The first time he’d seen her was in the Silent Library instance. Back then Lu Xiao had still been somewhat green—now her aura was completely different.
In this instance’s identity assignment, aside from Fu Songcheng himself and Yu Huaiting, there were five other players.
And right now, at the edge of this cold, damp stretch of water designated as the god’s domain, Lu Xiao wandered alone.
Combining her solitary state and strange behavior, Fu Songcheng concluded she’d most likely drawn the “Sacrifice” identity.
At this moment, Fu Songcheng was hovering in midair in his soul body.
Lu Xiao was just an ordinary player—she couldn’t see the Evil God in his concealed state.
The riverbank mud was a muddy mess, giving off the foul stench of rotting water plants.
Her gaze was fixed on the soft ground beneath her feet, occasionally glancing toward the water-level marks left on the bank when the river had risen.
Lu Xiao squeezed her eyes shut, her pale lips moving soundlessly and rapidly, as if frantically calculating and counting something in her head.
Suddenly, she paused, snapped her eyes open, and flipped her wrist—summoning a small, sharp carving knife gleaming with cold light from her system backpack.
Lu Xiao walked to a flat patch of ground about three meters from the river’s edge, crouched without hesitation, gripped the carving knife, and stabbed it viciously into the wet, soft earth, carving out a deep groove with force.
Then she stood, and with that mark as her center, held her breath and measured seven steps to the left, bending again to carve a second mark; then, turning to a tricky angle toward the front right, she precisely took five steps and carved a third.
Hovering in midair, Fu Songcheng looked down at all this, his brows knitting involuntarily.
As the marks Lu Xiao left on the mudflat multiplied, her movements grew faster and faster, and the outline of a formation began to gradually emerge in the mud.
Fu Songcheng narrowed his eyes, staring at those marks—arranged with deliberate spacing, subtly containing the positions of the heavenly stars—and a very familiar sense of déjà vu welled up.
“A soul-guiding formation?”
Fu Songcheng wondered inwardly.
He had personally drawn this formation before in the A Thought of Old Dreams instance. He understood its workings better than anyone.
“No, not right…” He keenly sensed something off: every one of these astrological positions Lu Xiao drew was reversed!
Fu Songcheng saw through her intent. “Not soul-guiding—this is soul-scattering.”
She was setting up a soul-scattering formation, her purpose obvious—to forcibly shatter and grind apart the powerful soul body originally residing in these waters.
And in this so-called “divine domain,” who else could be the one whose soul needed scattering, besides him, the “Evil God” being worshipped?
The instance mission required completing the sacrificial ritual. If the god were sacrificed, the ritual would naturally end too.
Watching Lu Xiao below, still racing against time to set up the formation, Fu Songcheng felt a rare trace of relief.
Thankfully, his current soul body wasn’t restricted and could freely leave that cold, oppressive riverbed. Otherwise, trapped at the bottom of the water, allowing this soul-scattering formation to be completed overhead—at the moment the sacrificial ritual formally began, he could very well be killed soul-scattered by this “Sacrifice” player without ever knowing.
Below, Lu Xiao finished carving the last foundational mark with extreme efficiency.
She didn’t dare delay a moment, immediately grabbing handfuls of dry grass and foul-smelling mud from beside her, cleverly and naturally covering those lethal formation traces, disguising them as terrain naturally washed by the river.
That done, she warily looked around, confirmed there was nothing abnormal, and only then hurried back along the grassy path she’d come by, toward the village.
Fu Songcheng didn’t intervene.
He simply followed Lu Xiao like a weightless shadow, silently, behind her.
He watched her wind with extreme caution through the village lanes, finally ducking into a dilapidated thatched hut at the village’s edge, all but swallowed by overgrown weeds.
Lu Xiao pushed hard on the broken wooden door, slipped inside in a flash, then quickly slammed the door shut with a bang, followed by the heavy sound of a lock.
Fu Songcheng’s soul body drifted all the way to the door and was just about to pass straight through the wooden door to enter and probe what else this player was planning.
However, just as his spirit body was about to touch the wooden door—
Buzz—!
An extremely dull yet soul-striking tremor suddenly rang out.
On the worn lintel of the wooden door, a dark yellow talisman—stuck in the shadows, long since faded to white, half its edge rotted away—activated, flickering with a piercing, scorching dark red glow.
It was a warding-off-evil portrait drawn with messy cinnabar lines, its brushwork so clumsy it looked like the random scribble of some charlatan wandering the streets—a defective piece.
