Chapter 4: The Traitor’s Ritual

The night wind cut like a knife through the treetops.

Lu Hongzhuang moved swiftly through the darkened woods, Su Qinghan on her back.

Her steps were firm and powerful, yet each landing was silent—the very pinnacle of a martial expert’s movement.

The person on her back felt as light as air; if not for the steady breathing brushing past her ear, she might have thought she was carrying nothing at all.

One behind the other, they trailed the dark figure like specters.

After some time, the figure ahead began to slow.

The dilapidated silhouette of a building emerged in the sparse moonlight.

Broken walls and crumbling ruins were draped in cobwebs.

A statue of the Buddha, its head half-missing, lay toppled amidst overgrown weeds, a bizarre smile still gracing its lips.

It was a long-abandoned temple.

Senior Brother Liu’s figure vanished in a flash, disappearing into the main hall at the temple’s heart.

Lu Hongzhuang found a concealed, broken wall and gently set Su Qinghan down, her voice a low whisper.

“Is this… Jinhe Temple?”

“Your Exorcism Division believes in this sort of thing?” Su Qinghan asked, leaning against the wall, her voice betraying no emotion.

A flicker of unease crossed Lu Hongzhuang’s face as she explained in a hushed tone.

“Of course not. During the previous dynasty, incense offerings were abundant, which gave rise to countless charlatans and swindlers. Some vile cults even used these places to amass wealth and cause chaos. After our dynasty was founded, the Exorcism Division cracked down on them, and they all fell into ruin.”

Her words were filled with contempt for these places of ‘superstition and strange gods’.

Su Qinghan said no more, her gaze fixed on the pitch-black main hall.

Holding their breath, they crept silently to the outer wall of the hall and peered inside through a broken window lattice.

Inside, Senior Brother Liu had not lit any torches.

He stood in the center of the hall, where a sliver of moonlight spilled from a hole in the roof, illuminating a patch of ground at his feet.

There, seven or eight figures lay scattered about!

Among them were white-haired elders and infants still in swaddling clothes.

Their hands and feet were bound, their mouths gagged.

Terror filled their eyes as they could only let out muffled whimpers.

They were the missing villagers from the nearby hamlets!

Lu Hongzhuang’s heart sank like a stone.

She was about to move when Su Qinghan grabbed her, holding her back.

They watched as Senior Brother Liu produced a black porcelain bottle, uncorked it, and began dabbing a thick, dark-red liquid onto the foreheads of the villagers, one by one.

Once he had finished, he took a few steps back, formed a bizarre hand seal, and began to chant.

His voice was not loud, but it carried an unnatural, piercing quality that echoed through the empty hall.

“Path to the Netherworld, open! Gates of the Yellow Springs, part!”

“With blood as the lure, with souls as the sacrifice!”

“Spirits of resentment, from a hundred li around, be drawn by this scent!”

“Feast upon this banquet, and merge with me as one!”

As he recited the incantation, wisps of black energy began to seep from the blood-smeared foreheads of the villagers!

The temperature in the entire hall seemed to plummet to freezing in an instant!

A sinister wind howled, and the cries of ghosts echoed from all directions, as if countless greedy eyes were watching the ‘offerings’ from the darkness.

“What… what is he doing?” Lu Hongzhuang’s voice trembled.

The scene unfolding before her was entirely beyond her comprehension.

Su Qinghan’s expression grew grave.

“He’s luring evil spirits.”

“He’s using these living people as bait to draw in nearby ghosts.”

“And then…” Su Qinghan paused, her voice growing even colder, “he will let the most powerful one enter his body and merge with it, forcibly elevating his cultivation.”

“What?!” Lu Hongzhuang looked as if she’d been struck by lightning.

‘Sacrificing the living! Inviting a ghost into one’s body!’

She had only ever read of such depraved and wicked methods in the most secret scrolls of the Exorcism Division!

‘Senior Brother Liu… her gentle, righteous senior brother… was actually practicing such a forbidden art!’

Rage!

An uncontrollable rage instantly burned through Lu Hongzhuang’s reason!

“You beast!”

