Intelligence covered the entire stone table.
Seven scouts' reports, three scraps of secret correspondence, a hand-drawn map of the wasteland, and old ledgers Tie Xiaoqi had collected from the Black Market... recording vague figures for every "Heaven-Chosen Sacrifice" over the past century.
Ningyu sat beside the stone table, her right hand gripping her little finger, which was missing a segment. Her gaze darted across the intelligence. She had arrived half an hour earlier, dew still clinging to her clothes.
"Something's wrong," she said suddenly.
White Snow crouched at the edge of the stone table. "What's wrong?"
"These numbers." Ningyu pointed at the ledger. "The first Heaven-Chosen Sacrifice, three hundred years ago: three thousand people. The second, two hundred and forty years ago: still three thousand. A hundred and eighty years ago..."
"Three thousand again," Tie Xiaoqi finished.
"That's the problem." Ningyu looked up, her gaze sharp as a blade. "The Star-Locking Formation covers the entire continent. The essence blood of three thousand cultivators could sustain it for sixty years at most. But if this formation has been running for over ten thousand years..."
White Snow's head buzzed.
"Over ten thousand years... three thousand people every sixty years... how many lives is that?"
"Five hundred thousand." Ningyu's voice was flat. "At least five hundred thousand cultivators have been sacrificed."
The cavern fell so quiet that the crackling torches were audible. The female leader from Broken Blade Cliff clenched her broken sword. The bearded man's face flushed crimson, but he could not utter a word. The old man from Sandstorm Pass trembled at the lips, his clouded eyes filled with terror.
Five hundred thousand people.
"That's not right," White Snow said suddenly. Everyone turned toward her.
"Ningyu, you said the Star-Locking Formation needs energy to run. But the formation I saw beneath