Chapter 2720 - 2719: Blood Sacrifice

Ling Feng watched the Shui Clan crowd depart. Huo Tian also slowly loosened his tightly clenched fists, a desolate look appearing on his face. He muttered:

"Why are they able to come to our world so easily?"

"Is there really no kind of passage between your two worlds? Then how do you usually wage war?" Ling Feng asked.

Huo Tian sighed. "There are spatial passages between every world, but they’re not easy to traverse. The passage between our two clans is very special; many years ago it was sealed by both Clan Leaders together."

"Both clans must jointly break the seal to open the spatial passage. Otherwise, even if experts from other worlds came, they would be completely helpless. Yet right now I don’t know why Shui Kong and the others could come here so effortlessly."

Ling Feng didn’t even think before speaking directly: "There’s no need to overthink it; there must be someone on your side who opened the passage, and it’s actually not hard to guess who that person is."

"Most likely it’s your younger brother Huo Chou. From what I see, he’s a war maniac, single?mindedly trying to spark a war, wanting to rely on his own strength to conquer the Shui Clan. Aside from him having opened the passage, I can’t see any other possibility."

"And he’s also the one who moved your clansmen away. It’s obvious he’s stockpiling his own power and already making preparations for war." Ling Feng shook his head. "Young people..."

"Even though I know war between the two clans is unavoidable, we absolutely cannot go to war now. If we start a war at this moment, it would be no different from sending my clansmen to their deaths. Even with you here, we’re doomed to lose!"

"Clan Leader Huo Tian, why do you say that?" Ling Feng grew interested.

"Because the Fire Lotus is the supreme treasure of our Huo Clan and the source of our power. It can only exert its greatest effect in the Heart of the Volcano, and it is also the cornerstone of the Lava World."

"Once the Fire Lotus is seized by someone with ill intent and fails to serve its proper function, the entire Lava World will be on the brink of catastrophe!" Huo Tian displayed the most pessimistic attitude.

"In any case, we still have to thank you for what you did just now, Little Friend Ling Feng." Huo Tian clasped his fists toward Ling Feng.

Ling Feng waved his hand casually. "It was just making use of words, nothing worth mentioning. A moment ago, only by bringing out the content of the prophecy could we intimidate Shui Kong and make him realize we already know their trump card."

"It was about creating psychological pressure on them so that all those earlier descriptions of us could have a stronger effect. Once a trump card is exposed, even the Shui Clan, who had made thorough preparations beforehand, now has to reconsider what kind of hidden cards your Huo Clan might have."

"Just now, even though Shui Kong’s tone remained tough, I could see he was already wavering. Since the leader of a clan is hesitating, the outbreak of war will inevitably be delayed. That gives us more time to first find the missing Huo Clan members."

"If we’re lucky, we can also retrieve the Fire Lotus first. The importance of the Fire Lotus is now on par with that of your clansmen. Clan Leader Huo Tian, you must keep this firmly in mind at all times!" Ling Feng warned.

Huo Tian nodded with a deeply worried face. He also understood that the Fire Lotus was as vital as the safety of the clan. If the Fire Lotus failed to return to the Heart of the Volcano for a long time, once the Lava World was trampled by rampaging power, it would still collapse.

By then, all Huo Clan people would have to die anyway!

Huo Tian shook his head, his thoughts in chaos as he kept sighing.

"Boom!"

Ling Feng was just about to continue analyzing the situation with Huo Tian when a sudden explosion rang out in the distance. Ash?gray smoke drifted over from afar, followed by a pillar of blood?red light shooting straight into the sky.

The thick stench of blood reached even Vesuvius Volcano, far from the blast. Huo Tian’s expression changed, and he immediately said to the people behind him, "This is bad, something’s happened!"

He then led his people toward the place where the blood?light had appeared. When Ling Feng’s group and Yan Yun saw something was wrong, they immediately followed in Huo Tian’s wake.

The crowd crossed range after range of lava mountains, charging toward the direction of the blood?colored pillar.

On the way forward, although no more explosions sounded, that blood?light far in the distance grew more and more intense, as if vast amounts of blood were being continuously poured into it.

The dense blood?red glow and the reeking smell of blood made Ling Feng and Song Ruozhao extremely uneasy. Huo Tian’s brows knit tighter and tighter, as if all that blood had been drawn from his own body.

Ling Feng and Ling Yao stood on Little Fei’s back, while Song Ruozhao still walked on air, moving at extreme speed. Huo Tian and the nearby clansmen had flames surge up beneath them, manifesting Devil Beasts similar to Shui Kong’s Water Dragon. They leapt onto the backs of their mounts and charged ahead, their speed equally astonishing.

In less than half an hour, everyone arrived at the location of the blood?light pillar. When Huo Tian saw what was happening within that pillar, he was profoundly shaken.

Countless Huo Clan members with fiery?red skin were suspended within the blood?light pillar, red blood constantly flowing out of their bodies and converging into the blood?light.

At the base of the pillar was a Blood Pond. All around, many Huo Clan people were bound by Black Flame and were being forced by a group of black?robed figures to be pushed into the Blood Pond one after another.

Huo Tian suddenly noticed that these black?robed people were dressed exactly the same as the group of black?robes who had ambushed them on their way back.

