Chapter 166 The Fifth Day After God's Departure (3) "You must let their mother..."
Su He froze.
The cult leader laughed: "You're not that stupid. There are only four of us on the mountain—two incomplete eyes, two incomplete eyes that need to be incomplete. How wonderful."
Su He took a while to find her voice: "You also hid a sun talisman?"
“You’re all too stupid, far inferior to that child. The fact that he incorporated you into the ritual shows that he only saw an incomplete prophecy and already made guesses,” the cult leader said. “Use your brains again. I only took one sun talisman, but how did I take it?”
Su He remembered.
Because of his high talent, he was highly regarded by his family. When he was a child, the fortune teller gave him a piece of red paper, saying that it could dispel his doubts once. It was an encouragement and also to form a good connection. He kept it but never used it.
Unexpectedly, his mother-in-law had left other spells on the paper. When she had her accident, the spells were triggered, leading him to the Art Harbor.
She was looking for a mortician to care for her body.
He found the bastard at his mother-in-law's place. His mother-in-law was dead, and her lips were sewn onto the bastard's face, which was covered in blood. He was smiling at him, his eyes trembling with excitement.
They fought, and on the divination table remained the old woman's last divination, illuminated by beams of light from the roof, forming a circle.
No matter how they fought, the bone fragments on the divination table remained completely still, as if protected by a spell.
Until the bastard succeeded in his sneak attack, he got serious, using his hand as a blade. With a gust of wind, the blade pierced through the bastard's body and shattered a corner of the divination table.
One bone fragment fell, and the remaining bone fragments were swept to the ground as if their seal had been broken. The bastard swallowed the bone fragment, suddenly exploded, and escaped like an eel.
He immediately gave chase, encountering other tribesmen. Two tribesmen went to clean up the mess, while the rest focused their efforts on the pursuit.
That bone fragment...
"Naturally, it was carved out by the 'knife'." The cult leader laughed. "It was originally a sun symbol with two meanings, thanks to you."
"...You let me go on purpose."
"Don't say that. How come I'm the bad guy? I always listened to her and never betrayed her."
Silence, a long silence.
Suddenly, a group of leaf-shaped human skins emerged from the fire, their bright red lips parted.
"Hahahaha, it's because she's too stupid!!"
He stopped pretending and laughed heartily.
The cloaked man lowered his head, gripped his knife again, and unleashed a murderous intent. However, the cult leader, as if his heart hadn't been stabbed enough, suddenly stopped laughing: "You think you only killed her? That Ouija board paper... red, doesn't it look familiar? You really think it was just burned by the sun's fire?"
The lips circled around Su He, who was stiffening again, clicking their tongues in amazement: "That's why I don't like guys like you who only have muscles in their brains. When you got the divination paper from that old woman, Su Huang had tampered with it. When you used it to ask her about her fortune, the incantation became bound to you and entered the ritual of the divination paper when you summoned the spirit."
Su He looked up in disbelief.
The cult leader said in an extremely gentle voice, "That's right, it was Su Huang's only orbital setting. I guess he set the line for him to enter the ritual afterward."
In the ritual of drawing on the spirit paper, once a damaged eye of observation enters the ritual, it will immediately be locked in the spell tower, which is located at the top of the mountain, the core of the ritual.
So they captured Su Huang first, and Xie Tan also made sure that he would be the last person to enter the ceremony.
However, under Su Huang's predetermined trajectory, as long as there is a line where he entered the ritual later, that trajectory is fixed and becomes inevitable for every line.
And it should be exactly what the cult leader said. Su Huang and Xie Tan are at the same level. He can't observe Xie Tan, so he can only fix the trajectory on himself. He just needs to make sure that he is the one who enters last.
The ceremony begins, and although there are clearly two incomplete eyes within the ceremony, the core of the formation is empty. The restless ceremony will surely lure one of the eyes to the mountaintop.
Under the fixed orbit... it must be Xie Tan.
"If you had known earlier, why didn't you warn him!" Su He roared.
The cult leader was still smiling, but there was no real joy in his smile. He spoke in an extremely cold tone: "If he was successfully outmaneuvered, wasn't that just a miscalculation on his part? Was he stupid?"
