Chapter 266: The Malevolent Deity Opens Its Eyes! |
“There’s definitely something inside, breathing.”
“And it’s not just random breathing—it’s a pulse of qi being fed in through offerings.”
“You two remember this: we’re not going to brute-force our way through this place with one talisman after another. First, we have to cut off its supply route.”
Lu Yuan immediately instructed Wang Cheng’an and Xu Erxiao.
Wang Cheng’an understood clearly, his gaze growing heavier.
“Then should I snap that left red cord too?”
Lu Yuan nodded.
“Cut it if you can, but don’t be reckless.”
“First, see if the Iron Abacus makes a move.”
He clearly knew that once Lu Yuan and his men severed the external offering paths, that thing inside the altar would be forced to burst out.
“What do you know?” the Iron Abacus ground out through clenched teeth.
“This isn’t something you can touch.”
“If this altar topples, the entire mountain range will tremble with it.”
Lu Yuan’s tone was calm.
“Then let it tremble.”
“I’m more afraid it won’t.”
As he spoke, he raised his hand and flicked the last copper coin to the ground.
The coin rolled to a stop in front of the altar, wedged perfectly beneath a strand of white hemp rope.
Lu Yuan pressed his two fingers together, lightly pushed down, and shouted in a low voice:
“Coin presses rope, rope presses the road.”
“Road presses the vein, vein presses the gate.”
“You borrow the mountain’s belly to raise your creature, I borrow this coin to sever your roots.”
“Urgently, urgently, as by the law’s command, fall!”
The copper coin sank heavily downward.
The entire floor of the empty chamber trembled gently in response.
A suppressed, stifled groan came from beneath the yellow cloth covering the altar’s mouth, as if something had been forcibly pressed back down by half.
The Iron Abacus’s face turned pale instantly. He blurted out, “Stop!”
Lu Yuan paid him no attention. He turned to Lin Zhaoxuan and barked, “The third cord on the right—cut it!”
Lin Zhaoxuan moved immediately. A short blade sliced diagonally, and the red cord snapped with a clean sound.
The moment the cord broke, the chaotic jangling of the copper bells on the unfinished frame diminished by one note. The oppressive pressure in the empty room eased by half a degree.
Seeing the situation, Zhou Heng quickly covered the last two round mirrors with yellow paper.
Song Qinghe steadied the oil lamp, a thin sheen of sweat already visible on her brow, yet she still held it securely, refusing to let the flame waver.
Just then, the breathing from inside the altar suddenly changed.
It was no longer a suppressed, low wheeze. It was as if a breath had been drawn in too deeply, and then—a sharp, thin, snickering laugh slithered out from the altar’s mouth.
The moment that sound emerged, the Iron Abacus’s entire body stiffened.
Lu Yuan’s gaze turned icy cold.
He knew it. The thing inside the altar had started testing people.
Not him, specifically—but everyone’s mind and spirit in the room.
That laugh carried a hint of seductive coaxing, like a woman humming a tune, or an old man crooning a song. It sent a chilling numbness through the listeners’ hearts.
If anyone’s resolve was weak, they’d probably have been hooked, their eyes going vacant on the spot.
Wang Cheng’an sensed the danger first. He immediately shouted in a low voice, “Don’t listen to its song!”
Xu Erxiao clenched his teeth and followed up, “It’s a soul-mazing aura!”
Neither of them just followed orders to move things anymore. Instead, they pressed down harder on their basins.
Wang Cheng’an used his positioning to toss a Mind-Stabilizing Talisman to Zhou Heng, reminding him, “Zhou Heng, stick it behind your ear!”
Zhou Heng was startled for a moment, then quickly did as he was told.
As soon as the talisman was affixed, that piercing, brain-boring laughter noticeably subsided.
Xu Erxiao, meanwhile, fixed his gaze on the altar’s mouth. He suddenly noticed a pinprick-like hole at the edge of the yellow cloth, with black qi seeping out in wisps.
He immediately said in a low voice, “Brother Lu, the altar cloth has a hole!”
Lu Yuan nodded. “I saw it. Press it down.”
