Blood Sacrifice

In the Cold Abyss ice cavern, everything remained as usual during the first hour after Xiao Yan left. After daybreak, Luo Feng ordered everyone to withdraw a hundred zhang from the pool and set up camp again on the side of the cavern nearest the entrance. He also sent people out in pairs to take turns keeping watch beneath the fissure leading to the Mist Abyss.

No one asked where Xiao Yan had gone, but everyone knew. Several people had seen him leap into the cold pool the night before, and word had spread quietly through the camp. By the end, only one sentence remained: that fellow from the Lower Plane had gone down to the seventh layer.

The mood in the camp was strange. Some thought he was mad, others thought he was arrogant, but most simply kept silent, raising their heads from time to time to glance at the black surface of the pool, still as a mirror.

Luo Lan looked more often than anyone. He had just entered the Divine Soul Realm and should have been stabilizing his cultivation, but as he sat there, it was as if nails had sprouted from his backside. After sitting for a while, he would stand up and peer toward the pool, then sit back down, only to stand up again before long.

"He... he'll come back, won't he?" Luo Zhi sat beside him and asked in a low voice.

"Of course he will!" Luo Lan replied without thinking. "Big Brother Xiao killed even the Abyss Scale Flood Dragon with one palm. What's the seventh layer? He'll definitely... definitely..."

As he spoke, his voice grew quieter. That ancestor from three thousand years ago had become a Sovereign at twenty and an Earthly Sovereign at forty, yet even he had failed to return from the seventh layer. Luo Lan bit his lip and fell silent. Luo Zhi looked at his profile, hesitated for a moment, then reached out and gently tugged his sleeve. Luo Lan immediately stiffened and turned to meet the girl's clear, bright eyes.

"He'll come back," Luo Zhi said softly. "You said so." Luo Lan stared for a moment, then nodded firmly.

Not far away, Luo Xiao leaned against an ice wall with his spear in his arms and his eyes closed. He appeared to be regulating his breathing, but his ears remained pricked, listening to every sound in the camp. "Look after them." The words that fellow had left behind had echoed over and over in his head all night. What gives him the right? What gives him the right to say that to me? Luo Xiao's frown deepened, but his grip on his spear never loosened for an instant.

During the second hour, the two clansmen stationed beneath the fissure failed to return for the changing of the guard. Luo Feng frowned and was just about to send someone to check when a figure stumbled into the cavern entrance.

It was one of the two guards. A dark red palm print stood out on his chest, and the flesh around it had turned a bizarre purplish black. He rushed into the camp and opened his mouth to shout something, but as soon as he did, he spat out a great mouthful of black blood and collapsed face-first onto the ice.

"Enemy attack!"

Luo Feng's voice exploded through the cavern like thunder. Almost at the same instant, all the Luo God Clan's young clansmen leaped to their feet, weapons drawn and Spiritual Energy surging, but it was already too late.

More than ten figures filed out of the fissure at the cavern entrance like ghosts. They wore dark red robes embroidered at the hems with a scarlet drop of blood. A thick stench of blood emanated from every one of them, spreading until even the chill in the cavern seemed to falter.

The Blood God Clan!

At their head was a tall, thin man with a pale face and dark red eyes that glimmered faintly in the cold light of the cavern. On his left cheek, a slender streak of blood ran from the corner of his eye to his jaw, like a bloody tear that could never be wiped away. He stood before the fissure with his hands behind his back, surveying the shocked and furious young Luo God Clan members in the camp. A smile slowly curled his lips. "Morning, little children of the Luo God Clan."

His voice was soft and sinister, tinged with a leisurely smile, yet to the ear it was like the flick of a venomous snake's tongue, enough to make one's skin crawl. Luo Feng tightened his grip on his sword slightly. He could clearly sense that the fluctuations of Spiritual Energy around the man were a notch stronger than his own: a Second Grade Sovereign.

"Xue Shi of the Blood God Clan." The man smiled and cupped his hands. "On the orders of an elder of my clan, I've come to the Luo River Abyss to find someone. Where is that brat from the Lower Plane?"

Luo Feng gave no answer. He merely raised his sword slowly, a condensed Spirit Mark circulating at its tip.

"Not talking?" Xue Shi did not seem surprised. He sighed. "Very well. If he's gone down to the seventh layer, that saves me some trouble. If he's still alive, he'll return here sooner or later."

He raised a hand and casually snapped his fingers. The crisp sound echoed through the cavern. The next moment, countless dark red lines abruptly lit up across the ice. They spread from every direction, crisscrossing one another, and in the blink of an eye traced an enormous array across the ice. Thick, reeking blood flowed through every line of the array.

It was the Abyss Scale Flood Dragon's blood. The dragon's corpse had floated on the pool for half the night, and after Xiao Yan descended into the abyss, no one had paid it any further attention. Only now did Luo Feng suddenly realize that, at some unknown point, the enormous corpse had been drained of blood. Shriveled until nothing but its hide remained, it floated limply at the edge of the pool.

