Chapter 179: A Share for All Who See

Speaking of the specific method, Yin Junhao paused for a moment, then said, "President Li, have you ever heard of an Earthly Kingdom of Gods?"

Wu Chang said expressionlessly, "Let's hear it."

Yin Junhao gave a rough explanation of the concept of the Earthly Kingdom of Gods. There was nothing wrong with the content, but he exaggerated quite a bit in degree, claiming that once the Earthly Kingdom of Gods was established, the entire Gao Mu nation and even the whole world would fall into the hands of an evil god.

"The entire Star Leap cruise ship has already merged with the mysterious ritual arranged by the Xinyuzhou Sect. Several key nodes of the ritual are distributed at critical locations throughout the ship."

True to form for someone from a research society, Yin Junhao opened the tablet computer in his hand, displaying the structural diagram of the Star Leap on the screen.

"Right now the Star Leap is under your management, President Li. We would like to ask you to join hands with us and help us enter the ritual nodes."

Wu Chang took the tablet, slid his finger across the diagram, and said in a tone that carried little enthusiasm:

"And then? You fellows describe the Earthly Kingdom of Gods like it's the end of the world, and all you need to do is enter these few places to save the world directly?"

Yin Junhao glanced back covertly, then said:

"It's not us who save the world. Mortals are nothing but ants before the gods; only gods can fight gods. What we need to do is modify the ritual composition of the Earthly Kingdom of Gods, siphon off part of its power, summon our true god, and have the true god suppress the evil god."

Wu Chang's finger sliding across the screen came to a stop. These bastards from Revelation really did come to pluck the fruit.

"Then why don't you just seize all the power and summon your true god?"

Yin Junhao shook his head and said, "The Xinyuzhou Sect has already branded the offering. The brand connects directly to the evil god. We can't simply sever the connection between the offering and the evil god just by modifying the ritual."

"President Li, I'm not exaggerating. This matter concerns not only Gao Mu nation, but all of humanity. We must stop the Xinyuzhou Sect!"

Wu Chang pressed his lips together, shook his head slightly, turned off the screen of the tablet in his hand, and tossed it onto the table.

"Sounds somewhat interesting, but I refuse."

The moment these words came out, the expressions of the players behind Yin Junhao each differed. Blood Wolf showed obvious hostility, his body slightly hunched as he entered a combat stance; the haggard girl narrowed her eyes, her fingers tracing shapes in the air as if preparing some skill.

The mysterious youth who had killed the fisherman, meanwhile, showed a thoughtful look, wondering if the fish he'd hooked was too big, making Wu Chang ready to cooperate with Zheng Ruiyuan.

Yin Junhao grew a bit flustered and asked, "President Li, may I have a reason for your refusal?"

Wu Chang said in an indifferent tone, "How do you prove what you're saying is true? Just based on the fairy tale you told?"

Yin Junhao: "President Li, could you trust our President Cui?"

Wu Chang said, "I do."

Yin Junhao breathed a sigh of relief. He said, "We can bring President Cui to the ritual nodes, let him personally identify the ritual, and witness our entire operation. That way you won't have to worry about whether we're lying."

Wu Chang's next words made the heart Yin Junhao had just set down hang in suspense again.

Wu Chang said, "But even if you prove what you're saying is true, I still don't agree."

Yin Junhao grew a bit anxious. "Then why?"

"Troublesome."

Wu Chang showed a look of distaste on his face. "If it's real, just destroy the ritual, why do I need to accompany you in modifying it and then let it successfully activate?"

Yin Junhao explained, "But simply destroying the ritual can only delay the Xinyuzhou Sect's actions; it cannot truly prevent the evil god's descent. We must seize this opportunity to..."

Knock knock knock.

Wu Chang bent his fingers and tapped the table a few times, cutting off Yin Junhao's ensuing long-winded speech.

"What does any of this have to do with me?"

Yin Junhao: "Huh?"

The evil god's descent will bring about the end of the world, threatening all of humanity, and you say it has nothing to do with you?

Wu Chang said indifferently, "Stopping the evil god is your business."

"Many people know I'm on the Star Leap. If, according to your plan, the Earthly Kingdom of Gods activates and the passengers on the Star Leap all become offerings, then when the Star Leap docks and people discover an entire ship of passengers missing, I'll become the focus of the incident."

Yin Junhao: "With the power of your family, President Li, suppressing this matter shouldn't be difficult."

