Chapter 462: Evil God Ritual - The Boathouse

" Xie Ta ."

An extremely indistinct voice floated through the air, and Spades, standing in the boat, turned back in an instant, his lips pursed as he looked around at the circle of people trying to find Bai Liu in there.

The crowds of people walking towards the festival, dressed in costume and talking animatedly to each other, were not joined by Bai Liu.

But that was indeed Bai Liu's voice.

Spades walked against the crowd, darting his eyes around the group while simply tapping on his system panel and dropping an item to check if there were any players around besides him.

[System Alert: No other player's movement track was detected nearby.]

[System Warning: We are in the middle of a league, player Spades, you have not moved within a map for three hours, you will be given a yellow card warning for negative play, please play actively, explore the map, contact the NPCs, complete the main quest as soon as possible!

Immediately afterwards, the main quest panel pops open in front of Spades, bolded in red and almost jumping up to Spades' eyelashes as if he's afraid he won't see it.

Spades gave an expressionless sideways tsk, folded his five fingers and pushed the system panel away from him, giving it a perfunctory glance.

[System Alert: Player Spades' status is set as the (Servant) of this year's greatest sacrifice of the evil gods]

[Main Quest: Find the largest sacrifice and offer it to the other side to make a wish to the evil god].

The sacrifice you are looking for is the one that has been tortured for the longest time since the festival's inception and has accumulated the most pain.

Spades reluctantly read through the main quest again under system compulsion, and the next second after retrieving his panel, he was off searching the crowd for Bai Liu.

A few young girls in summer kimonos whispered, brushing past Spades.

"I heard this year, is the Gifune family going to sacrifice that one?"

"It can't be, can it? How can our evil god festival be carried out properly when the Gifune family treasured that one so much, hid him for so many years, and sacrificed him?"

"I heard that the Gifune family has been instructed in their dreams that this one will not be needed for the Evil God Festival in the future, and that the Evil God-sama will choose a new successor."

As a violent player who never gathers information, Spades walked past the group of talking NPCs as if he hadn't heard them, without looking at them.

A few moments later, some more grown men in bathing suits walked past Spades with laughter.

"Last year my family caught a sacrifice at the Funeral Palace Night Festival made a successful wish at the Sea Shrine and had a pretty good year, and this year we caught another one, so it looks like we should have a pretty good year next year too."

"No matter how well they live, they can't possibly compare to the Mifune family." One man rubbed his chin with a sigh, "Ever since the fire five years ago, when the Bei Yuan family was burned to the ground and the biggest sacrifice fell into the hands of the Mifune family, I knew that Luming County would be under the rule of the Mifune family for the next twenty years."

"Eh, didn't they say that this year the Gifune family is going to sacrifice their biggest offering?" A man next to me poked his head in the air and asked, "Is that true? Isn't it said that this sacrifice is very evil? Wasn't it because the Bei Yuan family was devastated by this sacrifice that they did that?"

"After a fire people died and went mad, leaving only a few demented offspring to live their lives guarding two or three inferior sacrifices that could not be sacrificed at first glance."

"Hush." The man who had first said he had caught the sacrifice had a solemn look on his face, his eyes darted from side to side and his voice lowered, "If you don't want to be punished, you fools will give me less to talk about that incident five or six years ago."

"Five years ago, almost half the village could have been emptied of this offering, a large number of people committed suicide by jumping into the sea and everyone was terrified of the shrine."

The man's eyes were serious as he warned, "Why do you think the shrine has been moved to the sea? Isn't it because people are afraid to be on the same piece of land as the shrine anymore?"

Several men were instantly silenced and gathered with shrunken heads, walking in silence right in front of Spades.

But Spades was still not listening to what these people were saying and continued to walk towards the end of his gaze.

The system almost relented and popped up a panel that

[Please pay attention to the main quest information given by the npc's around you when talking! You have already missed two key quest messages!

Spades paused: "Why should I pay attention to what they say?"

The system panel shows: [Some of the key information of the game will be given to players in the form of npc conversations, so please be aware of the information around you.

"Is that so?" Spades face was devoid of any emotion, "I thought the game designer wanted me to follow the path he designed for the game and that's why he gave me the message on purpose like that?"

"I don't like to play the game that way."

Spades drew his whip, his black eyes reflecting the large, gilded ships docked in the harbour, and his tone was cold: "Playing the game like this, what's the difference between me and these set-up npc's?"

"It's not even my game, it's his game."

