ASER – Chapter 21

Zhao Xu immediately cursed angrily: “I am the only son of Cishi Zhao Yu. If you dare to harm me, the Cishi’s Mansion will not let you go, and neither will the imperial court!” [Cishi (刺史) was an ancient Chinese regional supervisory official]

Yoho, this person has such a prominent background?

A’Diao was initially terrified of becoming a human swine. Hearing Zhao Xu’s words, she was suddenly surprised, but inwardly grumbled: What the hell, with such a background, you still got caught here. Is your father incompetent, or are you?

This Cishi is too incompetent, absolutely done for, no hope.

A’Diao’s thoughts were shared by this group of evil cultists. The old man smiled, “So you are this noble, my apologies for the disrespect. Had we known your father was so incompetent, our original plan could have been bolder. Now, with the situation being restrictive, we can only perform the ritual hastily. However, since your bloodline is so noble…”

“First, cut off his five limbs!”

The old man ordered with an expressionless face.

Zhao Xu was about to go mad, trying to struggle, but he was held down. With a swift motion of the knife, his left arm was severed.

Blood splattered on the spot. The severed left arm’s fingers were still twitching due to muscle spasms.

A’Diao blinked, avoiding the sight of the severing, but she heard the sound. She immediately thought of a butcher in the market chopping pork trotters by weight according to the price.

The screams were bloodcurdling.

Just as they were about to chop off his right arm, the old man’s mobile phone suddenly rang. The person on the other end seemed to say something. He frowned, hung up the phone, and said to the others, “The situation has changed. News from the Cishi’s Mansion says our tracks have been found. The people from the Sima’s office are making quite a stir for some reason and might find this place. There’s no time to relocate now. We need to speed up. Let’s proceed directly with the ritual. No need for the human swine. It shouldn’t affect things much.”

The armless Zhao Xu: “!!!”

Zhang Cheng and the other two: “…”

A’Diao: ?

Although she breathed a sigh of relief, this rotten old man was very bad. Didn’t he say that not using a human swine would inevitably lead to failure?

The five of them were directly thrown into large wine vats, positioned according to specific directions. Then, the old man and his followers began to smear the mixed blood of the five onto a stone disk.

Submerged in the wine vats, with the strong liquor up to their shoulders, A’Diao initially thought they were just being soaked in wine. But when the blood-colored ritual diagram on the stone disk was completed, these people began to sit cross-legged at the various nodes of a pentagram, their hands spread open, arms connecting to form a complete human ritual line, fitting the entire array diagram.

This scene sparked a thought in A’Diao’s mind: She remembered! A document mentioned that during the first generation of Spiritual Energy, there seemed to be an evil cult called the Five Elements Cult.

Back in that first generation, Spirit Gates and Spiritual Vessels were the most core and fundamental resources. Various factions had virtually no resistance to these two resources. The official powers were the strongest, controlling most resources and using their combined strength to fight Demonic Spirits. However, evil forces emerged and developed in the cracks. In pursuit of the powerful benefits of Spirit Gates, they created many diverse and bizarre evil ritual methods. Perhaps this was one of them.

At least she recognized the black-bottomed, blue-patterned pentagram and remembered it was the emblem of the Five Elements Cult.

Could this kind of ritual really summon a Spirit Gate?

Would a Spirit Gate really be attracted by the five of them and 23 young children?

What kind of rule did this fall under?

Amidst her confusion, A’Diao noticed that the nine people actually began to release wisps of Spiritual Energy.

Indeed, they had also absorbed Spiritual Energy. This Spiritual Energy, tinged with some blood-red color, dissipated towards the ground and was quickly absorbed by the array diagram on the floor.

Zhang Cheng and the others stared at the array diagram on the ground and found it was actually glowing. No, it should be said it had begun to burn.

After the burning began, the temperature of the wine increased slightly. Warm wine boiling a frog?

Just as A’Diao was thinking this, she gradually felt something was wrong.

There was something in this wine!!!

Something had come alive.

Tiny, wriggling things swam in the wine, then, like rats smelling sesame oil, they drew close and climbed onto her, inch by inch up her skin… up her body.

Soon, streaks of bugs appeared on the skin of the five people’s necks.

Densely packed, they crawled towards their seven orifices.

It wasn’t just them; the 23 children were the same. They were in great pain, letting out terrified and fragile cries, but had no room to struggle…

Zhao Xu was the worst off. The bugs had already burrowed into the wound of his severed arm. He was in so much pain that his head shook frantically, and his face was contorted.

