Chapter 344: The Sacrificial Ritual
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 344: The Sacrificial Ritual
The blood-red pillars of light from the sacrificial ritual reflected against the dome, piercing through every branch extending from the Ley Lines.
Through a secondary reflection of light, the entire Underground District was shrouded in a murky crimson.
The radiance of the Ley Lines was eclipsed. The ritual’s power tore through man-made structures; even the exposed sections of the Ley Lines were reduced to a faint, residual glimmer at their edges.
The sacrificial ritual was drawing upon the power of the Ley Lines to maintain its operation, which now blanketed more than half of the residential area.
Awakened by this bizarre phenomenon, people threw open their windows and stepped out of their doors, staring at a scene that looked like the end of the world.
Some screamed for the Ground Patrol; others grumbled, wondering if the researchers at the Beyonder Research Base were conducting another experiment.
But as the sacrificial power of the ritual began to surge, they watched with their own eyes as people near the pillars of light were stripped of their flesh and blood. In that moment, they realized this was no experiment, nor was it some sick joke played by the Base.
They were truly doomed.
In an instant, any trace of morning irritability or lingering hope vanished. Their eyes held nothing but disbelief as they watched those consumed by the ritual—the desperate, struggling look in their eyes in their final moments.
The people knew only one thing: run. Only by escaping this place was there a slim chance of survival!
In this moment, the bustling Underground District—this jungle of steel, these roadside tents, the homeless men scraping by in trash cans—finally realized the gravity of the situation.
The blood-red pillars radiating from the buildings seemed to transform the residential area into a gargantuan sacrificial altar. No one could leave. Driven by the Ley Lines, the Ley Line energy carried the blood-mist and Abyssal power, harvesting flesh and soul essence with the frenzied efficiency of a meat grinder.
They converged into a massive force above the district, forming a gargantuan sphere of flesh. From within, countless wails echoed. Soul essence, carrying fragments of memory, writhed within the sphere, eventually forming a distorted, inhuman face on the surface that let out a shrill, piercing shriek.
By now, the Ground Patrol had been mobilized in an emergency, but they were utterly helpless in the face of such a catastrophe.
Among the "outsiders" who had been settled in the district, many were students from Transcendent Academies who had only just fallen asleep. They, too, were jolted awake by the phenomenon.
They stared at the suffocating pressure. Even across the boundary between dream and reality, it felt as though the air was being squeezed from their lungs.
"What... what is going on?"
Students from the Transcendent Academies gathered in the streets, emerging from their lodgings to watch the unfolding horror in a daze, eventually looking at one another in confusion.
If they were asked to fight an opponent, they might have been eager to try, but facing a mutation that felt like a natural calamity left many of them paralyzed with indecision.
"This... looks like a blood sacrifice ritual?" Even Tan Han was uncertain, but given the scale of the disturbance and the gore involved, it was clearly an evil ritual.
"We need to find the Ground Patrol and the people from the Base first. Our numbers alone might not be enough to help them," Tan Han said briefly before springing into action. Standing around doing nothing would achieve nothing.
Using a spell, Tan Han leaped onto a high rooftop. She looked toward the center of the disaster not far away, where the massive sphere of flesh had gathered. A figure stood suspended in the air.
It seemed that was the architect of all this.
At that moment, many other students from the Transcendent Academies appeared. Most, like Tan Han, had sought high ground to survey the situation. After grasping the general state of affairs, they instinctively glanced at one another. Though no words were exchanged, a consensus was reached.
Disaster had struck. As some of the strongest combatants present, their instinct was to stop it.
This fated sense of descending peril drove most of them to make their choice.
However, the moment they stepped into the range of the sacrificial ritual, they immediately felt that something was wrong.
Up close, they witnessed the area turn into a "dead zone." People screaming and running through the streets had their flesh disintegrated by the crimson power until they died.
As outsiders, the students knew they didn't possess "real" physical bodies here, yet they still felt a strange sensation within themselves.
"Be careful! This bizarre blood sacrifice doesn't just harvest flesh—it takes soul essence too! Anyone whose soul essence is injured, stay back! Do not follow us!"
Feeling the abnormality, Tan Han immediately shouted to the crowd.
Hearing this, many people were instantly terrified and stopped in their tracks. They had personally experienced or witnessed what happened when soul essence was damaged.
That path led to total, permanent death!