The system panel popped up and disappeared from Spades' face, who gripped the whip without emotion and walked straight towards the large ship docked in the harbour by the sea.

He walked down to the harbour - the same place where Spades had heard Bai Liu's voice coming from earlier - and with a sweep of his gaze looked around.

On the side of the harbour is a huge wooden platform with a gable structure with raised corners and a wooden stage for the performance of ritual dances, with a thick knotted rope hanging around the wooden frame, from which white paper is hung at regular intervals to ward off evil spirits.

Underneath the high platform there is a wooden board with the words written in red paint: [The place where the dance of the divine priest is performed].

Across the high platform, down the harbour, a large, gilded ship is docked, or perhaps a large ship is not an apt description; it is a stage for a theatrical performance in the shape of a ship.

The stage is made in the shape of a boat and has three tiers, each with many light bulbs on the sides and directly above the top, which light up like daylight at night and shine brightly on the centre stage.

All the curtains are suspended from the sides by loops, so there are layers of heavy crimson velvet curtains on either side and a polished wooden floor in the middle.

Two actors in hari-kari costumes are sitting on two wooden stools opposite each other in the middle of the stage, separated by a piece of watery glass, looking at each other through the watery glass, and next to them stands a male actor wearing a shimmering coat of quicksand.

A small display board was placed directly in front of the stage, and on it was written - "The Evil Gods Festival Play - Act 1".

The chairs are neatly arranged at the bottom of the stage with a group of people watching the play with great interest, the chairs are not full and new people are constantly coming from afar to sit in the chairs and join the audience.

A newcomer to the audience asked those who had been watching for a while.

"What's the play about?"

The veteran audience member sidled up to the new audience member who had just sat down and whispered, "This play is a traditional part of our annual Luming County festival, about the emergence, development and changes of the festival, and we're only in the first act."

Someone inquired curiously, "This first act, what is it about?"

"This first act is a background introduction about the process of the evil gods choosing their heirs to come to earth and preside over the evil gods' festival." The old audience member pointed to the three actors on stage, "The ones sitting on either side of the watery wall are the heirs chosen by the evil gods, and the one next to him in the bright-coloured sarong is our evil god lord."

The two actors sitting on stools on the stage suddenly jerked to their feet and exchanged insults as they fiercely sparred across the watery wall:

"I am the one most appreciated by the Lord of Evil! I am the most exceptional heir!"

"I am the one who is the logical successor to the evil god!"

The old spectator was so amused that he shook his head and explained: "The Lord of Evil created all living things and chose his heirs among them, and finally there were two heirs who met the requirements. --"

The "evil god" on the stage nodded his head with his hands behind his back, looking at the two "heirs" who were competing for the top spot: "You are both excellent, but there is only one successor to me."

"I will erase all your memories and drop you into all the world lines I have created to experience, and you two will be given two different identities, that of [sacrifice] and [squire]."

"The [sacrifice] will be helped by me during the training, while the [squire] will be hindered by me in countless ways." "The evil god" walked around the two heirs in a condescending manner, "but this status is not fixed, but can be exchanged at any moment, and at any moment, the one who suffers more will become the [sacrifice] and the one who suffers less will become the [squire]. "

"At the end of all the world line adventures, [the sacrifice] will become the next evil god after sacrificing pain and soul to me."

"And [the squire] will lose everything he has, friends, loved ones, lovers, and souls."

At this moment, the older audience members were just nodding in agreement from the stage: "Yes, that's right, that's where the Luming County [sacrifice] [squire] system came from."

With his back to the audience, the heir sitting across the watery wall suddenly spoke softly, " Xie Ta ."

--This is the voice of Bai Liu!

Spades, who was searching for the stage, looked up sharply and without any hesitation he jumped up with one hand on the edge of the stage.

The moment he jumped up, the curtain fell behind him and the stage was shrouded in darkness. Spades heard the noise of the audience outside disappear in a moment, and the regular footsteps of the three actors on stage sounded, gradually overlapping to form a single figure approaching Spades.

The stage lights, which had been blinding to the point of dazzling, suddenly lit up around him, turning into a stream of cosmic stars, the light swirling in Spades' emotionless eyes, reflecting the man who was approaching him.

Bai six curled his lips, "Long time no see, Spades."

Spades stared at him, not answering.

Bai six's eyes dropped and he saw the black bone whip that Spades held in his palm and the smile on his face deepened, "The whip I gave you, is it working?"

[System Alert: Player Spades triggers a plot point and enters "The Festival of the Evil Gods - Act II Play"]