Damn it! Let’s smash the darkness together!
Chapter 363 - 82: Legendary Past, Mysterious Book, Evil Sacrifice (Request for Monthly Tickets)_3

Chapter 363: Chapter 82: Legendary Past, Mysterious Book, Evil Sacrifice (Request for Monthly Tickets)_3

Regarding rituals of sacrifice, Xu Shu could now claim to be quite experienced and was familiar with the basic rules of sacrificial ceremonies.

Without exception, the standard components of a sacrifice—flesh and blood offerings, Erosion Crystals, and the "Summoning Array"—these three elements were indispensable.

However, the ritual happening in this secret chamber had some oddities, not to mention the glaring omission of the "Summoning Array" step. This omission made them seem very unprofessional.

Without an Array, whom are you summoning?

Even if an Evil God wanted to respond, it couldn’t without the Array.

The Sacrificial Array to the left and right was akin to constructing a mysterious channel between "this place" and the "Evil God," piercing through the ethereal space of the "spiritual world" and enabling the Evil God to bestow power, or even allow its will or true form to descend directly.

But now, without an Array, what are you playing at?

Joking around, buddy?

Setting aside their apparent lack of professionalism,

Xu Shu also recognized the two leading cultists as none other than Boss Hong, owner of the Lighthouse Inn, and his daughter Xiao Li.

He recognized the former because of his obese figure, and the latter because they had exchanged a few words which left a deep impression; she had repeatedly invited him to enjoy stir-fried prawns and had even offered him a bottle of champagne.

Noticing this, and upon further observation, Xu Shu realized that among those lying around awaiting sacrifice, many faces seemed familiar.

Simply by their attire, combined with his vague recollections, Xu Shu concluded that these captured offerings had all been present at dinner.

"I understand now."

"They drugged the wine."

"Damn, it’s a trap! I knew there was no such thing as a free lunch."

"Same goes for dinner!"

Xu Shu suddenly had an epiphany upon this realization.

No wonder Boss Hong was so generous, offering fine wines that could fetch a decent price in the city for free to a bunch of strangers.

So this was the purpose.

But as for sacrifices...

Xu Shu’s gaze swept across the offerings in the factory, pondering whether to take over the ritual by ousting them, but he discarded the idea as soon as it arose.

Firstly, the cult had not painted an Array, so he would need to draw the Array himself for the sacrifice.

Secondly, not only was there a small number of offerings, they were all victims.

Lastly, his Altar was not only for creating Curse Seals but also served as a "strategic weapon against cultists."

Without being truly threatened or in a situation where he absolutely needed to escape through a sacrifice, and without an urgent need for a specific Curse Seal, Xu Shu was not keen on wasting an Altar—even though he could produce one every day.

There was simply no need to waste one at the moment.

But just then, sudden abnormalities arose.

A nameless strange wind surged, and the weird buzzing sound in the air grew louder and louder.

Following that, the victim tied to the chair raised his neck and let out a high, piercing scream.

His belly swelled increasingly, ballooned out, tearing his clothes, and a thick book fell out—it had previously been on the man’s stomach skin, branded like an iron, leaving a hideous Demon imprint on his belly.

"Huh?!"

With the aid of the faint light, Xu Shu got a preliminary look at the book’s cover and his eyes suddenly narrowed.

The book’s cover was dark red, bearing inscriptions he couldn’t understand, carved with various pictures of demons devouring humans—gruesome and terrifying.

At the same time, it had fang-like clasps resembling those of a beast; it looked ominous and shady, eerily indescribable.

"Fuck, it’s actually that?!"

Xu Shu recognized it in an instant.

This bizarre book was all too familiar to him.

He had cradled it as he fell asleep for an entire year, never leaving its side;

He had racked his brains, day and night, hoping to unlock it, to glimpse the truth;

He had taken it back to his hometown, only to encounter a trace of mystery, and death!

It was—"Mysterious Book."

It was the "Mysterious Book" belonging to Chen Que, the least powerful avatar of Xu Shu from the legend, "The Departed of Xiangjiang"!

Almost at the moment Xu Shu identified it, the book opened itself, pages flipping furiously without any breeze.

Next, from the pages, emerged a grotesque, swollen humanoid head wearing a hood with nothing visible below the neck.

It addressed the man tied to the chair with a deep, hoarse voice filled with dense mumblings as if numerous mouths were chewing repeatedly. It said,

"Sa ai le sa TVB!"

Huh? Upon hearing this spell, Xu Shu’s attention immediately sharpened.

This familiar incantation brought back long-dead memories in a flash, prompting him to recall the name of this creature.

It was her, Suji Herrera!

The eight-foot-tall female Deceitful Monster who had once killed him in the legendary world.

She was actually here?

Doubts surfaced one after another, but Xu Shu had no time to ponder, as in the midst of the spell, a crimson light burst forth from the humanoid head, wrapping around the brain of the man on the chair, spinning and drilling a hole in his crown with a "thud."

After all this, Suji Herrera disappeared, and the "Mysterious Book" closed again, its beastly fangs neatly meshed, pages aligned perfectly tight as if it had never been opened.

"Ah~ah~" After suffering the sharp pain, the man seemed to suddenly awaken, with eyes wide open, emitting an unconscious murmur of agony, his eyes filled with bewilderment.

Moments later, he seemed to regain some consciousness, looked around, and asked in terror, unable to move, "Who are you? What are you going to do... it hurts, it hurts so much..."

His crown had been penetrated, exposing his white brain writhing in a way both horrifying and revolting.

Seeing this, Boss Hong, who had been kneeling, quickly stood up, carrying a plate with a shrimp that was more than 30 centimeters long and wriggling.

"Boss, no, don’t come over! What are you going to do?" gasped the dying man.

"This is for the will of our ancestors!" Boss Hong declared uncompromisingly, placing the enormous shrimp atop the man’s head, where it seemed to smell the brain’s fragrance and burrowed straight into the cranial opening.

"Ah ah ah ah ah!" the man screamed, eyes rolling back in his head.

The bizarre shrimp traveled down his head, entered his throat, took over his esophagus; his trachea wriggled, and soon he calmed down.

His face expressionless, one eyeball looked left while the other skewed right, as if he had lost control of his bodily functions.

As the others attended to him, the man was draped in black, blood pooling around his body, yet he felt nothing.

Xu Shu, hidden outside the window, watched with his pupils shrinking—another familiar face, the deep-sea Pepita Shrimp!

There was no time to think further; as the newly parasitized man stood up, other cultists had stepped forward, choosing another victim from a circle of offerings on the ground, following a certain sequence and ritual.

This was a mature woman in her thirties, her eyes vacant.

They removed the candle from the woman’s forehead, dropped it into a basin full of blood, and then tied her to the chair.

Next, they picked up the "Mysterious Book" again, placing it upon the woman’s abdomen, fitting it close to her body.

Then, the group of cultists resumed their incantations, continuing the sacrifice.

"..."

After witnessing all this, Xu Shu gradually understood everything.

But what emerged next were even more questions.