Evil God Sacrifice

Darkness, bonfire.

You could not see your hand before your face; the sky seemed shrouded beneath a black curtain.

The Bane Kingdom called nights like this, with neither stars nor moon—New Moon Night.

It meant a night without the gods' blessing!

On New Moon Night, strange and uncanny incidents were especially likely to occur.

For instance: white bones rising from graves, those who died miserable deaths turning into ghosts, black cats suddenly speaking.

Even the most prosperous red-light district in the royal capital closed its doors on New Moon Night.

Conversely, for doing things the gods despised, New Moon Night was a rare auspicious day.

For example: summoning an evil god.

"Viscount! Everything is ready!"

Blackstone Cliff. A nine-foot white-stone platform had been completed.

Stone pillars carved with the totems of myriad beasts stood around it, while dark brown blood formed a hexagram pattern.

A layer of luxurious yellow silk had been spread over the redwood divine altar.

One leg of the cast four-legged bronze furnace had been snapped off by brute force.

Three wrist-thick wooden stakes were still stuck in the broken furnace.

"Daya ta ong ga di bara..."

Swathed in a black robe, Viscount Orson carefully circled the altar once.

His expression was crazed, his eyes blood-red, as he muttered an indescribable cadence.

Below the platform, several hundred knights clad in leather armor and carrying sharp swords stood sternly like iron towers.

Before each of them knelt a sacrifice bound with hemp rope, facing the white-stone platform on both knees.

The blades glimmered with cold light beneath the night sky.

They awaited only a single command before raising their blades and bringing them down, severing several hundred heads.

In an instant, blood would gush forth and be absorbed by the totem stone pillars made of special material.

Lifelike crimson totem patterns would emerge—bewitching, beautiful, bloody enough to please an unknown evil god.

"..."

"Where is this? The Immortal Realm?"

Among the sacrifices.

Yin Ming slowly opened his eyes.

He discovered that his hands and feet were bound with hemp rope, leaving him unable to move, while everyone around him was a human with strange hair and eye colors.

Suddenly, the lingering memories in this body's brain surged toward him like a tidal wave.

Faced with an enormous flood of information sufficient to make an ordinary person faint, Yin Ming's eyes only flashed with confusion for an instant before he digested the remnants of the previous owner's memories.

"My name is Eno? Serf Eno! A sacrifice chosen by Viscount Orson for an evil god."

This body was called Artham Eno!

His parents had died, and he had been an ordinary serf of the Mountain Territory.

Originally, he would have continued his ancestors' fate: marrying a serf wife, fathering a serf son, and farming for the Orson Lineage generation after generation.

But something had gone wrong in his generation.

Viscount Orson had accidentally obtained a divine statue containing information on sacrifices to an evil god.

In order to gain true supernatural power, Viscount Orson had decided to offer three hundred serfs to an unknown evil god, and Eno was one of the unfortunate sacrifices chosen.

It was worth mentioning that this world had not yet entered the Age of Dharma Decline.

The Knight's Breathing Method cultivated by Viscount Orson was a form of semi-supernatural power.

"Possession? What the hell kind of development is this? I ascended—I didn't transmigrate!"

Yin Ming's face was filled with grief and indignation. After decades of bitter cultivation, he had finally succeeded in ascending, only to receive the same treatment as those who got into car accidents or were struck by lightning. Who could possibly make sense of that?

In the Age of Dharma Decline, spiritual energy was a desert.

In ancient times, the path of Qi Refining; in more recent antiquity, the path of the Golden Core—neither could condense even a thread of magical power.

For the sake of ascending to the Immortal Realm, Yin Ming had poured out everything he possessed and racked his brains.

He had chosen the path of Corpse Liberation, regarded by the sages as a side path. He visualized and preserved the gods within, cultivated no magical power, used essence and vitality as firewood, and opened a path to ascension in the Age of Dharma Decline.

Meditation, inner vision, Void Lightning, Yin Spirit, yin winds, bathing in fire, Yang Spirit, astral winds, lightning tribulation.

After enduring trial upon trial, he found a Jade Gourd magical artifact nurtured by heaven and earth within an ancient underground karst cave. Through Liberation by Violence, he had finally sent his Yang Spirit out of his body, used the artifact as a vessel, and ascended beyond the world.

At this moment, he should have been remolding an immortal body in the Immortal-Forging Pool of the Immortal Realm, becoming an immortal with a lifespan equal to heaven's.

