Chapter 1 Hao Ren and Nangong Wuyue

Hao Ren and Nangong Wuyue advanced silently and rapidly in the deep, lengthy cave. They had already bypassed several intersections and relatively spacious caverns. Based on the direction and distance they had traveled, Hao Ren believed he had entered deep within a mountain on the southern side of the Dragon Spine Mountains.

The stone walls on either side of the cave showed obvious signs of artificial excavation. At regular intervals, they saw torches or lamp boxes embedded in the walls. However, these flickering lights did little to illuminate the cave, instead making the atmosphere even more gloomy and oppressive. A chilling wind constantly blew from the depths of the cave, sometimes strong, sometimes weak, as if warning intruders to keep away. In the chambers they had just passed, Hao Ren and Nangong Wuyue had seen some scattered stone benches and tables. These items looked quite old, and their style was different from anything Hao Ren had seen elsewhere in Holletta. He wondered what era they had been left behind from.

The further they went, the more Nangong Wuyue felt an unsettling atmosphere gradually approaching. She couldn't help but grab Hao Ren's arm and follow cautiously behind him. This siren might have the appearance of a formidable female boss, but at crucial moments, she was as cowardly as the "Gun" back home…

Just then, Hao Ren suddenly saw a half-open iron gate ahead. The iron gate appeared so abruptly in the stone cave that he instinctively stopped. Then he sensed faint voices coming from behind the gate: "Wait, there's movement ahead!"

Nangong Wuyue crouched down and followed behind Hao Ren, peering through the crack in the iron gate.

To their surprise, behind the iron gate was a grand and spacious stone chamber, so vast that it could be described as a hall. It was a square room, several tens of meters long and wide. The four stone walls were inlaid with crystals emitting a faint red light, and large braziers burned with dim and uncertain flames throughout the room, filling the entire chamber with an unsettling red gloom. The four walls of the stone chamber were carved with bizarre reliefs and writings, depicting various strange creatures crawling across the earth. At each of the four corners stood a black obsidian statue holding a sword. The statues had no faces, but instead of facial features, there were large, twisted symbols, giving off an impression of horror mixed with madness. In the very center of the room, there was an altar. A group of people wearing long robes of red and black were prostrating themselves before the altar, while a tall, suspicious figure wearing a black and red mask stood in front of the altar, obviously presiding over this mysterious and eerie ritual.

The altar was roughly circular, with a bowl-shaped depression in the center. Winding grooves extended from the altar and spread across the floor. The floor was also covered in strange patterns. Hao Ren looked closely and saw that a dark red liquid was constantly seeping out of the stone in those patterns, flowing against gravity and gathering in the "bowl" in the center of the altar.

Nangong Wuyue tugged at his sleeve and gestured towards the altar, indicating that the dark red liquid was the "signal" she was searching for.

That's right, it was the remains of the missing soldiers. Under the transformation of some secret, evil ritual, they had been reduced to pus and blood!

At this moment, the black-robed people's ritual was nearing its end. The masked man standing before the altar raised his hands and spoke in a deep, magnetic voice: "Brothers and sisters! The Goddess gazes upon us. She has received our sincere prayers and has been comforted by our respectful offerings. We gather here to listen to the true teachings, to open our minds that have been clouded by dust, to lift our heads from this world full of filth, and to take another step closer to the Goddess's vast glory…"

The black-robed people prostrating before the altar all raised their heads, but remained respectfully kneeling on the ground. Hao Ren saw that there were men, women, young, and old among them. Some of them even had bits of clothing and decorations peeking out from under their robes that indicated they were wealthy people and soldiers. However, all of these people were kneeling here with fanatical expressions, their eyes seemingly only fixed on the masked man standing before the altar, who was surrounded by a strange magical power.

