Chapter 243: Chapter 242: The Blood Sacrifice and the Forlorn Warrior
The plains.
A gentle breeze, tinged with the faint scent of blood, drifted past.
Nearly ten thousand desiccated corpses, impaled on sharp wooden stakes, stretched out as far as the eye could see like a forest, creating a shocking visual impact.
"This... A blood sacrifice on this scale... What are the people of Tewa Kan trying to do?"
Marina’s body trembled, her expression one of terror. Her legs gave out, and she collapsed to her knees.
"A blood sacrifice?"
Su Ye’s expression shifted slightly.
He knew that on the Far South Continent, almost every city-state had a tradition of blood sacrifice.
This was true even for a city like Aino City, whose Goddess of Fertility presided over the relatively gentle domains of ’agriculture’ and ’bountiful harvest’.
It was just that, in Marina’s memory, even during the ’Grand Rite’ held at the end of the year in the various city-states, the number of offerings was kept to around a hundred people.
However...
Here alone, Tewa Kan City had offered nearly ten thousand sacrifices.
And it was obvious this wasn’t the only such sacrificial ground.
’After all, it can’t be such a coincidence that I’d stumble upon a sacrificial site the moment I came out, right?’
’The people of Tewa Kan are conducting large-scale blood sacrifices within the territory ruled by Aino City...’
’A scale like this... millions? Tens of millions?’
Su Ye frowned slightly.
A sweep of his Divine Sense allowed him to perceive the situation clearly.
The vast majority of these corpses were mortals—men and women, old and young!
These victims had almost all been nailed to the sharp wooden stakes while still alive!
Then, they had wailed for hours, even days, before dying in despair and misery amidst indescribable fear and pain...
"This sort of thing...?" Su Ye’s expression was one of disgust.
He had no small amount of blood on his hands, but slaughtering mortals on a massive scale... he’d never even considered it, let alone done it!
"Haaa..."
’Compared to the normal blood sacrifices of the Far South Continent, this one by the Tewa Kan people... no matter how you look at it, it has a crazed feeling, like they’re so desperate they’ll devour anything, scraping the very marrow from the bones.’
Moreover, he discovered an anomaly.
Su Ye focused his gaze into the distance, his nose twitching slightly. "So clean," he murmured.
A massive, cruel blood sacrifice like this should normally be thick with deep-seated resentment and suffused with a bloody aura...
But right now, Su Ye’s spiritual sense felt nothing at all.
"No resentful energy, no blood energy... nothing."
It was very clean.
To Su Ye, it felt as if some incredibly greedy entity had devoured every byproduct of this blood sacrifice, licking the plate clean.
"A god?"
Su Ye muttered to himself, somewhat perplexed.
’Even the resentful energy produced by their agonizing deaths was completely devoured...’
Su Ye frowned deeply. This kind of resentful energy, a force of extreme emotion, did indeed possess some power, but it was heavily tainted.
’Even Jiaojiao won’t eat this stuff!’
’Jiaojiao only eats pure blood energy and living souls.’
"Are they really that desperate?"
Su Ye raised an eyebrow.
Just then, his eyes shifted. His keen spiritual sense seemed to have detected something.
SWISH.
An Escape Light flashed, streaking across the sky and heading into the distance!
...
「Dozens of miles away.」
’This is trouble.’
Muer gritted his teeth, his cold, sharp eyes scanning his surroundings.
Seven or eight menacing figures in tattered clothes, holding a motley collection of weapons, surrounded them with malice in their eyes.
They might have been village hunters, army soldiers, or nobles’ slaves before...
But now, it was clear these men had all made a career change to banditry, specializing in murder and robbery...
"Papa... I’m scared."
The little girl with bright eyes and delicate features hid fearfully behind him.
"Don’t be afraid, sweetheart... I’m here."
Muer softly comforted his daughter, but his expression was extremely grim as he scanned the bandits.
’Damn it... these guys. If only I weren’t injured...’
As a formal Warrior who was just one potion away from reaching Tier 1, it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to escape these bandits, even with his injuries.
But with his daughter by his side... Muer dismissed the option of escape without a second thought.
The bandits approached, sneering. "Lord Warrior, why make this difficult? Hand over your weapon, and we’ll let you and this little thing go."
"We just want that sword of yours."
"Hah... You think I’m an idiot?"
Muer gave a cold laugh and drew the longsword from his waist.
The cold glint of the blade made the bandits take a few steps back, but it wasn’t enough to scare them off.
Muer stood with his sword drawn, looking around like an aging lion circled by hyenas, feeling his strength fail him!
’This isn’t working...’ Muer’s heart sank.
After a standoff of several minutes, his injuries seemed to act up, and he began to cough violently.
"COUGH, COUGH..."
Seeing Muer show weakness, two of the bandits’ eyes lit up, and they immediately drew their blades and charged.
But suddenly, Muer’s eyes turned murderous. Seemingly unaffected, he lunged forward like a bolt of lightning, moving with incredible speed!
The longsword flashed.
PCHT! PCHT!
Blood sprayed as one man was killed instantly.
The other lost half a hand and scrambled away with a strange cry.
"Damn it!"
Muer cursed. If he were at his peak, both of them would be dead.
But now, after killing one, his strength and speed couldn’t keep up.
"Get his daughter!"
From behind, a bandit charged toward his daughter.
Muer was forced back on the defensive, driving the bandit back with a thrust of his sword.
But just then.
PCHT.
An iron nail shot out from a tricky angle. Muer twisted his body but still couldn’t dodge it.
The nail grazed his arm. A numb, itching sensation spread, and his arm felt weak.
"Poison!"
Muer’s eyes sharpened as he clutched the wound.
The Far South Continent was teeming with venomous creatures, so even rural bandits knew a few Poison Skills.
And Muer had not yet reached a tier, nor could he become immune to common toxins like those with special bloodlines.
Once poisoned, he was immediately thrown into a desperate struggle against the bandits...
Dozens of breaths later, the sounds of fighting gradually subsided.
Muer lay on the ground amidst the scattered corpses of the bandits, his body covered in wounds.
In the end, he had won the battle.
But it had come at a price.
Nine wounds, three of them fatal. There was no chance of survival.
"I don’t want to die..."
Hearing his daughter’s cries and calls, Muer struggled weakly, but he only felt his body growing more and more numb.
His vision grew increasingly blurry, until he could no longer clearly see the figure of his crying daughter before him...
His consciousness was sinking into darkness.
Faintly, he thought he saw a figure flying toward him through the air?!
"Is this... a hallucination?"
...
"This mortal’s life force is so tenacious..."
Su Ye was somewhat surprised as he stood suspended on the wind.
With a flicker of Magical Power, he cast the Ganlin Spell to stabilize Muer’s life force.
At the same time, a silver light flashed in his eyes.
He began the Soul Search, reading the man’s memories.
Because the target was already on the verge of death, his life was flashing before his eyes.
He had no resistance left.
This state actually reduced the after-effects of a Soul Search to a negligible level...
Numerous images and sounds appeared before his eyes.
[Five years ago, in Tewa Kan City, a divine oracle descended...]