The fear in their hearts acted as a barrier. It was the primal fear of death. They froze, much like during the initial Class Competition when no one wanted to fight for the Class Monitor position after hearing people could die. Some people's cowardice would never change, regardless of the power they wielded.
"Sister Tan Han! Don't go! Didn't you say it harvests soul essence?"
"And if I don't? If no one goes, do we just wait for that monster to finish the ritual and then we all wait to die?" Tan Han didn't stop. Her voice was calm, but she continued forward without a hint of hesitation or retreat.
Did Tan Han not know the danger?
She knew it perfectly well. She was among the first to react to the danger, and she knew there were things she had to do. She couldn't show a single trace of withdrawal.
Even if she had originally come here seeking answers and didn't want to throw her life away, she understood that if she didn't fight for certain things, she would forever be kept in the dark.
Wasn't she controlled by fate?
Then she would break fate. She would choose the hardest path to temper herself. This was no longer just a struggle against destiny; it was a refinement of her own will. She needed to grow—and not just in terms of strength.
"More troublesome bugs. Go, swat them all to death."
The Dream Demon channeled her power, separating a portion of the energy gathered from the flesh and soul essence of the ritual.
Suddenly, the crimson light flared. Humanoid monsters tore themselves away from the flesh sphere, shifting into the likeness of the Dream Demon before lunging toward the charging students.
These were low-grade Dream Demons, crudely refined by the true Dream Demon. They were the favorite "trash-clearing" tool of their kind. These creatures were implanted with only a single thought: kill the invaders. They lacked the independent thought or speech of the previous Dream Demons, but as long as they had sufficient combat power, that was enough.
In the next instant, their forms dived into the dreamscape, colliding violently with the outsiders.
Immediately, the sky was filled with flying spells and Divine Art judgments. A greatsword of Holy Light swung out, its radiance purifying the filth in an instant.
Such a magnificent scene in the sky above the Underground District naturally drew everyone's gaze. They instinctively looked toward the student from the Holy Angel Academy—Archie. His feat of taking down the Wizard Academy single-handedly during the Dream Exchange Competition was enough for everyone to remember him.
At this moment, everyone realized that Holy Light was extremely effective at countering the enemy's methods. Without much thought, the crowd began to cluster toward the Holy Angel Academy students, implicitly making them the center of the formation.
Even Tan Han could see the tactical advantage. She made a split-second decision to assist the Holy Angel students in delivering the final, killing blow to the monster.
"Holy Angels... what a troublesome race."
The Dream Demon, watching the battle unfold, frowned at the sight of their techniques. Abyssal demons hated these "birdmen" who wielded Holy Light more than anything else.
It was an irreconcilable hatred. Whether it was the Transcendent Holy Angels represented by the academy or the Transcendent Demon races of the Abyss, both belonged to the Transcendent level of power. The fundamental systems they mastered were in direct conflict: Order and Faith versus Chaos and Sin. This repulsion was etched into their very bones.
Yet, she remained confident. The opponents were merely bugs trapped in a dream. The only one she really needed to worry about was being held back by Ninglan Qiuyu. She wasn't worried about Ninglan Qiuyu failing to stall that person; her mastery over human nature was expert, and her understanding of Luck was clear. The Luck of Ninglan New City was tied to that Transcendent Item. That was the true ritual for the City Lord's succession. Once he shouldered that Luck, he would receive the protection of Ninglan New City.
Of course, the price of that protection was that the entire city would bear the impact for him. To some extent, it was a dynamic equilibrium; the City Lord represented the absolute dominance of Ninglan New City.
She was certain that before long, Ninglan New City would face an even more terrifying impact from an energy tide.
But what did that have to do with a Dream Demon?
Luck is static, but people are living; this is how Luck is utilized.
As a Dream Demon, she wasn't a lifeform of the Main World, so she couldn't seize Luck directly. She needed a vessel.
The fact that Ninglan New City possessed Luck meant the city itself was a natural vessel, or that there was something within it that could carry Luck indefinitely.
Later, she discovered such an existence did indeed exist in Ninglan New City—a Transcendent Item!
That was a rare treasure. The formation of a Transcendent Item was a matter of extreme coincidence. Despite the many Transcendent races in the Void, none could claim to have a stable technique for producing them—except, perhaps, for those mad Witches. The things those bored Witches did were sometimes more terrifying than the Abyssal demons.
