Grand Sacrifice

[Deep in the night, you rest in the finest wooden hut the Snake Fang tribe has to offer, but in the middle of the night, someone suddenly bursts into the hut. You jolt awake and brace for battle: the intruder is the fierce woman Akachi, her hands still wrapped in bandages.]

[She says you're the toughest man she's ever met, so she wants to leave her seed with you. Her tone is strange—these are lines she hastily learned from the Shaman Doctor.]

[You naturally can't accept this. You're all about casual hookups, and while Akachi is after your seed, her attitude is also casual...]

[But even for a casual hookup, you have standards!]

[Old as you are, your tastes haven't sunk low enough to accept a woman with a burly man's face. You put on a stern expression and wave your hands repeatedly in refusal.]

[Akachi: "Actually, you're just no good." (Also learned from the Shaman Doctor—she came well-prepared.)]

Yun Shou (expressionless): "That's right, he's no good."

What's a little humiliation? Even if it's just a simulation, Yun Shou doesn't want to make "himself" indiscriminate.

[You fly into a rage on the spot, demanding to prove it to her.]

Yun Shou panicked: "No, big brother, please don't. You have to take care of your body—you can't just let her have a taste so easily..."

[You charge out of the hut and find that the Shaman Doctor isn't just awake—he's eavesdropping right outside the wall. Furious, you order him to summon any women in the tribe willing to hook up with you, so you can prove yourself.]

"Phew, thank goodness. I was overthinking it."

[The Shaman Doctor beams with joy and immediately starts shouting and running through the tribe. Soon, many tribal men and women emerge from their huts and tents. You notice some men with fire in their eyes, waving their hands to signal they're not interested.]

[You prove your ability.]

[At dawn, you stride out of the hut in high spirits. Outside, Akachi's face is like death: "You'd rather go for those scrawny weak women than me." (She really did learn her foreign language thoroughly.)]

[You snort, glance back at the several people lying sprawled inside the hut, and think to yourself: because this was a pure hookup, before things got started... you used Force Qi to drain the vitality from the children inside you, ensuring their bellies wouldn't swell.]

[Martial cultivation—pretty amazing, isn't it?]

[A few days later, you leave the Snake Fang tribe. Heading west from there, you encounter more and more desert tribes. Many of them initially harbor hostility toward you, until you produce the Snake Fang tribe's token.]

[If they don't recognize the token, you knock them into recognition with your fists.]

[After traveling another few hundred li, you realize these desert tribes aren't as primitive and backward as you imagined. The Snake Fang tribe was probably just too remote, because you spot a hundred-meter-tall altar, somewhat resembling a pyramid.]

[They're holding a grand ritual, and you've arrived just in time. You slip past the barriers, blending into the tens of thousands of people gathered at the base of the altar.]

[After discovering they use live human sacrifices, you retract your thought about "not as primitive and backward as imagined."]

[But the sacrifice isn't unwilling—he faces death with a beaming smile, natural and from the heart, not the dazed grin of someone drugged.]

[You think to yourself: when out in the world, you have to respect others' fates and let go of your savior complex. If the person were unwilling, then you'd...]

[Eh, even if the sacrifice were truly innocent and coerced, you still wouldn't act. There are too many people around—thousands of warriors guarding the ritual. You simply can't win.]

[This is a completely new people; none of you know each other. A little kindness is fine, but throwing yourself away isn't worth it.]

[You blend into the crowd, watching them dance and cheer at each other. The atmosphere grows tense and feverish. The smell of some burning herb wafts over, and you cleanse your body with Force Qi, weakening over ninety percent of the hallucinogenic effects.]

[This is insane! You really can't understand their state of mind. Dancing and singing is one thing, but there are people running around naked. And that's not all—there are people relieving themselves in public...]

[What came before was mental attack, but now it's physical: smashing each other with rocks, biting each other—zombie-style biting down to the bone. Even more outrageous, some grab children and infants and slam them into the ground, then stomp on them afterward.]

[You'd bet that after this ritual, their population will drop by at least three thousand. How did such a crazy race manage to multiply to this number?]

[Since you're an outsider and don't speak the language, you don't realize you've stumbled upon their once-in-six-hundred-sixty-six-year Supreme Ritual Sacrifice. The ceremony lasts a full month, and today is the 19th day. On the first day, there were a hundred thousand people present.]

Yun Shou: "Now I understand."

[(The tribe's total population is actually several hundred thousand, but only a hundred thousand "chosen ones" participate in the ritual. This is to prevent the ceremony's frenzy from decimating the tribe.)]

[You were planning to slip away from this madhouse, but soon they start performing all kinds of shows: hypnotic dances, dancing with snakes, Eight Hundred Sand Scorpions Battle Python King, and so on.]

[Even though you know these are part of the ritual, to your eyes they're nothing but top-tier circus acts. Who could resist staying to watch? You can't help but linger.]

[Show after show, until dusk. You prepare to leave, but you don't realize how disrespectful this act is: leaving the altar before the ritual ends.]

[When you retreat a few hundred meters and are barely a dozen steps away from the crowd, pretending to head home, a warrior on the periphery starts interrogating you. Silently, you rejoin the crowd... but that warrior has already noticed something wrong and starts shouting.]

[The shouts spread from one to ten, from ten to a hundred. You don't understand what they're yelling, but you notice the atmosphere around you shift from frenzy to fury. Soon, you find the cause of their anger: it's you.]

[They lunge at you, grab at you, bite at you. Facing a crowd as crazed as zombies, with the thousandfold echoes of their cries surging like a mountain and sea, you mutter to yourself: trouble.]

[Without hesitation, you draw your blade and slash out a light edge. At this moment, you can't afford to hold back. Blood rains before you—guts, bones, and gore burst from human bodies in an instant. You charge through the bloodbath, sprinting away from the crowd.]

[A Martial Master can already carve through ten thousand troops and slaughter over a thousand ordinary soldiers. And among Martial Masters, you're quite formidable—you have the confidence that once you decide to run, even a hundred-thousand-strong army can't stop you!]

[But just as you're about to leave the ritual grounds, you brush past a priest on the periphery during your escape. He gets a clear look at your face, then lets out a long howl toward the altar, shouting a series of strange syllables.]

[Your expression shifts. This priest has a booming voice, and as he howls, a shimmer of Force Qi flickers around him. He's a martial artist—a top-tier first-rate or a Martial Master!]

[If even a priest on the ritual's periphery has this level of Martial Cultivation, what about the Great Priest presiding over the ceremony?]

[You go all out, sprinting with Force Qi at full output. Any further, and you'd be burning your potential and foundation.]

["Easterner!" The roar crashes like thunder, echoing in your ears from a thousand meters away. The priests on the altar, who had been looking down at the chaos like divine proxies, erupt in extraordinary fury.]

[It's over! A Grandmaster!]