Chapter 333 | Sequence: Sacrifice

Inside the room, Yin Yang observed everything through the vision of the blade-wielding ghost.

The array was activating, and waves of sacrificial power swirled through the air.

Yin Yang didn't let the blade-wielding ghost make any sudden moves; he simply stood to the side and watched.

Because the corpses above were blocking the view, he couldn't see the details of the array below.

Now that the array had activated, it was better to be cautious until he understood its specific function.

As the sacrificial power rose, the small doll inside the shrine began to shake slightly, its eyes gradually lighting up.

The corpses of the children in the room vibrated along with it, creating a scene of absolute horror.

‘There is sacrificial power, but why is no one presiding over the ritual?’

‘It seems this is a cyclic sacrifice.’

‘Regardless of whether there's a celebrant or even sacrifices present, the ritual will trigger once the time is right.’

‘The person who set this up only needs to deliver the sacrifices on a regular schedule.’

‘Are these children the sacrifices then?’

Yin Yang's main body wasn't here, so he couldn't use his Perception skill, but the blade-wielding ghost was a spirit and possessed natural Spirit Sight.

Since it had entered the room, it hadn't seen a single spirit from beginning to end. The most likely explanation was that the children's souls had already been sacrificed, leaving no spirits behind.

But what happened next was a true eye-opener for Yin Yang.

When the sacrificial power reached a boiling point, a crimson light erupted from the red-eyed statue and flew directly into a rotting corpse on the floor.

In the next moment, the corpse began to brim with life. Rotting flesh was replaced by new growth, and the skin gradually turned fair. If not for the unchanged wound on its neck, it would have looked like a living person.

‘A Reverse Sacrifice!’

Looking at the corpses on the floor again, Yin Yang finally understood what was happening.

Someone was performing a Life-Substitution!

A Substitute Life Doll could only block a single attack for its wearer, but this Life-Substitution could distribute damage infinitely, as long as the substitutes could endure it.

However, compared to a Substitute Life Doll, this Life-Substitution was far more difficult to achieve.

The practitioner needed to find a substitute whose destiny matched their own, kill them, and then distribute the meat.

Everyone who ate the substitute meat would become their life-substitute.

As long as they were within a certain range, they would share the damage taken by the practitioner.

For example, take Yin Yang.

If his lethal threshold was one hundred, he would die if an attack hit for one hundred. But if there was a life-substitute nearby...

If the life-substitute's lethal threshold was twenty, and a hundred points of damage hit, the damage would be split—fifty points each. What should have been a killing blow for Yin Yang would no longer be a threat; only one life-substitute would die.

And that was just with one. What if there were ten? A hundred?

This was the terrifying power of life-substitutes.

However, finding people with identical destinies was no easy task.

There were at least dozens of corpses here. Yin Yang could only describe this as a massive undertaking!

One didn't even need to think to know that the person behind this must be a high-ranking figure.

The blade-wielding ghost stood outside the array while Yin Yang pondered the active ritual.

‘Life-substitutes have a limited range. For someone to be doing this in Wangnian City, are they planning to do something big here?’

‘Unfortunately, my destiny is different from theirs, so this array is useless to me.’

As everyone knew, Yin Yang was a very frugal man. Seeing such a massive, wild array that he couldn't use made him feel genuinely distressed.

‘I am in Wangnian City, and the mastermind is also in Wangnian City. If they do something big, will it affect me?’

‘Taking some preventative measures in advance should be perfectly justifiable, right?’

‘It's a pity I found this so late. The mastermind has probably already distributed quite a bit of meat.’

The baleful aura on the blade-wielding ghost began to boil. After a moment of distortion, it traced a circular formation above the pile of corpses.

Incantations flickered across it. As the ghost injected its spirituality, the array shrank smaller and smaller until it finally merged into the shrine.

To be safe, Yin Yang also placed a Brand on both the shrine and the statue.

After finishing this, Yin Yang commanded the blade-wielding ghost to hide in the darkness. He wanted to see who would come to collect the meat and if it was the creation of that Sight Rules entity.

As it turned out, he had to wait until nightfall.

Only when the sky was pitch black did a woman with a shapely figure walk in.

She didn't turn on the lights. Carrying a bundle in her left hand and a bone-chopping knife in her right, she walked to the fresh corpse as if she had night vision and swung the blade down.

Thud!

It was unclear if she lacked strength or if the knife was dull, but it took a dozen strikes before she managed to hack off the corpse's lower leg.

She then carved off a few more pieces from other parts of the body, stuffed them into the bag along with the knife, and walked out.

After she left, two red lights glowed in the darkness—the eyes of the blade-wielding ghost.

It wasn't worried about losing her because Yin Yang had placed Brands on every corpse in the room.

...

The dormitory building.

Qin Ye stood by the window, his expression incredibly grim.

‘Enough. Victory and defeat are common occurrences. When the First Ancestor was building the empire, many of his subordinates were more capable than him, yet was it not my Qin family that sat upon the throne?’

A voice rang out directly in Qin Ye's mind. He looked at the window pane; his reflection gradually distorted, transforming into the appearance of Monarch Qin Qian.

“But he was humiliating me!”

‘Humiliation? Are you really going to bicker with a dead man?’

Hearing this, Qin Ye's expression softened slightly.

The Qin Qian in the mirror continued.

‘Do not forget our ultimate goal for coming here!’

‘Ye'er, the Great Wei of today is no longer the Great Wei of old. Wan Tianqing's power is vast; I have almost become his puppet. I do not wish for you to be his puppet in the future, do you understand?’

“I understand.”

Qin Ye felt a secret surge of joy, as this was essentially a promise.

‘The court has practically become Wan Tianqing's personal stage. If not for Huang Quan opposing him, the imperial surname of Great Wei would likely have already changed to Wan.’