Chapter 106: The Sacrificial Altar

Chapter 106: The Sacrificial Altar

The green mist rolled across the stone floor like a living carpet.

It smelled of bitter sulfur and rotting vegetation. Where the vapor touched the frosted marble, the ice hissed, turning into a foul, dark puddle.

From the darkness of the archway, two figures emerged.

They wore identical light-green robes, their sleeves tightly bound at the wrists with leather straps.

The man on the left—Yue Fen—carried a narrow, curved scimitar that dripped with green liquid. Beside him, Mo Ruyuan held two dark wooden needles between her fingers, her milky-white eyes fixed on Lothe.

Neither of them looked at the shattered remains of the stone constructs.

Mo Ruyuan raised her left hand. A small brass compass in her palm hummed, its needle pointing directly toward the fragment of the azure spirit crystal resting inside Lothe’s pouch.

"The Warden’s core," Mo Ruyuan spoke, her voice dry and rasping. "It’s him."

Yue Fen didn’t ask questions. He didn’t demand Lothe’s name or status.

SHI-SHI-SHIK!

He blurred forward, his scimitar carving three arcs of toxic green Qi through the air. The speed was far beyond what an ordinary Level 4 cultivator could achieve.

Nyren moved instantly.

"Glacial Shield!"

She thrust her ice sword into the ground. A thick wall of pale-blue permafrost erupted between Lothe and the incoming blade.

BOOM!

Yue Fen’s scimitar struck the ice wall. The toxic Qi didn’t bounce off; it began rapidly corroding the ice, turning the clear permafrost into black sludge.

"Impudent girl," Yue Fen sneered.

Mo Ruyuan vanished from her spot.

She reappeared directly above Nyren, her fingers flicking downward. The two dark wooden needles shot through the air, trailing long threads of purple poison Qi.

Nyren attempted to dodge, but the residual cold from her previous battle had slowed her movements by a fraction of a second.

PUCHI!

One of the wooden needles pierced through her left shoulder armor, burying itself deep into her flesh.

Nyren gasped, her face turning deathly pale as a dark purple vein immediately bulged across her neck. Her Ice Qi faltered, the wall before her collapsing into shattered fragments.

Lothe didn’t move toward her. Instead, he flicked his wrist.

Three Purification Talismans flew through the air, slapping directly against the back of Nyren’s left shoulder.

HUMMMMM!

A soft, golden light flared on her skin, arresting the spread of the purple poison before it could reach her heart.

Nyren fell to one knee, clutching her shoulder, her breathing ragged. She looked at Lothe with a mixture of shock and disbelief. He hadn’t even looked at her while throwing those talismans. His gaze was entirely fixed on the stone floor beneath their feet.

Lothe’s [Qi Sight] was working at maximum capacity.

He ignored the two attacking cultivators. He ignored Mo Ruyuan’s second volley of needles.

His vision peeled back the layers of dust and blood covering the floor of the chamber.

In the center of the room stood a circular stone platform—the altar he had noticed earlier.

Through [Advanced Array Analysis], the underlying structure of the entire chamber finally revealed itself to him.

========================================

[ARRAY ANALYSIS COMPLETE]

• Structure: Primary Sacrificial Node (Sector 1).

• Function: Harvests high-density Cultivator Qi to unlock the Sector 2 Pathway.

• Requirement: Two living targets above Level 4 offering high-density energy to the central pillar.

• Current Charge: 12% (Incomplete).

========================================

An altar, Lothe analyzed silently.

The constructs hadn’t been created to kill intruders. They were meant to herd intruders toward the center. The palace required living, high-density Qi to power the spatial gate leading to Sector 2, where Seana had been taken.

It didn’t care whose Qi it was.

Whether it belonged to the human expedition or the foreign invaders—it only needed a sacrifice.

Mo Ruyuan landed gracefully on top of one of the stone pillars. She looked down at Lothe, her expression cold and disdainful.

"An array user," she noted, seeing the paper in his hands. "Useless against real poison."

She raised both hands. Dozens of dark wooden needles materialized between her fingers, each one vibrating with lethal poisonous Qi.

"Die."

She released the needles.

THWIP-THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!

A rain of black needles descended upon Lothe like a cloud of locusts.

Lothe didn’t draw his spear. He didn’t step back.

His fingers moved across his sleeve, withdrawing four blank sheets of Spirit Paper.

Without using ink, his index finger—coated in a thin layer of refined Void Qi—swept across the paper in a single, continuous motion.

[Redirection Array — Kinetic Mirror]

SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! SLAP!

The four talismans stuck to the air around him, forming a translucent, square barrier.

The moment the dark needles struck the barrier, they didn’t break it.

They shifted.

CLICK!

The spatial vectors of the incoming needles were rotated ninety degrees by Lothe’s array. The entire cloud of poisonous needles was reflected sideways, shooting straight toward Yue Fen, who was currently charging at Nyren!

Yue Fen’s eyes widened in horror.

"What?!"

He was forced to stop his attack on Nyren, spinning his scimitar wildly to block his partner’s own lethal needles.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

Sparks and poisonous mist erupted everywhere.