“Don’t let it use that hole to make a sound.”
Xu Erxiao responded, pressing his palm even harder against the edge of the clay basin.
With his other hand, he pulled out a crumpled Sealing Talisman and slapped it cleanly onto the outer rim of the basin.
The talisman was crude, but it was just enough to seal the yin force pushing up from inside the basin.
Lu Yuan shot them a glance, a faint nod of approval in his heart.
These two junior brothers had solid foundations and good nerve.
In a scene like this, staying calm and steady was more than enough.
He said no more, instead refocusing his attention on the black altar.
The yellow cloth at the altar’s mouth was trembling more and more violently, as if the thing inside was using the entire altar as a shell to push against.
The white hemp ropes on the altar’s body began to heat up one by one, and a faint smell of scorching slowly rose.
The Iron Abacus finally couldn’t hold on anymore. He whipped his head around and roared at Lu Yuan, “If you force it to death, we’ll die first!”
Lu Yuan shot him a cold look.
“Since you chose to sit in front of this altar, you should have known this day would come.”
“What you’re guarding isn’t your life—it’s the offerings.”
“When the offerings are exhausted, the one guarding the altar has to clean up the mess.”
The Iron Abacus’s lips trembled, the terror in his eyes growing heavier and heavier.
And then, a third sound came from inside the black altar.
Not a breath. Not a laugh.
It was an extremely low, murmuring whisper, as if it were rising from deep underground, through the altar itself. It was garbled and indistinct, but two words were unnervingly clear.
“Open… eyes…”
The moment Lu Yuan heard those two words, his pupils contracted sharply.
He knew that what was about to show itself wasn’t just the thing inside the altar.
It was the entity behind it—the Malevolent Deity itself, which had been nurtured all this way by this mountain path, this cellar, these mirrors, and this offering network.
This time, they had finally touched the root.
“Open… eyes…”
Those two words were ground out like they came from a millstone, so faint they were barely audible, yet they silenced the entire empty chamber in an instant.
Even the remaining jangling of the copper bells seemed to sink, muffled by a thick layer of cotton.
Lu Yuan stood before the black altar, not moving immediately.
He knew that if he moved too fast now, he would easily be drawn in by that “open eyes” aura.
Evil things were most adept at picking the moment when people’s minds were at their most tense.
First, they’d give you a chill, then a wisp of sound, then a hint of a “real-looking” shadow, baiting you into stepping into the trap yourself.
He first glanced at Wang Cheng’an and Xu Erxiao.
Both were still steady.
Wang Cheng’an pressed down on the clay basin with one hand, while the other had already touched the small bundle of talisman paper at his chest. His shoulders were taut, but there was no trace of panic.
Xu Erxiao gritted his teeth, his forehead drenched in sweat. His palm was clamped firmly on the basin’s edge, but his eyes stayed locked on the altar’s mouth, not flinching.
“Don’t stare at the altar’s mouth,” Lu Yuan said in a low voice.
“Stare at the cords, the bowls, the mirrors.”
“When it opens its eyes, the first thing it looks for is someone who looks back.”
Wang Cheng’an immediately shifted his gaze to the red cord, responding, “Got it, Brother Lu.”
Xu Erxiao quickly averted his eyes too, fixing them on the three small bowls in front of the altar. “It wants to use eyes to find a door?”
Lu Yuan nodded. “Yes.”
“It can’t walk out on its own. It needs someone’s mind and spirit to build a door for it.”
The Iron Abacus’s face had already hit rock bottom. His hands were still on the altar’s edge, but not with the same confident pressure as before—it was more like he was barely holding on.
When he heard Lu Yuan’s words, his voice came out hoarse: “The more you know, the faster you die.”
Lu Yuan replied flatly, “Then let’s see who dies first.”
He then ran his thumb along the edge of the copper coin, cutting a fine line of blood across his palm.
Not much blood, but just enough.
He smeared the blood on the corner of a talisman and chanted in a low voice:
“With my living blood, I lend you three parts of vitality.
“With my ears and eyes as the gate, I close not the Malevolent Deity’s chaos.
“Eyes do not open, the road is not built, the gate is not established, the body does not enter.”