With a furious cry, Lu Hongzhuang could hold back no longer.

Shing—!

Her longsaber left its sheath with a piercing shriek that split the air!

She became a crimson bolt of lightning, bursting in through the window, the sharp glint of her blade aimed straight for Senior Brother Liu’s back!

However, it was as if Senior Brother Liu had eyes in the back of his head.

Without turning, just as the blade was about to strike, he unhurriedly reached back with his right hand.

His index and middle fingers came together.

Ting!

A crisp clang echoed!

Her unstoppable, full-powered strike was caught between his two fingers, effortlessly pinching the edge of her saber!

The blade was less than three inches from his back, yet it could not advance another fraction!

“Junior Sister, you’re too impatient.”

Senior Brother Liu turned slowly, a mocking smile playing on his lips.

With a flick of his wrist.

An immense force surged through the blade.

Lu Hongzhuang felt a sharp pain in the web of her thumb as her longsaber was torn from her grasp, the impact sending her stumbling backward.

Using the momentum, she spun around and, in a few quick leaps, positioned herself in front of the bound villagers, shielding them with her body.

“Liu Chengfeng! Why are you doing this?!” Lu Hongzhuang demanded, standing with her saber at the ready, her eyes bloodshot.

Senior Brother Liu leisurely pinched the bridge of his nose as if he had just heard a joke.

“Junior Sister, that’s a foolish question.”

His voice had become wild and sinister.

“For power, of course! For greater power!”

“The path of martial arts—Body Tempering, Qi Gathering, Gang Condensation, Profound Opening—each step is like ascending to the heavens! It is so difficult! I’ve been stuck at the peak of Gang Condensation for five whole years! Five years! Why should you receive the Master’s favor the moment you arrive? Why is your cultivation progressing faster than mine?”

“I refuse to accept it!”

He spread his arms and began to laugh maniacally.

“But things are different now! Once I lure this hundred-year-old ghost spirit into my body and we merge as one, the Profound Opening realm will be within my grasp! Then, the damned Exorcism Division, the laws of the imperial court—they will all be crushed beneath my feet!”

“I will unite the lands, and I alone will be revered!”

He looked at Lu Hongzhuang, his eyes burning with greed and desire.

“What do you say, Junior Sister? It’s not too late to join me.”

“When my divine art is complete and I rule over all, you… will be my empress!”

In the shadows of a corner, Su Qinghan watched this scene unfold and couldn’t help but facepalm.

In her sea of consciousness, Jiu Li was practically dying of laughter.

“Pfft-hahaha! Where does this idiot get his confidence? ‘Divine art complete’? ‘Unite the lands’? With such a crude spirit-luring technique, the moment the ghost enters his body, the spirit and flesh will clash. He won’t last half an hour before he succumbs to qi deviation and becomes a mindless, killing-obsessed lunatic!”

Su Qinghan was speechless.

‘His stupidity is truly earth-shattering.’

“Vile words and wishful thinking!”

Lu Hongzhuang trembled with rage. She leveled her longsaber. “Today, I will cleanse our sect and kill you, you traitor!”

Before her words had even faded, she charged forward again!

The light of her saber flashed like silk, its energy cutting through the air!

But the Senior Brother Liu of this moment was far beyond her ability to match.

He didn’t even draw his own weapon, fighting bare-handed.

His movements were ethereal, and every strike carried a frigid, ghostly energy.

“Bang!”

After a dozen or so exchanges, Lu Hongzhuang made a mistake and was struck in the abdomen by Senior Brother Liu’s palm.

She let out a muffled grunt and was sent flying backward, crashing heavily against a pillar in the hall.

Spitting a mouthful of blood, she fainted on the spot.

Silence once again descended upon the hall.

Senior Brother Liu didn’t spare the fallen Lu Hongzhuang a single glance as he slowly, very slowly, turned his head.

His gaze landed precisely on the corner where Su Qinghan was hiding.

He grinned, revealing a set of bone-white teeth in a grotesque and savage smile.

“My friend over by the wall.”

“You’ve been watching the show for quite some time. Are you going to come out on your own, or must I… invite you?”

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