Stranger Danger

Duanmu Longhua abruptly turned toward the Goddess Wall Paintings and dropped to her knees. Then, she raised her hands over her head and performed a full kowtow[1].

“You can kowtow all you want. I’m still not going to let you live.”

Duanmu Longhua’s action confused Ye Qing, but he had a bad feeling about this. That was why he decided to throw a punch even before he reached the city lord.

Unfortunately, radiant light burst out of the Rainbow Lake, Moon Altar, and Spring Garden before his fist force could turn her into paste.

As the pillars of light shot into the sky, the colorful light hanging above everyone’s head shot into the sky and joined them.

In this case, everyone did not just include the elders and disciples on the battlefield. It included the disciples and stewards residing in the inner city, the common populace residing in the outer city, and even the visitors who had come to participate in the Goddess Festival.

Previously, the light of one’s destiny and fortune was only visible to the city lord thanks to the Destiny Revealing Disc. But now, everyone could see it.

Physically, the victims felt nothing wrong despite losing their purple, gold, red, or white lights. But mentally, they suddenly found their surroundings much more unfamiliar than before. Everything around them be it tangible objects such as the flora and fauna or intangible things such as the air and clouds loathed and rejected them for some reason, and even their true qi and spirit were flowing stutteringly as if there was a clog somewhere.

They felt loathed by the heavens, abandoned by the earth, hated by gods, and shunned by ghosts. To speak was blasphemy against the world. To breathe was to commit a sin against nature. Even their very birth and existence felt sinful and wrong.

Most people were completely confused by this sudden change, but the elders of Goddess City and especially Nail Grandma and Tiger Master Gong knew exactly what was going on. They knew that everyone had just lost their fortune and destiny.

The reason the two of them joined Goddess City in the first place was to enjoy the benefits of great fortune. The three goddesses stole the people’s fortune, and Duanmu Longhua shared part of that fortune with them as payment for their service.

Better fortune did not boost their power directly, but it was a massive boon in many indirect ways. For example, a warrior with great fortune would enjoy good luck, smooth cultivation, immunity to heart demons and so on.

In fact, it was all thanks to the fortune Duanmu Longhua bestowed them that they were able to rise to where they were right now.

But now, their fortune had just left them. How could they not panic? How could they not be afraid?

“What is the meaning of this, Duanmu Longhua? What are you doing?”

Nail Grandma and Tiger Master Gong blanched as they yelled at the city lord. They never imagined that the master they served would turn against them. “Stop this! Stop this now!”

Duanmu Longhua paid them no attention however, and no matter what they tried, they were unable to prevent their fortune from leaking. They could only watch helplessly as their fortune gradually flew away and joined the pillars of light in the sky.

“If you’re going to betray us, then don’t blame us for doing the same, Duanmu Longhua!”

Nail Grandma and Tiger Master Gong could barely contain their fury. They had lost over half of their fortune in just the span of breaths, and it was showing no signs of stopping whatsoever. At this rate, they were going to lose everything and become as unfortunate as the simple, foolish bastards whose fortune they robbed!

Every nail in Nail Grandma’s legs abruptly shot out and flew toward Duanmu Longhua. Covered in puss and filth, the nails surged toward the city lord like a river of blood and painted the space they traveled through dark red.

On the other side, Tiger Master Gong slapped his belly and let out an animalistic roar. Countless chang ghosts flew out of his mouth until the world resembled hell itself.

Unfortunately, their attacks came to a sudden stop when they were inches away from Duanmu Longhua. It looked as if they were stopped by some sort of invisible barrier.

It wasn’t just Nail Grandma and Tiger Master Gong. Ye Qing’s punch was blocked by the invisible barrier as well.

“I sacrifice this fortune to you, goddesses!” Duanmu Longhua let out a low growl as the pillars of light in the sky joined together to form the word “Fortune”. It was a… sacrificial altar?

This was Duanmu Longhua’s final and greatest trump card. It was called the Goddess Sacrifice.

Goddess Sacrifice transformed the entire Goddess City into a sacrificial altar and sacrificed everyone's fortune to the goddesses. This would allow the goddesses to descend in their true bodies and fall under her control.

Goddess Sacrifice was a ritual that sacrificed the entire city to the goddesses, but in fact, it had a second layer of meaning. It also meant sacrificing the goddesses themselves.