Wu Chang said flatly, "Li Yubin is on the ship. Are you planning to convince her, or eliminate her and the Sanshang Group behind her?"

Yin Junhao began to sweat.

Wu Chang did not actually intend to refuse. Seeing the situation was about right, just as the brainless Blood Wolf was about to lose patience, he threw out a solution to the problem.

"You can activate the ritual, but I want the passengers on the ship alive. How you do it, figure it out yourselves."

For Revelation, this was not an impossible demand. The Earthly Kingdom of Gods they had prepared to activate in Wanghai City only consumed the mysterious seeds on the offering, without sacrificing the host along with it.

Yin Junhao's face showed a look of difficulty. He appeared to be thinking, but was actually listening to someone's instructions.

After a moment, he raised his head, as if making a decision that betrayed his ancestors, and said, "Alright, we'll do our best to figure something out."

Wu Chang asked, "The calls from the deep sea keep increasing, our time is tight. When do you plan to start?"

Yin Junhao immediately said, "If possible, I hope it's right now!"

The group's first stop was likewise the bridge of the Star Leap.

The temporary crew members like Zheng Chengxun were all navy personnel who had previously served as captain or crew and led sacrificial rituals.

Perhaps due to the influence of past sacrificial rituals, their intuition was异于常人; once night fell, the calls in their ears were especially clear.

To prevent the temporary captain from jumping into the sea first, crew members like Zheng Chengxun would return to the fourth floor at night, where they were watched over by dedicated personnel until the sun rose and the calls from the deep sea disappeared, at which point they would return to the bridge.

Precisely because of this, the bridge at night had no one else present, making it very convenient for the group to move about.

Upon entering the bridge, Yin Junhao and the others observed the mysterious ritual arrangement inside. Yin Junhao let out a soft exclamation of wonder:

"It really is an Earthly Kingdom of Gods ritual. I never thought in my lifetime I'd get to see the real thing."

The planar natives who had come with him looked around and likewise exclaimed in wonder. The three players following behind them, apart from the mysterious man who had killed the fisherman carefully studying the ritual arrangement, Blood Wolf and the haggard loli showed no particular interest in the Earthly Kingdom of Gods.

The two were likely pure combat-class players and knew nothing of the mysterious arts.

Including that mysterious person from Revelation, the gazes of Yin Junhao and the others swept repeatedly over the embedded ritual arranged by Cui Chengze, yet they failed to detect anything amiss.

From the current situation, Cui Chengze's mastery of the mysterious arts seemed even greater than he had claimed.

While Yin Junhao and the others were taking photos as souvenirs, Cui Chengze did not completely become a background prop. Instead, drawing on the skill of a seasoned actor, he approached Yin Junhao with a somewhat bewildered look and said:

"Vice President Yin, is this the legendary Earthly Kingdom of Gods?"

The word "vice" that came from Cui Chengze's mouth grated especially harshly on Yin Junhao's ears. If he had a choice, he wouldn't want to deal with this dead old man at all—his family long since fallen, eking out a living by going on television to swindle and deceive.

Especially after he was defeated by this old man and had the position of president snatched away, every word he exchanged with Cui Chengze made his blood pressure feel like it was about to burst.

If he could, he would pretend he hadn't heard, but unfortunately he couldn't. If by any chance Cui Chengze couldn't understand the Earthly Divine Kingdom and couldn't prove it for him, he wouldn't be able to answer to Wu Chang.

Yin Junhao pinched his nose and endured it, opened an encrypted file from the tablet, then handed the tablet to Cui Chengze. "President Cui, the Earthly Divine Kingdom actually appeared in history. The royal occult masters of that time made detailed records. While we have the time, you can get a brief understanding."

The file in the tablet was a scanned copy of an ancient book.

Wu Chang leaned over to Cui Chengze's side, and together they looked at the photos on the screen. According to the ancient book's description, over a thousand years ago, Gao Mu had already been targeted by an evil god.

That evil god possessed powerful divine power; wherever it passed, it brought endless panic. Those who believed in it began to go mad, became aggressive, and even gradually transformed into monsters.

Faced with the powerful evil god, ordinary people had no power to resist. At the time, the five strongest occult masters of Gao Mu joined forces, and with the royal family's support, brought along eight hundred armored soldiers to exterminate the evil god and its believers. In the end, not a single one survived.

To deal with the evil god, Gao Mu could only seek help from the suzerain state.