At this moment, the Huo Clan members waiting beside the Blood Pond to be pushed in as sacrifices accidentally spotted Huo Tian on a distant Shan Feng. Ecstatic surprise instantly erupted on their faces, and they disregarded the danger as they shouted loudly:

"Clan Leader, hurry and go! Clan Leader!"

"Don’t come over! Clan Leader!"

"Run, don’t worry about us anymore, Clan Leader, we beg you, please leave!"

None of the surviving Huo Clan people uttered cries like "Clan Leader, save me" or "Clan Leader, help me," instead they were all saying in unison that Huo Tian should run. This strange plea left Ling Feng deeply puzzled.

Could it be that all these Huo clansmen are this proud and unyielding, all willing to ignore their own safety just to let the Clan Leader escape? That’s far too strange. In truth, whatever has happened, Huo Tian should be capable of resolving it. Although the situation is still unclear, it hasn’t yet reached the point where he has to flee, has it?

Song Ruozhao narrowed his eyes, seeming to have caught a hint of something. He looked at the black figure above the blood?red pillar of light and said calmly:

"The reason all these Huo clansmen are telling the Clan Leader to leave is definitely related to that black figure. Before we arrived, something inconceivable must have happened. These clansmen believe..."

"Up ahead there is a violence even their Clan Leader Huo Tian cannot quell, so they’re risking everything to make him leave—at the very least, they cannot allow all the Huo Clan to die here..."

Only after hearing Song Ruozhao’s words did Huo Tian finally raise his head and see the figure within that blood?red beam of light. Although it was wrapped in Black Flame and blood?red radiance, that silhouette and aura were all too familiar to Huo Tian.

Ling Feng had actually seen that black figure sitting cross?legged within the blood?red light a thousand meters above the ground at first glance as well. Once he spread out his Divine Sense, he quickly identified who the figure was.

"Huo Chou!" Ling Feng and Huo Tian said almost at the same time.

Ling Feng’s eyes held shock and a hint of doubt. Although he already understood how outrageously defiant Huo Chou’s current actions were, Ling Feng still watched with a kind of detached attitude, not feeling much anger.

Huo Tian, on the other hand, was completely different. He roared angrily in accusation: "Huo Chou! You wretch! Why are you doing something so utterly rebellious and monstrous?"

"Heh heh," a rumbling voice sounded from high above—it was Huo Chou’s mocking laugh.

"Brother, I knew you would come soon. Didn’t expect you’re still the same, so stubborn and rotten to the core. I don’t think you understand at all—you’re completely unaware that everything I’m doing now is for our Huo Clan!"

Tears that seemed full of pain welled up in Huo Tian’s eyes. He shouted, heartbroken and furious, "You dare say this is for the Huo Clan? All I see is you butchering your own tribesmen,"

"These are all your family and brothers. You and I were raised under their watchful eyes. How can you bear to strike them down so cruelly?"

Ling Feng also shook his head. Song Ruozhao’s gaze was icy?cold, and Ling Yao finally realized what Huo Chou was actually doing.

He was massacring his own people—slaughtering all his clansmen, then using an evil Array within the Blood Pond to extract their blood essence and life essence, and finally injecting it all into his own body.

Though this method was utterly wicked, its effects were extremely rapid. It could make even a complete waste experience a sudden surge in Cultivation and become a "genius," let alone someone like Huo Chou whose original strength was already formidable. After cultivating such a sinister Cultivation Technique, his power would inevitably ascend to yet another level.

"Family? Brothers? Heh heh," Huo Chou sneered. Wild laughter echoed continuously from within the blood?red pillar, making people shudder. Everyone could hear the evil and madness in his voice, but only Ling Feng heard a trace of sorrow.

"You say these people are my family? Do they deserve that? Or do I?" Huo Chou bellowed, "From the day we were born, I’ve always been called the shadow of you—the next Clan Leader, the clan’s genius,"

"Has anyone ever cared about me? Has anyone truly cared about my feelings? No matter how hard I cultivate, does anyone see my effort? I’m inferior to you in every respect, and I’m looked down on in every respect,"

"I can be mocked by you, I can be mocked by those stronger than me—but I absolutely cannot be mocked by this group of ants! What right do they have? If it hadn’t been for me back then, fighting the Shui Clan on the battlefield and battling in blood,"

"would these ants still have their happy lives? These pieces of trash not only don’t feel grateful to me, they instead think it’s only natural that I protect them!"

"I cannot accept that. Since they look down on me, then I have no need to respect their lives. Don’t they want someone stronger? Brother, don’t you want someone who can defeat the Shui Clan?"

"Then I’ll fulfill their wish right now—take all of their life essence and innate flames and inject them into my body. I’ll exist in their stead, and I’ll help you slaughter every last Shui Clan bastard!"

"In the end, they’ll all understand who is truly strong, who is the real pride of the Huo Clan!"

"It can only be me! It can only be me, Huo Chou!" Huo Chou howled in crazed frenzy.

Clusters of blood?red and Black Flame intertwined as they surged out from the pillar of blood?light, shooting down toward the few remaining Huo clansmen below!

All those Huo clansmen Huo Tian had sent down to secretly rescue the hostages were blasted away by the oppressive shockwaves radiating from the pillar.

A gigantic hand, woven of red and black, stretched out from within the beam and seized all those clansmen in its grasp.

"No!" Huo Tian roared. Flames burst out from his body and flew toward the red?black giant hand.