Chapter 4: Sacrifice Complete, System Activated

His stomach felt heavy as it sank downward.

His body felt light and cold.

His rapid heartbeat struck like a bell in his head, his eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and he gradually sank into pitch blackness.

On the ground was an altar stained with fresh blood; faint black qi rose from the void, greedy and mad, drilling into Feng Mu's body.

Feng Mu closed his eyes, as if asleep, lying motionless on the ground, only his lips kept wriggling, muttering strange, inhuman syllables in his sleep.

Low, evil.

In the dark, cramped space, time seemed to have lost its measure; only an invisible progress bar crawled forward at a snail's pace.

And the further it went, the slower it got, just like Baidu Netdisk from his past life.

Perhaps one minute had passed, perhaps one hour.

Feng Mu suddenly opened his eyes, dazedly staring at the progress bar before him—【Blood and Iron in progress... 63%!!!】

"???" Feng Mu exclaimed in shock: "Stuck, what ghost?"

A question mark appeared above Feng Mu's head, and just as he was pondering what the problem was, a short, dull collision sound reached his ears.

Feng Mu's face changed, and he held his breath.

Bang!

"The sound is coming from..."

Feng Mu glared at the wooden rack blocking his line of sight, pricked up his ears and listened for a while, his heart thumping.

"There's someone else in the warehouse."

Feng Mu immediately understood why the ritual had been interrupted.

"The ritual process requires silence; noise from beyond one wall interfered with my sacrifice."

Feng Mu darkened his face, searching his Nao Hai for knowledge of sacrifice.

Soon, Feng Mu got the answer.

The good news was that the ritual had not failed, only paused; he could click to continue, and the progress bar could still resume;

The bad news was that he had to wait for the person outside to leave, otherwise the ritual would still be interrupted by noise.

To be safe, Feng Mu could wait for the person outside to leave before continuing; only, he was willing to wait, but his body might not be able to wait.

His damp wrist, his sinking stomach—every breath reminded him that the hourglass of his life was almost empty, and not stopping for a second.

"Usually there isn't even a ghost shadow here, why today of all days, I really am fucking..."

Anger like a branding iron driven into his chest made every pore evaporate with killing intent.

Feng Mu got up from the ground, moving step by step behind the wooden rack.

He walked very slowly, but every step moved forward heavily.

To avoid panting, Feng Mu could only bite his lips hard; his pale lips were bitten raw without even blood flowing, and large beads of sweat ran down his forehead into his bloodshot, hideous eyeballs, stinging with pain.

His body pressed against the wall crevice moved slowly, first revealing half his face, his crimson eyeballs unblinking as they peered toward the source of the noise.

The warehouse had no lights on; a cracked cell phone screen on the ground glowed, its cold blue light faintly outlining the air.

A man knelt on the ground, both hands raised high, striking downward; a body lay on the ground, half its face smashed into a bloody pulp.

He was probably already dead, motionless.

"Murder!"

"He definitely can't leave for a while; after all, after killing someone he has to hide the body, and he might even find behind the wooden rack."

"What bad luck, no wait, isn't this a sacrifice delivered to the door?"

"A madman, a ruthless beast; the rules seem not to say I can only choose one? ~"

"Maybe it's not bad luck, but good luck?"

The man was still striking with all his might, completely unaware that a face had appeared in the darkness behind him, and the sound of flesh being smashed out of shape even covered the sound of approaching footsteps.

He struck too absorbed, letting out cruel roars from his mouth: "Why won't you listen to me, I gave you all my money, why suddenly resist, deserve death, deserve death."

He raised his blood-stained hand high once more, then brought it down heavily.

Only,

This time, the shadow of his arm cast on the ground was especially long, eerily as if it had grown an extra segment.

Clang—

Fresh blood spattered; the corpse's eye socket cracked and caved in; under the gaze of the black, hollow eye socket, a horn hammer with a backward hook froze on that hysterical face, embedded in the brow.

Two corpses embraced on the ground.

The corpse was dragged, leaving twisted bloodstains on the ground, rubbing against the wall and the wooden rack.

Thus,

The sacrifice ritual continued to activate.

【Blood and Iron in progress...】

【63%, 64%, 65%】

【98%, 99%, 100%】

Feng Mu, his body drained of the last thread of strength, fell into a deep sleep; beside him, a corpse likewise slept the sleep of death, the crimson welling from its brow and the black blood already congealed on the ground faintly overlapping.

【101%, 102%, 103%】

【156%, 157%, 158%】

【198%, 199%, 200%】

【You, who have shed mortal blood, devoured ruthless iron, and been reborn in Blood and Iron, are both a fearless madman and a cowardly, ruthless beast; Fate is watching you!】

【Congratulations, player, you have completed the activation quest; the Game Inheritance System is now officially running!】

【Congratulations, Player. You have obtained the Activation Gift Pack. The rewards are as follows:

1. Inherit Trait 【Iron Eater】

2. Inherit Trait 【Blood Frenzy】 (Passive)

3. Inherit Trait 【Grand Feast】 (Active)】

Feng Mu woke once more. When he opened his eyes again, the time had already reached the latter half of the night.

