Chapter 18: The Living Sacrifice to the Stars

As dusk settled, fine grains of dust swirled along the official road. Zhao Zhen, hurrying along, tilted his straw hat down slightly. Suddenly, a sharp scent of rusted iron invaded his nostrils—a scent he knew all too well: the mingled aroma of fresh human blood and scorched earth.

He furrowed his brow and halted abruptly.

Such a strong stench of blood—how many must have died here?

Had a fierce battle just taken place nearby?

No, that couldn't be. If it had been a large-scale conflict, he would have heard word of it when passing through the last village not long ago.

Yet this place was remote, scarcely traveled by merchants, let alone soldiers.

If not war, then why the countless corpses?

Should he avoid this spot and take a detour?

Zhao Zhen’s cautious nature stirred his thoughts.

At that moment, from about three miles southeast, faint sounds of a child crying mixed with manic laughter drifted to his ears.

His brow tightened further. Beneath his wide hat, the glowing talisman slipped silently between his fingertips.

After a moment’s hesitation, Zhao Zhen resolved to investigate.

If it had been adults, no matter—death was a daily affair in these chaotic times, and he was long accustomed to it.

But to ignore the cries of children? Though he wished to avoid unnecessary trouble, he was not so cold-hearted.

In an instant, he vanished without a sound.

Over the years of his travels, Zhao Zhen had made many acquaintances among wandering cultivators due to his humble and courteous demeanor.

The “Mirage Thousand Forms Technique,” also known as the “Sea Market Disappearance,” was a secret art of Wild Maoshan near the Eastern Sea Mirage Pavilion, taught to him by a friend from there.

Its core principle was to manipulate the refractive index of the body to match that of air, using mist refraction and mirage mimicry combined with a special qi circulation method, rendering the body invisible.

Paired with his unique “Illusion Talisman,” even one’s aura could be completely concealed.

To this day, Zhao Zhen recalled his friend boasting that if mastered, this secret art's concealment rivaled the famed Phantom Body Barrier of the Tang Sect in Shu.

Tragically, that friend was later caught in a warlord skirmish, fatally wounded by stray bullets, succumbing to blood loss.

These harsh lessons in bloodshed had shaped Zhao Zhen’s cautious disposition, even though his cultivation now ranked him among the young elites of the supernatural realm.

Moments later, Zhao Zhen stood silently upon the branch of a withered locust tree.

Looking out, he saw a village a hundred meters away engulfed in towering flames. Nearly a hundred corpses lay scattered by the roadside, gaping throat wounds oozing black blood.

No doubt the bloody stench came from these bodies.

Three figures clad in black robes were dragging the corpses. The leader held a bronze bell, its clapper a half-severed human finger.

“The Blood River Cart is almost complete!” rasped a hoarse voice, piercing the night.

Zhao Zhen’s pupils contracted sharply.

He was stunned to realize the path traced by the dragged bodies corresponded to the Big Dipper constellation—a clear sign of the “Living Star Sacrifice,” an evil ritual documented in the “Seven Yin Arts.”

At the village entrance, a young girl hung upside down from the locust tree, her wrist slit, blood dripping into a bronze cauldron below.

Beneath the tree, terrified children no older than ten wept loudly.

According to the “Seven Yin Arts,” the “Living Star Sacrifice” required the blood of a young girl and several living boys and girls as offerings to complete the ritual.

This dark sorcery was akin to the “Seven Killings Accumulation” technique later practiced by Zhao Guizhen, also a Wild Maoshan secret. It involved sacrificing seven boys dressed in red, each bound with iron weights, condemning their souls to eternal unrest to gain power.

Though brutally cruel, those who mastered it gained strength so formidable that Zhao Guizhen, after only half a year of practice, defeated a senior brother who had cultivated for twenty years.

This was why Wild Maoshan had a notorious reputation among the common folk—many of its practitioners lacked orthodox training and resorted to such twisted paths to gain power.

If Zhao Guizhen in peaceful times could kill seven children to cultivate “Seven Killings Accumulation,” how much more savage would it be in this chaotic era where human life was as cheap as grass?

If Zhao Zhen’s suspicions were correct, these men had chosen to slaughter the village outright to seize the children.

His gaze hardened completely.

He retrieved the last Illusion Talisman gifted by his friend, affixed it to his body, and confirmed his form and aura were utterly concealed before stepping toward the village entrance.

One of the black-clad men had just tossed the last corpse into the fire and then turned his gaze toward the wailing children.

“You little brats, if you don’t shut up, I’ll cut out your tongues!” he snarled.

Suddenly, a dagger silently pierced through the man’s chest.

“Who’s there?” the bell-bearer roared, swinging the bronze bell, which emitted a soul-piercing, hypnotic resonance.

Zhao Zhen’s boots crushed the green bricks beneath as his figure blurred amidst the sonic wave. His strike was swift and ruthless, leaving no time for reaction. The second black-robed man’s neck caved in with a sickening crack, his broken throat bones blending with the bell’s eerie chime.

At that moment, the blood-filled bronze cauldron trembled violently, the blood within transforming into a three-zhang-long giant serpent lunging at Zhao Zhen.

He sneered, surging his true qi, and with a single punch shattered the blood serpent back into liquid blood.

Simultaneously, without hesitation, he activated the glowing talisman between his fingertips.

As the golden light flared, the bell-bearer’s head was severed in the next instant.

From the moment Zhao Zhen dispelled the mirage technique to dispatching the three men, the entire sequence was seamless and fluid, not even taking two seconds.

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