Because the ritual variables required for the birth of a Transcendent Item were too numerous, they were more often categorized as "collectibles." With the prevalence of alchemy, there were plenty of alchemical items that could replace them. However, Transcendent Items had one distinct advantage: an incredibly high ceiling. (Though, conversely, their floor was also very low.)
Thus, upon seeing that Transcendent Item, the Dream Demon had formulated her plan.
Before seeing it, she had intended to use the fluctuations in Luck caused by the change in City Lord to forcibly seize it through a plundering ritual. But after seeing the item, she knew that plan would likely fail.
How could she not see that the core of that Transcendent Item was a Luck Seed from the Main World?
Conventional means could never plunder the Luck from a Luck Seed!
Even if it was a Luck Seed that had lost its former master.
* * *
During the eruption of the sacrificial ritual, the Ground Patrol headquarters had fallen into utter chaos. They had only recently returned from the surface after suppressing the old factions and hadn't even had time to rest before this happened.
This sense of powerless despair made the Ground Patrol members feel like mere spectators, unable to help at all. The gap between their expectations and reality was hard to swallow. They were supposed to be the protectors of the Underground District, yet now they could only watch as people were stripped of their flesh and blood within the unknown crimson ritual arrays, dying horrific deaths.
"Damned things! Are they playing with us?!"
"Hey! Don't do anything stupid! We only make a pittance in salary at the Ground Patrol, why are you throwing your life away?"
"Am I throwing my life away? That's my home! Do you understand? I just want to blow those glowing pillars to hell!"
"Everyone shut the hell up! Look at yourselves! Do you still look like the Ground Patrol?"
"Cap... Captain... that's my home! My family is still..."
"Then come with me. Don't waste time. We're going to the Base to get the heavy-duty weapons. Dammit... everyone, move out with me! The auxiliary squads will handle the evacuation. Everyone, get moving!"
At this moment, what was happening in the Underground District was no longer just one person's problem; it concerned everyone. Even those scraping by on a few coins a day realized that if they didn't fight now, they wouldn't even have the right to survive.
They faced an unknown enemy and a massacre unlike anything seen in history. Even after this event passed, it would remain an indelible scar on the Underground District of Ninglan New City.
In the face of such an enemy, some retreated, while others stood their ground. Regardless, those ordinary people who chose to pick up weapons and fire upon an enemy they couldn't hope to defeat would be the brightest heroes in this one-sided slaughter.
On the other side, with such a dangerous situation unfolding in the Underground District, the important figures naturally wouldn't sit around waiting for death.
"City Lord, quick... we must leave. A crisis has erupted in the Underground District; it's no longer safe. We'll escort you to the surface first."
A portion of the City Guard remaining in the Underground District escorted a young man in a hurried rush toward the elevator leading to the surface.
No one thought anything was wrong. In such a crisis, anyone could die, but the next City Lord absolutely could not!
As long as the City Lord remained, the banner of faith would not fall. No matter the difficulty, the City Lord would be there to face it. Only when the decision-maker gave the order could the massive organization of Ninglan New City function.
It wasn't until they reached the elevator platform without encountering any danger that the City Guards finally breathed a sigh of relief.
However, these guards didn't notice anything amiss with the City Lord they so revered. As he watched them go to such lengths to bring him here, a faint, inadvertent smile played at the corners of his mouth. He waited quietly for the elevator to take them to the surface.
Once they reached the surface and met with the City Guards stationed there, someone suggested that the entire force go down to provide support.
After all, the Underground District couldn't be allowed to fall. If it did, the impending Beast Tide would likely cause irreparable damage to Ninglan New City.
Just then, news from the City Defense Force arrived.
The Beast Tide had arrived much earlier than expected, and it was far more ferocious than the last. Without reinforcements, the first line of defense for Ninglan New City would be completely lost, and the City Defense Force would have to retreat to the rear lines.
"Misfortunes never come singly..." At this, the crowd looked toward the trusted City Lord they followed. He spoke up: "City Guard, take all current Beyonder Armaments and go support the front line."
"But City Lord, the Underground District..."
"Seal the main passage between the Underground District and Ninglan New City. Prevent the disaster from spreading to the main urban area."
"But the Underground District is..."
"Did you not hear me? Is the loss of the Underground District more serious, or the loss of the entire Ninglan New City?"
"Yes, sir..."
"Ninglan Qiuyu" watched the City Guard assemble to depart, the mysterious smile at the corners of his mouth deepening. This way... the Underground District would be left isolated and without aid.