Volume 2, Chapter 26 (Chapter 64): Martial Artist Lu Yibei

Lu Yibei stopped reciting the mantra that she was reciting absentmindedly and quickly withdrew her hand from the pile.

The moment she withdrew her hand, the strange force sucking her magic stopped suddenly, and the screaming stopped as well.

“What’s wrong?” Pharoah asked. “If you stop the game abruptly, bad things may happen!”

“Hmm…” Yibei answered. “The Plate Deity seems…”

“Are you scared?” Brazil teased.

While speaking, countless arms from one of the sandbag puppets loomed over Yibei like poisonous snakes ready to pounce.

“Scared. Eat. Eat her…”

Strange voices emanated from within the sandbag.

Yibei gulped, “N-no. I don’t think that this game is exciting enough. Are there any more interesting games we could try?”

“Is that so?” Brazil sneered. “Do you want to summon a sacrificial god?”

“That’s right.” Yibei nodded. “I happened to know about a ritual of praying to the gods. Would you like to try it out?”

The four sandbags froze.

Sixian was surprised as well.

“You seem to be smart in the occult,” Brazil said. “Surely, you don’t know anything about spells, right?”

“She’s a psychic user… She’s not a psychic user… She’s a…”

Strange voices emanated from the sandbags once again.

‘This must be a test. If I say I know spells, will I be attacked?’

“No! I’m just like you; I heard this urban legend from somewhere, and I think it’s very interesting.”

An oppressive and tense silence filled the room.

Lu Yibei’s eyes constantly scanned the puppets.

She was careful not to show any sign of fear.

“Alright,” Pharoah said, breaking the silence first. “Let’s try your suggestion; then we’ll continue playing the Plate Deity game.”

“It’s easy.” Yibei smiled. “The basic process is the same; we just need to change the formula.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Pharoah urged. “Let’s get it over with.”

Yibei frowned. They didn’t seem to care what her game was about.

“Listen to me. There is a mountain,” Yibei smiled. “There is a woman and a severe drought spreads across the land. She is called Nuba, and she is the goddess of drought!”

Yibei felt something stir in her body.

“…”

Silence.

The four sandbags glanced at each other.

‘What are they waiting for?’

Yibei sneaked a glance at Sixian and was slightly taken aback.

She seemed to be fully enthralled; her eyes were fully white as if she had passed out. Her right hand was forcibly pressed against the plate by the hands.

‘I need to hurry.’

Withdrawing her gaze, Yibei found that the sandbags were staring deeply at her.

A gloomy voice boomed from the corridor, but at the same time, it seemed distant, as if it were spoken from the darkest depths of this school.

“Promise her, and then continue the Plate Deity game.”

The moment the voice sounded, Yibei felt an evil atmosphere flooding the classroom, and there seemed to be a pair of invisible eyes staring into her soul.

The sandbags whispered in unison, “There is a mountain, and there is a woman. A drought spreads across the land. She is called Nuba, and she is the goddess of drought!”

They chanted mechanically in a low voice, and then their voices became louder and louder.

Yibei watched them anxiously.

Nothing was happening.

‘What’s going on? If this doesn’t work, I can’t think of any other way to get out!’

Just as Yibei was panicking internally, Sixian suddenly woke up, sat up straight, and began to chant alongside them.

“There is a mountain, and there is a woman.”

In the next moment, Yibei felt that the air around her seemed to stop flowing, and she was becoming sticky and hot.

Immediately afterwards, irritable whispers sounded in her ear as if a large group of people were calling out to her.

The garbled whispers and chants—she couldn’t make out any of their words, but there was a strong desire to respond to their calls.

Her head began to ache violently, and her whole body tensed up as if her muscles and nerves might be severed at any time.

Just when she felt that she was about to pass out, she felt her spirit collapse, the voices in her ears receded like a tide, and the surroundings fell into a dead silence.

Du Sixian didn’t know when she passed out. When she woke up, she was surprised to find that her friends were mechanically reading a strange chant.

“There is a mountain, and there is a woman.”

In the next moment, the classroom was set on fire.

A crimson fire licked at every corner of the classroom, and a terrifying heat swept across the classroom. Metal melted into a dazzling juice and flowed on the ground.

She saw her friends struggling in the flames, their voices shrill and eerie screams.

On their foreheads, a strange, deep purple pattern flickered intermittently. The symbol would morph into a dark, flame-like pattern as if it were trying to replace the symbol.

It was like a fight for dominance, Sixian guessed.

The bodies of Pharoah and her friends gradually turned an ashy black, and their scorched bodies collapsed onto the floor.

Sixian finally saw their true appearance.

A sandbag puppet composed of distorted heads and countless rotten limbs and arms.

Sixian immediately crawled backwards in horror: Where is Yibei? She must know what happened, right?

She darted her eyes around the burning classroom and saw the figure beside her floating in midair.

Her eyes were emitting flames, and she was completely naked. Scarlet hair danced wildly behind her, and Sixian felt as if she were looking directly into the sun.

The more she stared, the more it hurt; her thoughts sank into a frenzy, and no normal thoughts emerged in her mind.

A bunch of strange and unknown knowledge was forcefully poured into her mind, causing a sharp pain in her skull.

She fell to the ground, and the messily scribbled purple lines on her forehead collapsed in an instant, gradually replaced by a fiery symbol.

Lu Yibei didn’t know how long she had sunk into the silence.

There were strange whispers in her ears. In that boundless darkness, something was spying on her.

“The sacrifice… it was interrupted? How could this be?”

“No, she is real.”

In that darkness, she felt irritated. She parted her red lips and cried out, “Get away from me!”

The prying eyes scattered away, and Yibei found that she was back in the classroom.

She was shocked to find that the entire classroom was scorched black.

Thankfully, Sixian lay in the corner, safe and sound.

Meanwhile, the bodies of the urban legends have almost been dispelled, leaving only a disfigured head that glared at Yibei.

There was only one thing left to do.

She walked towards the discarded statue of Acala, the Immovable, and a bloodthirsty emotion surged in her heart.

As if something else was possessing her, a scarlet light flashed in her eyes.

“My bad, I’ll make it up to you by getting rid of all of them.”

The next moment, the shining, scarlet eyes of the statue of Acala occupied the disfigured head’s field of vision.