Sacrificial Ritual

Dark green fluid trickled down the steps of the altar, which had been piled from white bones.

Lu Ping stepped across the slick stone slabs, his breathing even.

The oppressive cursed energy around him was nearly solid, yet not a single beat of his breathing rhythm was disturbed.

A flicker of relief passed through Lu Ping's heart.

Before awakening his current power, the cursed energy within him had been exceedingly weak.

In order to survive in the dangerous world of jujutsu, he had once seriously considered retreating behind the scenes to become an assistant supervisor.

To that end, he had pored over countless obscure ancient texts and spent a period of time studying the underlying logic of barrier techniques day and night.

Those theories that had once seemed dry and tedious now allowed him, when facing this enormous domain, to sharply peel away its surface and look directly at the core of its operation.

All those seemingly useless accumulations from the past had become a lifeline capable of saving his life.

"Senior Kamo."

Lu Ping turned around, his gaze falling on Qian Chun's bloodstained hands, his tone resolute.

"Your attack was ineffective not because it lacked power. As a point-to-point ultimate strike, Piercing Blood's destructive force is beyond doubt."

Qian Chun's brows drew together slightly as she waited for him to continue.

"If the domain cannot be broken from within, there are only two possibilities." Lu Ping raised two fingers.

"First, this is an extremely complete closed domain with a flawless shell. Second, when constructing the domain, its caster made some extreme Binding Vow in exchange for an indestructible inner shell."

He paused slightly, giving her a moment to think.

"Considering how recently this curse embryo was born, it has no foundation for constructing a perfect barrier. The answer can only be the latter."

As a top elite sorcerer from one of the Three Great Families, Qian Chun had an exceptionally sharp instinct for jujutsu theory and understood immediately.

Her eyes widened slightly as she quickly realized.

"You mean this Serpent God Curse Embryo traded an extreme Binding Vow such as 'not actively harming targets within the domain' for absolute reinforcement of the domain's inner walls, as well as the stable operation of this 'sacrificial ritual'?"

"Though it may have done so unintentionally, that is exactly it."

Lu Ping nodded in agreement, then raised his hand and pointed at the [Twin-Snake Egg] in the center of the altar, its surface covered in cracks.

"Originally, I wasn't completely certain. I couldn't understand why this curse embryo could be born early when the ritual clearly wasn't complete. But the moment I saw this egg, I understood the entire chain of logic."

He started forward, avoiding the writhing mass of snakes beneath his feet, his voice echoing through the hollow curtain of light.

"In jujutsu common sense, twins are regarded as a divided single existence, representing an ominous curse. Considering this cursed spirit's traits, I deduce that the Snake God's original form should have been a malformed monster with two heads, a human body, and a snake's tail."

"Because the sacrificial ritual in reality had failed to obtain enough blood for so long, its descent was obstructed. So, the head that developed intelligence earlier was forced to separate ahead of time and descend into the present world as a premature infant. The other head, which possessed greater power, remained hidden within the egg, still asleep."

Lu Ping's deductions were like a blade, dissecting the complex battle situation piece by piece and revealing the behavioral logic of the [Twin Cursed Spirits].

"What we are in now is the domain expanded by that premature curse embryo. The current ritual is meant to nourish and gradually awaken the other curse embryo still sleeping inside the egg. If we can disrupt, or even completely interrupt, this ritual, we can greatly reduce the completeness of this Serpent God Curse Embryo and thereby weaken its power."

Qian Chun listened silently to this rigorously reasoned analysis, a storm raging in her heart.

In this desperate situation, where they could die at any moment, the young man before her had not panicked in the slightest. Instead, within just a few minutes, he had deduced the enemy's hidden cards from scattered clues alone.

She suppressed her surprise without allowing it to show on her face, merely nodding solemnly.

"You're right. That explains why it doesn't dare fight us head-on. What do you need me to do? I'll follow your arrangements and cooperate with everything I have."

"Since we've deduced that the current domain is harmless due to the Binding Vow, we need to verify it."

The moment Lu Ping finished speaking, he headed straight for the center of the altar.

His steps were steady, and he did not activate any defensive technique.

The grotesque snakes that had been writhing madly seemed to lose their instinct to attack the instant they touched him, only blindly slithering away.

The verification was a success.

"Stay at the edge of the altar and be ready to provide support at any time."

Without looking back, Lu Ping instructed her, "Don't follow me down. We need to keep one mobile position that can respond at any time if something changes."

Qian Chun stopped, standing vigilantly at the very top of the stairs to keep watch.

Lu Ping walked alone into the depths of the altar.

As he approached the central area, he discovered that the altar's inner walls were not covered by snakes.

