The Daoist was dead.
Tossed before the two players, Lu Xiao and the executioner.
The twisted death state and bone-shattering marks left on the corpse all declared what kind of overwhelming violence he’d endured before dying.
Lu Xiao’s breath hitched sharply. She looked at Yu Huaiting, who had stopped his slashing.
“Tsk.” Yu Huaiting clicked his tongue somewhat irritably. His shoulder sank, and the blood-soaked greatsword crashed to the ground beside him with a boom, smashing out a crater.
He reined in his killing intent and looked down at Lu Xiao, collapsed on the ground. “Fine, I’m listening. How do you want to talk?”
Hearing this, Lu Xiao, grateful to have survived, slowly laid out her chips.
“As long as you obtain the priest’s blood and dot it on the seven orifices of a new sacrifice, the system will judge that sacrifice as ‘the one chosen by the priest.’ Through this method, the original sacrifice can be changed.”
Lu Xiao spoke quickly, terrified Yu Huaiting would raise his sword again.
She stared fixedly into Yu Huaiting’s eyes and added, “But the substituted sacrifice must be a living person. It must be someone who still retains vital signs when the sacrificial ritual begins.”
“So that’s why he fought you—just to get blood.” Lu Xiao’s voice carried exhaustion. “We originally intended to cooperate with the Daoist to kill the hidden Evil God player.”
The executioner nodded in tacit agreement.
They’d misjudged Yu Huaiting—this man would bite back the instant he was hurt; and they’d trusted the Daoist’s lie that they were the same faction.
Yu Huaiting listened and raised an eyebrow.
Standing quietly in place, his gaze somewhat drifting.
To Lu Xiao, Yu Huaiting seemed to be considering the truth of her words. But in reality, Yu Huaiting was waiting for Fu Songcheng to speak.
“Ask her.” Fu Songcheng’s voice sounded in Yu Huaiting’s mind again. “If it must be a living person, what’s the difference between her being the sacrifice and someone else being the sacrifice?”
Yu Huaiting snapped back to attention, his gaze scraping over Lu Xiao’s face like a blade, repeating Fu Songcheng’s question word by word: “Since anyone living will do, what benefit do I get from making someone else the sacrifice?”
Lu Xiao’s pupils contracted sharply—she’d sensed the killing intent again.
No difference.
As long as the conditions were met, it didn’t matter who died. The reason she’d proposed this plan was to preserve her own life.
Just as Lu Xiao’s brain raced, trying to find wording that wouldn’t provoke the other, the executioner beside her suddenly stepped forward, placing his body in front of Lu Xiao.
“My mission is to protect her.”
His necessary condition for clearing the instance was the survival of the player Lu Xiao.
Yu Huaiting nodded as if enlightened.
“Oh, I get it.” Yu Huaiting hoisted the greatsword and bounced it on his shoulder, his gaze darting back and forth between Lu Xiao and the executioner. “Then it’s simple. I’ll just tie you both up, smear you with blood, and throw you both down as sacrifices. Buy one get one free—the god should be even more satisfied, right?”
Lu Xiao gritted her teeth, her heart bleeding.
“If you agree to sacrifice someone else and let us go, I can give you an S-rank item!”
Handing over the item would make her poor.
But not handing it over would make her a dead poor person.
Lu Xiao wasn’t stupid.
Yu Huaiting’s movements paused again.
In his mind, Fu Songcheng nodded once more.
Having received the instruction, Yu Huaiting lifted his chin, signaling Lu Xiao to continue.
Lu Xiao took a deep breath and, with trembling hands, opened her player panel.
A somewhat dull-looking small knife appeared in her palm.
[S-rank Item: Sever.]
[Causality item, severs all connection with another thing.]
[“If you cut, cut cleanly.”]
She sent Yu Huaiting an item transfer request.
Yu Huaiting accepted, caught the knife, and casually toyed with it in his hand.
This thing absolutely could not fall into Fu Songcheng’s hands—otherwise, if he ever wanted to break up someday, the consequences would be unthinkable!
Yu Huaiting pursed his lips and stored it in his own inventory. Then his gaze slowly turned to the executioner, who’d been silent all along.
Yu Huaiting said nothing, looking at the executioner with a half-smile, the meaning in his eyes unmistakable.
Under that gaze, the executioner felt a chill down his spine. He looked at Lu Xiao, then at Yu Huaiting, and pointed at himself. “Do I have to give one too?”
Boom!