To fight the evil god, a Daoist Priest from the suzerain state led the only two remaining occult masters of the Gao Mu royal family and laid out the only Earthly Divine Kingdom recorded in Gao Mu's history.

The Earthly Divine Kingdom summoned the power of the divine; a deity descended upon a clay statue, and the clay statue battled the evil god for ten days and ten nights, fighting until the heavens darkened and the sun and moon lost their light.

Although neither side possessed the ability to annihilate the Great Dao, the aftershocks of their battle nearly wiped out the Gao Mu royal family of that time. In the end, the clay statue chased the evil god from the land all the way out to sea, slaying it in the depths of the ocean.

The ancient book scanned on the tablet was recorded by the two royal occult masters on the side while the Daoist Priest was arranging the Earthly Divine Kingdom ritual.

!

Cui Chengze examined the scanned ancient book on the tablet very carefully. He not only looked through the arrangement of the Earthly Divine Kingdom, but also flipped back and forth through many of the records multiple times.

It was not until Yin Junhao and the others had finished discussing how to modify the Earthly Divine Kingdom ritual that Cui Chengze finally stopped.

He looked at Yin Junhao, frowned, and said:

"The ancient book scanned in your computer..."

Yin Junhao revealed a smile full of arrogance and said:

"It's perfectly normal that President Cui hasn't seen it. Many rare materials on occult studies are kept in the research society's secret archives and are not circulated externally. Only a lineage that has never been broken for several hundred years can accumulate this kind of wealth."

Cui Chengze: "This book is from my family. I even read it as a child. On the bottom corner of the second-to-last page, there's a 'Ze' written in pencil — that's something I wrote when I was three years old."

Yin Junhao: "..."

He took the tablet and flipped to the image Cui Chengze had mentioned, and sure enough, found the mark the other had described on it.

In a daze, he recalled his father mentioning something about this ancient book — it seemed it had originally been in the hands of some废物, and they had used a small trick to set a trap, forcing the other party into massive debt, leaving them no choice but to surrender the book to repay it.

Yin Junhao swallowed hard with great effort and laughed dryly:

"It must be that President Cui's family fell on hard times at the time, and the research society, worried that your family had no conditions to store the ancient book, helped your family store it out of a sense of duty. This book has entered the research society's collection and is already the wealth of all occult practitioners in Gao Mu. Although we can't return it to you, if you want to read it, I can copy this set of images for you free of charge."

Regardless of Cui Chengze's reaction, Wu Chang listened from the side and couldn't help baring his teeth.

In his impression, even the black-society thugs who committed every evil under Li Zaishi rarely managed to utter such shameless remarks.

He patted Cui Chengze on the shoulder, told the old man to bear with it for now, and that there'd be plenty of time to deal with this vice president later.

Cui Chengze took several deep breaths, pressed down certain unpleasant memories that had just risen from the depths of his heart, and said expressionlessly: "Then I should thank the research society."

Yin Junhao: "We're all one family among occult practitioners, it's only right."

While they were talking here, the other side had already finished preparations. Seeing this, Yin Junhao hurriedly called Cui Chengze and Wu Chang over to witness their operation.

Yin Junhao pointed at the mysterious person who had killed the fisherman and introduced: "This is Ma Jia. Don't be fooled by his youth — his understanding of occult rituals runs deep. This modification of the Earthly Divine Kingdom was carried out by him."

Ma Jia still didn't know that Wu Chang had already discovered he was the fisherman. He continued to act like a withdrawn, invisible nobody, pressed his lips together and bowed to everyone, then unzipped his jacket to reveal his bare upper body.

Immediately afterward, everyone saw the muscles across his entire upper body begin to writhe. His muscles, blood vessels, and blood all converged toward his left hand, causing his left hand to swell beyond all reason.

He took out a knife and cut a slit in the palm of his swollen left hand, then dropped to one knee and pressed his left hand against the ritual's center point in the room for the Earthly Divine Kingdom.

Countless grotesque fragments of flesh and blood surged out from his palm and sank into the core of the formation.

These fragments of flesh and blood were like individual living beings — some moved the arrangements within the formation, others altered the runes inscribed in the ritual by merging into the formation itself.

With the participation of the flesh and blood, the formation's core in the room seemed to come alive, transforming its appearance on its own.

