Night was perpetually black and winds persistently harsh over Quancheng.
Bizarre spectral light churned continuously across the night sky, as though auroras and neon signs had been tossed into a blender, puréed, and then meticulously smeared across the heavens in layer after uniform layer. It was sickening, yet with time, one's senses eerily began to grow accustomed to it.
Even this scenery started to feel commonplace, thoroughly ordinary.
The moment he realized this, Ji Jue felt a spike of wariness.
The corruption of abominations and Vile Folly was almost always insidious and imperceptible.
Often, it was invisible to the naked eye. It could be a story shared at an AA meeting, a bizarre dream forgotten upon waking, an inconspicuous knickknack in the house, a peculiar tale in a book, or even an ordinary bowl of wonton noodles...
That was why it was called a pervasive poison.
Before realizing it, the victim had already drifted toward Vile Folly unconsciously. In the end, all it took was a single spark to ignite the kindling, beyond all hope of control.
Forty years ago, a disturbance beneath the Vortex had caused a massive violet star to streak across the sky, blazing with light. Over the following decade, spontaneous corruption erupted across the world in an endless stream...
All it took was a single glance.
The moment that radiance lit up their eyes, a seed of longing and yearning that never should have existed was inexorably planted in their souls.
Lu Changsheng was consecrated as Sacrificial Lord and Saint because of this, thoroughly uniting the loose grains of sand that was the Evil Transmutation Cult. Before that, he had been seemingly the most ordinary among its mid-to-high echelons.
Showing none of the hasty opportunism of his peers, he excelled at patience—dripping water that hollows stone, a rope that saws through wood. Beneath the chilling wind blowing day after day, by the time you noticed the ice was three feet thick, nothing could be undone.
It was precisely because of this that when he stepped openly onto the center stage, coordinating such a massive force to face off directly against the Security Bureau, it set everyone on edge.
What on earth was he playing at?
What pills had he taken to go this big?
Ji Jue had no idea just how big Lu Changsheng was going, but right now, the mere crumbs slipping through the man's fingers were already enough to crush Ji Jue and his companions to death.
In the biting, chilly wind blowing straight at him, Ji Jue lay prone atop the ruined carcass of a high-rise and raised his binoculars.
Looking far from high above, the full savagery of Quancheng finally revealed itself.
Innumerable drifting streaks of light hung from the vault of heaven like curtains, draping layer upon layer over the darkened city. Through that dreamlike veil of radiance, the world took on an eerie, monstrous cast.
Within his spiritus perception, immense ripples surged outward without ceasing from corners large and small across Quancheng.
The entire city had long since been reduced to a plaything of the Evil Transmutation Cult.
Now, as that invisible giant hand reached down from the clouds to toy with it at will, the gloomy city laid bare the frenzied fury and ravenous hunger pent up in the dark.
Amid distant rumbles, colossal silhouettes flickered through the thick fog, gliding over ruins as tentacles thrust from the mist, indiscriminately preying on the surrounding aberrants in wanton gluttony.
Meanwhile, the bizarre shadow they had once encountered by chance slithered across the ground, accompanied by faint cracking sounds as it drifted past.
On empty streets or plazas, a colossal, mutilated statue would occasionally emerge without warning, fresh blood constantly welling from its severed neck. Without any visible motion, grotesque, mutated heads appeared inexplicably upon its pedestal, one after another...
Everything in sight had become a pasture for vile abominations. Those bizarre behemoths roamed the darkness as meekly as cattle and sheep, bowing their heads to graze on the constantly sprouting grass, growing steadily larger.
Ji Jue deliberately averted his eyes from those things, not even daring to look at them straight on.
Ghost knew how keen their senses were; if merely catching sight of them locked their attention onto him, he would just be serving himself up on a platter.
"Repairman in position."
Lying prone at the edge of the floor, he peered through the reflection of the glass at an unremarkable building below: Quancheng Bank.
The bleak, dilapidated bank occupied the entire four-story structure. On the surrounding streets, shadowy silhouettes flickered from time to time.
The moment a mutated moth flitted through the air, an eerie halo would emerge from the bank, crushing the moth into paste with ease.
The entire bank was shrouded by a secret ritual, airtight and watertight.
Behind tattered curtains, faint pinpricks of light shone through, yet it was impossible to discern any movement within.
This was the stronghold Tong Shan had pinpointed during his stealth reconnaissance—the farthest from their hiding place, and also the one with the weakest response.
Tong Shan and Xu Guan had burned through four candles and staked out the perimeter for hours, finally piecing together what was happening inside through various means.
For the cultists of the Evil Transmutation Cult to gather at a bank in droves, they certainly weren't there to apply for loans. Going to such great lengths to convert the entire bank into an evil domain from top to bottom had only one purpose: to minimize the distance to the Vortex, paving the way for the descent and blessing of a high-tier abomination.
