this dark room and not speak loudly.
Every afternoon, they were taken out by soldiers, and groups of dozens entered an indoor bath to take a bath. The bathtub is made of stone, and there are several stone ditches to introduce fresh water from a distance. They were taught to wipe their bodies with a crushed plant, which would make them cleaner. After Citralmina tried it, she found that the effect was exactly as the Aztlan people said. Not only was all the dirt removed, but the skin was even left with a hint of grass fragrance.
Although bathing with dozens of men is an extremely shameful and unspeakable thing for Citralmina, if she refuses, Aztlan's soldiers will turn their spears on her. She later learned that the Aztlan people believed that not bathing could spread disease. Citralmina and others were important sacrifices, and they did not want anyone in this group to contract the plague.
About a week later, a man wearing black clothes, black pants and a black cloak came in with a group of Aztlan soldiers. His clothes were embroidered with skulls, and a necklace of teeth hung around his neck. These attires indicate that he is a priest. The skull and teeth both symbolize the priest's duty - human sacrifice.
"Today is the Festival of Valisteli in Tlacacasi. In order to sacrifice Sipe Totec, the skinned man of spring, we need the human skins of some warriors who died in the fight." The priest said, "Do you have any?" Someone who voluntarily steps forward to fight in front of God?”
"If you want to skin us, just come here!" Xitralmina shouted, "We will be sacrificed sooner or later anyway, and we will not fight to the death with our own people just to survive for a few more days!"
"It's not for you to kill each other, but with our warriors." The priest said, "Although you are prisoners of war, we will still prepare exquisite weapons for you. As witnessed by the gods, when neither side uses magic, , as long as you defeat our warriors, they will be the ones who are skinned. This time we need five human skins, and you send five people to engage in a wheel battle with our warriors. The loser will be skinned, and the winner will fight in the next round. Duel until you get five human skins!"
This sentence gave the desperate prisoners of war a glimmer of hope. Avilistri, who had been hanging his head, suddenly stood up and said: "Since it is a glorious battle witnessed by the gods, then let me go first!"
But Citralmina still didn't trust the priest's words: "One on one, there are five games in total. If you win, you won't be skinned? Are you telling the truth? What if we keep winning? You guys What are you going to do?”
"I swear to God, as long as you keep winning at Tlacacasipe Valistri, you will live until the end of the world."
So Citralmina also stood up: "Give me a coat, I will also participate."
"You?" The priest looked at Sitralmina from head to toe, and finally his eyes lingered on her chest. "Woman, you don't need to survive in this way. If you don't want to be sacrificed, As long as you swear to be a slave, there will be a lot of people willing to take you."
"Do you think I will fail in a one-on-one fight?" Citralmina covered her chest and gritted her teeth and said, "Tell you, I am a disciple of Master Querakiri!"
Upon hearing this, the priest's expression suddenly changed. He moved his eyes away from Citralmina's chest, turned sideways and made a "please" gesture: "In that case, then you are the protagonist of this Tracasipe Valistli Festival. . I think the great Sun King is also willing to come and watch the battle of Master Querakiri's disciples."
Except for Avilistri and Citralmina, none of the remaining prisoners of war were willing to come forward. The black-clothed priest frowned, picked three more of the strongest looking ones from the crowd, and let the Aztlan soldiers forcefully drag them out.
Under the leadership of the priest, they began to climb the huge pyramid made of an astonishing number of stones.
There are hundreds of steps from the bottom of the pyramid to the top. Looking up at the bottom of the pyramid, you can see two large temples standing on the top of the pyramid, closest to the sky in the entire city. The two main gods of Aztlan are worshiped there, one is Huitzilopochtli, the god of the sun and war, and the other is Quecharcoatl, the god of rain and civilization.
When they reached the halfway point of the pyramid, the prisoners of war faintly smelled a stench wafting down from the top of the pyramid. As I kept climbing up, the stench became stronger and stronger. Soon after, congealed black blood appeared on the steps under their feet. The further up you go, the more blood clots form on the steps. The dozens of steps at the top were completely covered in black blood. From a distance, they looked like a black waterfall flowing down from the top of the tower.
The weather was not very good, and the cold wind brought a bone-chilling chill to Citralmina. Although her own tribe also has a tradition of human sacrifice, only about five or six people do not sacrifice each year, which is not comparable to Aztlan in terms of scale. Just looking at this black waterfall, the number of prisoners of war who were sacrificed on the top of this tower was over 10,000!
Citralmina and others did not climb to the top of the pyramid, but were taken to a platform halfway up the pyramid. There is a huge round stone there, with a ferocious-looking head carved in the center of the round stone. That is Traltkutli, the god of earth - she once devoured everything created until she was defeated by the god of civilization. Killed by Charcoatl. The gods used her body to create mountains, valleys and rivers, but she lamented day and night because of her tragic experience. Unless she was constantly supplied with fresh human blood, the earth would not be able to produce food.
One side of the boulder is close to the cliff of the pyramid, one side is close to the steps that the prisoners of war climbed up, and there are seats on the other two sides. There were already thousands of people sitting at the banquet, most of them were nobles and wealthy people from Aztlan. All subsequent duels will take place on this round stone for the enjoyment of this group of people.
Seeing the disheveled Sitralmina, whistles came from the group of nobles. Although Citralmina has been dressing up like this for a long time, most of her companions would kindly avoid looking at her and pretend not to notice. The strong reaction of the Aztlan nobles made her cover her chest in embarrassment, but this action only made the whistles louder.
When the black-clothed priest was holding a set of clothes and preparing to hand it to Sitralmina, the group of nobles shouted:
"Don't give her clothes, let her fight like this!"
The black-clothed priest smiled knowingly, pulled the clothes back from Citralmina's fingertips, and threw them into the fire aside.
