Chapter 249: After all this fuss, it turns out they were targeting me
"What bug?" Xiao Yu was confused.
Chu Xuanyi's face turned pale the moment he heard the words "bugs" and "threads".
"Your Highness." He suddenly snatched the imperial mausoleum ceremony map seized from Prince Xian's palace from Xiao Yu's hand, spread it out on the ground, and said with a trembling voice, "Look here."
He pointed to a corner of the drawing, where a strange rune was written in ancient seal script.
"This is the ancient evil spell 'Blood Curse of Unity'." Chu Xuanyi's voice was extremely hoarse. "The caster uses their own blood to feed a Gu worm, which is then implanted into the soul of the cursed. From then on, the two are linked by life. This Gu worm is the 'worm' Ah Jiu saw, and the 'thread' is the blood connection between the caster and the cursed."
He took a deep breath and continued, "Anyone struck by this curse will have their soul slowly eroded by the insects, allowing their memories to be altered or erased at will. Furthermore... if anyone attempts to extract the caster's core secrets, or if the victim themselves attempts to reveal them, the caster, far away, will immediately sense it. A single thought will detonate the insects, annihilating the victim's soul and spirit, resulting in a sudden death."
These words sent a chill down to the bones of everyone present.
No wonder they couldn't get anything out of it.
The wise king and those core rebels were just a group of pawns and puppets that could be discarded at any time.
"What a cruel method." Xiao Yu said bitterly, "So, all the people we caught are useless."
"No, they're not useless." Chu Xuanyi stared intently at the ritual diagram. "Their biggest role is to attract our attention and buy time for the real plan."
He picked up the blueprint and pointed at the word "Open" written in blood on it.
"My Lord, Ah Jiu, look."
"The ritual depicted in this image is extremely complex and sinister. It requires a large number of living souls and resentful energy as a catalyst. This is why the guards of the imperial mausoleum have been dying one after another, and why ghosts are crying incessantly at night. They are 'nurturing' this land."
"And the core of the ritual, that is, the center of the formation, look where it is."
His finger tapped heavily on the very center of the drawing, the place surrounded by countless runes.
There are three words marked there.
Dragon vein root.
"Their goal is not to usurp the throne at all," Chu Xuanyi's lips turned slightly pale with excitement.
"Stealing a country is too small a concept for them."
"They... intend to use the main root of the dragon vein beneath the Great Zhou Imperial Mausoleum as a sacrifice, and use the resentful souls of millions of people in the capital as a guide to forcibly open the forbidden door connecting life and death, humans and ghosts."
"The Gate of the Netherworld."
"They want to bring the army of undead from the Netherworld down to the human world."
"They want to turn this entire world into a perpetual hell."
Xiao Yu shuddered.
"Xuan Yi, you... you're not kidding, are you?" His voice was a little dry. "Opening... the gate to the underworld? Does something like this, which only appears in strange stories, really exist?"
"I wish it didn't exist," Chu Xuanyi's expression turned extremely grim. "But these spells all point to the same outcome. They're not orthodox Taoist techniques, but rather evil ghost techniques that have long been listed as forbidden."
"These bastards," Xiao Yu cursed angrily, "They don't just want to dig up our ancestral graves, they want to drag everyone down with them to be buried with us."
Xiao Yu looked quietly at the half-crazy wise king in the prison and spoke slowly.
"So, we are now facing a dead end."
"A violent attack on the Imperial Mausoleum will immediately trigger the Heart Blood Curse on the Wise King. The mastermind behind this will be alerted immediately and will erase all traces of the enemy. By then, we will be completely passive, helplessly watching them complete the ritual without even knowing who the enemy is."
"But if we don't attack, we'll be sitting there waiting for death." Chu Xuanyi took over, his tone heavy. "Judging from the progress of the ritual on the blueprint, they've been preparing for a long time. The resentment and accumulated souls in the imperial mausoleum are probably approaching the critical point of the ritual. We don't have much time."
Going forward is a dead end. Retreating is also a dead end.
The enemy used the useless king to pin them down and make them unable to move.
"Is there really no way out?" Xiao Yu grabbed his hair irritably, "There must be a breakthrough."
"Breakthrough..." Chu Xuanyi smiled bitterly and shook his head, his gaze returning to the complicated ritual diagram. "Unless we can find the flaw in their plan on this diagram."
The group stopped talking and temporarily left the suffocating dungeon and returned to the study in the Prince Regent's Palace. The huge blueprint was spread out in its entirety on the central desk.
Xiao Yu, Chu Xuanyi and Xiao Yu gathered around the table, studying every symbol on it word by word.
Jiu looked at the lines on the drawing that were as dense as blood vessels, especially the word "open the door" written in blood in the center, and suddenly felt an inexplicable palpitation.
"Hmm."
She subconsciously covered her chest and let out a slight groan.
"Ajiu, what's wrong?"
Xiao Yu noticed that something was wrong with her at the first moment. He walked over to her and supported her slightly shaking body.
"I... I don't know." Ajiu's face turned pale. She pointed at the drawing and said, "Brother Xiongxiong, that drawing... it makes me feel so uncomfortable. It's like... it's like something is calling me."
Chu Xuanyi and Xiao Yu also stopped and looked at her in confusion.
"It's that evil spirit that makes you uncomfortable." Xiao Yu frowned and reached out to touch her forehead.
"No," Jiu shook his head and looked at the drawing again.
"Brother Xiongxiong, I want to see that picture again... again."
Although Xiao Yu was worried about her health, he nodded when he saw the determination in her eyes.
Ajiu walked to the table and stared at the strange drawing.
She slowly closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, two golden lights lit up again in the depths of her clear pupils.
The divine pupil opens again.
The drawing made of animal skin became transparent, and the structure diagram of the imperial mausoleum drawn with ink lines on it gradually disappeared. Only the runes and lines drawn with cinnabar and blood lit up with a dark red light, flowing slowly and interweaving into a huge energy network.
In the very center is the place marked "Dragon Vein Root", where a black vortex formed by countless resentful souls and blood is slowly rotating.
Countless energy threads thinner than spider silk extended from the vortex, and these threads were densely packed all over the drawing.
However, a few black threads penetrated the constraints of the drawing and connected directly to her body.
She could even clearly feel that her soul was being gently pulled by those silk threads.
It was a tremor that came from the depths of the soul.
"ah."
Ajiu let out a short cry of surprise, took a step back suddenly, and his face turned as pale as paper in an instant.
"Ajiu." Xiao Yu pulled her into his arms and asked with concern, "What did you see?"
"Threads... So many threads..." Ah Jiu's voice was filled with tears, and his body was shaking slightly with fear. "On that picture... there are threads connecting me, connected to my... soul."
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