Chapter 468: Evil God Festival · Houseboat |
Looking at the two people meeting on the narrow path on the large screen, Wang Shun broke into a cold sweat, his voice beginning to tremble: “They’re facing off directly just like that?! Bai Liu isn’t carrying a Death-Exemption Gold Medal right now, and his panel stats are no match for Spades!”
“Can’t Bai Liu temporarily avoid Spades for a bit!”
Mu Ke shook his head with a solemn expression: “He can’t avoid him. This Luming Shrine map is too small; there’s nowhere to hide. Moreover, neither he nor Spades are players who would evade the main storyline quest. Plus, this is already the final map of this instance, and the main quest for both Bai Liu and Spades is to offer the other as a sacrifice.”
“These two will definitely strike back head-on.”
Wang Shun felt cold sweat break out down his back; his voice was hoarse from fear: “This main quest… doesn’t it mean one of them definitely has to die for the game to end?”
“Damn!” Mu Shicheng’s legs were shaking so fast they were a blur; he was clearly nervous to the limit, but his mouth remained stubborn. “Then the one who dies will definitely be Spades. Anyway, it won’t be Bai Liu!”
“Bai Liu does things very steadily,” Tang Erda chimed in calmly. “Let’s wait and see.”
“Wait.” Liu Jiayi squinted her eyes as she looked at the main quest on Spades’ main panel. “Something’s wrong. Spades’ main quest isn’t to sacrifice Bai Liu, but to sacrifice the [Most Painful Sacrifice].”
Mu Ke turned to look at Liu Jiayi, frowning as he asked: “Spades’ identity is the attendant to the most painful sacrifice, and his main quest is to sacrifice the most painful sacrifice. We just saw the sacrifice screening process on the big screen; Bai Liu is indeed the most painful of all the sacrifices in the Luming County houseboat.”
Mu Ke was stunned: “What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you noticed? There’s a word game here.” Liu Jiayi’s tone was cold enough to freeze. “There are no modifiers for this [Most Painful Sacrifice].”
“Modifiers?” Sitting on the Killer Sequence bench watching the match, Bai Yi was full of doubt. He patted Liao Ke’s shoulder. “What does that mean, Liao-ge?”
Liao Ke’s expression was just as solemn as Liu Jiayi’s: “There are no modifiers for the most painful sacrifice in Spades’ main quest. In other words, there is no rule stating which area the most painful sacrifice must come from.”
“If it’s a case without modifiers, then the default would be…”
“What the system wants Spades to sacrifice isn’t restricted to the most painful sacrifice of Luming County.” Queen of Hearts sat in the audience, lazily propping up her chin as she watched the big screen. “Rather, it is the most painful sacrifice in the entire world at this very moment.”
Phoebe leaned on the railing watching the screen, blinking curiously. She turned her head to ask Queen of Hearts: “Isn’t Spades’ sacrifice Bai Liu?”
“Not necessarily.” George, also sitting in the audience, straightened his back. He maintained a dignified posture, watching the screen meticulously while explaining logically, “It can only be said that currently, the sacrifice Spades needs to offer is most likely Bai Liu, but that doesn’t mean it definitely is Bai Liu.”
“Spades needs to find his quest sacrifice, and it’s best if he searches using his identity as the attendant to the most painful sacrifice.”
“If it’s not Bai Liu…” Armand stared at the screen. “Then whose attendant would Spades be?”
“Right, right.” On the opposite side of the audience from Armand sat Daniel. His feet swung excitedly through the gaps in the railing, his right index finger rapidly spinning a blood-stained Joker mask. His apple-green eyes were fixed on the top right corner of the screen, a flamboyant smile on his face. “This is the last map point. If Spades still can’t find his sacrifice, then Bai Liu wins~”
Cen Buming, who hadn’t moved from his seat since the beginning, lifted his eyelids and glanced at the screen: “The most painful sacrifice cannot be Bai Liu.”
“He doesn’t feel pain.”
Daniel turned his head and grinningly tossed the Joker mask onto Cen Buming’s face: “Then, Cen-shao, who do you think the most painful sacrifice will be?”
Cen Buming slowly opened his right hand and took the Joker mask off his face, his eyes turning inexplicably dark: “I think it will be—”
“Xie Ta.”
Daniel leaned in with great interest: “Who is Xie Ta?”
With a faint expression, Cen Buming placed the mask back over Daniel’s face. He looked at Daniel’s green eyes through the mask and slowly curled his lips into a smile: “It’s normal that you don’t know him, because His existence has been erased in this world line.”