Just like what Lian Cheng had done in the Chrono Ruin.
Now, under the rejection of the mortal realm, Quancheng's forced "ascent" burned through immense resources every single day.
To cut down on an expenditure large enough to make even a Celestial-Human clutch their chest, they had to find something to prop up the hollow Quancheng from underneath.
To erect supporting pillars.
There were many methods for this; as an artisan alone, Ji Jue could think of no fewer than a dozen. The simplest was undoubtedly the most utterly unconscionable: human foundation sacrifice. Slaughter ten or twenty thousand people, and every problem was solved.
It wasn't that the Evil Transmutation Cult possessed any moral backbone, but that such a massive shortfall and such an intricate ritual were simply beyond their capabilities. A "sacrifice" wasn't something you could make do with frozen chickens and ducks; it had to meet specific criteria, slaughtered fresh and on the spot... If they could quietly pry over ten thousand living souls out of the Federation's hands, what couldn't they accomplish? Even if they slaughtered them all to feed the furnace, they could craft six or seven aberrant Celestial Crafts!
Since brute force was off the table, they had to resort to finesse.
By using rituals to temporarily crack open a breach over the Vortex, like ice fishing, they lured the starved high-tier abominations below to come up for some fresh air.
The Evil Transmutation Cult had practiced this trick for so many years that they had no shortage of "connections" down below. Having worked together for so long, a simple ring of the bell was probably enough for the ones down there to know a feast was being served. They were absurdly practiced at it.
Within a few short hours, eerie pillars of light reaching to the heavens had erupted across Quancheng one after another, signifying the successful advent of high-tier abominations...
Like massive pillars supporting from below and locking into one another, they formed a stable structure that firmly held Quancheng aloft.
This was one of the few places where there was still no movement...
And what was more, there was no powerhouse of the Transcendent Rank stationed inside.
If they could successfully purge it and sever this pillar's emergence, not only would the resonance and linking between the high-tier abominations develop a flaw, but the burden on the Evil Transmutation Cult to sustain Quancheng's ascent would become far more staggering!
Never mind how much redundancy an undertaking of such colossal cost could afford; an entire building had more than one load-bearing wall, but remove just one, and the whole structure could be condemned as unsafe!
Break one of their legs first, and the rest would be easy—all they'd need to do was kick the cripple's good leg as hard as they could.
Voices crackled through his earpiece one after another, laden with heavy static.
"Big Brother, in position."
"Garlic-Peeling Girl, in position."
"Iron Man, in position."
"Melon Fanatic, in position."
Then came Lou Feng's voice, fighting down his shame: "Big... Spender, in position."
After that, during a long silence, everyone waited with bated breath until finally, an exceedingly reluctant voice dragged itself out:
"...Vegetable, in position."
Pfft.
Someone forgot to mute their mic and couldn't hold back a snort.
But that was what happened when callsigns were chosen by others—the subject was the only one without a say.
Like a little game to loosen up before battle, no matter how stern and rigid Tong the Vegetable was, he couldn't stop everyone from finding some amusement amidst the misery.
Though he resisted the callsign with every fiber of his being, a unanimous vote by the squad forced him to accept it.
"Vehicle incoming, heads up everyone," Xu Guan, the 'Melon-Eating Guy,' warned in a low voice over the comms. "Repairman, ready?"
"Ready."
Grinning, Ji Jue racked the bolt. Lying on the soft quicksilver dust-mat, he pivoted the barrel, training his sights on a battered truck rumbling down the distant street.
He couldn't help but frown.
What a piece of junk... In a cult as massive as the Evil Transmutation Cult, couldn't they find a single person who knew how to fix a car?
From the tires and suspension down to the chassis, not a single part was in decent shape. It had probably been cobbled together from Quancheng's junk heaps; it was a miracle it could even run, and nobody would be surprised if it broke down the very next second.
Once the truck ground to a halt, a large throng of disheveled people poured out from the bed. Though gaunt and sallow, with some even mutated under the corruption and breathing their last, starved and dressed in rags like convict laborers, their expressions were impossibly ecstatic and manic. They scrambled over one another to hurry into the bank.
Watching this, Ji Jue sighed silently.
"Don't go soft-hearted. They're all zealots of the Evil Transmutation Cult; there's no saving them," Tong Shan's voice came through the comms. "Even if you pulled them from the fire right now, they'd only blame you for meddling and blocking their path to paradise."
"I know."
Without hesitation, Ji Jue clicked the remote.
Instantly, a muffled explosion ripped through a precarious ruin in the distance. Snapped at the waist, it collapsed, kicking up vast clouds of dust.