Without another word, Yu Huaiting’s hand gripping the hilt surged with force. That incomparably heavy broadsword was hauled up and slammed down again with the force of ten thousand catties, less than an inch from the executioner’s toes!
Mud splattered, gravel striking the executioner’s shins. The hum vibrating off the blade echoed in his eardrums.
The executioner player thoroughly understood—this man before him didn’t care about reason at all. Trying to talk fairness with someone like this was courting death.
“Fine.”
The executioner chose to follow his gut.
With a grim face, he also brought up his panel and took out an item.
[S-rank Item: Loan and Run]
[One-time consumable item. After use, the player cannot be detected by any means for ten minutes.]
[“Stop looking. Not home.”]
With two S-rank items in hand, this extortion could be called a total victory.
In the shadows, Fu Songcheng was satisfied with the outcome.
Now, only the last step remained—completing the sacrifice.
“There’s still a spy player on the ground barely clinging to a breath.”
Fu Songcheng’s voice sounded in Yu Huaiting’s mind at just the right moment.
Fu Songcheng’s intent was clear: Lu Xiao and the executioner had already paid their protection money, so the spy player lying there half-dead naturally became the perfect “living sacrifice” substitute.
Saving every precious resource was a citizen’s virtue.
But Yu Huaiting misunderstood.
“Oh, right—almost forgot about you.” Yu Huaiting hefted the greatsword and strode over to the spy player.
Lu Xiao and the executioner watched his movements, tensing involuntarily—they panicked at the sight of Yu Huaiting holding a sword now.
But what they saw was Yu Huaiting crouch down very naturally, pat the spy player’s mud-covered face with the broad flat of his blade, and speak in the tone of a thug collecting protection money at a market: “Hey, stop playing dead. Those two already paid their life-buying money—what are you planning to buy your life with?”
…
The spy player on the ground had long since passed out in the earlier melee, barely breathing now—how could he possibly answer Yu Huaiting’s question?
Yu Huaiting waited a while. Seeing the man didn’t know how to appreciate the offer, he stood up somewhat disappointed.
He glanced at the spy with distaste and shook his head. “Can’t even hear a peep. Then let the pauper die.”
With the matter of life and death decided, what followed was only natural.
Under the coercion of Yu Huaiting’s blood-stained greatsword, Lu Xiao and the executioner dragged the unfortunate, unconscious spy player step by step toward the murky riverside.
The night wind blew across the river surface, bringing waves of bone-piercing chill and nauseating stench.
The river churned, as if craving the feeding of fresh blood.
The sacrificial ritual had to be completed by the executioner.
This was the rule—and another reason Fu Songcheng had agreed to the trade.
The executioner took a deep breath and picked up the bone-cutting saber, its edge already chipped.
His hands were trembling.
As a player, he’d killed people in instances—but personally bleeding out and tormenting a living, defenseless player as a sacrifice—this pure malice and cruelty still made him unable to bear it.
But he had no way out.
Drawing this identity, for a normal person, the sacrifice was a two-way torment.
While the executioner did the deed, Yu Huaiting turned around, his back to the river, and walked several steps away.
Lu Xiao couldn’t bear to watch either.
If not for the instance, if born in a prosperous age, no normal person would be willing to kill, willing to have their hands covered in blood.
Even Yu Huaiting couldn’t bear to watch this sacrifice.
To him, real blade-to-blade combat was romantic—but one-sided torment and cruelty was hideous beyond words.
Warm blood flowed along the muddy bank, slowly seeping into the cold river water.
The originally murky river, the instant it touched the fresh blood, seemed to boil, beginning to churn violently as large swaths of blood color spread across the surface.
The spy player’s body twitched instinctively in unconsciousness, then completely lost its life.
Lu Xiao stood to the side and took an unknown white petal from her inventory.
It was a useless item she’d obtained by chance in her last instance—now it became the only thing she could do.
She gently scattered the petals onto the river surface.
White petals fell on the crimson river water, drifting slowly away with the current.
“I’m sorry.” Lu Xiao said silently in her heart.
But to survive, in an instance, no one was innocent.
And at this moment, at the bottom of the murky river.
Fu Songcheng floated quietly in the cold water.
He felt the bloody scent spreading along the river, carrying thick despair and life force.
His heart was unruffled.
Choosing to live meant someone had to die.
This wasn’t his fault.
The one who’d created this zero-sum environment wasn’t him—it was the existence outside the instance. He wouldn’t feel guilty for this, nor would he let his sympathy overflow.
After all, the one who truly deserved to die was someone else.
Leave a Reply