Chapter 233
Chapter 233
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 233
>Chapter Title: The Cauldron
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The cave wound downward, and no one spoke. They had been walking for quite a while without reaching the bottom. Maybe this place had no bottom at all. Or maybe it did.
Fortunately, as they descended, the cave grew wider and wider, no longer as oppressive as it had been at the entrance.
"Wait, stop." Li Huowang said this. His sharp senses picked up something as he dropped to one knee, frowning at the footprints on the ground.
"These aren't a child's footprints. They're from a normal adult. Besides young Sun Baolu back then, someone else has been in this cave."
"No big deal. Let's keep going." Li Huowang stood up and continued drilling downward into the cave. Truth be told, compared to evil beings, he was more wary of running into people.
If someone could come and go freely in a cave full of evil things, their strength had to be extraordinary.
The rock cave began to bend. Sun Baolu stopped at the bend, swallowing hard with visible tension.
"Back then, after turning this corner, one of my playmates suddenly vanished."
Sun Baolu's fear began to spread to everyone. They all perked up, on high alert.
Li Huowang placed a hand on Sun Baolu's shoulder and pulled him back forcefully, taking the lead around the bend.
Gripping his sword hilt, he stood there, scanning everything ahead. But Li Huowang, who was fully prepared, faced no attack.
"Are you sure this is the spot? Aside from two long-dead sheep on the ground, there's nothing else."
"Dead sheep?" Sun Baolu and the others cautiously approached behind Li Huowang, raising their fluorite stones high to peer inside.
In the pitch-black darkness ahead, there were truly only two dead sheep. Nothing else.
Judging by their shriveled faces and dust-covered but intact bodies, they must have gotten lost in the cave and starved to death.
With a "crack," Li Huowang's sword sliced the two dried sheep corpses in half. Their pitch-black, coal-like dried innards rolled out.
Li Huowang didn't let it go at that. He lifted his foot and stomped down.
He had no intention of leaving these two corpses behind him. That was too dangerous. What if they suddenly got up and attacked from behind?
It might be overly cautious, but in a place like this, Li Huowang felt he couldn't be too careful.
Only after pulverizing the two sheep to dust did Li Huowang sheath his sword and press onward.
The rock cave grew deeper and more spacious with every step, though Li Huowang couldn't see what lay in the pitch-black distance.
The darkness here was thicker than elsewhere. The glow from their fluorite stones only lit up the area right in front of them. Even with Li Huowang's keen eyesight, he could see just a bit farther.
They hadn't walked much longer when more sheep corpses appeared on the ground. This time, Li Huowang couldn't chop them all—there were too many, densely packed, at least eight hundred if not a thousand.
"One or two could be lost strays, but this many? It has to be deliberate. Someone herded a whole flock in here to die. Who would do that?"
Li Huowang pondered as he gazed at the sheep.
Moreover, the corpses were intact, showing no signs of being gnawed or devoured.
From this, he could tell Black Tai Sui wasn't nearby. Otherwise, a meat-eater like it wouldn't pass up free food.
Li Huowang mulled it over again, then pulled out a piece of Black Tai Sui's dead skin from his robes and held it in front of Mantou once more.
"Mantou, sniff. Go see where this smell is coming from around here."
"Woof woof~" Mantou licked it, then hesitantly padded forward.
With a wave from Li Huowang, the others hurried after. "Stick close. Don't get separated in a place like this."
"There's a small fork ahead, no problem. After half a stick of incense, we'll reach the spot where I encountered those brush things last time. That's the farthest I got."
Sun Baolu, extremely tense, kept reminding them from the side.
The dead sheep on the ground showed no sign of ending, spreading densely onward.
Finally, after walking the time it takes for two cups of tea, the sheep were gone. Something new appeared ahead: a massive bronze cauldron, as tall as a building.
The enormous bronze cauldron was covered in green rust and dust. It had clearly been there for a very long time.
"I wasn't here back when I came. There was no cauldron then." Sun Baolu's words made Li Huowang furrow his brow.
He first glanced at the cauldron, then back at the dense carpet of dead sheep behind them. He felt they were connected somehow. As far as he knew, a ding like this was an important ritual vessel for sacrificing to gods.
Li Huowang circled the giant cauldron slowly. When he saw the white jade plates behind it, along with the remains of three sacrificial livestock rotted down to bones, he knew his hunch was right. Someone was indeed performing sacrifices here.
"Isn't this supposed to be evil territory? How is there such a solemn ritual? Are the evils doing this? If so, what are they sacrificing to?"
Li Huowang approached the giant cauldron cautiously and peered inside. Aside from some ashes, there was nothing else.
"Ah!!" A woman's scream made Li Huowang's scalp tingle. He whipped around to see a panicked Bai Lingmiao clinging tightly to the Second God, who was covered by a red veil.
"What happened? What did you see?"
"Sheep! Sheep!" Bai Lingmiao shivered, pointing at the darkness to the left. Her arms hugged the Second God even tighter.
As Li Huowang warily advanced with his fluorite stone, its glow illuminated things in the darkness. Some sheep corpses.
But these sheep corpses were utterly different from the ones before. Every dried corpse here was a grotesque half-human, half-sheep monstrosity!
An old man lay at Li Huowang's feet, spiral sheep horns protruding from his cheeks. In his final moments, he had desperately tried to touch his face with his two hooves, but he died in that last struggle.
Beside him was another sheep corpse—or perhaps human one. The upper body was a skinned lamb, while the lower was a twisted deformity, its bent hooves and warped knee bones jutting one forward, one back, like randomly extending branches.
And this was just the beginning. As the light swept over them, even more disgusting and terrifying corpses littered the area. No wonder Bai Lingmiao had been so frightened.
As the glow revealed these half-human, half-sheep horrors, Li Huowang instinctively thought back to the earlier sheep corpses.
"No! Those aren't sheep corpses—they're humans! Someone turned them into sheep. They're all sacrificial offerings!"
Li Huowang rushed to the cauldron, eyes wide in shock as he stared at row after row of sheep corpses.
Realizing these sheep had once been people changed the whole picture. Someone had killed over a thousand here, all to sacrifice to... something!
(End of chapter)