Seeing this, Zhang Cheng and the others turned deathly pale, while A’Diao… she cried.

She cried like a pear blossom showered by rain.

“Ah, bugs, so many bugs! Bugs are so scary… It hurts, it really hurts.”

Originally, Zhang Cheng also found these bugs terrifying, but he found the weeping A’Diao even more frightening.

Death was imminent, and she was still acting?

So dedicated?

Unlike Zhao Xu and the other two, Zhang Cheng was someone who had struggled in society from an early age and was also an assassin by birth. His survival skills far surpassed the latter. Seeing the life-threatening danger posed by these bugs, he suddenly let out a low shout, followed by an explosion of his gathered strength!

Whoosh! He was about to leap out of the vat…

The weeping A’Diao saw it, her eyes lit up. Counting on you, big brother! Go!

Did she seem to pin all her hopes on this former “enemy”?

But just as Zhang Cheng erupted.

An evil cultist rushed up behind him and slapped his left shoulder with a palm.

Crack! Flesh and blood flew from his left shoulder, the sound of cracking bones causing Zhang Cheng immense pain, but he had already freed one hand from the ropes.

Impressive. It was clear this person knew how to untie ropes.

Zhang Cheng freed his other hand from the other side and quickly thrust it into the evil cultist’s eyes.

“Ah!” The evil cultist screamed, clutching his eyes and curling up in pain. Zhang Cheng grabbed the rim of the vat and was about to leap up. Even with his legs bound, he pushed with all his might, determined to break through the large wine vat.

But these evil cultists were prepared. When Zhang Cheng erupted, they all rushed over. Two moved forward to press down on Zhang Cheng’s shoulders in time, while another electrocuted Zhang Cheng’s neck from behind… Zzzzzzt!

“Obediently become a sacrifice for the cult!”

The super-powered electric baton activated. Zhang Cheng was instantly electrocuted to the point of seeing stars, all his movements ceasing… He quickly weakened.

It’s over!

Splash! He was pressed back into the large wine vat with its churning liquid. His failure was also the despair of Zhao Xu and the others.

But just then, Bang!

Another large wine vat suddenly exploded, burst from within.

It was Chen A’Diao!

Zhang Cheng was shocked.

No one had anticipated or expected it.

The moment the large wine vat burst, the toilet that caused the explosion was retrieved by A’Diao into her body. The others didn’t see the toilet at all.

Zhang Cheng couldn’t figure out how she had burst the large wine vat. Could it be that she had gathered more strength than him and forcibly kicked it open?

Impossible. The strength she had shown before was less than his.

Zhang Cheng didn’t understand, but he also realized that this little drama queen’s crying a minute ago was indeed fake.

Splish, splash! As the liquid sprayed and flowed, A’Diao, whose hands were bound behind her, had already picked up a sharp, broken piece of the vat nearby with her fingers. She quickly cut the ropes, making a small notch in them.

The expressions of the nine seated people changed drastically. The old man roared, “Hold her down!”

The evil cultists reacted and rushed towards A’Diao in unison.

But A’Diao had already contacted the toilet inside her body.

Activate: My little fist will pummel you to death skill!

The Mental Energy that had previously increased to 1100 was directly reduced by 100, leaving 1000 Mental Energy.

Buzz! A scorching and fierce energy surged from within her body, instantly nourishing her entire being. Her muscles bulged, her strength exploded fully, Bang!!!

The ropes snapped. A’Diao, now with her hands free, grabbed the largest piece of the vat shard from the ground, jumped up, turned her body sideways in a certain athletic posture, and flicked her wrist forcefully… This throwing technique was quite good. It flew in an arc, not attacking the cultists rushing towards her, but smashing towards the large wine vat where Liu Guang, who was closest to her, was located.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Awesome!

A single arc accurately smashed four wine vats, even Zhang Cheng’s vat exploded. These four people successfully escaped from their vats. The exploding wine, along with those mysterious poisonous bugs, also burst out, splashing onto the cultists.

Don’t be fooled by the cultists’ devout appearance; when these mysterious bugs landed on them, they were all scared stiff, like startled dogs. How could they bother with A’Diao? They just jumped and thrashed around on the spot like they were having epileptic fits, trying to shake off the bugs.

For a moment, they couldn’t approach, nor could they stop A’Diao from rushing into the large stone disk… Was she rushing in to attack the old man and the other eight?

