Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Good News, the ritual Went Very Smoothly

After hearing the words of that benediction from the Cult priest, Duncan at once stopped cutting his Soul Projection and returning to the Vanished.

He stared at the masked priest in front of him like he was an idiot. He stared at the little obsidian dagger in the man’s hand, raised high in the air. He looked at the congregation around the altar as they all grew excited again and chanted the name of their “Lord”, chanting the name of that “true Sun God” that legend said had fallen long ago and shattered into pieces.

They wanted to offer him, this “sacrificial victim”, to the Sun God. The method was to offer up the sacrificial victim’s heart.

Now Duncan finally understood where the horror back in that cavern had come from. He understood what kind of mad and evil acts these cultists had been committing.

Then he saw the masked priest take a step toward him, and a layer of pitch-black flame suddenly rose on the surface of the obsidian dagger in the man’s hand.

This striking supernatural phenomenon instantly made Duncan curious. He guessed that the dagger might be some kind of “anomaly” item. He guessed that the priest might be a “special human” who could wield extraordinary power. He wondered how many such special humans there were in the civilized world, and what role they might play in society.

At the same time, he watched blankly as the little knife wrapped in black fire stabbed down, plunged into his chest, and cut through several layers of ragged cloth with a dull, hollow sound.

The flames burned a few times inside and did not burn anything at all.

On the Solar Totem Pole behind him, the blazing fireball suddenly gave off a series of unsettling cracks and pops. Mixed into those pops seemed to be some tearing, dizzying noise. Duncan vaguely felt that something had spread out from the fireball. It was a kind of cold and insane “touch”. He could not describe it well, not only because this temporary body had dull senses, but also because this feeling was beyond any experience he had ever known.

He only knew one thing: in a world where extraordinary phenomena truly existed, this priest’s sacrificial rite ritual had clearly gone very, very wrong.

The sudden change of the “Sun symbol” on the Solar Totem Pole at once drew the attention of the nearest congregation. With a few suppressed cries, the hall quickly fell quiet again after its earlier frenzy. Even the two black-robed men gripping Duncan’s arms seemed cowed by something. In panic, they let go and knelt toward the Solar Totem Pole in terror.

The priest holding the obsidian dagger stood frozen in place. He still held the blade, but stared fixedly at the “sacrificial victim” in front of him. Through the openings in the mask, Duncan saw a pair of eyes full of confusion and chaos.

Duncan tugged at his stiff lips and finally squeezed out a twisted smile. He slowly raised his right hand and laid it on the priest’s hand that clutched the obsidian dagger. Threads of green flame flowed out like water, seeping and winding around the dagger.

In almost an instant, Duncan felt “feedback” coming from the dagger. But strangely, that feedback felt weak and hollow, as if the dagger was only some cheap imitation. It was like an empty shell that held just a little bit of “borrowed power” inside.

Still, whether the dagger was fake or not did not matter much to him.

He smiled at the priest and said calmly, “I have to say two things.”

The next second, the priest felt his connection to the obsidian dagger suddenly get disrupted by some outside force. His fervent, burning faith in the Sun smashed into something like an unshakable wall and was cut off at once.

“First, I am a broad-minded person—look, my chest is this broad.”

Duncan ripped aside the already ragged cloth on his chest, which had been cut again by the dagger. A shocking hole appeared. Through that horrifying hole, the priest who was presiding over the sacrificial rite ritual could see clearly the scene behind Duncan.

“Second, try not to offer expired food to your Lord.”

Duncan gently pushed the priest’s hand away. For some reason, after he wrapped the obsidian dagger in the green flames of his spirit form, the priest seemed to lose most of his strength. Even with Duncan’s frail and weak limbs, he could easily shove this tall, burly priest aside.

