Bai Zhou Wants It, Bai Zhou Gets It

That enormous Dark-Red Spear was dark red from end to end, as if cast from some meteoric iron and then watered with blood beyond counting. Yet the Dark-Red Spear held not the slightest bloody evil. It bore at once a majestic tyranny and a quiet holiness. The sacred Dark-Red Spear had been nailed atop the city wall for a full two thousand years, and for all the time that passed, it had not decayed in the slightest. Time between the demons and the Dark-Red Spear seemed frozen. They clearly remained atop the wall, and yet they seemed not to share the same world, the same dimension, as Bai Zhou and the others. Otherwise, by Bai Zhou's understanding, for him and these laborers alike, merely observing the demon living corpses would pollute one's spirit, and prying into the Dark-Red Spear would do damage that could not be reversed... Without a doubt, this Dark-Red Spear was an extremely terrifying treasure, and one that stood even above Spirit-Name Secret Treasures. It was a treasure Bai Zhou could not imagine, and could not understand. The Living Saint who patrolled the North, Nun Amala? Bai Zhou could not grasp the weight of that title, but he could tell that this was surely an inconceivable existence. Even defeating the School Demon while it was still in an embryonic state had alarmed all of Tinghai. A mature demon had descended upon Heishi City seeking Ascension to Sainthood, only to be sealed here by this one Dark-Red Spear for two thousand years— That scene was truly hard to imagine. "If I could obtain this Dark-Red Spear..." Bai Zhou's eyes burned. Thoughts turned through his heart. If he took this Dark-Red Spear back, he might not even have to do anything himself. Merely set it down over by the Major—and the man's so-called "Ascension to Sainthood" would probably be unable to go on. Yet Bai Zhou also knew full well that the difficulty in this was considerable. Heishi City was no soft touch. That armored man he had just seen upon the wall was even more unfathomable—absolutely a powerhouse above Level 6! "Quick! Don't stop!" The jailers urged Bai Zhou and the others from behind to leave faster, and not to keep watching the living corpses. The column moved slowly on. Led by the jailers, they saw the collapsed city wall. "This is...?" Bai Zhou blanked for a moment. A stretch of wall some twenty meters long looked as if some colossal beast had smashed into it. From foundation to battlements, it had all collapsed into a field of rubble. "A stretch of the wall, dug up by those damned wild dogs?" Bai Zhou recalled what the jailer had said before, and could not help blinking. What kind of wild dog could be that fierce? Above the collapsed wall, a faintly visible scarlet ritual was at work, covering the fallen ruins like a frame. Semi-transparent city bricks were slowly taking shape within it. The ritual's frame was like writhing blood vessels, and like a dark-red skeleton, rising and falling slowly as if it breathed. Bricks of flesh and blood grew out of it. Understanding settled in Bai Zhou's heart. The doubts from before cleared in this moment. What material could a city wall be made of, to endure one millennium after another, and even now still hold off terrible evil? It could only be ritual. Ritual, regularly maintained! The whole wall, boundless to the eye, was a creation of ritual. A ritual of such vastness was beyond what the present Bai Zhou could imagine. Ahead of the labor column Bai Zhou stood in, many more laborers in shackles were packed in a dark mass, queued near this stretch of fallen ruin. Who knew where they had all been conscripted from. Someone reached a hand toward the wall, and a cut opened across the wrist. The crimson blood had not yet dripped when an invisible suction drew it away. Writhing threads of blood twisted and bored toward the faintly visible ritual frame. "Schlup..." The moment a blood-thread met the ritual, it was absorbed at once. As the blood drained away, stone bricks rapidly formed within the ritual frame—first blood-red and semi-transparent, then condensing into pitch-black stone. "Buzz..." With the forming of the stone bricks, those laborers' faces grayed at an astonishing speed, their skin visibly shriveling. Even the birth of a few stone bricks was like this, and gaps of the sort that needed repair ran a full twenty meters long and thirty meters high... Countless laborers "worked" in numbness, the very opposite of the lively bustle within the city. Yet everything proceeded in good order. A blood-reek sweet and cloying to an exaggerated degree hung over the whole area, mixed with the stink of sweat and a strange smell of mineral ore. Just then. "The reward on the bounty notice has been raised again!" Several cries of surprise reached his ears. Soldiers carrying fresh sheets posted them on the intact wall, covering the