No. When the old man saw A’Diao tear off the bandage she had previously applied, revealing the earlier bloodletting wound, his heart leaped into his throat. Realizing her intention, he shouted in terror, “She’s going to break the formation! Channel Spiritual Energy, speed up the formation completion, quickly!!”

Damn it, this rustic-looking girl actually understands formations?!

Once the nine of them were in position, their own Spiritual Energy had already formed an energy circulation system with the array disk. It was impossible for them to forcibly break away to kill A’Diao. Thus, they could only speed up the formation’s completion, but their bodies couldn’t move for the moment.

Now they could only rely on their subordinates to take down A’Diao.

Actually, this formation was currently incomplete because it wasn’t successful yet, but it had indeed taken shape. At least now, the bloodlines within the array had completely ignited. Why were A’Diao and the other four needed?

It was merely to use the Spiritual Energy of the five people to replace their own Spiritual Energy expenditure. They needed the five to substitute in the formation to avoid depleting their own Spiritual Energy.

Now that all five had escaped the large wine vats, the old man and the other eight had no choice but to bear the operation of the formation themselves.

Spiritual Energy was stimulated and released. After being drawn into the bloodlines, Buzz!

The array disk released a bloody light, and the stone disk actually began to rotate… With each certain angle it turned, everyone felt as if the Spiritual Energy within their bodies was being drawn out. And the mysterious bugs on the ground, after inhaling this Spiritual Energy, instantly grew much fatter.

Meanwhile, the 23 children had not escaped the bugs. They were frantically crawling into their nostrils, ears, and even mouths… then burrowing out again, crawling onto the array diagram to offer themselves to the bloodlines, becoming part of the burning array diagram upon entering the blood.

But each time they burrowed in and out, the children’s vitality withered… Their lives were rapidly fading.

Perhaps death was just a hair’s breadth away!

Bang! A cultist was knocked down by Liu Guang. Sizzle, sizzle, blood spurted wildly. Zhang Cheng quickly slit another cultist’s throat. The ropes of Liu Guang and the other three had all been cut, and they counterattacked after freeing themselves.

At least Zhang Cheng and his group fought back, struggling to kill several cultists. But the armless Zhao Xu was a coward. After freeing himself, while everyone else was engaging the cultists, he frantically ran out.

Damn mutt!

Both sides hated him intensely.

However, Zhao Xu suddenly fell to his knees with a thud, letting out a painful cry.

Because bugs had crawled onto his legs. After feeding on the Spiritual Energy and blood water within the formation, they were much stronger than before and could now directly burrow through the skin into the body.

Zhao Xu felt his two legs being burrowed into and gnawed by them.

It wasn’t just him; everyone was like this!

Except for the old man and the other eight, everyone else within the array diagram was being climbed on by these bugs. A’Diao was no exception. After bugs burrowed into her calves, the pain was unbearable. Thump! She also collapsed to the ground, wishing she could cut off her own legs. But at this moment, she was still one meter away from the center of the stone disk.

So, after kneeling, she lunged forward with all her might, pressing her profusely bleeding palm onto the blood-red pentagram at the center of the stone disk, quickly smearing it with blood…

She was altering the blood diagram!

More and more bugs appeared, tearing at their flesh.

“Save us!”

“Ah!”

These evil cultists probably never expected to become sacrifices themselves. Indeed, they weren’t initially. However, with the sudden turn of events leading to the current situation… the old man and his group didn’t consider themselves cruel.

Anyway, these evil cultists were always the hidden Plan B sacrifices.

The old man’s fingers twitched, and he pressed a button on his wristwatch. Pressing this button could summon the guards outside and other cultists stationed nearby to help.

He felt that girl would ruin everything!

Yet, the old man himself couldn’t move. He could only watch helplessly as A’Diao, even after bugs climbed and burrowed into her legs, quickly smeared blood… a totem?

Such speed! Was she a fellow Daoist practitioner?!

Are there still people in this line of work nowadays?

She drew flame-shaped patterns around the pentagram. After finishing, her finger landed inside the pentagram, but by this time, the stone disk’s rotation speed was already approaching a grand completion.

After all, she was from a Daoist sect. No matter how neglectful the Old Daoist Priest was in his duties, he had extremely high requirements for her in this area. Therefore, she not only knew how to draw some talismans but also understood what the so-called “Great Heavenly Cycle” in a sacrificial ritual meant.

After the Heavenly Cycle, the formation would be complete.

Everyone felt the ground tremble and saw dense cracks spreading across the surrounding earth, from which a large amount of Spiritual Energy whistled out.

Heavens!

Is there really a Spirit Gate?!

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