The Third Rune

The first ray of morning sunlight fell upon the drum tower of Endless Cliff Village.

Boom, boom, boom!

Three drumbeats rang out.

The villagers, all dressed in white, made their way to the Sacrificial Square in orderly ranks.

The priestess appeared and performed a ritual dance, after which the entire square fell silent.

The priestess swept her wide sleeve:

"The hour has come. Bring forth the offering!"

As her words fell,

four tall, burly men carried over a red coffin and set it in the vacant space on the Sacrificial Altar.

The priestess blew the horn in her hand. Its distinctive call pierced the clouds, and the villagers took black strips of cloth from their sleeves, covered their eyes of their own accord, and knelt with their foreheads pressed to the ground.

Only the priestess remained standing in the square.

Then,

a series of clicks sounded.

The altar began to turn. The red coffin slowly descended, while a large basin of silver rose from underground, along with a small box!

Fu Shaoping, lying in ambush atop the fortified tower, watched with his pupils contracting:

Endless Reach Village actually installed a mechanism beneath the altar.

Whoever had come to collect the children clearly did not want to show themselves.

"Now!"

The red coffin was about to sink out of sight.

Suddenly,

Chief Banner Chen, who had slipped into the crowd at some point, sprang up and plunged underground with the red coffin, vanishing with a crash.

The sudden turn of events left the priestess stunned.

Then she abruptly remembered the suspicious traces in the valley last night.

I let my guard down!

The priestess moved to retreat.

Just then,

a humming whistle cut through the air.

A red-fletched arrow shot toward her face as fast as lightning.

It was about to strike between her brows.

The priestess shouted and thrust out her right palm. A hazy white glow emerged from it, forming a shield that blocked the red-fletched arrow with a clang.

She could project Origin Energy outside her body.

She was at least an eighth-level Body Tempering Realm martial artist!

The priestess snapped her gaze toward the small fortified tower at the village entrance. It stood a full hundred paces from the altar, yet her opponent had landed an accurate shot, proving his exceptional archery. But the arrow he had fired was not formed from Origin Energy, which meant his cultivation was below the eighth level of the Body Tempering Realm!

The priestess suddenly recalled the young Martial Suppression Guard who had passed the village entrance during the day. A vicious gleam flashed through her eyes:

"You're courting death!"

He must die.

If this gets reported to the Hundred Households Office, not only I but the entire Endless Reach Village will suffer.

Since he's a Martial Suppression Guard, his cultivation certainly can't exceed the sixth level of the Body Tempering Realm. He's beneath me. I can easily swoop in and kill him.

The priestess immediately darted toward the village entrance at tremendous speed. As she ran, she kept changing direction, weaving like a snake so that no one could track her movements. In little more than a dozen breaths, she reached the foot of the fortified tower.

She thrust out her right palm.

Surging Origin Energy gathered as she prepared to shatter the cypress-built tower with a single palm strike.

However,

just then,

a succession of whistles sliced through the air.

All around her,

more than twenty arrows formed from Origin Energy shot toward her from every direction:

I've fallen into a trap!

That red-fletched arrow from the tower was meant to lure me into attacking and keep me from escaping through the underground passage.

Clearly,

that Martial Suppression Guard had returned to the Hundred Households Office overnight to fetch reinforcements.

But no carriage passed through the village, and I even arranged patrols. How did they manage this without anyone noticing? And how did they discover anything was wrong?

These thoughts flashed through the priestess's mind.

She stamped her foot.

Boom!

Surging Origin Energy burst from her body, swiftly forming a protective barrier around her.

Clang, clang, clang!

The Origin Energy arrows struck the barrier.

Every last one was blocked.

The Origin Energy spilling from her carried a faint, intermittent trace of brown. She had already reached the ninth level of the Body Tempering Realm and opened her dantian. She was in the initial stages of refining Yin Baleful Qi, with half a foot already in the Earth Origin Realm.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

However,

no sooner had she blocked the first volley

than the second and third followed, pouring in without end.

The Origin Energy within the priestess was rapidly dwindling.

Up on the tower, Fu Shaoping waited for his chance, his ears twitching.

He heard a series of faint popping sounds.

Cracks had appeared across the priestess's protective barrier!

How could Fu Shaoping let such an opportunity slip away?

He immediately released the red-fletched arrow. Nor did he stop there-as soon as it flew out, he drew his bow and fired again.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Six red-fletched arrows flew one after another, tip to tail.

They shot through the cracks in the priestess's barrier.

With a bang,

they pierced straight through the space between her brows!

The priestess's eyes widened. She had never imagined that a moment's carelessness would bring such catastrophe.

Thud!

The priestess crashed heavily to the ground, her life extinguished!

The villagers gathered in the square removed their black blindfolds just in time to witness this scene. Screaming, they tried to scatter in every direction.

Boom!

A drumbeat rang out.

A thunderous shout followed:

"The Hundred Households Office is conducting official business! Stay where you are if you don't want to die!"

As the words fell,

arrows descended like snowflakes, each shot piercing the thighs of a fleeing villager without fail. Blood splattered everywhere. Now the villagers trembled like sieves, too frightened to move again. They obediently knelt on the ground, their faces deathly pale with terror.

Meanwhile,

Fu Shaoping, who had remained in the fortified tower after shooting the priestess dead, was extraordinarily excited.

He stared fixedly at the Treasure Mirror in his sea of consciousness.

Over the past several decades, that priestess had helped murder nearly ten thousand infants. For such a heinous crime, the points awarded by the Treasure Mirror would surely exceed those from any previous criminal case.

At the same time,

a faint worry stirred in his heart.

From what he had discovered so far, the points awarded by the Treasure Mirror could not be saved.

If he put them all into his cultivation at once, he might instantly break through again, reaching the fifth level of the Body Tempering Realm. Although the Hundred Households Office had no Origin Core Realm experts, if anyone had opened their Heavenly Eye and saw what was happening to him, he would be in serious trouble!

The safest choice would be to put the points into martial arts or Alchemy Arts.

But he had already perfected his skill at refining Blood Qi Powder, so there was little point in that.

He could only settle for the next best option and put them into Heavenstone Archery. This martial art was even more powerful than he had expected.

Time ticked by, second after second.

Yet the Treasure Mirror remained silent.

Fu Shaoping's initial certainty immediately wavered:

What's going on? Could the priestess be innocent?

Impossible.

Even if she wasn't the one devouring the children's blood essence, she controlled the entire sacrificial process.

A little while later,

suddenly,

the long-silent Treasure Mirror began to tremble with a hum!

Yellow light blazed.

It bathed his sea of consciousness in a wash of yellow.

This commotion

was even more spectacular than when he had first activated the Treasure Mirror.

Fu Shaoping grew excited and expectant, though he also felt a little regret. If only he could store the points, return home, and slowly add them to his cultivation until he reached the fifth level of the Body Tempering Realm. How wonderful that would be.

Hummm~

Unexpectedly,

this time,

the third rune engraved around the Treasure Mirror lit up as well.