papers that had been there before. Bai Zhou's heart stirred, and he looked over— "If a ritualist can repair the ritual inside the wall before nightfall, the Governor is willing to grant one condition of theirs free of charge? Even open the family treasury, and give them one chance to pick any treasure they like?" People talked among themselves. "Even so, no ritualist is willing to come out and do the work?" "Those damned ritualists... that's why we have to suffer this!" The laborers broke into curses, but the soldiers soon suppressed them into quiet. A small squad of guard soldiers in leather breastplates stood wrapped in cloaks all around, supervising the laborers' work at every moment. Sharp gazes swept the surroundings, and now and then they called out to hurry them on. "These people..." Bai Zhou carefully looked them over a few times, and sensed the Intent circling these cloaked soldiers. Where there was Intent, they were most likely all Level 5 Extraordinary. They could not compare with the golden-armored gods he had seen before, the ones garrisoned at the edge of the Bone Forest. One might say the two were as far apart as heaven and earth. But as soldiers set to watch laborers, they were already extravagant enough. After all, Level 5... In Tinghai, that already counted as a great figure of high society. Such a person would never be a mere common soldier. "Worthy indeed of an empire that makes enemies of demons, gods, and ancient ghosts..." Calling those words to mind, Bai Zhou understood ever more clearly the weight of the Xiluo Empire, and knew what kind of opportunity the Gold Pass meant for him. But he only looked at these soldiers from a distance for a few glances before carefully drawing his gaze back. By now Bai Zhou had discovered that the disguise granted him by that token from Troy was more comprehensive than he had imagined. Otherwise, Intent could sense Intent. In the same moment Bai Zhou discovered their true strength, those soldiers would also discover that Bai Zhou was a Level 5 Extraordinary. The Bai Zhou of now was like a drop of water merging straight into the ocean of the Xiluo Empire, becoming a member acknowledged by the world—so long as he walked within the Xiluo Empire's domain, in other people's cognition he was Lucus. ...And so, as a matter of course, Lucus the ritualist apprentice would not be a Level 5 Destined Adventurer. This measure of strength was hardly eye-catching in the Xiluo Empire, but for Lucus it was very abnormal. Clearly the civilization of Troy would not be careless on this point. At the least, it would not let Bai Zhou suddenly appear to have become a Level 5 Destined... So the Intent upon Bai Zhou would be concealed. In the cognition of outsiders, his strength as an Extraordinary would gradually rise as time passed—unless Bai Zhou laid his power completely bare before others. "Even so, I still have to take care to hide..." Bai Zhou quietly melted into the laborers' ranks. He quietly shifted his feet and drew the other few pale-faced prison mates protectively in front of him. The prison mates all looked badly frightened. Before their eyes, row upon row of shackled laborers stood at the wall contributing spirituality and essence blood, and city bricks were born one after another. The sight filled them with fear. Amid the rumbling, dust flew. Soldiers also threw great numbers of savage-looking beast corpses into the ritual. The flesh of the beast corpses rapidly shriveled, and even vanished. The blood and spirituality contained within them were all cleanly eaten dry and wiped clean by the wall. Yet compared with humans contributing essence blood, these beast corpses were clearly much less efficient at spawning city bricks. Who knew the principle. Beasts and humans alike—fishy-sweet threads of blood were eaten up in a flurry by the ritual covering the collapsed wall. This was the process of repair. It made the ritual's red glow, flickering as the wall's frame, look from afar like an enormous meat grinder twenty meters long. No hard labor was needed, nor bricks and mortar. Only essence blood served as raw material, driving this vast ritual and letting the wall repair itself like a living thing. Even so, the whole process did not seem evil in the least. The fishy-sweet smell even carried a faint, barely-there fragrance. Aside from the occasional laborer collapsing with a thud, and the jailers shouting now and then, under the sun the repair of the wall even carried, inexplicably, a sacred and solemn beauty, as if the people were doing something especially great. "Under the ritual's effect, the whole wall is a living being, and blood is precisely where the essence of life lies. Using life to replenish life can speed the wall's repair." The lead jailer looked around at the deathly pale crowd and signaled them to line up near the collapsed wall. "Time is