Hunters Entering the Sacrificial Ground

"Yi Weina, you are a good girl, you should do the right thing."

After being injured and knocked unconscious by Zane, this sentence kept echoing in Yi Weina's mind.

But Yi Weina didn't know who had said those words to her.

Was it her grandmother, or that... Wildfire Cultist?

Who exactly is she?

In her dazed state, Yi Weina heard someone talking.

"Father Ulu, will the Saintess get better?"

"Of course, don't underestimate my Rhine Spell, kid."

"But she still hasn't woken up."

"Because she's pretending to be asleep."

"... No way?"

"If you don't believe me, just lick her."

"Will licking her wake her up?"

"That depends on whether you're licking the right spot or not."

Yi Weina, who was so tired that she could barely keep her eyes open, suddenly had the strength to open them and saw Wei Ke sitting to the side, deep in thought. She immediately spoke up.

"I... I'm awake," she said with difficulty. "You don't need to wake me up anymore."

Seeing that Yi Weina had woken up, Wei Ke said happily, "I'm so glad you're alright, Miss Yi Weina. When I brought you back last night, your heart was almost stopping."

Yi Weina gradually came to her senses and found herself lying at the back door of the Courage Hall, directly beneath the two spears.

Wei Ke was sitting next to her, while Bai Wei stood by the door, leisurely playing with the Serrated Knife in his hand.

The back door of the Courage Hall had been opened, and the warm sunlight shone directly in, dispelling the gloom and darkness of the previous night and revealing the path to the next temple before her. She felt a sense of sudden enlightenment, as if everything from the previous night was just a nightmare.

But Yi Weina knew it wasn't a nightmare.

Even under the warm sunlight, Yi Weina's eyes remained dim.

"I betrayed you." She looked at Bai Wei standing by the door and said bluntly, "I was instructed by them to approach you... to be precise, to approach Wei Ke."

Hearing Yi Weina say this, Bai Wei put away the Serrated Knife in his hand and looked at Yi Weina with a half-smile.

"Do you remember what I told you yesterday, Saintess?" Bai Wei said, "Whether it's a human or a god, once they're dead, they're dead. There's no way to bring them back to life."

Yi Weina's pupils narrowed slightly. "You knew all along?"

"This kid told me." Bai Wei gestured to Wei Ke. "He was watching from the sidelines last night, witnessed everything, and then kept torturing me."

"Torturing you?"

"Yes, they're pleading for you," Bai Wei said lazily, "Telling me not to hold you accountable."

Yi Weina glanced at Wei Ke instinctively, Wei Ke scratched his head and said, "After all, you wanted to save me back then, so I thought..."

"We can talk about these things on the way."

Bai Wei interrupted Wei Ke, then pulled out a wild fruit from somewhere and tossed it to Yi Weina, just like Yi Weina had tossed them yesterday.

After Yi Weina barely took it, she heard Bai Wei say something.

"We don't have much time left."

"What is this?" Fei Ge frowned slightly as he looked at the still-living mass of rotten flesh in front of him. "Our Devourer?"

As soon as he finished speaking, his Knight immediately stepped forward to examine the body, and soon they had an answer.

"Yes, Your Bishop, this is our Devourer," the Knight replied.

"They've indeed tracked us down here."

Fei Ge looked at the scene before him.

Despite his extensive knowledge as a bishop, the scene before him still made him feel somewhat uncomfortable.

There were severed limbs and rotting flesh everywhere.

The ground was covered with countless scratches, the width of which looked as if they had been carved out bit by bit with fingers. Inside were dark red blood, and floating on the blood were the mangled corpses of countless insects.

Fei Ge stared at the nearest pool of blood. Two crows that had come to forage for food suddenly attacked each other like madmen after taking a couple of bites of the flesh and blood floating on the surface of the pool.

In less than a minute, two more mangled, shredded bodies appeared on the pool of blood.

This is indeed their devourer.

The Devourer is unkillable. Even if it is crushed and only a few bits of flesh remain, it can "come back to life" by entering other life forms and resume its "pursuit" of Visas's power.

