Chapter Seventy-Seven: The Sacred Rite

Xiyue said nothing. With one step she was already heading for the third floor.

The burial demon had just burst out of my body, and I immediately seized a peach-wood sword and ran after Xiyue.

“Master, be careful behind you!”

At a turn on the second floor, a thick reek of corpse energy suddenly surged out from a room behind me and crashed down over me. I had no time to turn around, so I slashed directly into the space behind me with the peach-wood sword in my hand.

Because the sword had long been soaked in rooster blood and cinnabar, there was scarcely any suspense in the matter. With a single strike I split the rushing corpse energy behind me. With a tearing hiss, the mist shattered, and a face emerged from within it—a man’s face.

He was bare-chested, no longer the color of flesh, but a deep crimson. In his hands he held a woman’s head. His mouth was smeared with blood, and his two sharp fangs were like sickles reaping lives.

Something was wrong.

Alarm flared in my heart. This zombie was clearly far more terrifying than I had imagined, and more importantly, it was not the one we were tracking, neither Lilina nor Old Master Zhou.

This was a new zombie—not newly turned, but a zombie that had appeared here anew, and it seemed to have some years behind it. One could tell from the lean yet powerful body.

When he saw me, the corners of his mouth suddenly lifted in a smile, and he said softly, “Actually, you should thank me. I killed all the zombies in this building. Otherwise, by now, the whole place would probably be full of people hopping about everywhere.”

Only then did I notice the cluster of bloody heads behind him—men, women, old people, and children alike.

“Who are you?”

Even I felt the question was rather foolish, but I could be certain that this zombie before me was absolutely not to be taken lightly. I was no match for him.

“What kind of person am I? You really don’t know?”

“Mm. Indeed, you can’t recognize me now.”

As he spoke, the sturdy, powerful zombie turned around and rummaged through the pile of bloody heads behind him, as though looking for one I might know.

Every one of those blood-soaked heads was terrifying; one glance at them was enough to turn the stomach.

“You should recognize this one, shouldn’t you?”

After a long moment, the zombie finally seized a head stained with plenty of blood. The eyes were wide open, the crown of the head somewhat bald, and the more I looked at the face, the more familiar it seemed. At last, as the zombie stepped toward me, I saw it clearly.

That head belonged to none other than the monk without a heart.

In that instant my expression changed dramatically, and I was so frightened that my whole body began to tremble.

“Recognize him now?”

The blood-soaked zombie before me grinned, his sharp fangs on either side seeming to proclaim that before long he would drain every drop of me and devour me whole.

At that moment I could feel the vicious, spiteful aura in this corpse-burier’s heart. Though I did not know why he had suddenly become like this, I knew I was no match for him now.

“Master, this zombie is formidable. He killed the monk without a heart that he had possessed, then absorbed the essence of so many people, and even found an old zombie to serve as his body. His current strength is probably beyond what an ordinary master of yin and yang arts can contend with!”

I nodded and took a step back.

“You... how did you become like this?”

Faced with the corpse-burier standing before that heap of heads, my heart jolted violently. The bloody scene left me with no preparation at all, let alone the fact that the person before me was the very corpse-burier who had just fought us to the death.

“Heh, heh, heh... This all thanks to you. If not for you, how would I ever have had the heart to take this final step, merging into an ancient corpse and slowly consuming my own soul? In that way I would be no different from a mortal afflicted with a terminal illness, waiting only to die. But now perhaps I need not die, because the blood in you sets me aflame. If I drink your blood, perhaps I can cultivate the Sacred Sacrifice Yin-Yang Secret Art. This was once the most powerful and most mysterious of the Buddhist realm’s secret arts. Once I master it, let alone a life, even if I want to obtain an entire great world, I can do so through sacred sacrifice!”

I was filled with bafflement. Could there truly be such a wondrous secret art in this world?

Then I recalled that the tomb of the Buddha of the Bright Path I had seen before was filled with countless miraculous secret techniques. Though some were broken, I had still witnessed a few astonishing arts and divine powers. Yet I had not dared to try cultivating them, because these secret arts were simply not something a newly initiated master of yin and yang arts like me could dabble in.

“Master, this corpse-burier really is relentless. From the look of him, he genuinely wants to cultivate that legendary Sacred Sacrifice Art. That was originally an unspeakable Buddhist divine power. This kind of secret art can obtain supreme empowerment through sacred sacrifice of living beings, heavenly treasures, and the like. To put it simply, when it is used, one uses magic or one’s own vital blood to condense an altar, places the item to be sacrificed upon it, chants an incantation, connects with some mysterious space within the unseen, and brings down the blessing of mysterious power!”

I could not help but be deeply shaken. I had never imagined there could be such an extraordinary secret art; it was simply unbelievable.

“Kid, I know you’ve got some tricks. But before me, even if you have someone backing you, I’m not the least bit afraid, because everything about you is under my control. Come here!”

As he spoke the last four words, his voice suddenly hardened. He seized at me with five fingers, and in an instant the whole void began to tremble. In that moment I could almost feel a terrifying force wrapping me completely, my body as though bound by countless threads, inch by inch drawn toward this corpse-burier, drenched in thick, congealed blood.

As I was being irresistibly pulled toward him step by step, he suddenly struck the pile of bloody heads behind him with his other palm.

Those heads had once been living people, first bitten by Lilina and turned into zombies, then cruelly slain by this corpse-burier. How could they not be steeped in fierce resentment?

At that moment, amid the swirling crimson mist, surging with ferocious grievance, those heads flew toward me. In no time at all they formed a circle around my body, trapping me in the middle!