Yet this seemingly laughable defective piece had, solidly and without question, transformed into an indestructible barrier, blocking the path of him—the “Evil God.”
The power specifically suppressing yin and evil things was extremely overbearing, violently flinging Fu Songcheng’s soul body outward.
He translated several meters backward in midair before barely shedding the force and steadying himself.
He looked down at his fingers, now somewhat dimmed, their edges beginning to turn transparent, yet no anger at being blocked rose in his eyes—instead, a meaningful cold smile curved at the corner of his lips.
“Heh. Not letting me in, huh.”
He lifted his head slightly, re-examining that ruined talisman paper—now dimmed once more—from several meters away.
Being unable to enter certain areas meant he wasn’t omniscient or omnipotent in this game. This was clearly a rule obstacle the system had deliberately set to balance the players’ forces against the god’s power.
“The Evil God’s true body is trapped in the waters, and while wandering the village there are many restricted areas he cannot probe. So he may choose one ‘Believer’ to walk on his behalf.”
Since the rules restricted him from entering, Fu Songcheng couldn’t be bothered to waste effort here.
With a shift of thought, his dimmed soul body instantly transformed into a silent gust of yin wind, hugging the mottled wall bases, continuing to wander the deathly still village, trying to probe the movements of the remaining players.
But the high-level players who’d survived this long were no pushovers. Clearly, none of them were first-timers in high-risk instances like this; they hid themselves deeply, and the village was so quiet it radiated an eerie dead silence.
Fu Songcheng wasn’t discouraged. He patiently wandered the maze-like village, circle after circle.
Just then, he sensed that a guest had arrived at the residence of his “Believer.”
Fu Songcheng hesitated no longer. His soul body instantly tore out an afterimage, like an arrow loosed from a string, slicing through the village’s heavy fog, heading straight toward where Yu Huaiting was.
The instant he passed through the courtyard wall and landed inside the room, Fu Songcheng saw that Yu Huaiting had already changed into the “Priest’s” exclusive attire.
The originally elaborate, solemn long robe—made somewhat cumbersome by its excessive pursuit of ritual—had been worn by Yu Huaiting with the air of a stern, sharp “battle robe.”
The coarse fabric woven of dark red and black was cinched tightly at the waist by a wide leather belt, not the slightest bit bulky—instead perfectly outlining his lean waist; the originally wide sleeves, seemingly deemed a hindrance, had been torn cleanly open, exposing the taut, smoothly lined muscles of his forearms.
And the “Sympathy Doll” representing Fu Songcheng was now tied with a bright red string, openly hanging from Yu Huaiting’s belt.
With Yu Huaiting’s subtle movements, that soft cloth doll swayed to and fro.
Fu Songcheng’s soul body made no pause in midair—it directly transformed into a streak of light, precisely sinking into the cloth doll’s body.
The instant Fu Songcheng possessed it, Yu Huaiting’s narrow, sharp eyes stirred slightly.
He keenly sensed the weight hanging at his waist, undisguised laughter flashing in his eyes.
His long, powerful fingers casually draped over his waist, precisely covering the doll’s body, lightly rubbing the doll’s hand.
The guest who’d come to see Yu Huaiting was a middle-aged player who’d drawn the “Village Chief” identity.
Fu Songcheng stayed safely within the doll’s shell, coldly sizing up the middle-aged man standing opposite Yu Huaiting.
The other seemed somewhat impatient.
“Are you even listening to me!”
The player playing the village chief was clearly provoked by Yu Huaiting’s careless attitude. He restated his demand in a low voice, anger entering his tone:
“Since you’re the priest, hurry up and preside over the sacrificial ritual! Before the ‘Sacrifice’ reacts, sacrifice her immediately! As long as she dies, the instance can end early!”
Yu Huaiting had been looking down, fiddling with Fu Songcheng, his fingertip rubbing the doll again and again.
Hearing this, his movements stopped short.
He slowly lifted his eyelids. Those narrow, sharp eyes were icy, violent, radiating undisguised mockery.
Buzz—
A dull, sharp whistle of torn air came.
The middle-aged man hadn’t even seen how Yu Huaiting moved.
A second ago he’d been lazily leaning against the wall; the next, the pitch-black greatsword, wrapped in suffocating wind, had stopped less than half an inch from his Adam’s apple.
The sword qi and killing intent raised goosebumps on the player’s skin. His Adam’s apple rolled with difficulty, cold sweat instantly seeping onto his forehead.
Yu Huaiting tilted his head slightly, the corner of his mouth curling. “You’re teaching me how to do things?”
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