Only after being shoved did the priest seem to finally snap out of it. Huge terror and anger washed over him. His muscles trembled as he raised his hand to point at Duncan. He tried to restore order on the altar with a furious shout: “Filth of true resurrection! This is a resurrected Restless Soul! You have defiled this sacred sacrificial rite ritual! Filth… which reckless Necromancer stands behind you?! Are you not afraid of the power of the Sun?!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Duncan glanced at the obsidian dagger in his hand. As he felt the faint power inside it, he spoke casually. Then he looked up at the priest again and listened to the crackling noise from the Solar Totem Pole behind him. A bold, strange idea suddenly popped into his mind. “But I suddenly want to satisfy my curiosity.”

He raised the obsidian dagger high. In full view of the still-panicked and terrified black-robed believers around him, he pointed at the masked priest and shouted:

“O highest and holiest Sun God! Please accept this sacrificial rite upon the high platform! I offer You this sacrificial victim’s heart. May You return from blood and fire!”

The next second, he saw the flames on the obsidian dagger suddenly surge higher. The icy presence spilling from the Solar Totem Pole behind him instantly gathered and focused, aiming at the masked priest not far away.

Duncan saw raw terror appear in the priest’s eyes. The man clearly wanted to leave the altar at once, but the dagger was faster than he was.

The dagger flew out of Duncan’s hand. It was pulled by some invisible force, wrapped in roaring black fire and faintly twining green flame. It shot straight into the priest’s chest. With a single, shrill scream, the Cult leader’s chest was pierced through, and his heart turned to ash in an instant.

A moment later, the dagger returned to Duncan’s hand. In that single trip out and back, the last trace of power within it seemed to be completely drained.

Given: inside the range of the Cult altar’s sacrificial rite, there were two people. One had a heart. One did not. Some Eldritch God insisted on having a human heart to taste today. Question—who would lose their heart?

Of course, it had to be the one who still had a heart.

Even if the logic made sense, the smoothness of the whole thing still went beyond Duncan’s expectations. He had not thought that his wild little “experiment” would actually work. Only after the Cult priest fell to the ground did Duncan finally turn his head and glance at the now-calm totem behind him. His tone turned odd as he muttered, “So as long as the words are right, it doesn’t matter who says them?”

The fireball on the Solar Totem Pole did not answer his question, of course. But the cultists around the altar had clearly reacted by now. Panic spread, as expected, but along with it, the fury of the most fanatical believers burst out. This anger even overshadowed the fear they had felt earlier when the totem showed its Visions.

The cultists closest to the altar reacted first. They charged at Duncan while shouting the Sun God’s name. These boldest believers quickly drove more people to move. A large mass of black-robed figures rushed forward like they had lost their minds. Some even pulled short swords and daggers from under their robes.

Duncan had actually been planning to shout, “I offer the hearts of everyone on this altar to the Sun God” and test the appetite of this strange Eldritch God. But when he saw that some of the charging cultists had even pulled out revolvers from their robes, he dropped that idea at once.

Taking into account the time it took for the sacrificial rite ritual to take effect and the rule that “within seven steps a gun is both accurate and fast”, he simply gave the cultists the middle finger and cut off his Soul Projection.

Let this mob of madmen keep on being mad. He was going back to the Vanished.

At the same time, on the vast Boundless Sea, a steady pattern of footsteps sounded on the deck of the Vanished.

A doll named Alice, wearing a gorgeous Brother long gown, walked out of her room and came to the door of the captain’s cabin.

This time, the ornate wooden chest did not follow behind Miss Doll. She had left it inside her room.

The captain had said that she could move as she wished in the cabins under the deck, and that she could also walk on the deck. If there was anything she did not understand, she could come straight to the captain’s cabin to find him.

Alice remembered all of that very clearly.

Julian, grandson of the Zhengde Emperor of the Grand Ming Empire and the own son of Empress Kang Ning, glanced at his proud and self-satisfied eldest Brother, his second Brother who understood how to weigh gains and losses, and his birth mother whose expression he could not read at all…

[Hmm, it really seemed like none of this had anything to do with him?]

So the young man calmly accepted the title of “Shame of Transmigrators” and began a lazy salted-fish life of eating and waiting to die.

Until a bowl of chicken soup arrived.

“Ahahaha! Chicken soup is here!”