In less than ten minutes, the occult ritual in the cockpit was modified. At first glance it looked no different from before; only upon close inspection, after tearing away that layer of flesh-and-blood disguise on the ritual's surface, could one see that the entire ritual had undergone tremendous changes.

Having lost a great deal of flesh and blood to modify the occult ritual, Ma Jia looked somewhat weak. He staggered to his feet and nodded to Yin Junhao.

Yin Junhao then looked at Wu Chang and said: "President Li, the first ritual node has been modified. We've added an additional deity for the ritual to ultimately point toward, and we've also altered the method of sacrifice. The ritual will now separate the sacrificer from the occult seed, no longer forcibly binding the two together."

"You and President Cui witnessed the entire process. If President Cui has any questions about the formation, or can't quite understand it for the moment, he can stay and study it for a while longer. We've shown sufficient goodwill and sincerity — you should believe us now, shouldn't you?"

Wu Chang looked at Cui Chengze. Cui Chengze gave him a look that said no problem. He said:

"If President Cui has no objections, then I have none either."

Cui Chengze's gaze shifted from the ritual's core to Ma Jia and the others, and he asked the question he had wanted to ask from the very beginning.

"Vice President Yin, are they members of the research society too? When I was exchanging views with the various members of the research society before, why hadn't I ever seen them?"

Yin Junhao explained without changing expression: "They're all mixed-blood; they've been active abroad all this time, responsible for spreading the occult history of our Gao Mu in preparation for the heritage application. It's perfectly normal that President Cui hasn't seen them."

Yin Junhao's answer — Cui Chengze didn't believe a single punctuation mark of it. If these three monsters were really members of the research society, Yin Junhao would absolutely have spared no expense to bring them back to the country to help him hold onto the president's seat.

But that wasn't the main point, and Cui Chengze didn't press further. He said:

"Since President Li thinks so highly of me, I naturally cannot let down President Li's trust. To be honest, I haven't yet figured out your arrangement of the Earthly Divine Kingdom. I need to study it in detail before I can give President Li a conclusion."

Yin Junhao wasn't surprised by this. He said: "That's fine. The reason I was in such a hurry to modify the Earthly Divine Kingdom in the middle of the night wasn't to avoid those temporary crew members, but to give President Cui an entire evening to study it."

"No need to rush. We still have plenty of time — more than enough for President Cui to study it slowly."

After leaving behind the tablet containing the records of the Earthly Divine Kingdom, Yin Junhao departed with Ma Jia and the others like a victor, leaving only Wu Chang and Cui Chengze in the cockpit.

Only now did Wu Chang ask:

"Did you understand the method they used to modify the Earthly Divine Kingdom just now?"

Cui Chengze revealed a confident smile and said disdainfully:

"Ever since I barely escaped with my life from the shipwreck, there's nothing in the field of occult studies that can stump me. Although I can't directly modify the ritual's root the way that kid called Ma Jia did, by merging his own flesh and blood into the ritual, I've already figured out the思路 behind their modification."

Wu Chang asked with concern: "Can you make further modifications on the basis of what they changed?"

Cui Chengze said: "Of course. The思路 behind their modification is very clever — I hadn't thought of it before, but after seeing it, replicating it isn't difficult."

"Simply put, the passengers on the ship are like a box of banknotes, and the Earthly Divine Kingdom ritual is an ATM machine. In the original design, activating the Earthly Divine Kingdom ritual is equivalent to stuffing the banknotes into the ATM. Only the evil god worshipped by the Xinyuzhou Sect knows the withdrawal password and can automatically take this box of banknotes out."

"After Yin Junhao and his people tampered with it, they directly canceled the withdrawal password, and increased the withdrawal windows from one to two; the other one connects straight to the so-called true god they speak of."

"According to the way they modified it, once the Earthly Kingdom ritual activates, this stack of paper currency will be withdrawn by both gods at the same time. Whoever withdraws more depends entirely on whose hands are faster. With intent against the unprepared, it's very possible that true god could take the lion's share."

"The more paper currency withdrawn, the more power descends once it's converted into energy. By then, it really might be possible to defeat that evil god."

Wu Chang's eyes lit up at this, and he asked: "Didn't you say replicating their modification isn't hard? Could you add one more withdrawal window?"

Cui Chengze said, puzzled: "Adding one more isn't hard, the question is who to add it for. President Li, can you also get in touch with a god?"

Wu Chang blinked and said: "Yes. Its divine name is Holy Light."

(End of chapter)