“…What we hear, what we say, what we do, what we believe, is all the true will of the Goddess. We are the pioneers who have awakened from ignorance, the wise and brave who have awakened from lies…” The masked man kept his arms outstretched and recited a passage that was either scripture or impromptu raving, “…We act in accordance with the Goddess's will, rescuing mortals from the false radiance of the heretical cult…

"We shall seize the authority of the gods from the villains who steal the Goddess's power and offer it at the Goddess's feet. We shall punish the sinners who obscure the Goddess's vision, and expose their sins to the world. We shall redeem the people of the world who are deceived by illusions and lead them from the filthy world to the Divine Kingdom…

"We shall repay everything, to atone for the sins of ten thousand years ago. We shall repay with our flesh and blood to prove our piety…"

The masked man spoke these crazy words in a strange tone. Then he suddenly pulled out a dagger from his chest!

And with his action, the other black-robed people kneeling on the ground also took out the same knives from their chests. A large group of people raised their daggers as if possessed, shouting in unison: "We will repay with our flesh and blood to prove our piety!"

There was a series of muffled sounds of knives piercing flesh. These cultists stabbed their daggers into their arms. Blood flowed freely, but everyone pulled out their daggers as if they felt no pain and still shouted狂热地齊呼着: "We will repay with our flesh and blood to prove our piety!"

A crowd of people fell down. Their blood flowed on the ground and was immediately absorbed by the strange patterns on the floor, flowing upstream to the altar to mix with the thick blood plasma. The latter began to emit a bright golden-red light as if it had really received divine grace. Seeing this scene, the believers immediately fell into even greater fanaticism, and some even began to mutilate themselves more severely: "Repay with our flesh and blood! Prove our piety!"

"The Goddess has heard your voices! She will reward you!" The masked man shouted in an inspiring tone, then inserted a dark red staff into the altar. The surging blood plasma immediately made a hissing sound, and layers of red mist diffused from the altar, permeating into the bodies of all the black-robed people. They gratefully thanked the Goddess for her grace, and lifted their sleeves. The wounds left by the previous stabbings had disappeared.

The black-robed man nodded with satisfaction: "The healing of your wounds proves the Goddess's recognition of you, and it also proves the falseness and deception of the Radiance Heresy. They have stolen the power of the gods, and we are here to take it back into our hands. Now let us offer tonight's sacrifice, returning the purest flesh and blood to our Lord, in order to purify the filth entrenched in this evil land."

After the masked man finished speaking, two black-robed believers stood up from the crowd and ran to the corner of the room to carry out a wooden box.

The moment the two believers took out the contents of the box, Hao Ren's eyes instantly became sharp as knives.

It was a sleeping child!

This was the purest flesh and blood, the sacrifice they wanted to "return" to the Goddess. This group of lunatics was going to perform a human sacrifice!

The masked man placed the child, who looked only three or four years old, on the altar, raised the dagger and staff high, and began chanting in an almost manic tone: "O Supreme Creator Goddess, you are the origin of life, you are the beginning of all things, you are the first blood and flesh of all living beings! You are the purest origin of chaos! Your loyal and humble servant offers here pure flesh and blood, so that this clean thing that has not yet been polluted by the mortal world may return to your embrace! In the name of return, please bestow…"

A violent roar came from the side at the moment when the dagger was about to fall: "I'll bestow you with your great-granddaddy!"

The iron gate of the secret room was sent flying out like it had been hit by a heavy cannon after this roar. The twisted and deformed heavy iron plate instantly smashed away several cultists who hadn't even reacted yet. Then a strange object flashing with blue light flew towards the masked man with a sharp whistling sound that cut through the air. The latter instinctively raised his dagger to block, but the ball of blue light bypassed the dagger with incredible agility and slammed into the cult leader's mask, instantly sending the latter flying at least a dozen meters!

"Ever seen a brick that has automatic navigation!" Hao Ren strode murderously towards the cultists, wielding a giant alloy rod he had pulled out of his portable space (this thing was originally intended to be used as building material). "So you guys were the ones stirring up trouble behind the scenes!"