On the final word, “enter,” Lu Yuan slapped the blood-stained short talisman onto the ground.
The talisman wasn’t affixed to the altar, but to the fine seam in front of it—the nearly invisible black line between the altar and the floor.
The moment the talisman landed, the black line seemed to writhe like a living thing.
Immediately after, the “open eyes” sound from inside the altar suddenly rose in pitch, as if someone was pressing against the altar wall and shrieking.
A layer of grayish-white mist surged across the round mirrors at the four corners of the chamber.
In the mist, faces seemed to press against the surface—blurry, dense, all turning at once toward the center of the room.
The oil lamp in Song Qinghe’s hand flickered violently.
Her face went pale, and she nearly dropped it.
Lin Zhaoxuan’s eyes were quick, and he immediately reached out to steady the lamp’s base from the side, his voice deep: “Hold the flame steady!”
Song Qinghe pursed her lips and forced her hand to steady. The flame wavered, but it didn’t go out.
Lu Yuan’s gaze darkened.
This thing was trying to use the mirrors and the lamp to pull people into its vision.
He didn’t give it a chance to breathe. With his hands forming a seal, he suddenly stepped forward half a pace, his toe pressing right next to the black line, and shouted:
“Wang Cheng’an, flip the left bowl!”
“Xu Erxiao, overturn the right bowl!”
“Lin Zhaoxuan, break the last red cord!”
“Zhou Heng, press down all the mirrors!”
“Song Qinghe, shine the lamp at the altar’s mouth—don’t let it waver!”
They all moved almost simultaneously.
Wang Cheng’an twisted his wrist and flipped the left rice bowl half an inch. Grains of rice scattered across the floor, and the thin smoke from the offerings instantly lost half its order.
Xu Erxiao gritted his teeth and overturned the right salt bowl entirely. Salt dust flew, and a fine white vapor rose from the ground, like cold sweat evaporating.
Lin Zhaoxuan took a single stride. His short blade swept down, and the last red cord snapped with a sharp crack. The jangling of copper bells suddenly diminished by more than half.
Zhou Heng pressed the remaining yellow paper onto the nearest mirror, slapping it firmly with the back of his hand, pressing down hard on the mist inside the mirror.
Song Qinghe raised the oil lamp high, the firelight shining directly on the black altar. The yellow cloth turned semi-transparent, and the outline of the bulging thing underneath became a bit clearer.
That was exactly what Lu Yuan wanted.
“Now I’ve got a look at it,” he said in a low voice.
The Iron Abacus suddenly looked up, as if realizing something, his voice turning frantic: “Don’t look!”
But it was too late.
The moment the yellow cloth turned semi-transparent, what was revealed under the altar’s mouth wasn’t a complete human form, nor an animal’s shadow. It was a face pressed against the inner wall of the altar.
An extremely gaunt face.
No eyebrows, deeply sunken eye sockets, a nose bridge that looked like it had been shaved off. The corners of the mouth were split unnaturally high, like a smile—or like skin that had been forcibly torn open.
That wasn’t a painted face.
It was a living face, plastered inside the altar.
And that face had no eyeballs.
Embedded in each of its empty eye sockets was a tiny black speck, like a seed, slowly swelling outward.
“The Malevolent Deity’s eye seeds,” Lin Zhaoxuan said, his voice tight. “It’s growing eyes!”
Lu Yuan’s expression turned icy to the extreme.
This wasn’t just some ordinary altar-dwelling evil, using a path to test its gateway.
This was a creature nurtured to a certain stage—first, grow eyes, then recognize people, then borrow a body.
Once it finished growing its eyes, every offering path, mirror, banner, and bell fed in the mountain would serve as its eyes.
The Iron Abacus seemed to finally crack completely. His hands trembled, and he even took half a step back.
Lu Yuan seized the opening immediately, shouting, “Iron Abacus! You take one more step back, and I’ll flip this altar open.”
“If you want to live, tell me the truth about what’s inside!”
The Iron Abacus’s lips quivered, real panic showing in his eyes for the first time.
“You can’t flip it… That’s not just an altar.”