Inside the room, it was pitch black, not a shred of light.

He turned on his phone and shone it toward the floor.

The blood patterns had congealed into a dark brown, like corrosive paint, deeply seeping into the ground, branding cracks of varying depth.

The ground seemed as if it had truly been chiseled into an embedded altar.

In the middle of the altar lay a shriveled, wrinkled corpse.

Feng Mu lowered his head, pondering how to handle it.

"The most important thing is this altar that looks wrong at a glance. How am I supposed to cover it up?"

Feng Mu felt a bit of a headache. He had no tools on hand, and dawn was approaching (the Upper City lights would come on). He dared not stay at the scene any longer.

"It's all the sacrificial ritual's fault. Why can't it clean up the scene itself? No after-sales service? Bad review!!!"

Feng Mu complained in his heart, then glanced at the time, and in one go stuffed the blades and the horn hammer on the ground into his schoolbag, leaving through the window.

Climbing out the window, he circled to the warehouse front gate. Seeing the iron lock that had been violently pried open and dropped on the ground, Feng Mu figured out how those two had gotten in.

Feng Mu picked up the lock from the ground and locked the door again.

"As long as no one comes by this week, I might be able to find a way to dispose of the corpse later."

Feng Mu thought to himself. Under cover of night, he scaled the wall and left the school, hurrying home.

This was absolutely the first time since Feng Mu transmigrated that he genuinely thanked this world from the bottom of his heart.

Mhm~

Thank this world, thank the Lower City, thank the Nine Districts Government for not installing surveillance cameras everywhere, protecting every citizen's privacy.

Thank you so much~

He arrived home at 05:43.

The house was quiet, clearly everyone had gone to sleep.

As a marginal figure in the house, no lamp was left for him in the deep night. It sounds bleak, but Feng Mu only felt relaxed.

He tiptoed back into his room, stripped off his dirty clothes and packed them up, planning to find some out-of-the-way corner to burn them tomorrow.

"The blades and the horn hammer also need a place to be buried."

Feng Mu lay on the bed, calculated for a while, and only then did his tense, excited emotions finally get a breather. His attention turned to the activated system.

【Iron Eater】, 【Blood Frenzy】, 【Grand Feast】!

Three lit icons appeared next to his character panel, one silver, two gold.

According to the game's markings, silver represents A-Rank rarity, gold represents S Ji rarity.

"So that's one A and two S right at the start!!!"

Feng Mu's eyes went wide, looking like he'd been knocked silly by a pie falling from the sky — a golden filling pie.

And the descriptions of the three skill traits indeed lived up to the ratings given by the game.

【Iron Eater】: Eat iron as food. You can absorb the power contained within iron.

【Blood Frenzy】: All your attributes will multiply as you lose blood. If your base attributes are high enough, then you at a sliver of health might even counter-kill a god.

【Grand Feast】: The blood of your kind is filled with alluring fragrance. Devour them, and you shall attain eternal life~

Feng Mu sucked in a mouthful of cold air: "If I haven't misunderstood, these three paragraphs translate to — eating iron makes you stronger, low health I go berserk, and..... everyone is my blood bag?!!!"

Growth god-tier skill + late-game god-tier skill + sustain god-tier skill = System Dad's matched activation package. Just tell me, do you kneel or not~

"Good thing I killed someone. Otherwise I'd have missed 【Grand Feast】 and the package wouldn't be complete!" Feng Mu thought.

Anyone with eyes can see 【Blood Frenzy】 and 【Grand Feast】 are a pair of pure-love siblings. No one can separate them. Just like human and beast, they are originally two sides of one body. Missing either makes it incomplete.

Suppressing the excitement in his heart, Feng Mu slowly calmed down.

"This package is plenty badass, but cashing it all in needs time to settle. In short, I still have to lie low and develop in the early game, eat iron to get stronger."

Feng Mu sincerely wished he could fast-forward straight to the late game. Too bad he knew that was just a dream.

However, getting stronger is no longer hard for him. He just needs to eat iron. He believes this process won't take too long.

With a plan in mind, Feng Mu closed his eyes. A line of game prompts popped up on cue.

【This game has been fully activated and loaded into reality!】

【From now on, as long as the player continuously does things befitting the game identity, progress can be accumulated. As the progress bar rises, the player will gradually inherit the game's characters and assets.】

【When the progress bar reaches 100%, the player will fully inherit the game character: the Ruling Fate Organization!】

The screen-filling 'Dou Sha' shocked Feng Mu so much his eyelids twitched. He gritted his teeth and closed the pop-up, grumbling in his heart: "Totally unnecessary. It's already one silver two gold. Why gamble on bicycle to motorcycle? Isn't honestly eating iron fragrant?"

With a steady method, only a fool would take desperate risks. Feng Mu just wants to eat iron now. After all, what difficulty could eating iron have, right~

(End of Chapter)