novelraw Chapter 962: The Ritual Is Completed!
Chapter 962: The Ritual Is Completed!
Han Yu stood frozen for a moment as the truth hit him.
The second site had already been activated.
His mind immediately rejected it.
That was impossible.
Palm Hand Lu was dead. His men were dead. The mansion had been wiped clean by Madam Cold Fang. There should have been no one left to complete the ritual.
And yet the second point had lit up.
Across the distant forests another pillar of blue light had already risen into the heavens.
Yongnian laughed louder.
The transformed Frost Bat stood amid the frozen clearing, blood dripping from the wounds Madam Cold Fang had torn into his body, but his expression carried only triumph.
"I told you." His monstrous voice echoed through the mountains. "It is too late."
Han Yu narrowed his eyes.
"How?" he demanded.
Yongnian turned toward him.
"You truly thought Palm Hand Lu was merely an obstacle?" He laughed. "That fool completed it for me without even realizing it."
Han Yu’s expression changed.
A memory surfaced.
The storage room.
The frozen corpses.
The smiling faces.
The ritual markings.
His eyes widened.
"Wait..."
Everything clicked together.
Palm Hand Lu had taken every corpse he found and brought them back to his mansion for study. He had kept them all within that storage hall.
And that hall...
Had been built atop the previous ritual site.
Han Yu had inspected those corpses personally.
He had entered the room.
He had searched them.
He had even frozen the bodies again after extracting the substances.
But he had missed one detail.
The ritual circle beneath them.
Palm Hand Lu had moved every completed sacrifice into the exact location Yongnian needed. Han Yu reckoned the man was probably trying to figure out how the ritual worked. But the moment the final number had been reached...
The second point had already been completed.
"Dammit!" Han Yu cursed aloud. "Palm Hand Lu played right into his hands!"
There had never been two unfinished sites.
Only one.
The entire time Yongnian had already been standing at the final point.
Madam Cold Fang’s expression shifted for the first time since the battle began.
Shock.
Real shock.
Unfortunately for them...
The process had already started.
BOOOOM!
Across the entire northeastern frontier pillars of blue light erupted skyward.
One.
Five.
Ten.
Twenty.
Forty.
Han Yu saw them rising from mountains, forests, frozen lakes and tropical jungles.
Every ritual site glowed as the lights connected. They formed a massive circle spanning the entire region. Then the sky itself distorted as an enormous illusory spring appeared above the world.
It stretched across the heavens.
The water reflected the land below.
And within it...
Something moved.
Han Yu felt his heart sink.
The smiling figure emerged.
A colossal bat.
Human faced.
Fanged.
Its lips stretched into an impossible smile.
Its eyes opened slowly.
"The Eternal Smiling Ancestor..." Han Yu muttered.
Beside him Madam Cold Fang went still.
"He summoned him..."
Then her expression exploded into fury.
"YOU!"
She rushed forward.
Her hands transformed into gigantic frost claws.
They pierced straight into Yongnian’s chest.
SHLICK!
Blood erupted.
The transformed Frost Bat cried out and coughed blood.
Yet he still laughed.
Even now.
"It’s too late..." he said through bloody teeth. "The ritual is complete..."
And sure enough...
SCREEEECH!
The sky trembled.
The Eternal Smiling Ancestor moved inside the spring.
The sound spread across the world.
Han Yu saw it reach the distant settlements.
Tropic Snow Town.
Villages.
Mountain clans.
Everyone could see it.
The smiling deity laughed.
A ripple spread outward.
Han Yu immediately felt it.
His lips moved.
The corners of his mouth rose against his will.
The urge to laugh filled his mind.
Around the villages below people had already started smiling.
Some laughed.
Some giggled.
Some stood frozen with tears while smiling helplessly.
Han Yu immediately activated Memory Echo.
His soul trembled.
The foreign influence shattered.
He exhaled.
"At least my soul skill still works..."
Beside him Madam Cold Fang resisted through sheer force of will. Her eyes remained fixed on the sky.
"Ju Fan!"
Her shout cut through the noise.
"We need to stop this!"
Han Yu looked upward.
"How?" he shouted back. "What do I even attack?"
The thing in the sky looked untouchable.
It was not fully present.
It was reflection.
Projection.
Manifestation.
"We sever the connection!" Madam Cold Fang shouted. "Find the anchors!"
Han Yu frowned. "But there weren’t any before!"
"There are now!"
She pointed downward.
Han Yu looked.
The ritual circle beneath them had changed.
Within the pillar of blue light...
Something had risen.
A small totem.
About waist high.
It looked ancient.
The surface was covered in the strange smiling bat faces. Blue frost covered its surface. And around it countless runes rotated.
Han Yu immediately sensed it.
The entire pillar was connected to it.
This thing...
Was the anchor.
He looked up.
In the distance other pillars had changed too.
Small totems had appeared at every site.
Forty anchors.
Forty connections.
And the sky above continued changing.
The Eternal Smiling Ancestor’s figure grew clearer.
Its smile widened.
Han Yu suddenly remembered something.
The Smiling Spring.
When the reflection had smiled before the man did.
His eyes widened.
He looked down.
Yongnian was still laughing despite blood pouring from his mouth.
His smile was stretching wider.
Too wide.
His face was beginning to split.
Han Yu suddenly understood.
The ritual was still consuming him.
He was not reviving the Ancestor.
He was feeding him.
"Madam Cold Fang!" Han Yu shouted.
"He’s becoming a sacrifice too!"
Her expression changed.
Yongnian laughed harder.
The sky answered.
The Eternal Smiling Ancestor slowly raised one claw. And every anchor in the world began glowing brighter.
Seeing that the ritual was progressing faster than ever, Han Yu knew he had to act. But there was a big problem, the anchors were spread far apart. Sure, he might be able to destroy the close ones but the others were hundreds of kilometers away.
"Ugh! Let’s just start with the closest ones!" Han Yu said as he dived down.
Abyssal Frost Qi condensed in front of him and turned into a hammer.
"BREAK FOR ME!" Han Yu slammed the hammer onto the totem.