The Seventh Elder, who had been walking toward them, took a single step. Huang Huai's vision blurred, and when he looked again, the Seventh Elder had crossed more than ten zhang in an instant. His figure seemed to weigh nothing as he rose lightly into the air and landed on the sacrificial altar, which stood several stories high.
Huang Huai watched the two disciples who had followed the Seventh Elder float toward the altar, then looked at the Seventh Elder standing atop it. His eyes widened.
One stride covered dozens of zhang. That wasn't human!
Yet everyone around him looked on with nothing but admiration and reverence. Not a trace of surprise showed on their faces. Clearly, they had long since grown accustomed to the Seventh Elder's astonishing abilities.
The Seventh Elder on the altar slowly spoke. "Today, Wei has invited the gods to bestow their blessings. I only hope I can relieve you all of your illnesses and pain."
As soon as the Seventh Elder finished speaking, all the people bowed toward him and said respectfully, "We thank the High God. May the High God's Dao Path reach the heavens, may he remain undying among gods and demons, and may he enjoy eternal life!"
The Seventh Elder nodded with a smile. Then his expression turned solemn, and a faint aura of power instantly spread across the whole scene. An almost solid column of vital essence, like billowing smoke, surged up from his body and shot into the sky. It churned through the air, stirring the winds and clouds in every direction. To ordinary people, the sight looked like a divine miracle.
The Seventh Elder swept his long sleeves, and a jade-colored statue radiating a soft glow flew naturally from his dantian. At first, it was only the size of a thumb, but as soon as it appeared, it swelled with the wind, becoming a three-foot-tall statue.
On closer inspection, the statue was translucent throughout, carved from a piece of fine white jade. It was unmistakably a statue of a goddess standing on a lotus, dressed in rosy celestial robes, with a kind, benevolent face and three eyes.
The statue emerged from his body and grew to three feet tall, revealing its true form as it hung in the air. The Seventh Elder looked at it, then beckoned toward the column of vital essence above his head, which looked like a pillar reaching the heavens. A wisp of the billowing essence flew over and became a mass of blood-red vapor that shot toward the goddess statue.
At the same time, the Seventh Elder bowed slightly to the statue in midair. "Please, Goddess, partake of this offering!"
Divine light blazed forth. Under Huang Huai's disbelieving gaze, the Three-Eyed White Lotus Goddess, who had looked quite unremarkable moments ago, transformed in an instant into a goddess the size of an ordinary person.
As the Goddess opened and closed her Divine Eye, a glimmer of wisdom shone within. Her skin was as smooth as jade, and she wore rosy celestial robes. Barefoot, she stood upon a blooming white lotus. The lifeless jade statue had transformed into a deity with flesh and blood.
The Three-Eyed White Lotus Goddess first nodded to the Seventh Elder in greeting, as if returning his bow. Then she turned her gaze toward the mass of blood-red vapor he had summoned. A glimmer of light appeared in her Divine Eye.
The Seventh Elder accepted her greeting as casually as if nothing were amiss. With a faint smile, he said, "Please, Goddess, partake of the offering and bestow your blessings! Relieve the people of their illnesses and pain!"
As Huang Huai and the others watched, the Three-Eyed White Lotus Goddess opened her mouth and swallowed like a whale. In an instant, the mass of blood-red vapor vanished into her mouth. The Goddess seemed to have eaten something tremendously nourishing; even the divine light around her grew noticeably brighter, and her Divine Eye appeared more lively.
Huang Huai looked at the Seventh Elder's head, where vital essence and spirit billowed like smoke, then looked at the Three-Eyed White Lotus Goddess. A suspicion began to form in his mind.
Before Huang Huai could think any further, the people below saw the Three-Eyed White Lotus Goddess swallow the blood-red vapor offered by the Seventh Elder. Their eyes filled with excitement and hope, and they reverently bowed to the Goddess, now transformed into a divine being of flesh and blood. "Please, Goddess, bestow your blessings!"
In an instant, the prayers of thousands upon thousands of people crashed like thunder, their voices terrifying in their sheer force.
While Huang Huai was still dazed, a rich scent of incense spread through the air. Looking around, he saw that countless people had taken out sticks of incense and candles. With practiced ease, they lit them and bowed toward the Goddess in midair.