Ancient murals had been carved into the stone walls with rough, bold strokes.

These mottled images completely recorded the origins of the region's primitive Snake God worship and its sacrificial process.

He stopped to study them, quickly interpreting the information contained in the murals by the faint light filtering down from above.

The first mural showed a group of people pinning down a frail living person, carving complex symbols into their back, then locking them inside a separate wooden cage.

—This was the inscription of a curse mark upon the sacrifice and its isolation from the crowd.

Its purpose was not only to make it easier for the Snake God to identify its food, but also to let the sacrifice accumulate the highest concentration of negative emotions through confinement and fear.

The second mural showed a full moon hanging high in the sky as the sacrifice was pushed into the center of an altar extremely similar to the one before him.

—On the day of the ritual, the living sacrifice had to be sent into the altar.

This ensured that the sacrifice retained the fullest vitality before coming into contact with the Snake God.

The third mural showed an enormous serpentine monster emerging from the shadows and wrapping its body around the sacrifice layer by layer.

—This was the assimilation process.

After appearing, the Snake God would cover the sacrifice in its cursed energy, stripping away and infiltrating its very life force.

The fourth mural showed the monster opening its maw and swallowing the indistinct sacrifice in one bite as horns began to grow from its head.

—Devour the sacrifice, and the ritual was declared complete.

Through this, the Snake God fused and assimilated, absorbing centuries of faith and devouring fresh life to complete the ultimate leap in its power.

Lu Ping's gaze stopped on the third mural as he rapidly deduced the possibility of altering the ritual.

If he wanted to break this deadlock, the only opening lay in the third step.

If, when the Snake God tried to assimilate the sacrifice, some existence could resist that assimilation in reverse and even turn the tables, using the identity of the sacrifice to devour the weakened true body of the Snake God, then the entire descent ritual would immediately collapse!

At present, one head of the two-headed Snake God was still asleep, while the other had fallen into extreme weakness after forcibly expanding its domain.

This plan was entirely feasible.

Lu Ping lowered his head and glanced at the ground beneath his feet.

Under his control, the mass of pitch-black shadow was boiling restlessly.

He needed a sacrifice capable of replacing a human to accomplish this feat.

He thought of the shikigami in his [Ten Shadows Technique] that had recently begun to stir—the [Great Serpent].

According to ancient records, [shikigami] were ghosts and gods outside the present world, commanded by sorcerers, their origins traceable to ancient Onmyodo.

Only a small number of sorcerers could summon them through cursed talismans or specific techniques, then bring them under their command through cruel subjugation rituals.

Ordinary people who were not sorcerers could never glimpse the true forms of these ghosts and gods.

There could be no more suitable sacrifice to replace an ordinary human than this shikigami, which possessed immense cursed energy.

Whether it was the terrifying energy contained within it, its status as a ghostly god beyond the present world, or its innate resonance with the Snake God through their shared origin as "snakes," all of it was enough to bypass the barrier's judgment and qualify it as the highest-quality sacrifice.

The only thing missing now was the curse mark carved onto the sacrifice.

Lu Ping emptied his mind and pushed the cursed energy within him to its limit.

With the terrifying enhancement of the [Three Corpses], his dynamic vision and memory reached inhuman precision.

He stared at the curse mark lines on the mural and slowly raised his right hand.

A faint black gleam lingered around his fingertips as he traced those complex, twisted patterns through empty air.

Once. The lines deviated slightly, and he immediately erased them.

Twice. The framework of the curse mark had taken shape, but the cursed energy output at its nodes was still somewhat rough.

Three times. The black gleam left a perfect trail in the air, every turn identical to the ancient totem on the mural.

He had learned it.

At that moment, the [Twin-Snake Egg] behind him began to shake violently.

Huge cracks spread across its stone shell as dark green mucus gushed wildly from the gaps.

The sleeping head was about to cross the boundary between life and death and awaken completely.

Qian Chun, standing at the edge, felt her heart tighten.

The blood in her palms was already faintly boiling, ready for her to rush down and forcibly pull the young man standing at the center of danger back up.

But Lu Ping showed no sign of retreat, fighting for every second.

He knew very well that the reason the sacrifice had to be isolated from the crowd was not merely to accumulate fear, but more importantly, to preserve the absolute purity of the cursed energy within it.

Once a shikigami completed its master-recognition ritual, the sorcerer's cursed energy would continuously flow into it to strengthen it.

Although this could greatly enhance the shikigami's combat power, that cursed energy, mixed with both of their auras, would lose its qualification as a pure sacrifice.

Therefore, using the unsubjugated shikigami [Great Serpent] as the sacrifice was perfect!