This initiation ceremony had been prepared months in advance, and those being initiated were people of considerable rank and standing within the Federation government.
The Primitive Sect was generally willing to accommodate such people. The ceremony was important, of course, but within the Primitive Sect, the emphasis was on the most fundamental desires and emotions deep within the human heart.
They had always encouraged their followers to release their thoughts and desires, so there was no need to refuse a longing that came from a follower's heart.
The priest overseeing the ceremony gave a signal, and someone in the distance took out a bell and began shaking it.
As the bell jingled, Lao Zheng felt a strange force pass into his body, seemingly urging him to do something.
He did not move, but he saw several people who had arrived with him suddenly walk woodenly out of the crowd. They slowly approached the square pool to one side, then jumped in.
A cloud of blood-red mist shrouded the space below, and those who entered vanished without a sound. Yet he could see that there was actually a layer of rather viscous liquid underneath. Once someone fell into it, their flesh rapidly dissolved, leaving a skeleton within a mere dozen seconds or so, which then sank out of sight.
This seemed to trigger something, causing the two stone pillars flanking the pool to light up. Although their glow was faint, they continuously radiated a certain domain field power.
Lao Zheng could tell that this domain field power was not produced by those deaths. Rather, it was triggered by emotions stirred in the people on the circular platform as they witnessed the scene.
After a dozen or so people had jumped in, the priest glanced at the light on the pillars and