Yue Fen was forced back three steps, his boots skidding across the stone floor—right onto the outer edge of the central circular altar.

Mo Ruyuan’s face darkened.

"Fool!" she barked at Yue Fen. "Watch your balance!"

Lothe didn’t give them time to think.

He moved.

He didn’t use [Void Step] to attack them directly. He used short, precise strides, slipping between the stone pillars like an indifferent shadow.

To the two Emerald Venom members, his movements seemed ordinary, even slow. But every step he took left behind an invisible, thread-thin line of Qi anchored to the floor.

Step.

A line connected to the northern pillar.

Step.

A line connected to the eastern pillar.

Nyren, still struggling against the residual poison on her knee, watched Lothe with wide eyes.

She didn’t understand what he was doing. He wasn’t casting destructive spells. He wasn’t trying to cut them down with a sword. He was weaving something around the entire room.

"Die, scholar!" Yue Fen roared, his face twisting with rage as he leapt off the floor, his scimitar gathering a massive wave of dark-green poisonous Qi.

He aimed a vertical strike directly at Lothe’s head.

Lothe didn’t look up.

He raised his right hand, pointing two fingers at the stone altar beneath Yue Fen’s feet.

[Array Trigger — Reverse Gravity Node]

HUMMMMM!

The circular stone altar beneath Yue Fen suddenly released a violent upward force!

Yue Fen’s body, mid-air, was violently yanked sideways by the sudden shift in gravity! His powerful strike completely missed Lothe, slamming into the stone floor three meters to the left.

BOOM!

Before Yue Fen could recover his stance, Lothe flicked two talismans toward Mo Ruyuan, who was standing on the upper pillar.

[Binding Rune — Heavy Lead]

The two talismans didn’t hit Mo Ruyuan. They hit the base of the pillar she was standing on.

CRACK!

The ancient pillar, already weakened by previous battles, collapsed instantly.

Mo Ruyuan lost her balance, falling off the pillar and landing right beside Yue Fen—directly in the center of the circular altar!

Both of them were now standing side by side on the central platform.

Mo Ruyuan’s instincts screamed a warning.

"Get off this platform!" she shouted, lunging toward the edge.

"Oh, but I want you guys to stay," Lothe spoke.

It was the first time he had spoken more than two words since the battle began. His voice was cold, flat, and completely devoid of warmth.

He brought his hands together, his index and middle fingers locked in a master execution mudra.

All the invisible Qi lines he had laid down while moving around the room suddenly lit up with bright, purple light!

[Four-Pillar Sealing Cage]

SHI-SHI-SHI-SHI!

Four massive pillars of purple light erupted from the floor around the central altar, forming an impenetrable, box-like barrier that enclosed both Yue Fen and Mo Ruyuan inside!

Yue Fen slammed his poisonous scimitar against the purple wall.

BOOM!

The barrier didn’t break. The poison Qi was instantly absorbed by the array and converted into stability.

"Let us out!" Yue Fen screamed, his calm demeanor completely shattered as he felt an ancient, terrifying force waking up beneath his feet.

Mo Ruyuan’s face was stark white.

Beneath their boots, the weathered stone of the altar began to crack open.

Dozens of ancient, crimson Runes illuminated the floor of the platform, pulsing with a hungry, ravenous red light.

HUMMMMMMM!

The altar had finally recognized the presence of two living, high-density Level 5 Qi sources resting upon its surface.

Thin, red blood-threads erupted from the stone cracks, wrapping around Yue Fen and Mo Ruyuan’s ankles, legs, and torsos like living roots.

"No! No! Commander Qing Lian will kill you!" Mo Ruyuan shrieked, desperately trying to cut the blood-threads with her wooden needles, but the needles dissolved the moment they touched the ancient red light.

The altar began to drain them.

Dense, dark-green and purple Qi was violently dragged out of their meridians, flowing directly into the central stone pillar.

========================================

[SACRIFICIAL NODE ACTIVATED]

• Absorbing Target 1 (Yue Fen) — Qi Density: High.

• Absorbing Target 2 (Mo Ruyuan) — Qi Density: High.

• Sacrificial Threshold Reached: 100%.

• Opening Gateway to Sector 2...

========================================

Yue Fen and Mo Ruyuan’s screams echoed through the chamber, getting weaker and weaker as their bodies were rapidly drained of energy, their skin turning grey as the ancient formation devoured their vitality.

Lothe stood five paces away, his black robes completely untouched by dust or blood.

His expression remained completely indifferent, like a scholar closing a book after finishing a Chapter.

Beside him, Nyren leaned against a stone pillar, staring at Lothe in absolute, speechbound terror.

He hadn’t used a single sword strike.

He hadn’t used a single high-tier combat technique.

He had simply manipulated two powerful foreign cultivators into stepping onto an ancient trap, using their own momentum to execute them permanently.

Lothe didn’t look at the dying cultivators on the altar.

He turned his cold gaze toward the glowing red doorway that had just opened at the far end of the room—the path leading directly to Sector 2.​