“You only need to know that He is Bai Liu’s [Anchor].”
The host’s hysterical roar broke through everyone’s conversation: “Bai Liu has struck first!”
“He swung his whip directly toward Spades’ face!”
Inside the game, the seaside houseboat.
Kitahara Souta looked at the heavy rain outside, his expression growing more worried: “Why is this rain getting heavier and heavier?”
“What, you think heavy rain is bad?” Kitahara Aoi, lying on the floor, rolled her eyes. “Do you want the Evil God Festival to be held as scheduled?”
“No.” Kitahara Souta gripped the clothes over his heart, his expression tense. “But if the Evil God Festival is canceled, Bai Six won’t have to practice the dance tonight. Logically speaking, he should have returned to the houseboat to rest by now.”
“But it’s almost midnight, and he hasn’t come back from the shrine…”
“Do you think…” Kitahara Souta’s heart pounded wildly as he asked with a pale face, “Has Bai Six-sama been taken by Mifune to be sacrificed alone?”
Kitahara Aoi snapped into a sitting position. She exchanged a look with Kitahara Souta and quickly dismissed his thought: “Impossible. You are Bai Six’s attendant. If Bai Six were taken to be sacrificed as a sacrifice, it would be impossible not to take you.”
“Furthermore, if Bai Six, the most painful sacrifice in this houseboat, were taken to be sacrificed, Mifune would definitely follow along to the Luming Shrine to make a wish himself to prevent others from using Bai Six to make a wish. But he was just over there at the houseboat…”
Kitahara Aoi pushed open the door and looked toward the courtyard in the center of the houseboat, her pupils dilating slightly.
Just a moment ago, Mifune had been here holding an umbrella, inspecting the remaining sacrifices, but now Mifune was gone, leaving only his footprints in the center of the courtyard.
A servant of the Mifune family hurried past the corridor. Kitahara Aoi urgently grabbed the servant’s sleeve: “Excuse me, where did Mifune-sama go?”
The servant looked back at Kitahara Aoi strangely: “Mifune-sama finished inspecting the sacrifices and went to the harbor.”
The harbor—that was the place to take a boat to the Luming Shrine!
Mifune really is going to sacrifice that guy Bai Six!
Kitahara Aoi’s face also turned completely pale.
At the harbor, Mifune, carefully supported by several servants, jumped onto a small boat and shook out his wet robes before sitting down. The servants held umbrellas for Mifune. There were two rowers on the boat; they swung the wooden oars, heading toward the Luming Shrine, which barely moved despite being atop the waves in this pitch-black, rainy night at sea.
The torrential rain poured down. The small boat heading toward the shrine rocked in the wind and waves. Mifune, sitting on the boat, brushed away the hand of the servant holding the umbrella and looked toward the Luming Shrine with dark eyes, his face twisted in a suppressed, manic laugh.
Finally, this day had come—the day the god had told him about in his dreams.
To sacrifice this most painful sacrifice, to make this noble sacrifice become the most painful on this day, he had waited for many years.
“Mifune-sama,” a servant shouted through the heavy rain, wiping rain from his face, “For five years, every time we brought Bai Six to be sacrificed, the sacrifice failed because the Evil God wouldn’t open its eyes. Why does Mifune-sama think it will definitely succeed today?”
“Is it a sign from the God?”
Mifune remained silent for a long time. He looked at the sea and laughed maniacally: “Who told you I was going to sacrifice Bai Six?”
The servant was stunned: “Didn’t you say you were going to sacrifice the most painful sacrifice tonight?”
“Who told you that the most painful sacrifice in this world is Bai Six?” Mifune’s face was sinister and fanatical as he clenched his fists. “Yes, it’s true, Bai Six is indeed the most painful, so Bai Six is the successor chosen by the Evil God; he is the next generation Evil God.”
“And the sacrifice I am going to offer tonight is the most painful existence besides Bai Six.”
“—That Evil God corpse trapped in this Luming Shrine, who can only see the person He loves once a year, yet cannot open His eyes to look at Bai Six once, and cannot speak a single word to Bai Six; He is the most painful sacrifice in this world.”
Mifune laughed grotesquely: “This sacrifice has matured tonight, because the god told me that He sent this Evil God corpse’s sacrifice attendant to the shrine.”
“Tonight will be the most painful night for this sacrifice.”
“Evil God corpse?!” The servant was so shocked he almost couldn’t hold the umbrella. “The one we are going to sacrifice tonight is the Evil God-sama we have been worshiping all along?!”