He lamented, "Oh dear, what a clever child! It's a pity he was tricked by that old man. Poor thing, he wanted to avenge his mother, and he sacrificed so much, but it all came to nothing. How could there be such a miserable mother and son? It makes me, his uncle, uncomfortable! Of course, he's just a child. How can we place our hatred on a child? This is what adults should do! We must help them get revenge—that old man is definitely still in the mountains. The sun's fire has already come down from the mountaintop. You have to kill him before we are refined, you wicked wolf."
He suddenly grinned again: "Are you going to let that mother and son die in vain?"
Su He slashed him with a knife and refused to listen to any more of his words.
This guy, as always, has never had a heart... he's a complete bastard.
But he was somehow controlled.
Both the "tongues" and the "knife" will eventually be refined back into the complete state of the Eye of Observation. The only one who can leave this place is Su Huang, who has lost the ability of the Eye of Observation.
The old man didn't hesitate to throw the entire clan into the furnace to lower their guard; he must have a backup plan.
As long as he isn't refined into the curse tower and relegated to one of the other minor sacrifices just to make up the numbers, he has a way to survive.
They misjudged the old man's thoughts. In a situation where death was inevitable, what did abandoning human form and becoming equal to a god matter? They had all returned to the sun, and the only survivor was the leader! Wouldn't he continue his evil deeds? He'd probably take over the cult tomorrow. What did losing the ability to observe matter? What did annihilating a race matter?
As for the cult leader, he didn't care about revenge or his own cult.
They also misunderstood him. The cult leader didn't care whether the black goat lived or died. He actually had a wholehearted faith in the gods, just to retrieve the Eye of Observation and let the black sun descend again.
Therefore, it doesn't matter to him who becomes that completed state.
The head of the family might be better, but what's wrong with Xie Tan?
Just like he said, didn't Xie Tan himself crash and burn? That's what the leader thinks.
Su He shot out like a bowstring released from a bow, his cloak billowing to reveal his empty heart, which was a scabbard.
The cult leader was right about one thing: the child's death... her death was all his fault. His incompetence caused him to lose time and time again.
He couldn't atone for his sins even if he died, so even though he knew the cult leader wanted to squeeze every last drop of value out of him, he still had to act.
Before he is burned to ashes by the sun's fire, he must find Su Huang and kill him!
Where is he hiding? Where is that old man hiding?
The madman failed to notice that in the fire he was rushing past, a large pool of white, viscous liquid, like the purest mirror, was spread on the ground.
Once the firelight passed, it was as if a mirror had changed angles; the liquid suddenly turned black, reflecting the same scenery around it without any sense of incongruity.
It's like animal mimicry.
The huge, earth-yellow eyes suddenly opened, curved upwards, and blinked frantically.
It was all joy, and utter mockery.
...
On their way to the mountaintop, Xie Tan and the girl encountered many ghosts and monsters.
Strangely, these monsters couldn't see him, but they could smell his pheromones; he was the one who attracted them.
No wonder the girl thought he was a mountain spirit; from her perspective, he certainly didn't look human.
But the girl didn't ask any more questions and remained calm, so he didn't say anything more, since he couldn't explain it anyway.
The monsters, however, were drawn to him but dared not approach. They simply lingered at a distance, staring intently in the direction they were in.
The closer they got to the mountaintop, the fewer ghosts and monsters they encountered. Those who were following them also stopped and dared not approach any further.
He and the girl exchanged a glance, and sure enough, there was something on the mountaintop.
“You don’t look very happy,” Xie Tan said.
The girl said softly, "The real way down the mountain is hidden at the top. It sounds counterintuitive. I hope for such a miracle because of my desire to leave, but a miracle means something unexpected... I don't like the feeling of being out of control."
Xie Tan remained noncommittal: "When did you get lost?"
"When it's foggy on the mountain," the girl asked, "don't you know?"
"Know what?"
The girl looked at him and said, "You seem to know everything."
Xie Tan: "What do you want to ask me?"
She said, "People often get lost on this mountain, as do animals and... monsters. Some people see autumn leaves in the mountains in spring and feel the heat of summer in winter, hence the name Four Seasons Mountain."
"There are all sorts of phantoms, not just strangers. Some people see their deceased relatives, some see their friends as adults, and some see another version of themselves. They look just like the real thing, but there are subtle differences. It's terrifying."
"But when you chase after it and get close, there's nothing there. If you get too close, it might disappear in the blink of an eye, or you might not be able to touch it at all, like a mirage, or like fog."