Not possessing a serf who was about to be sacrificed.

"Light the divine fire! Press the sacrifices' heads to the ground."

Viscount Orson gave the command.

Two servants carried over a bucket of thick, scorched-black corpse oil.

They poured it from above onto the three wooden stakes inserted into the crippled iron furnace.

Then they lit the stakes with torches.

Black smoke billowed as three points of ghostly blue flame ignited.

The distant bonfires were dying out, their sparks flickering bright and dim. The atmosphere was so gloomy it seemed ready to drip water.

The serf sacrifices awaiting execution wore nothing but endless numbness on their faces. Not one uttered a wail or plea for mercy.

There was something unspeakably strange and sinister about the scene.

Yin Ming looked himself over and felt an inexplicable familiarity.

"Looks familiar... Don't tell me this is worshipping the gods?"

No!

Absolutely not!

What god could possibly be that brainless?

The altar truly was for worshipping gods, and it looked the part.

But a four-legged iron furnace with one leg broken off—could it be used as a three-legged round cauldron?

Using round wooden stakes as incense was one thing, but soaking them in scorched-black corpse oil before lighting them—wasn't that openly poisoning the incense offerings?

A blood sacrifice of three hundred grown men, with their essences and souls all mixed together—how was that any different from pouring shit straight into one's mouth?

Besides, they were all Western faces with strange hair and eye colors. How could an Eastern god possibly appear?

"I spent forty-two years cultivating bitterly, seeking dragons and dividing gold, felling mountains and smashing temples, finally surviving tribulations to ascend—was it all just to give some foreign evil god a change of flavor?"

"If I'd known, I might as well have rotted away in the mortal world."

Yin Ming could not help cursing inwardly.

Having succeeded in crossing the tribulation, he could be considered an immortal.

Yet it was all fucking useless. Immortals were not as powerful as the world imagined.

Especially Corpse-Liberation Immortals who had ascended by shedding their forms. Without magical power, they were particularly weak.

Only upon cultivating the Visualization Method to the Void Lightning Realm did one gain the first ability: night vision.

Only at the Yin Spirit Realm did one gain the second ability: spiritual sense.

The Yin Spirit and Yang Spirit could not roam the Northern Sea at dawn and Mount Cangwu at dusk. On windless nights, they merely allowed one to see with closed eyes.

Even the Yang Spirit Realm merely strengthened spiritual sense enough for it to be used normally during the day.

Only after becoming an immortal through Corpse Liberation did one gain the first true ability capable of displaying divinity before others: Spirit Travel.

That was, storing one's spiritual sense in a Corpse Liberation artifact and sending it out of the body to travel.

His strength was enough to deal with perhaps eight or ten ordinary people. He could not possibly defeat hundreds of knights wielding sharp blades, nor could he even break free from the thick hemp rope binding him.

Faced with such a heaven-blighted opening, he could only await slaughter like a lamb.

"Behave yourself! If you dare move around, I'll use you to sacrifice the banner."

The knight behind him barked in a low voice and violently pressed Yin Ming's head to the ground.

The three hundred serf sacrifices were forced to kowtow and worship toward the nine-foot white-stone platform, greatswords slanted across the backs of their necks so they could not raise their heads normally.

Feeling the chill radiating from the blade against his skin, Yin Ming could not help shrinking his neck.

"Right! The gourd! The gourd artifact."

After cultivating inner energy for more than ten years, other people could at least live an extra day or two.

After cultivating immortality for decades, it was impossible that he had no means of survival at all.

So long as the Corpse Liberation artifact remained, he could send out his Primordial Spirit and possess another body to be reborn.

Yin Ming hurriedly sensed the sea of consciousness between his brows. Within that vast white space floated a jade-green, warm and lustrous Jade Gourd.

"Phew..."

Yin Ming let out a sigh of relief, but did not immediately send his Primordial Spirit out of his body to flee.

He quietly waited for this strange ritual to begin.

Unless it came to the very worst.

He was unwilling to abandon this body as well.

Becoming an immortal was equivalent to being reborn. Once the soul had been remolded, it would perfectly fit the body from the first possession. Abandoning this body was equivalent to abandoning his original body.

What if this was merely a farce, and it could not summon any so-called evil god at all? Wouldn't he be taking a colossal loss?

"We respectfully invite: Void Water-Star Spirit Commander, Endtime Eater, Crimson Warden of Law."