The problem is that after the two crows devoured the Devourer's flesh and blood, they did not merge into one and chase after the body parts, but instead began to fight each other.

Clearly, the horrific scene here was the result of countless fragmented devourers engaging in endless internal battles. A group of unkillable monsters, constantly being smashed, rebuilt, and then fighting again, were practically a perpetual motion machine.

But this is not normal!

Because it's as if they've transformed the resentment etched deep within their cells into each other, as if Visas had changed it.

How is that possible?

They are the product of the Gods' resentment; who can rewrite their resentment?

Fei Ge had a bad feeling, knowing that his strongest cards, besides himself, were the Devourer.

But now the Devourer has run into problems.

It seems this place is not as simple as he imagined.

Just then, a Knight hurried over, his expression quite grim.

"Your Bishop, we have discovered a... very strange situation."

"Just say it."

"We found a set of footprints that led away from here."

"Is it a Devourer?"

"No," the Knight said in a low voice, "Judging from the distribution of the footprints, there are still rational... humans."

Fei Ge's pupils narrowed slightly.

Humans?!

Humans who escaped the endless slaughter of the Devourers?!

Before Fei Ge could even ask a question, the Knight spoke again.

"Furthermore, according to our tests, he also contains a large amount of Devourer aura. It's almost as if... he devoured the Devourers here."

Abeike walked with a limp, his breathing becoming increasingly labored.

He sensed that something might be wrong with his body, but he didn't know exactly what it was.

"Visas! Visas! Visas!"

The mouth on its forehead was shouting incessantly, while the mouth to the right of its eye was telling it to be quiet.

The left side of the mouth remained silent, but suddenly opened and vomited out a bloody chunk of flesh.

Abeike casually took the piece of meat and chewed it with his mouth under his nose.

He ate while pondering.

What exactly went wrong?

Ah, this problem is too complicated.

But it doesn't matter, he doesn't need to think about that.

All we need to do is find the next body part.

His nose, which was in his palm, could already smell the other person's scent.

It'll be soon, very soon.

Thinking of this, all six mouths on his face broke into a smile.

"Yes, their condition for me was to bring my grandmother back to life," Yi Weina said softly. "I believed them."

The three of them are now on their way again.

Although Yi Weina and Wei Ke hadn't rested for long after being rescued last night, Bai Wei still urged them to set off.

Wei Ke was alright; as long as he wasn't killed on the spot, he would recover quickly. But Yi Weina wasn't in such good physical condition. The Rhine Spell that Bai Wei knew could only heal her injuries, but it couldn't restore her energy immediately. So Wei Ke simply carried her on his back, saving Yi Weina's energy so that she could answer Bai Wei's questions better.

"It sounds absurd, but you believed it."

Yi Weina was silent for a moment, then nodded slightly. "Yes, although I know the chances are really slim, I still..."

"But Miss Yi Weina's grandmother really came back to life," Wei Ke interrupted Yi Weina, saying to Bai Wei, "I saw it with my own eyes, sitting in a wheelchair! How did this happen?"

Bai Wei detected a hint of nervousness in Wei Ke's tone.

Clearly, Wei Ke is also very concerned about the sensitive topic of the dead coming back to life.

Bai Wei did not answer immediately, but looked at Yi Weina instead.

"What do you think?" he said with a smile. "Do you think that's your grandmother?"

Yi Weina hesitated for a moment. "I don't know."

"Have no idea?"

"Yes, she's just like my grandmother in every way, even her smell," Yi Weina said softly. "Even some of her little habits are the same. No one but my grandmother and I should know these things, and..."

Yi Weina recalled the last words her "grandmother" had said to her the night before, and involuntarily closed her eyes, her expression one of great pain.

"I really... can't tell."

"Well, if you can't tell the difference, then don't try to separate them for now." Bai Wei could see the images in Yi Weina's mind and knew how impactful this was for a little girl who had been raised by her grandmother and had almost never left the mountains. "The fact that it's causing you so much pain at least shows that those guys are really good at this. You just said that they want you to send your grandmother's flesh... I mean, her body in pieces, in stages?"