In fact, Goddess Sacrifice was not meant to be used this way. Had everything gone as planned, she would have activated it only when she was ascending to sagehood. At a certain point all ascensions came with its tribulations, and hers was not an exception. She wasn’t so arrogant as to think that she could overcome her tribulation without backup. That was why she was going to sacrifice everyone’s fortune and summon the goddesses’ true bodies to block her tribulation. When the time came, she would become a Sage, destroy the three goddesses in one stroke, and break free from their control all at once. She would’ve been able to kill multiple birds with one stone.

Yes, Goddess Sacrifice was a trump card meant to sacrifice and kill the very goddesses she served. To an outsider, Duanmu Longhua was the mighty city lord who lorded over thousands and thousands of people. However, no one knew better than herself that she was just the slave of the three goddesses.

In fact, every city lord who ruled over Goddess City was the goddesses’ slave. Their lifelong duty was to gather the prey and plunder their fortune for the goddesses.

The goddesses might sound and look like divine beings, but they were really just Strangers who devoured human fortune to grow their strength. Every city lord who ever ruled Goddess City was just their slave and puppet.

When Goddess City was first founded, the three goddesses were considerably more powerful than they currently were. They were powerful enough that they even allowed their appointed city lord to become a Sage. It was so that the city lords could perform their duties better.

This lasted until several centuries ago, when the fifth generation city lord Zhou Pojie (Tribulation Breaker) tried to turn the tables against the goddesses. Unwilling to become their slave and puppet, he plotted to kill the three goddesses after he became a Sage.

Unfortunately, Zhou Pojie failed to live up to his name and was ultimately slain by the goddesses. That said, his efforts were not in vain. He was able to deal a serious blow to the three goddesses and greatly diminish their strength.

Since then, the goddesses became twice as obsessed with keeping their puppets under their control and forbade all city lords who came after from becoming a Sage. As a result, no one after Zhou Pojie had been able to break through the barrier and ascend to sagehood.

Warriors were naturally rebellious, and not a single one of them was willing to live under the goddesses’ thumb for eternity. Therefore, the city lords strove tirelessly for a way to break free.

Goddess Sacrifice was the culmination of that generation-spanning research. Over a century ago, the seventh generation city lord of Goddess City Wu Lingxiang accidentally found out that Goddess City was not the Dao Domain he and every other city lord before him thought it was. It was, in fact, a prison that imprisoned the three goddesses. For whatever reason, Goddess City was destroyed, and its existing restrictions were broken. That was how the three goddesses were able to regain their freedom.

Although Goddess City’s restrictions were destroyed and no longer capable of imprisoning the three goddesses, traces of them still existed to this day. Wu Lingxiang in particular was an extraordinary genius who somehow mastered a new form of array via researching these traces. With the Goddess City as the foundation and the broken restrictions as the core, one could theoretically summon the goddesses’ true body and control them for a short period of time. Hence, he named it Goddess Sacrifice.

Unfortunately, the period they would be able to control the goddesses was very short, and it would only work one time. If they failed to slay the goddesses during that period of time, then that was it. Still, it was a direction and a ray of hope where there was none before.

To keep this secret hidden from the three goddesses, Goddess Sacrifice was transmitted orally by a city lord to their successor. The city lords also saw to the arrangement and repairs to the restrictions personally, unable to trust anyone but themselves.

Thanks to decades of hard work and effort, the city lords ultimately succeeded. They were able to create the Goddess Sacrifice Array right underneath the three goddesses’ noses. The Rainbow Lake, Moon Altar, and Spring Garden were the cores of the array.

Without exaggeration, Goddess Sacrifice was the heart’s blood of many generations of city lords. It was their coalescence of their dream and hope.

If Duanmu Longhua had any other choice, she would not choose to activate Goddess Sacrifice. Unfortunately, she didn’t. For one, she was on her last legs. If she did not act now, she would not get the opportunity to do anything ever again. Two, if she died, then the secret of Goddess Sacrifice would die with her. After all, she was the only one who knew about the secret, and she had not yet appointed a successor. How could she possibly have known that she would die today?

In that case, she might as well activate Goddess Sacrifice now and achieve mutual destruction with Ye Qing.

That’s right. She might be able to slay Ye Qing with the power of the goddesses, but the first person they would kill after they regained control was her. Hence, mutual destruction.

She was fine with that outcome. She might die, but she was going to drag the sonuvabitch down with her no matter what.

1. Immanuel Hsu describes the "full kowtow" as "three kneelings and nine knockings of the head on the ground". ☜

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