Chapter Twenty-One: The Ritual

Night had fallen, and in the midst of utter silence, Chen Ming gazed quietly at his surroundings. He watched as the threads of fate and destiny above the heads of the people twisted and tangled, his body motionless while his spirit had already transcended, rising high into the sky to silently gaze down upon the earth, contemplating its mysteries.

From above, the boundless land unfolded beneath his eyes, where streams of fortune and calamity manifested. Interwoven among them was a dense, blood-red glow, shrouded by thick karmic miasma. Around this, rays of faith gradually coalesced into a divine domain, vaguely pushing the blood-red presence away.

The night deepened. Gradually, people returned to their homes and retired to rest.

So days passed, and one morning, the time of sacrifice arrived.

Chen Ming stepped forward, surveying those around him.

This was an open area within the tribe, seemingly reserved for sacrifices over the years, equipped with all manner of altars and banners. The altar itself was forged from black earth, fashioned by unknown means, giving it a broad yet somewhat rough appearance. The banners were tattered, their black and crimson fabric reeking of blood; gazing at them too long would make an ordinary person dizzy and faint.

Lifting his gaze, Chen Ming saw the banners shrouded in dense resentment, so thick that even a mere glance would unconsciously instill dread and unsettle the soul.

Time slipped by. As more clansmen assembled, the ceremony was about to begin.

In Chen Ming’s eyes, as a deity, he understood the true purpose of this ritual: the tribespeople offered blood and sacrificial food to the ancestral spirit, seeking its protection.

Yet such directness would not suffice. Over countless years, successive rituals had accumulated layers of elaborate, muddled ceremonies, all to disguise the bloody truth with a semblance of sacredness and legitimacy.

As an elder announced the commencement, a throng of warriors advanced, brandishing their stone axes and spears, forging a fierce and martial atmosphere. Then several elders stepped forward, dancing a strange and ancient dance.

This was the prelude to the blood offering. According to legend, the tribe’s ancestral spirit had been the mightiest warrior in his lifetime; therefore, before the sacrifice, weapons were brandished in demonstration, a gesture of respect.

Surprisingly, these rituals, when performed in sequence, seemed to carry their own gravity. The onlookers watched with solemn faces, an air of seriousness settling over the assembly.

Seeing this, Chen Ming pondered.

For a sacrifice, the deity and the worshipers were, of course, essential, but the rituals, incantations, and atmosphere were indispensable as well, creating a sense of reverence and devotion among the faithful.

However, having only recently regained his freedom, and with no structured church yet established, there was no time to arrange such ceremonies of his own.

As the dances ended, midday arrived. An elder in black sacrificial robes stepped forward.

Chen Ming’s eyes lit up as he observed him with his divine sight. The high priest was the one closest to the ancestral spirit within the tribe; through him, some truth about the ancestral spirit could surely be discerned.

The high priest looked ancient, yet Chen Ming knew he was just over forty. His premature aging was partly due to the harshness of the world, but more so because of his service to the ancestral spirit.

Year after year, the ancestral spirit consumed the blood sacrifice, accumulating immense karmic debt. The high priest, its intermediary, naturally bore the brunt of this resentment and miasma, which slowly decayed his body.

In some sense, it was a form of retribution.

Chen Ming glanced at those around him, noting the hatred in Krim’s eyes and others’, and mused.

Sure enough, a faint red aura hovered above the high priest’s head, diffuse yet subtly connected to a deeper, blood-red strand. Outside his fortune, inky-black karma and resentment circled, kept at bay by his luck, unable to seep in.

The pale red aura indicated that he already wielded real power over the tribe, though his rule was loose, checked by others. The blood-red was the fortune of the tribe’s totem. As the ancestral spirit’s vassal, and by wielding the authority of sacrifice, the high priest’s fortune had merged with the totem’s, the two now interdependent.

“Judging by this fate, the tribe’s chief is likely in peril,” Chen Ming thought.

The tribe’s leadership was hereditary. Under normal circumstances, the priest’s fortune would be tinged with only a faint red, inferior to that of the chief’s line. But now, the priest’s aura was wholly crimson, pressing down upon another’s, suffocating it.

Such a configuration could only mean that the chief’s line had been utterly suppressed, the chief himself likely captured or slain.

He looked up at the high platform.

The high priest stood aside, murmuring incantations inaudible to others. After a series of elaborate rites, he finally declared the sacrifice begun.

At this, the crowd below erupted in cheers. Yet beneath this clamor, many felt a growing repulsion, and those who harbored old grudges gazed at the high priest with visible hatred.

Most of these were Chen Ming’s followers. Since accepting his faith, spiritual threads had formed within them, enabling them to sense the heavy resentment and lurking terror atop the altar.

Recalling the slaves and clansmen who had perished on that altar in years past, and now with their faith in conflict, a natural aversion arose.

Chen Ming sat below, watching as the altar’s guards forced lines of slaves forward.

The high priest, a cold glint in his eye, advanced. The slaves, their faces twisted in despair and hate, stared at him as he solemnly drew a long dagger and, with swift and practiced hand, plunged it deep into their hearts.

A strangled grunt escaped the victim. Bound with grass rope, the slave writhed, not yet dead, eyes locked on the high priest with an unmistakable mixture of hatred and terror.

Then several guards stepped up, grinning cruelly, eyes gleaming with brutality, and brought their stone axes down again and again.

Soon, the axes were slick with blood. On the ground, the victim was only a mangled, lifeless heap.

Krim, in the audience, clenched his fists, disgust and bitter memories surging within him, nearly driving him to attack.

But within him, a subtle, clear divine power flowed, calming his mind. Sensing this force, he prayed fervently: “My god, grant me the order to end this centuries-old decay.”

Around them, many were repulsed by the slaughter. Life in this world was harsh, and people were more inured to violence, but most were not born killers; though some were savage, most felt only aversion.

After all, these were not true primitives, but the early shoots of a nascent civilization.

Yet, since it had always been so, they merely frowned and said nothing.

On the high platform, when it was done, the high priest opened a panel beneath the altar and directed the guards to toss the bloody remains below.

As the panel swung open, Chen Ming frowned. Beneath the altar, the karmic miasma was several times thicker than before, roiling at the lowest depths. Meanwhile, the essence of blood from the corpse drained away at a shocking speed, as if being absorbed by something unseen.

He understood at once: the true body of the tribe’s ancestral spirit must dwell below.