Chapter 610: Twisted Ritual

Just then, a hand reached out from the darkness and strangled him tightly in mid-air.

The Jiangtian cultist’s body shook. He struggled to look up, only to see a red-robed actor soaked in blood standing silently beside him, a pair of eyes narrowed into a weird arc, examining his exposed lung lobe.

The trajectory of history intersected at this moment. Not long ago, it was also such a hand that strangled a Jiangtian cultist about to complete a suicide ritual… And now, fate repeated itself. The figures of Chen Ling and Liu Qingyan overlapped across time and space.

But Chen Ling was not Liu Qingyan after all. Even though their actions were the same at this moment, behind the bright red opera robe, the trajectory of fate was forcibly changed by pairs of scarlet, mocking eyes, extending in another completely unfamiliar direction…

"So this is the suicide ritual you use to summon the 'Sighing Wilderness'?" Chen Ling’s voice seemed to come from the netherworld, calm and deep. He appeared to be contemplating it quite seriously.

"Sacrificing your own lungs... why must it be the lungs?"

The Jiangtian cultist’s pupils constricted slightly. His right hand was already pinned firmly in mid-air, completely unable to move. With lightning speed, he decisively reached out his left hand, clawing toward the exposed lung lobe!

The next moment, a flash of a bone-cleaver’s blade swept past, and his entire left arm was severed clean off, leaving only a smooth, scarlet stump.

The Jiangtian cultist’s face turned deathly pale.

Before he could recover, the blade of the bone-cleaver flashed across his right arm again. As blood sprayed, the limb held in Chen Ling’s grip was completely detached from his body, leaving only a torso kneeling alone in a pool of blood.

Having lost both arms, the Jiangtian cultist had no possibility of completing the ritual himself. A flicker of despair crossed his eyes as he looked at Chen Ling.

Chen Ling was in no rush to kill this Jiangtian cultist. He gripped the man’s throat with one hand, forcing him to look up and meet his gaze... Immediately after, a pair of apricot-red makeup patterns appeared on his face, and [Painting the Crimson Face] was instantly activated!

Fragmented, shattered memories flooded into Chen Ling’s mind!

……

The first thing that appeared before Chen Ling was a massive, magnificent altar.

Under a gray sky, blood-colored lightning surged through leaden clouds like a churning vortex. At the center of the altar, corresponding to the center of the vortex, stood a two-story-tall crimson fragment, towering and imposing.

The moment he saw this fragment, Chen Ling froze, and then a look of shock appeared on his face.

"A Red Star fragment?!!"

Chen Ling had seen a similar fragment with his own eyes... In the era archives, the one explored by the Nine Sovereigns was almost identical to this one, though slightly larger, and the contours around the fragment were different.

Chen Ling could be certain that this fragment definitely came from the Red Star.

Aside from the one explored by the Nine Sovereigns before the Great Cataclysm, could there actually be another Red Star fragment remaining in this era?

Chen Ling looked down toward the edge of the altar and saw a large crowd of figures in red robes surrounding the Red Star fragment, kneeling on the ground. Looking out, they resembled hives growing from the earth, exceptionally jarring under the gray sky.

The Jiangtian cultist whose arms Chen Ling had severed was also kneeling there, following the kowtowing of the surrounding cultists... He was positioned at the very outer edge of the group, and the closer one got to the Red Star fragment, the more primitive the kneeling Jiangtian cultists appeared.

The cultists in the front row had completely lost the characteristics of Homo sapiens; they wore no red robes, but instead had skirts made of red leaves tied around their hairy waists, opening their mouths from time to time to let out loud, ape-like cries.

Behind them, the numerous Jiangtian cultists faced the Red Star fragment, kowtowing while repeatedly chanting:

"Supreme Jiangtian Savior... Supreme Jiangtian Savior... Supreme Jiangtian Savior..."

A red wave of worship rose and fell around the altar. Under the gray sky, only Chen Ling, draped in his bright red theatrical robe, stood tall amidst it all.

He stared at the Red Star fragment on the altar, murmuring to himself:

"The 'Supreme Jiangtian Savior' they speak of... refers to the Red Star fragment?"

Chen Ling had always assumed the Jiangtian Sect’s "Supreme Jiangtian Savior" was a real god or demigod, much like the "Silver King" of the Fire-Tamers. He hadn't expected it to be just a fragment.

If that was the case, who had given it the name "Supreme Jiangtian Savior"?

Before Chen Ling could get any closer to the Red Star fragment, the image before him shattered inch by inch. His pupils gradually returned to normal, and he found himself back in the dim pharmacy.

Chen Ling grabbed the man by the collar with one hand and asked in a deep voice:

"Where are the other Jiangtian cultists?"

"Ugh... I... don't know... ugh..."

The Jiangtian cultist’s exposed lung lobe heaved like a broken bellows, and gurgling blood poured from his throat and severed arms, staining the blood-red ring... His breathing grew increasingly weak, and the eyes meeting Chen Ling’s became hollow and dim. His life had reached its end.

Seeing this, Chen Ling knew he couldn't extract any more information from this cultist. He began to regret not leaving the other one alive... but the power of [Sleeve-Hand Heaven-Moving] was simply too great; he hadn't expected it to leave nothing behind but a corpse.

Chen Ling didn't waste any more time with him. The bone-cleaver danced lightly at his fingertips before plunging fiercely into the man’s heart!

A muffled grunt escaped the Jiangtian cultist’s throat. As Chen Ling pulled the handle back out of his chest, a large amount of blood flowed from the man’s lips, and his body swayed before collapsing to the ground.

Chen Ling, holding the blood-stained bone-cleaver, walked toward the pharmacy entrance without looking back. Li Qingshan was slowly staggering to his feet from amidst the cluttered shelves.

"How is it? Are you hurt?" Chen Ling asked.

Li Qingshan nodded slightly, just about to say something, when his peripheral vision caught Chen Ling’s palm, and his expression suddenly stiffened!

"Brother Lin... you..."

"What?" Seeing Li Qingshan’s sudden change in expression, a flash of confusion crossed Chen Ling’s eyes.

"You... you ripped his heart out??"

"Heart?"

Chen Ling looked down at his right hand, which was holding the bone-cleaver...

At some point, the bone-cleaver in his hand had vanished, and in its place was a scarlet heart that was still slowly beating!

Chen Ling stood frozen in place.

A few seconds later, realizing something, he whipped his head around to look at the corpse lying in the pool of blood. He saw his bone-cleaver still embedded in the Jiangtian cultist’s chest, and beneath the blade, a gruesome, gaping hole—as if torn open by bare hands—was shocking to behold!

Inside the blood-stained chest cavity, broken blood vessels were still writhing, but the heart that should have been there was gone.

"How can this be? I clearly only pulled out the knife just now..."

A long-absent sense of bewilderment surged into Chen Ling’s mind. Behind him, pairs of scarlet eyes opened from the void, staring at the dripping heart in Chen Ling’s hand, curved into smiles like evil moons.