Yi Weina's face grew even paler, but she still nodded. "Yes, they said it's to complete some kind of ritual, and they need Grandmother's body, but they can't give it to them all at once."

"Hmm... I won't ask you pointless questions like 'Didn't you notice anything wrong with this?'" Bai Wei said. "Let's talk about something else. Is there anything else you're hiding from us?"

Yi Weina shook her head. "No."

"Really, that's all?"

"Really, that's all," Yi Weina said. "My grandmother passed away very suddenly, and she didn't have time to tell me everything, so I don't actually know much."

"I remember you said before that you and your grandmother also guided many Hunter to the Sacrificial Ground to inherit their power."

Is there a problem with this?

"Do you remember the Old Hunter that Wei Ke mentioned to you yesterday?"

Yi Weina remembered.

When they met yesterday, Wei Ke had already told him that he had met a real Old Hunter before coming here. The Old Hunter told him that the lineage of the Sacrificial Ground had long been broken, and that the current Hunter were all inherited through blood.

Yi Weina didn't pay much attention to this news yesterday, as she was focused on how to deceive Wei Ke and hadn't thought much about the matter itself until now.

"Impossible." Yi Weina's statement remained the same as yesterday. "That Old Hunter is lying to you."

And Wei Ke's answer was the same as yesterday, "Impossible! Ryan is a good person!"

The two almost repeated yesterday's conversation, but fortunately Yi Weina realized it.

"I'm not deceiving you," Yi Weina said earnestly. "Although I have never formally guided any Hunter, I witnessed my grandmother's guidance when I was very young."

"Did your grandmother guide Hunter?"

"Of course, and more than once."

Are you sure they're Hunter?

"Who else could it be? Only Hunter would come here," Yi Weina said. "And they're all like Wei Ke."

Wei Ke was somewhat surprised. "The same as me?"

"Yes," Yi Weina nodded. "They all had hunting dogs with them."

Wei Ke was stunned.

Wei Ke's pause made Yi Weina think he didn't believe her, so she immediately said, "I'm not lying to you. I've seen it many times. The Hunter who come here always bring their own hunting dogs. I even remember feeding their dogs."

"I don't distrust you, I just..." Wei Ke instinctively wanted to scratch his head, but then realized that he couldn't free his hands because he was carrying Yi Weina, so he said to Yi Weina, "Could you scratch it for me?"

"...ah?"

"I can't free my hands, and my head is a little itchy," Wei Ke said. "Just above my ear, thanks."

"...Oh." Yi Weina was speechless. As she reached out to help Wei Ke scratch his head, she suddenly experienced some hallucinations.

It was as if she had returned to many years ago, when she followed behind her grandmother and teased the hunting dogs brought by the Hunter, scratching their ears in the same way.

For a moment, Yi Weina felt a pang of sadness, until Bai Wei spoke up again, "All the Hunter have hunting dogs with them?"

Yi Weina snapped out of her daze, "Yes."

"No exceptions?"

Yi Weina shook her head. "No."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course," Yi Weina said confidently. "There are no exceptions."

"I see." Bai Wei said slowly, "So, those Hunter and hounds entered the Sacrificial Ground under your grandmother's guidance to obtain the Hunter's Inheritance?"

"Yes."

"And then what?"

"After that?" Yi Weina didn't understand what Bai Wei meant. "What do you mean, 'after that'?"

"Is this the only way to enter the Sacrificial Ground?"

"Certainly."

"So, have the Hunter who received the inheritance returned?" Bai Wei looked into Yi Weina's eyes. "Do you remember?"

Yi Weina instinctively wanted to answer "Of course," but the words caught in her throat.

Because she couldn't find such memories.

She only remembered the scene of the Hunter entering the Sacrificial Ground, but she couldn't recall the scene of the Hunter returning from the Sacrificial Ground.

It's as if... none of them came back from inside.

It's as if this road is one-way.

Just then, Bai Wei suddenly looked up and said, "We've arrived."

Wei Ke and Yi Weina both looked ahead, and a new temple appeared before them.

"The Trust Hall," Yi Weina said softly.