"Blood Sacrifice Array," Xue Shi said with a smile. "Use the blood of a Sovereign-level spirit beast as the foundation, then add a little... blood from your own Luo God Clan."

Hummm!

The blood-colored array suddenly flared. Almost every young Luo God clansman in the camp swayed at the same instant, their faces deathly pale. Several with weaker cultivation dropped straight onto the ice. At that moment, it was as if an invisible hand had gripped the Spiritual Energy within them. It circulated with dreadful sluggishness, and of their full strength, they could bring out less than sixty percent.

Luo Feng gritted his teeth and shook his sword, forcing the Spirit Mark on its blade to light up. With a fierce shout of "Form the array!" he stamped his foot and shot straight at Xue Shi as a streak of silver light.

"That's more like it." Smiling, Xue Shi raised his right hand. In midair, his palm gradually turned red, so red it was black, so red it seemed ready to drip blood.

Bang!

Sword and palm met, and a deep, deafening crash erupted in the cavern. Luo Feng flew backward, plowing a trench more than ten zhang long in the ice. He fell to one knee, propping himself up with his sword, and a thread of blood slowly ran from the corner of his mouth. A dark red palm print had appeared on his left shoulder.

"Big Brother Luo Feng!" Cries of alarm rose from the crowd. Far away on the sixth layer's ice steps, a fine crack appeared at that very moment in the silver-glowing jade talisman tucked against Xiao Yan's chest.

In an instant, fighting erupted throughout the cavern.

More than ten Blood God Clan experts charged into the Luo God Clan's camp like wolves among sheep. Though the young Luo God clansmen were all favored sons and daughters of their clan, the Blood Sacrifice Array suppressed them, leaving them with only sixty percent of their strength. Against these Blood God Clan killers, whose attacks were vicious and whose every move was aimed to kill, they crumbled almost on contact. Screams, the clash of weapons, and the tearing of flesh rose and fell throughout the cavern.

Luo Lan shoved Luo Zhi behind him and clenched both fists. Under the Blood Sacrifice Array's suppression, he could still barely gather the Divine Soul Realm Spiritual Energy he had only just stabilized. Gritting his teeth, he met a Blood God Clan killer charging at him and threw a punch. Three layers of force stacked within it: Eight Extremes Collapse, third layer!

Bang!

Caught off guard, the Blood God Clan killer took the punch to the chest, which caved in as he flew backward. The impact also sent Luo Lan staggering back several steps, the skin between his thumb and forefinger split and bleeding freely. But he had no time for the pain. He turned and roared at Luo Zhi, "Get back! Get back to the ice wall!"

Elsewhere, Luo Xiao's spear darted through the crowd like a silver dragon, blood spraying wherever its tip passed. He had struck down two Blood God Clan killers in succession and shielded three young clansmen who had been driven into a desperate corner. Several bloody marks had appeared on his silver armor, but he had not retreated a single step. Look after them. Look after them.

"Interesting." A soft, sinister laugh suddenly sounded beside Luo Xiao's ear. Every hair on his body stood on end. Without thinking, he spun and swept his spear around, but halfway through the swing, a dark red hand seized the shaft. Xue Shi stood behind him, one hand gripping his spear, the other already clamped around his throat.

"The grandson of that old thing Luo Cheng?" Xue Shi studied his face, flushed from lack of air, and smiled. "I've heard of you. Your grandfather did our Blood God Clan a great favor back then."

Luo Xiao's pupils contracted sharply.

"Holding back that blood-written letter." Xue Shi leaned close to his ear and whispered, "Tell me, if Luo Tianshen were to learn that his clansmen were killed here in the Luo River Abyss because of a brat from the Lower Plane, would he regret taking that brat in?"

Luo Xiao's body shook violently, whether from anger or lack of air. Xue Shi straightened, held Luo Xiao up with one hand, and turned toward the center of the cavern. Raising his voice, he said, "Everyone, stop."

The sounds of slaughter in the cavern gradually died down. Eight or nine out of ten Luo God clansmen were wounded. Driven back against the ice wall by the Blood God Clan killers, they glared at them, but none dared move again. Luo Feng slowly stood up, leaning on his sword. Purplish-black blood dripped from the palm print on his left shoulder. He stared fixedly at Xue Shi and said, word by word, "Let him go."

"Certainly," Xue Shi said with a smile. "Bring me that Lower Plane brat in exchange."

The cavern fell deathly silent. Xue Shi was in no hurry. Carrying Luo Xiao, he strolled to the edge of the cold pool and gazed at its black, mirrorlike surface. "There's no rush. I'll wait for him. I'd like to see just how many heads that Lower Plane brat has, the one who keeps Elder Xue Li awake at night."

The moment his words fell, the black surface of the pool, still for an entire night, suddenly trembled. A ripple spread from its center, followed by a second, then a third... Strings of tiny bubbles began rising through the black water, growing more numerous and more closely packed until the entire pool bubbled and boiled as though it had been placed over a fire.

A faint golden light slowly shone up from the depths of the boiling pool.

The smile on Xue Shi's face stiffened slightly.