Good News, The Ceremony Went Smoothly

Upon hearing the content of the heretical priest's prayer, Duncan immediately halted his attempt to sever the soul projection and return to the Lost Homeland.

He stared at the masked priest before him, who had just finished his fervent invocation, like he was looking at an idiot. He watched the obsidian-carved dagger in the priest's hand rise high, saw the faithful around the altar grow excited one by one, chanting in unison the name of their "lord," reciting the title of that legendary, long-fallen, shattered "true Sun God."

They intended to offer him, this "Sacrifice," to the Sun God—specifically, by presenting the sacrifice's heart.

Now Duncan finally understood the source of the carnage in that cave earlier, grasped the nature of these cultists' mad, wicked deeds.

Then, he saw the masked priest take a step toward him, and on the surface of the obsidian dagger held high, a layer of pitch-black flame abruptly materialized.

This striking supernatural phenomenon instantly piqued Duncan's curiosity. He speculated whether this dagger was also some kind of "anomalous" item, whether the priest before him was a "special human" capable of wielding supernatural power, how many such special humans existed in this world's civilized society, and what social roles they might play.

At the same time, he watched expressionlessly as the dagger wreathed in black flame stabbed down, plunging straight into his chest with a hollow thud like piercing through several layers of tattered cloth.

The fire burned inside for a few moments, finding nothing to consume.

Behind him, from the blazing fireball atop the totem pole, a series of unsettling crackling pops suddenly erupted, mingled with a tearing, dizzying noise. Duncan vaguely sensed something seeping out from that fireball—a cold, maddening "touch." He struggled to describe the sensation, not only because this temporarily occupied body's senses were dulled, but also because it exceeded any perception he had ever experienced. He knew only one thing: in this world where supernatural phenomena were real, the priest's sacrificial ritual had undoubtedly run into serious trouble.

The anomaly on the totem pole's "symbolic sun" immediately caught the attention of the nearest faithful. With a few stifled gasps, the fervor in the scene quickly gave way to silence. Even the two black-robed men gripping Duncan's arms tightly seemed shaken by something, releasing their hold in terror and prostrating themselves before the totem pole in fear. The priest holding the obsidian dagger froze in place, still maintaining his grip on the blade, yet staring fixedly at the face of the "Sacrifice" before him. Through the openings in his mask, Duncan could see eyes mired in confusion and turmoil.

Duncan tugged at his stiff lips, finally forcing out a strange smile. He slowly raised his right hand, placing it over the priest's hand clutching the obsidian dagger. Wisps of green flame flowed like water, seeping in and slowly coiling around the blade.

In an instant, Duncan felt the "feedback" from the dagger, but oddly, the sensation was faint and hollow, as if the dagger were merely a shoddy imitation, its empty shell housing only a trace of "borrowed power."

But to him, whether the dagger was a fake or not didn't matter.

He smirked at the priest and said unhurriedly, "I've got two things to say."

The next moment, the priest felt his connection to the obsidian dagger abruptly disrupted by some external force. His fervent, devout faith in the Sun God seemed to crash against an indestructible, towering barrier, severed outright.

"First, I'm a broad-minded man—see, this broad."

Duncan tore away the already tattered cloth, now slashed open by the dagger, revealing a shocking, gaping hole. Through that terrible void, the priest presiding over the ritual could clearly see the scene behind Duncan.

"Second, try not to offer your lord expired food."

Duncan gently pushed aside the priest's hand. Somehow, after he had wrapped the obsidian dagger in his green Spirit Body Fire, the priest before him seemed to have lost most of his strength, so much so that Duncan's current frail, powerless limbs could easily shove this burly man away.

After being pushed back, the priest seemed to snap to his senses. Overwhelmed by immense terror and fury, his muscles trembling, he pointed at Duncan and shouted, as if trying to restore order to the sacrificial grounds with a loud cry: "A resurrected filth! A revenant! You've defiled this sacred sacrifice! Filth... which reckless necromancer is behind you?! Do you not fear the might of the sun?!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Duncan said, glancing at the obsidian dagger in his hand, feeling its faint power feedback as he spoke casually. Then he looked up at the priest, listening to the crackling noise from the totem pole behind him, and a bold, whimsical idea suddenly struck him. "But I've suddenly got a curiosity I want to satisfy."

With that, he abruptly raised the obsidian dagger, pointing it at the masked priest before the stunned, terrified crowd of black-robed faithful, and declared loudly:

"O most high and holy Sun God! Please accept this sacrifice from the altar! I offer You the heart of this offering, may You return from blood and fire!"

The next second, he saw the flame on the obsidian dagger surge violently, and the cold sensation emanating from the totem pole behind him suddenly coalesced, pointing directly at the masked priest not far away. Duncan saw the priest's eyes fill with terror; he seemed to want to flee the altar immediately, but the dagger was faster—

The dagger flew straight from Duncan's hand, pulled by some invisible force, wrapped in blazing black fire and faintly entwined green flames, piercing directly into the priest's chest. With a shrill scream, the cult leader's chest was pierced clean through, and his heart turned to ash in an instant.

The next moment, the dagger returned to Duncan's hand, and in that brief exchange, the meager power it contained seemed to have finally been exhausted.

Given that within the cult altar's sacrificial range there were two people, one with a heart and one without, and some evil god was bound to have a human heart today—the question was: who would lose their heart?

Naturally, the one with a heart.

But even if the logic held, the sheer smoothness of the whole affair still exceeded Duncan's expectations. He hadn't expected his wild "experiment" to actually work. Only after watching the cult priest fall did he turn to glance at the now-calm totem behind him and mutter in a strange tone: "So as long as the words are right, it doesn't matter who gives it?"

The fireball on the totem pole naturally didn't answer his question, but the cultists around the altar had clearly reacted by now. Panic was inevitable, but amid the chaos, some fervent believers erupted in rage—a fury that even surpassed the fear the totem's earlier anomaly had instilled in them!

Several cultists nearest the altar reacted first, charging at Duncan while shouting the Sun God's name. These boldest followers quickly spurred more to action, a horde of black-robed figures rushing forward as if bereft of reason, some even pulling short swords and daggers from beneath their robes.

Duncan had initially planned to shout something like "I offer all hearts on this altar to the Sun God" to test this bizarre deity's appetite, but when he saw that some of the charging cultists had even pulled revolvers from their robes, he immediately scrapped that idea. Considering the ritual's activation time and the "seven steps, fast and accurate" rule, he simply flipped off the cultists, severed his soul projection, and prepared to return to the Lost Homeland.

Let these madmen keep raging; he was heading back.

Meanwhile, on the vast Boundless Sea, rhythmic footsteps echoed across the deck of the Lost Homeland.

Alice, the doll in her splendid Gothic gown, left her room and arrived before the captain's cabin door.

That ornate wooden chest wasn't following behind Miss Doll this time; she had left it inside her room.

The captain had said she could move freely in the cabins below deck and walk on the upper deck, and if she had any questions, she could come directly to the captain's cabin to find him.

Alice remembered clearly.

(Book promotion time! This book's first recommendation comes from Shanxia Xiaodaoren's "The Idle Imperial Prince of the Great Ming Dynasty," with a direct blurb:

Zhu Yijing, grandson of the Zhengde Emperor of the Great Ming and biological son of Empress Kangning, looked at his proud eldest brother, his calculating second brother, and his expressionless, unreadable mother... Hmm, seems like nothing to do with him, right?

So the lad contentedly donned the hat of a transmigrator's disgrace and began a lazy life of eating and waiting for death.

Until a bowl of chicken soup arrived.

"Ahaha! The chicken soup is here!")