At that moment, Wugutai flicked his wrist sharply and tapped his bone staff against the ground. Several wisps of dark red medicinal powder scattered from between his fingers into the wind, which swept them straight toward the middle of the river.
In an instant, the river's waves grew fiercer!
The already turbulent river suddenly churned. Black waves rose dozens of feet high, spraying white foam, roaring like savage beasts! The wind howled!
"The River God has manifested! The River God is angry!"
Someone in the crowd cried out in alarm. The people turned deathly pale and stumbled backward, their legs weak with fear.
Meanwhile, the strongmen on the riverbank threw dozens of bound, living offerings of the Five Sacrificial Animals into the river. The waters soon swallowed them all without a trace.
At the same time, Abbess Pure Mystery's incantations on the altar grew increasingly rapid, and her Peachwood Sword danced ever faster. Flashes of lightning shot through the air.
Yet the waves only grew more violent. Columns of water surged skyward, as though some enormous creature beneath the surface were thrashing and charging about. The river pounded the banks with thunderous crashes.
The terrified people fell to their knees in droves, trembling and kowtowing repeatedly, begging only for the deity to quell his anger.
Just as panic gripped every heart and darkness shrouded heaven and earth-
Abbess Pure Mystery suddenly gave a sharp cry. Her body shuddered violently, and her eyes snapped shut.
Her crimson ritual robes stirred without wind, snapping and fluttering. A faint, eerie red mist slowly rose around her, and the lotus patterns on her robes flickered in and out of sight, as though coming alive.
The next moment, her voice changed completely.
It was no longer the cool, clear voice of a Daoist, but ethereal