"These strange things seem to happen when the fog rolls in. When the fog dissipates, the anomalies disappear. There are rumors that there is some kind of powerful monster or treasure on the mountain that shrouds the entire mountain. No matter if it is a human, ghost, or spirit, no one can escape its torment. But it has also attracted many people who are not afraid of death."
"The flock of 'sheep' carrying lanterns must be looking for this."
Xie Tan did not answer; they reached the top of the mountain.
He grabbed her and prevented her from stepping on the stone in front of her.
The girl immediately took a step back, staring warily ahead.
The giant rock has sharp edges and a bizarre shape, as if it were carved by heaven and earth. Its surface is severely weathered, covered with cracks and fragments, and it doesn't look particularly special.
Until it trembled violently, like a wild beast that had been lying down standing up, pebbles and dust rolled down the cliff and shattered into pieces.
This is a giant spider carrying a stone on its back.
Each spider leg is formed by twisting together four human limbs, and the human hair protruding from the gaps are bristles.
It lowered its head, and on the carapace of its cephalothorax, where the eight eyes were, were eight pale, lifeless faces, each displaying a range of emotions from joy and anger to sorrow and resentment, some laughing and some glaring at them.
No wonder there were no other monsters on the mountaintop.
This is the territory where the "lion" takes a nap.
Its eight faces sniffed in the air, then stopped abruptly, like toppled dominoes, all their expressions turning to ecstasy.
It pounced on them.
Xie Tan used his umbrella to push the girl out, but he himself was pulled into the abdomen of the giant spider, and everything went dark.
The darkness wasn't because it was covered by the spider's body.
He looked around at the empty, endless darkness, a very familiar scene.
This is the space reflected in the mirror.
He did indeed feel the cold sensation of falling.
The mountain tales the girl spoke of were clearly about the Smoke Mirror, which first appeared in Four Seasons Mountain... hidden under the belly of this mountain overlord.
Suddenly, Xie Tan felt something touch his face.
The mirror is fogged up.
The fog was also black, so he didn't notice it at first. But when he looked again, the distinct layers of fog seemed to fill the boundless space, making it feel very full, even crowded.
There was no space left for him to feel lonely and afraid.
His eyes softened instantly, and he reached out and touched the air, caressing the massive black mist.
At that time, today had not yet been born.
Were they influenced by his aura from the future timeline?
In fact, he can move normally when he jumps to the future, but when he jumps to the past in the Yin Peach Blossom arc, he doesn't exist at that time, so he can only use Xiao Liu as an anchor point to be her guardian spirit.
But this time, the clock hands were in the ritual. He entered this fog and jumped to this time, which was even earlier than the time of the Yin Peach Blossom chapter, making it even more impossible for him to exist.
However, apart from the girl who was suspected to be the anchor point, the other monsters could not see him, but they could smell his pheromones, while the spiders that attacked them could see him clearly.
Is it also affected by the smoke glasses?
In the Yin Peach Blossom chapter, the monster's esophagus leading to the secret chamber also sensed his presence.
Just like in mythology, animals and plants that are nourished by gods or divine artifacts and take human form, and inanimate objects that develop intelligence, these monsters are also able to sense the existence of different times and world lines because they are near the Smoke Mirror.
But Xie Tan still felt that it wasn't just the smoke glasses that were affecting it.
Compared to the last time he jumped over, his presence seemed more "real".
Just like his ability to ignore time has become stronger.
This conjecture was later confirmed.
Various scenes appeared in the fog in the mirror, and he saw the girl.
His pheromones captivated the spider monster, instantly putting her in a safe situation; the monster then ignored her.
The girl called him, asking if he was still there, but received no response.
She watched quietly for a while, then left.
Her descent down the mountain was very smooth, without taking any unnecessary detours, but the fog in the mountains did not dissipate.
She wasn't lost at all; she knew the roads in Four Seasons Mountain very well.
She had another purpose in going up the mountain.
Most importantly, Xie Tan was not drawn back to her side until she found her family who were taking shelter from the rain in the pavilion and left with them on the way down the mountain.
One possibility is that she wasn't the anchor point he jumped to this time at all.
Another possibility is that he no longer needs an anchor point.
Xie Tan frowned. If he really had the ability of the Eye of Observation, was this a sign that he was getting stronger?
Or rather... become more complete?
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