pressing. The wall must be repaired before nightfall, or the whole city will fall into peril." "You are all Extraordinary, with abundant spirituality in your bodies... The empire needs you to put in your share of strength!" The lead jailer wore a mild, pleasant look. "So this is in fact a glorious task. You ought to be proud of it—if you take part eagerly, I will even temporarily forget the crimes you have committed, and hold a measure of respect for you." Yet he had not even finished speaking. "Smack!" Not far off, a whip lashed a laborer who was contributing blood. "I told you to produce ten city bricks before you rest. You've only made a few, and you're already slacking? Are your ears deaf?" "Sorry, sir..." The speaker swayed, his expression vacant. "I'm about to pass out. I can't remember how many." "Shut up!" Faced with the laborer's backtalk, the watching soldier barked, "You still dare talk back!" As he spoke, the long whip in his hand, like a white python, snapped a curling flourish in the air with a crack, then landed smack, smack, smack, smack across the laborer several times in a row. While he whipped, the soldier growled, "However many bricks you're short, that's how many lashes you get, as a warning to the rest!" The laborer screamed without cease. Every lash split skin and flesh, chilling all who saw. "Sir!" the laborer answered. "This is already the seventh! Didn't I produce four bricks? I'm only six short..." Before the words were finished, the soldier let out a mocking "Aha—" "Now you remember which brick you're on?" Not long after... this laborer, covered in whip weals and barely clinging to life, was carried off. When he passed Bai Zhou and the rest, Bai Zhou could clearly feel the prison mates' fear. The jailer who had just been speaking so smoothly, seeing the soldier's display, said nothing more. He simply stood there in awkward silence. After that, all the prison mates, Bai Zhou included, began lining up obediently. The queue was quite long. Countless people ahead took turns supplying blood to the wall. Only when one could go on no longer did the next step in to replace him. But this happened to give Bai Zhou time. Celestial Pivot turned within the Fate Principle space. Bai Zhou's eyes closed, then opened. Obscure runes flowed in the depths of his gaze. The world before his eyes was greatly changed. At the collapsed portion of the wall, those vessel-like meridians presented themselves before Bai Zhou. He saw. It was as if countless minute red points of light lit within his sight. They linked one to another, lines flowing, and together formed a precise and magnificent ritual, breathing slowly like a living thing. He did not know how long had passed. After hundreds upon hundreds of reorganizations and deductions, Celestial Pivot at last understood a little of the flow of these rituals, and realized where the wall's present problem lay. The collapse of the wall was, in essence, damage to the ritual. But this damage was not the lack of anything, much less the lack of the Qi and blood of a few weak Extraordinary—for countless years, the ritual had been able to sustain itself. The wall's damage now was, in essence, like the bruise that appears on a human body after an outside impact: Qi and blood had congested here. The collapsed city bricks were bad blood. The newly bred city bricks were new blood. Heaping up outsiders’ Qi and blood supplied it with nourishment... just as one tells a patient to eat a bit more of what is good, and the body will heal itself. At a time like this, if a ritualist could dredge and guide the flow, clear the congested vessels, and let the ritual form a cycle of its own once more, the problem would be readily solved. "I think... I can do it!" Light flowed in the depths of his gaze, and this feeling arose in Bai Zhou. Repairing a ritual was like a doctor treating the sick. The wall enclosing all of Heishi City was vast beyond bounds, its end nowhere in sight. Within it there was only a twenty-meter stretch where Qi and blood had congested. This sort of "seeing a patient" counted as a small problem. It did not require medical skill on the level of surgery, still less the creation of a person from nothing—arranging a ritual of that degree would, to Bai Zhou, be equivalent to creating a person from nothing. But for Bai Zhou, who had mastered Celestial Pivot, if it was only a matter of repairing the wall before him? There was some difficulty. But this difficulty was not, for Bai Zhou, impossible to overcome. If other ritualists could only judge an illness by feeling the pulse and reading the face, then Bai Zhou, having mastered Celestial Pivot, was at the very least a modern doctor with a whole pile of medical instruments in hand, versed alike in Chinese and Western medicine. Those who cannot do it find it hard; those who can do not! A while longer, and