“It’s an eye bed.”
“What’s inside is the deity’s eyelid. It’s the first place it sees people.”
Lu Yuan’s gaze turned sharp. “An eye bed?”
“How close is it to being complete?”
The Iron Abacus’s throat bobbed as he swallowed something bitter. “It… it’s missing one living eye.”
“It’s missing a person who can open the gate for it.”
The moment he heard that, Lu Yuan swept his gaze across everyone in the room.
Wang Cheng’an, Xu Erxiao, Lin Zhaoxuan, Zhou Heng, Song Qinghe—finally settling on the Iron Abacus’s face.
The Iron Abacus’s scalp crawled under that look. He jerked back, shouting, “It’s not me!”
“I stopped being the chosen one long ago!”
Lu Yuan didn’t press to ask who it was, because he already understood.
The Malevolent Deity’s main body, nurtured inside this altar, had long since stopped being satisfied with merely offerings.
It was waiting for someone who could meet its eyes, its gate, its path—to complete its final “opening of the eyes.”
And then, right at that moment, the gaunt face at the altar’s mouth slowly pulled its lips apart.
An extremely low laugh seeped out from inside the altar, sticking to the clay walls, like countless fine needles scraping across eardrums.
Then, those “eye seeds,” like tiny black specks, suddenly jumped.
Two faint points of light flickered beneath the yellow cloth, and lit up.
The moment those two points of light glowed, the temperature of the entire underground chamber felt like it had been drained away.
Not cold—empty.
As if someone had taken the last breath of air from the room, leaving only the damp, earthy smell, the bitter tang of rice and salt.
And then, there was that sweet, cloying, rotting yin-chill, slowly seeping up from the bottom of the altar.
Lu Yuan immediately averted his gaze from the altar’s mouth, refusing to look directly at those two points of light.
He knew that when an evil thing opens its eyes, it’s most dangerous to look directly at them.
If you do, your mind and spirit can easily be hooked.
“Don’t any of you look at its eye sockets!” Lu Yuan barked sharply.
“Look at the cords, the ground, the talismans! Don’t stare at the altar’s mouth!”
Wang Cheng’an had instinctively started to lift his head, but the shout forced him to stop. He immediately shifted his gaze away, the veins on his temples bulging.
“Brother Lu, that thing is looking for someone!”
Lu Yuan replied immediately, “I know.”
“That’s why none of you are going to meet its gaze.”
Xu Erxiao’s face was pale, but he wasn’t panicking. His right hand still pressed down on the clay basin, while his left hand had already grabbed a handful of glutinous rice.
He tossed it down along the black crack on the floor.
With a patter, the glutinous rice hit the ground. Several grains even bounced straight up, as if something underneath was pushing against them.
Xu Erxiao said in a low voice, “There’s a sound underground too.”
Lu Yuan looked at the bouncing grains of rice, his expression growing heavier. “It’s returning the qi.”
“The offerings it absorbed before—now it’s using them to spit out a gate.”
The Iron Abacus had already retreated to the side of the altar. The ashen color on his face was even worse, his lips trembling.
He clearly understood better than anyone that once the eye seeds lit up, things were no longer as simple as “pressing down the altar.”
That wasn’t just an ordinary evil altar.
It was a bed for the Malevolent Deity to “open its eyes.”
Once the bed was opened, the deity truly began to “see people.”
Lu Yuan raised his hand and flipped a Soul-Suppressing Talisman into his palm.
With his other hand, he quickly pulled a thin copper needle from his bag. A black thread was tied to the needle’s tail, and the thread’s end was knotted around the copper coin’s hole.
Seeing this, Lin Zhaoxuan’s eyes flickered. “You’re going to nail the eye?”
Lu Yuan replied, “Not the eye. First, I’m nailing the gate.”
Then, with a shift of his foot, he lowered his body, sliding half a step as if he was skimming across the ground.
He wasn’t charging the altar’s mouth. Instead, he was heading straight for the brick crack half-buried in the earth behind the black altar’s side.
The Iron Abacus’s face changed drastically the moment he saw it.
“How do you know there’s a gate crack there?!”