Chapter 33: The Dark Yin Heavenly Star Fate
“Haha, it’s all your own choice!”
Hearing that, even An Jing could not help but ugh inwardly.
He did not think the Heavenly Will Demonic Sect would lie about this. After all, these remaining 108 youths were the elite. Even if they failed to awaken a Heaven-Ordained Fate, they could still one day rea Internal Breath Like Tides level like Instructor Li, enough to serve as a mid-to-lower bae of an anization.
Even if they failed, the demonic sect would not necessarily dispose of any who survived.
At first ghe Medie Manor Lord’s words sounded righteous, yet they glossed over the danger, implying that dying was a small possibility while emphasizing the grandeur of ‘success’ and the fallback for those who failed.
As for g “it’s all your own choice”…
While the Medie Manor Lord spoke, An Jied a faiic st in the air.
The smell was quite subtle. If he had not been merely pretending to listen while actually monit his surroundings, he might not have caught it.
Moments after inhaling that st, An Jing noticed his heart beating faster. His ‘ce’ swelled as though intoxicated, and absurdly bold notions—like standing up to loudly denouhe Medie Manor Lord and expose the demonic sect—rose unbidden in his mind!
Right now, nobody would believe him, nor could he ge anything. People would only assume he had gone mad. Yet An Jing was seized by this sudden urge and daring!
—They used drugs!
Even An Jing found it difficult to resist. How much more so for the other children? Instantly, the moment the Medie Manor Lord said, “Whether you want to participate is up to you,” everyone shouted in unison that they were willing!
An Jing did the same, without hesitation—aiced that Bai Qinghan did so as well.
Yes, she was merely illiterate, not stupid.
“Very good.”
Seeing that every child had agreed, the Medie Manor Lord smiled tentedly. “Thehe ritual begin!”
“Pay homage to Imperial Heaven—everyone, light the inse!”
At that and, and apanied by ting voices, the 108 provisional disciples across twelve teams each burned inse at their respective altars, in reverenperial Heaven, known as “the Sky,” “Heavenly Lord,” or “Old Heavenly Father.”
It was not only the Heavenly Will Divihat revered Imperial Heaven; many other sects and even the Great national sacrificial rituals worshiped Imperial Heaven and Later Earth. Henobody felt anything amiss. Nor was such a ceremony merely a symbolic ritual—it also bonded partits together, instilling a shared sense of belonging, achievement, and pride.
Imperial Heaven had no specific image. In mortal temples, It was sometimes depicted as a kindly elder. But just like the royal household’s rituals, the Heavenly Will Divi refused to use any idol. They merely performed a ceremony to the boundless sky.
Indeed, such idol-less worship implied aremely high-level ceremony. Without some special “Uerrain and Intrinsic Position,” attempting to une directly with the “Utterly True Heavens” rather than a “limited statue of the Heavenly Father” was like a single person shouting into the void, hoping to awaken every slumbering soul in a whole world.
Hanging Fate Manor clearly occupied such a special site!
After the inse was lit, the jade altars began to glow with a patterns.
“All disciples, take your positions. Activate the ritual array—open Fate Valley!”
The ones tihe instructors who normally taught scriptures at Hanging Fate Manor. Their voices were grand ahereal. In turn, An Jing and the others sat cross-legged upon the jade altars.
No sooner had An Jied himself than he sehat he and the ht in his team could now share each other’s thoughts. Prior to this, with rigorous training, they needed few words to coordinate in bat. But after lighting the inse and awakening a faint radiance from the altar, he could distinctly perceive their emotions!
Longing, curiosity, dread, fusion, calm, a desire to excel aiced by others, daydreams of returning home in glory after mastering advanced martial arts…all manner of feelings and wants, surging like a river.
An Jing himself felt these desires stirring.
He wao live—and help everyone else who wished to survive do so, too.
Uhe other boys and girls, he khe demonic sect’s motives behind every gesture, and uood the cruelty beh their kindly masks.
He believed in his own abilities, believed in his strengths. Yet he had no guarahat he could survive if he followed this path. He yearo be reunited with his mother, to see his father again, to keep his friends alive so they might share the future…
An Jing longed freater power so he could seize his own fate and then…
…decide his life’s dire for himself.
—He wao live, freely!
Right at that moment, as the hearts of all 108 partits verged, their desires surging like a tide…
tered owelve jade altars, lines of pale blue light fred up, spreading across the ground and even into midair, linking together to form a colossal, a formation pattern that rotated slowly above the altars.
At the head, the Medie Manor Lord took a step forward, slig his hand with a jade dagger. He flung blood into the air and cried out:
“With blood as the decree, with souls as the !
“We beseech the True Law of the Veed Deity!”
All around the altars stood the instructors and squad leaders, f a still rger formation. They likewise cut their palms with jade daggers, scattering their blood as they shouted in unison:
“Grant us the True Law!” “Grant us the True Law!” “Grant us the True Law!”
In a fsh, the sound reverberated like mountains r and seas crashing, mixing with a sudden gale. White mist sank around Hanging Fate Valley, dark clouds verged, and though it was daylight, all became dim.
In that twilight haze of sky ah, a vague colossal hand—formed of pure bck fog—slowly reached out from the depths of Hanging Fate Valley.
Thely, it pressed down upowelve jade altars.
“g!”
Simultaneously, spurred by this tact, the altars shoh brilliant light.
Uhe demonid within the valley, these jade altars were genuine sacred relics of the divih, imbued with Supreme Sword I. Stimuted by the Heavenly Demonic aura, they released razor-sharp sword energy.
Immediately, streaks of jade-green sword qi shot from the depths of the white sandy ground, g against that murky giant hand. Sparks of starlight-like baleful energy erupted, illuminating the ge.
“It worked! Baleful Demon Swod—Heavenly Will in motion!”
Having done all that, everyone including the Medie Manor Lord was left pallid and drained. Yet excitement bzed in the old man’s eyes: “Now we’ll see what fortuhese ‘materials’ achieve!”
“Life or death…it all depends on their Heavenly Fate!”
Before he finished speaking, at the northernmost point of the formation—Team Zuozi—an intensely bright star abruptly rose.
It came from a girl perched upon the jade altar. She was still quite young, slender as though a mere gust of wind might blow her away. Her eyes remained shut, her mind immersed in her inner realm, her expression steel-willed.
From above Bai Qinghan’s head shone a star bright as the moon, its light waxing and waning, radiating a jade-white brillia hovered amidst the sword qi and the demonid.
A moon-white glow emerged behind her head, swirling in a ring—transf into a circle of light at her nape.
That halo gleamed with a crystalline whiteness, and as it spun, it dispyed the phases of the moon in succession. An indescribable Dark Yin chill emanated in threads, and cryptic patterns maed in the air around her. A frosty white mist spread over the altar beh her, frost creeping outward.
“This is…”
At first, the Medie Manor Lord did nister what he was seeing. Then his face lit with wild joy. “Good, good, good! Bearing the ‘Star Fiend Strae’ among the Seven Fates!”
“Heavenly Star Omens, Dao Pattern Totems; Southern Dipper is at the Middle-Heavens, and the Body is Entrusted to Taiyin!”
“It’s the 【Yang Demise, Yin Emergence】 pattern, the Dark Yin Heavenly Star Fate!”
(End of Chapter)
Mass release 2/2 is fiwo chapters/day from now on.