Nearly everyone had lit incense and was bowing in worship. Huang Huai couldn't quite process what he was seeing.
"Young brother, what are you standing there for? Hurry up and light incense to worship the Goddess!"
The owner of the eatery, already kneeling on the ground, seemed to notice Huang Huai standing there in a daze and reminded him.
Huang Huai looked at the pale yellow incense stick in the owner's hand and smiled wryly. He had no intention of casually worshipping a Goddess whose background he knew nothing about.
Besides, he had only come here because the enthusiastic eatery owner had dragged him along, swept up in the crowd.
Everyone was burning incense and bowing in worship. If he turned and left now, he would stick out like a crane among chickens.
Seeing Huang Huai hesitate, the eatery owner assumed he had no incense prepared. After a moment's thought, he painfully fished a stick from his sleeve under his wife's watchful eye and handed it to Huang Huai.
"Take it. Hurry and burn incense to worship the gods. If you miss the High God's blessing this time, who knows how long you'll have to wait for the next one!"
With the eatery owner and the others watching him, and disciples of the Great River Sect stationed on the altar above, Huang Huai could only accept the incense so he wouldn't stand out.
After a brief pause, Huang Huai lit the incense, then bowed to the Three-Eyed White Lotus Goddess in the air like everyone else.
At that moment, Huang Huai could only follow the crowd. He had hesitated earlier because he was afraid that casually worshipping a deity might bring some hidden danger.
But when he thought it over, he didn't believe there was anything dubious about the High God's blessings. The people of this world weren't fools, after all. If there were any hidden dangers, they would never be so eager to take part.
The scene reminded Huang Huai of the legendary path of becoming a god through incense offerings: the deities blessed the people, and the people provided the deities with Incense and Fire Prayer Power. Each side got what it needed.
More importantly, at this point, making a show of being different would be the most foolish thing he could do!
At the same time, Huang Huai noticed that the incense sticks held by the people around him varied. Some were thick, some thin, and some even had one or several colors. Most were plainly uncolored, while only a small number were colored.
The incense stick the eatery owner had given him was one of the colored ones, unlike the plain, unremarkable sticks most people held.
But as Huang Huai worshipped the Three-Eyed White Lotus Goddess, he noticed that the incense smoke from the stick in his hand didn't drift away with the wind. Instead, thin wisps streamed toward the Goddess in the air like ribbons.
It wasn't just his. The incense smoke from everyone present converged on the Three-Eyed White Lotus Goddess. Amid the curling clouds of smoke, the Goddess, radiating divine light, opened her mouth and swallowed like a whale. In an instant, all the incense smoke flowed into her like fish and dragons returning to the sea, and she devoured it completely.
After consuming the incense smoke, the divine light around the Three-Eyed White Lotus Goddess grew even brighter. Her three Divine Eyes became more lively, and then she swept her delicate hand. The winds and clouds surged between heaven and earth as the vital energy gathered into tiny points of light, mingling with traces of the essence of incense offerings. They became droplets of Divine Dew, each like a dewdrop. Some were large as beans, others small as grains of rice. Countless translucent droplets hung in the air, sparkling brilliantly beneath the divine light.
"Blessings!"
Accompanied by a vast, heavenly voice, the countless droplets of Divine Dew that had been suspended in the air sank into the bodies of everyone present.
Huang Huai watched several bean-sized droplets fly toward him and the eatery owner and his wife. Most people, he saw, received only rice-grain-sized drops. He instinctively suspected that the size of the Divine Dew bestowed by the Three-Eyed White Lotus Goddess was connected to the different incense sticks they had used while worshipping her.
Although he didn't know whether his guess was right, Huang Huai felt he was probably very close to the truth.
"Ugh..."
As his thoughts raced, a Divine Dew droplet about the size of a bean sank into Huang Huai's body. In an instant, waves of warmth spread through him and coursed through his entire body at incredible speed, as if he were soaking in a hot spring. The aches and soreness he had felt after running all the way here vanished in a flash.
The warm currents seeped through his body in thin streams, like tiny hands massaging him. But soon, a tingling sensation rose, and his body began to feel as if it were about to burst.
Feeling his body grow stronger little by little, he could clearly sense himself becoming more powerful with every passing moment. Huang Huai's mind reeled. It all seemed so unbelievable, so utterly inconceivable.
"Th-this is incredible!"
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