“After tonight, it will no longer be an Evil God.” Mifune wiped the rain off his face and smiled sinisterly. “Or rather, from the moment I hid Him away five years ago, He was no longer an Evil God, but merely a sacrifice that would eventually be offered by me.”
“Hid Him away…?” The servant paused, then suddenly recalled. “Indeed, I have never seen the Evil God-sama’s corpse in the shrine, and those sacrifices who failed also said they never found the Evil God-sama’s corpse in the Luming Shrine. So it was hidden by you, Mifune-sama.”
Mifune looked toward the shrine and curled his lips: “It is impossible for anyone to find the Evil God’s corpse in the Luming Shrine.”
“—Because I didn’t hide Him in the Luming Shrine at all.”
A massive bolt of lightning fell. Amidst the flashing white light, a bone whip swept across the Luming Shrine’s altar like lightning, sending wood chips and bells flying.
Bai Liu’s chest heaved twice as he calmly scanned the empty altar.
—Tawil was not here.
The shrine was only this big, and he had basically cleared it out. That could only mean one thing—Mifune had hidden Tawil.
The black bone whip swung down fiercely behind Bai Liu. Bai Liu dodged to the side, and as the whip swept back horizontally, Bai Liu was forced to face it head-on. Spades pressed in, his pure black pupils focused intently on Bai Liu, his voice devoid of emotion: “This is a match between you and me.”
“Who are you distracted searching for? Do you want to lose to me?”
The bone whip in Spades’ hand rapidly bent and coiled, wrapping around Bai Liu’s shoulder, before being pulled downward by Spades with unrelenting force.
Bai Liu’s arms were torn downward, blood gushing out.
Outside the screen, the crowd erupted in a frenzy. The host screamed excitedly: “Spades has disarmed Bai Liu!”
*(T/N: The author really likes having characters get their limbs ripped off…)*
Mu Shicheng stood up directly from his chair, staring through gritted teeth at the screen where Bai Liu was bleeding profusely, unable to even utter a curse.
“Sit down!” Tang Erda raised his hand and forcefully, inch by inch, pressed Mu Shicheng back into his seat. He kept his head down, his fists clenched until they were white, not looking at the screen, his voice low: “Believe in Bai Liu.”
>[System Notification: Player Bai Liu is using Player Liu Jiayi’s panel, using the Antidote skill.]
Bai Liu bit the antidote bottle, tilted his head to drink it dry, and his severed arms instantly grew back from his shoulders. Then, with a sharp gaze, he flipped his hand; the whip in his hand transformed into a short blade. He grabbed Spades’ clothes with his left hand and, holding the blade in his right, slashed fiercely toward Spades’ neck.
Spades tilted his head to dodge.
The moment Spades tilted his head, Bai Liu transformed the blade back into a whip, following the momentum of Spades’ movement to coil it around his neck. His gaze was cold as he spun his body, intending to use the momentum to throw Spades to the ground.
With a reaction speed invisible to the naked eye, Spades inserted both hands into the whip loops around his neck and forced them outward, expanding them with a jarring force.
The moment the loops were expanded, Bai Liu twisted the whip handle, causing the bone spurs on the whip to flip outward and stab into Spades’ shoulders. Bai Liu seized this momentary opening without any hesitation, pulling the whip downward in a slash.
Two massive wounds were carved into Spades’ shoulders, blood nearly spraying onto Bai Liu’s face, but it was quickly washed away by the heavy rain.
The host’s screams nearly blew the roof off the viewing gallery: “Bai Liu counterattacks! He has bound Spades with the whip!”
“I am not here to sacrifice you.” Spades was bound by his arms with the whip by the heavily panting Bai Liu, unable to move, yet he looked into Bai Liu’s eyes and said flatly, “You are not the sacrifice in my quest.”
The strength of Bai Liu’s restraint grew tighter. A lock of hair fell by the side of his face; blood and grease blended at the corners of his lips. He lifted his eyes, his voice very calm: “I know.”
“That is why I must win against you.”
—
*(T/N: So, does Spades believe the lies Bai Six told him? Does he think he needs to get rid of Tawil in order to have his soul and have Bai Liu? I’m losing track of who knows what. Only two more chapters in this arc, but we only get a two chapter break before the next instance starts… and it’s long. So I think the fluffy moments the author mentioned are going to be after the next instance which doesn’t end until chapter 509……… So like 41 more chapters until fluffy moments… yay…)*