Amidst the deafening crash, the crowd on the street fell into immediate disarray, shrill shrieks breaking out.
The sudden commotion drew who knew how much scrutiny. For a moment, the drifting lights across the firmament rippled and looked down, sweeping across the scene.
Soon, however, the attention dispersed without a trace.
It was merely the collapse of a condemned building—far too common, with countless such occurrences across Quancheng. Furthermore, Ji Jue had spent hours calculating the controlled demolition, using hardly any explosives. Any stray footprints had already been erased by dust and wind; not a single trace remained.
And as the ruined building came crashing down, masked by the roaring din, no one noticed the muffled gunshot from Ji Jue's rifle.
A makeshift quicksilver suppressor, paired with a deliberately reduced propellant charge.
When that bullet fired, it barely made a sound.
Like a muffled fart.
Leaving the muzzle, it peeled and broke down rapidly layer by layer in the wind, leaving a drifting wisp of dust. By the time it struck home, a skin-and-bones man in the milling crowd merely stumbled and fell to the ground.
Completely unharmed.
Even he believed that someone had just shoved him during the confusion.
Scrambling back up, he patted the dust off himself, glaring around as he tried to pick out innocent faces from mocking ones, muttering something under his breath.
He didn't dare make a fuss.
This was already before the sanctuary; who would dare raise a fist and break its solemn sanctity?
Being punished was a small matter, but if he were stripped of the privilege to serve the Lord, the loss would be unbearable!
And so, harboring the same unrealistic dream, calculating heavenly rewards and the gratification of boundless desires, they scrambled to line up beside their guides, walking gleefully into the bank's darkness.
Like livestock queuing up for the processing line.
Only as he stepped through the door did he absently scratch his back, feeling a faint itch.
As for when a palm print had appeared on his foul-smelling, tattered clothes...
No one cared.
***
"Fuck, it's been so long, and not a damn thing!" In the bank's basement vault, the furious priest snarled, "Does nobody give a shit?! What are you playing dead for? Speak!"
Around the blood-drenched altar, sweat-soaked officiants tucked their heads in, not daring to make a peep.
Only his most favored subordinate summoned the nerve to plead, "Please forgive us, Priest. We followed the usual rites down to the letter. By all rights, the Sovereign Lord should have descended by now, but... but..."
But who could have predicted this?
Batch after batch of offerings had already been sent up. The incense had been burned, the kowtows performed, yet why hadn't the high-tier abomination—usually so infallibly responsive—uttered a single sound today?!
Could it be hiking its price at this critical juncture to take advantage of their plight?
"I-It must be the Wheel-Turning Holy King testing us!" His lips trembled. "Once this new batch of offerings is presented, the Holy King will surely be pleased and shower us with favor!"
The priest shot him an expressionless look, his eyes bloodshot.
At this point, that was the only explanation.
No matter how fervently they invited and called, or how many batches of offerings they presented, the Holy King—usually so swift to answer—had given no response whatsoever...
The priest suddenly demanded, "Did any of you break protocol somewhere? Angered the Sovereign Lord?!"
"It's definitely that son of a bitch Lian Cheng's fault!" Pushed into a corner, the panicked subordinate had zero qualms dumping the blame onto a dead man. "Starting from some time ago, the Holy King's responses grew sparser and sparser, until He stopped responding altogether. That bastard must have offended the Holy King somehow!"
"What's the point of bringing that up now?" the priest said coldly. "Expand the scale. Offer more sacrifices. Call every last believer over—if the Holy King is truly unwilling to show Himself, we'll just have to summon Him by force..."
"B-But..." The subordinate froze. "What if the Holy King brings down His wrath?"
"Then what good are the sacrifices anyway?" The priest fixed him with a freezing glare. "What are you lamenting? Those little followers of yours? If this place fails, do you know what will happen to you? Prime sacrificial lambs like you don't come easy!"
Shivering beneath those sinister words, the subordinate hung his head, daring not hesitate any longer.
He drove batch after batch of believers onto the altar.
Some struggled, weeping and calling for their parents; others jostled in feverish eagerness; still others hesitated in trembling panic... Regardless of their demeanor, once sent onto the immense altar, they fell into delirium and hallucination, disintegrating in ecstatic frenzy as they were devoured clean by unseen horrors, leaving behind only viscous blood slowly dripping and overflowing from the "platter"...
In his daze, one of the attendants maintaining the altar suddenly shuddered for reasons unknown.
Had he heard a hallucinatory... laugh?
On the bare wall, a dilapidated door materialized out of nowhere and swung wide.
Behind the tattered curtain draped across the doorway, darkness surged.
A pale, smiling face slowly peeked out.
Looking right at him.
Chapter 214