when at last only a few people remained queued ahead of Bai Zhou, and he was but a single step from the collapsed wall—Celestial Pivot within him quietly turned. In a corner no one noticed, amid the queued crowd, Bai Zhou's consciousness had already merged into the interior of the wall. In Bai Zhou's perception, the whole enormous ritual was like a vast, finely woven spiderweb. Yet its core was something huge and formless, impossible to comprehend and impossible to approach. That thing extended countless fine threads out toward every side. Some plunged deep into the earth, seemingly drawing the spirituality from underground. Others stretched outward and became the enormous wall towering high upon the ground. Bai Zhou drew close to the wall. Celestial Pivot became like a key and quietly joined the ritual upon the collapsed ruins before him. The wall did not resist. Bai Zhou's consciousness entered within the wall. Spirituality drew and guided, as if he were setting needles. Needles rose and needles fell. The process was cautious in the extreme, and yet without a single slip. Time quietly slipped away. Sweat seeped unnoticed from Bai Zhou's temples. He stood where he was as if he had not yet done a thing, but in truth his face had already gone faintly pale. Another while passed... Bai Zhou's eyes snapped open. Abstruse, profound light nearly overflowed from both of them. He bent as if at random, and with a finger quietly and swiftly traced several extremely concise symbols upon the ground. The instant the symbols were complete, they brightened faintly, then vanished without a trace, sinking straight into the ground. "It should... have worked!" Bai Zhou let out a breath, his eyes bright. The boundless ritual before him was quietly undergoing a certain change, extremely minute, and yet essential. Upon the ruins before him, within the ritual's frame, stone bricks were proliferating at flying speed, like lumps of regenerating flesh. "Buzz!" From the boundless wall came a sudden tremor, as if the whole city were shaking. In the unseen, something seemed to wake from deep sleep. "What's going on?" Clamor and sharp shouts rose and fell by his ears. Yet at this moment there came, at Bai Zhou's ear, a whisper only he could hear, vast in the extreme, noble, and ancient. At the same time, he saw... saw that formless colossus hidden at the ritual's core. It was the living spirit of this wall—or rather, of this city. It cast its gaze down upon Bai Zhou: "Ritualist, you have healed me—what reward do you want?" Bai Zhou's heart stirred. Faced with this, he could not help recalling once more that earlier story from Wancheng, the one about the "river god." Bai Zhou certainly wanted to say that he wanted that Dark-Red Spear, but he himself also felt the demand might be a little too much. "The Dark-Red Spear? No. That won't do." "Amala is quite stingy... If I gave this to you, she would certainly come after me to settle the account." The formless consciousness seemed to have seen straight through the thoughts in Bai Zhou's heart, and answered him directly. "But—" "This Dark-Red Spear's Keen Edge has been pricking me until I itch all over. So many years now... If you need it, I can bundle it up and send it to you." What did that mean... Keen Edge? Bai Zhou blanked for a moment. The next instant, the heavy feeling of being watched drew away like an ebbing tide. And somehow, as if the feeling were shared with him, Bai Zhou felt in his heart a sudden, groundless ease and a secret delight... as if this feeling came from that ancient, unfathomable Living Spirit of Heishi City. Then an extremely cold, bone-piercing breath quietly flowed into Bai Zhou's Fate Principle space. Its color was dark red. Its shape... was clearly identical to the shape of the Dark-Red Spear! Only this Dark-Red Spear was semi-transparent, like a thread of flowing light, with no physical substance at all. The Keen Edge of the Dark-Red Spear that had pinned the demon fast had been running rampant inside the wall all this time. Now the wall had expelled it onto Bai Zhou the way one dumps garbage. At present, it lay quiet and still beside the Fate Principle Sun. "Just like that... I got it?" Bai Zhou's pupils contracted. His heart thumped for it without stopping. At this time, in the center of Heishi City, the hands of the great clock tower pointed to 35:50. The evening sun was ready to slant. The sky was gradually darkening. For this world, the evening hour of 36-point time was paying its visit, stepping up to the door upon its last footfalls. And at this very moment, the purpose of Bai Zhou's journey—the last piece of the puzzle for dealing with the Major—quietly came to hand. The whole process had been even simpler than the old three-step trick of putting an elephant into a refrigerator. It took only two steps— Bai Zhou wanted it. Bai Zhou got it!