Chapter Fifty-Four: The Hundred Skulls Ritual

Inside the temple, darkness reigned, so dense that one could not see a hand before one’s face.

Only the faintest creaking sounds echoed through the gloom, their source impossible to pinpoint, casting a chilling shadow over everyone’s hearts.

At the very front, Zhan Bai reached into his storage pouch and produced several dazzling stones, distributing them among the group.

In an instant, the pitch-black abandoned temple was as bright as day.

These dazzling stones, to put it simply, were spirit stones drained of all their power, specially crafted to emit light. Though the trace of energy lingering within them could no longer be absorbed by the human body, it was sufficient to provide illumination.

“Stay close to me, everyone. Keep alert and don’t fall behind!”

In truth, for experts at the Human Gang stage, the stones served more to dispel the fear within than to provide actual light.

Their radiance was impressive, and the temple’s interior was laid bare before their eyes.

The hall was spacious, but its main features were a colossal, ancient stone statue and four massive bronze bells set in each corner. Strange, blood-colored runes and peculiar images and writings covered the four walls, though their meaning was lost to time—blurred and indecipherable from age and decay.

The central stone statue, however, though thick with dust, still possessed a lifelike presence. It bore three heads and six arms, three eyes upon its brow, and a fierce, terrifying visage. Its enormous form was covered in eerie red markings that Qin Feng and his companions had never seen before. The overwhelming aura of oppression bore down on them, leaving everyone feeling stifled.

A single great statue might not have been frightening on its own, but the scene beneath it made every onlooker draw in a sharp breath.

The floor was strewn with dry bones.

And not just any bones—hundreds of headless skeleton monks, all kneeling in neat rows.

Each skeleton was draped in a red robe, prostrated in worship, their posture devout as they venerated the immense statue before them.

Upon the giant altar before them, piles of skulls were stacked like a mountain, each etched with strange black runes. Within the sockets of these skulls, a sinister red light flickered.

The scene was unspeakably bizarre.

These monks had used their own heads as offerings, worshipping this statue!

All present were dumbfounded with shock.

“Senior Brother, who were these people? Why would they offer their own heads as sacrifices? Were they performing some evil ritual?” Fang Xinyi, curiosity piqued, spoke to Zhan Bai at the front.

Zhan Bai remained composed, and after a moment’s astonishment, sighed and said, “Judging by their attire, I fear these were the ancient monks of this very Blood Qi Temple.” He paused, his gaze drifting to the mountain of skulls, his expression grave as he explained, “As for why they would collectively sacrifice their own heads, I suspect they hoped, through this twisted ritual, to suppress some great evil.”

He glanced towards the nearby cultivator surnamed Hu, seeking confirmation.

Hu, who hailed from the Cult of Starfire and was well-versed in formations and sacrificial rites, nodded. “My thoughts are much the same as Brother Zhan’s. This is indeed an ancient heretical blood rite. Such ceremonies are only performed to seal away monstrous evil, and to use so many lives and heads as offerings at once... whatever was being suppressed here must have been extraordinary indeed!”

“A monstrous evil...”

At these words, the group fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts.

Now was the perfect moment for observation. Qin Feng glanced around at his companions, but felt a twinge of disappointment. Other than Qin Hu, whose eyes darted restlessly with some sly intent, everyone’s attention was fixed on the statue and the sea of bones—no clues could be gleaned.

Unable to draw out the other hidden infiltrator for now, Qin Feng decided to take the opportunity to inspect the surroundings.

He was no longer the ignorant youth of old—his knowledge rivaled that of anyone present, perhaps even surpassing them in some ways. As his gaze swept the walls, suddenly his eyes narrowed and fixed on a series of faint images.

The drawings were crudely rendered, painted with some sort of blue blood that had faded over the ages, making them exceedingly hard to discern.

What caught Qin Feng’s attention was the depiction of a coffin plank within the images—a plank that looked remarkably like the signboard he had removed at the temple entrance.

It appeared to be a sequence, telling the story of the plank’s origin in the simplest pictorial form.

But the images were so blurred that even with Qin Feng’s keen vision, he struggled to make them out.

Fortunately, as he was at the rear, his actions went unnoticed. Qin Feng tilted his head, and his eyes flickered with a faint violet glow as he scrutinized the images.

As he studied them, the scenes gradually took shape and pieced themselves together in his mind. His expression grew increasingly grave.

Just then, a voice interrupted him.

“Oh? What are you looking at, Daoist Qin?”

Qin Feng turned at the sound, the violet glow in his eyes already gone.

It was Shi Yuan who had spoken. She had been curious about Qin Feng from the start, and now, instead of being interested in the horrific scene before them, he was fixated on the strange drawings on the walls. Her curiosity piqued, her clear eyes settled on him once more.

Qin Feng smiled and replied, “I just thought these runes on the wall looked familiar, as if I’d seen them in a book before. It distracted me for a moment.”

“Is that so?” Shi Yuan gave him a mysterious smile, obviously unconvinced by his explanation, but she did not press further, allowing Qin Feng to breathe a silent sigh of relief.

He realized he needed to be more careful. The ability of his Violet Heaven Eye was indeed useful, but the faint purple light it emitted was a little too conspicuous.

Fortunately, their conversation went largely unnoticed, for up ahead, Qin Hu had already begun cursing loudly.

“Damn it, what kind of place is this? Trying to scare me with a bunch of lousy skeletons? Hah! Let’s see me smash you to bits!” Qin Hu was always hot-tempered, and the impostor seemed to be exaggerating this, putting on a show—though it was a bit forced, it was convincing enough.

At that moment, Qin Hu drew a large, high-grade mystic blade from his pouch, swung his arm, and brought the weapon crashing down on a kneeling, headless skeleton monk.

“No, don’t!” Zhan Bai’s face changed as he shouted a warning.

But it was too late.

With a sweeping, resounding slash, Qin Hu’s blade unleashed a powerful arc of force, accompanied by a deafening sonic boom, shattering an entire row of skeletons before him into fragments.

As the bones exploded, Zhan Bai’s expression changed dramatically.

…