"AHHHH..."

"Stop! Please, stop!"

Everyone present felt a splitting headache. They clutched their heads and screamed in agony, some even bleeding from their mouths. The scene was horrific.

They tried to flee, but a powerful force held them in place, rendering them immobile. They were trapped by the array here.

In the sky, a massive, blood-red maw gaped open, looking as if it was about to devour them whole.

"This array is draining our cultivation and our lifeblood... AHHH, it hurts...!"

"Help me..."

"My child!"

"Please... spare my child."

"Daddy... Mommy..." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

The air was filled with the villagers’ anguished cries.

Even if these people wanted to fight the Evil Cultivator to the death, they couldn’t. In the face of absolute power, they were incapable of even resisting.

At this moment, Silas Stowe had removed his veiled hat, revealing a hideously ugly, bark-like face.

His hands moved through a series of hand seals, controlling the array.

Silas Stowe practiced the Blood Sacrifice Technique, a sinister Evil Technique that relied on devouring flesh and blood and sacrificing human Divine Souls for cultivation. This method harmed others for personal gain at the cost of countless lives. Although it could lead to a rapid surge in one’s cultivation level and make breakthroughs easier, it was also highly susceptible to backlash. It was a heretical path unrecognized by the Heavenly Dao, and those who walked it were very likely to be obliterated by Heavenly Tribulation.

Countless vengeful souls could be seen shrieking around his body.

"MUMBO JUMBO GOBBLEDEGOOK..."

He muttered a few incomprehensible words of a spell, and the red light of the array’s patterns intensified.

"It is your honor to be sacrificed for me, you ants. Don’t blame me; you have only yourselves to blame for being too weak. In the Cultivation World, weakness is the original sin."

"Heh heh heh~ All of you will become my energy. Blood Sacrifice Technique, activate...!"

Silas Stowe’s face was flushed with excitement.

Just as he thought he was about to sacrifice these people and achieve a breakthrough in his cultivation, a sword exuding a chilling aura swerved in the sky and shot straight toward him.

It carried a thunderous momentum, and a layer of frost instantly coated the air in its wake.

If a blow of this magnitude struck him, his Divine Soul would surely be wounded. He’d be severely injured, if not killed outright.

Seeing the sword coming for him, Silas Stowe had no choice but to abandon control of the array and channel his cultivation to defend himself.

A barrier of cultivation instantly formed in front of him, but even so, the Sword Qi forced him back, sending him flying far from the altar before he could stop.

"Sacrifice? Why don’t you sacrifice yourself, you bastard?"

The voice grew closer.

In the blink of an eye, the figures of a man and a woman appeared in midair.

The woman standing beside the man looked at the scene below and let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness we made it in time."

Gazing at the sacrificial array that was still draining the people’s strength, she tugged on her companion’s sleeve and said, "I can’t make heads or tails of this sacrificial array. I’ll leave it to you, The Exalted One."

These two were none other than Javier Sinclair and Celeste Grant, who had rushed over from Bloodfiend City.

Javier Sinclair stood on a sword, dressed in black robes embroidered with ancient, dark gold patterns. Beside him, Celeste Grant wore an embroidered, water-blue dress. On her wrist was the Dragon Pattern Bracelet, a Defensive Magical Artifact Javier Sinclair had crafted for her, capable of blocking an attack from a Divinity Transformation Stage expert. Around her neck was a gold-inlaid jade collar, which was also a Magic Artifact with both offensive and defensive properties.

Javier Sinclair gazed at the already active Blood Sacrifice Array.

He spoke in a calm tone.

"This is a crude Blood Sacrifice Array. We can just break it directly."

"Will these people be okay?"

"We arrived in time. The Blood Sacrifice Array has only just been activated, so their lives aren’t in danger. They won’t die. As for the cultivation that the array has already drained, that can’t be recovered."

Celeste Grant replied, "That’s not important. They’re lucky to have escaped with their lives."

’According to the original plot of the book, this entire village was supposed to be sacrificed. But the female lead was unaware of what happened here, because Silas Stowe being an Evil Cultivator was kept secret from Jocelyn Grant in the early stages.’

’Later, when his deeds were exposed and the female lead found out, they argued and broke up. The kind-hearted protagonist couldn’t accept that he had killed so many people and spent her days tormented by guilt.’

’Then came the part where the male lead gave up practicing Evil Techniques for the female lead’s sake, turning over a new leaf to become a better person. That’s when the forced ’older woman, younger man’ romance plot started, with its inescapable cat-and-mouse chase. In the end, the male lead stabbed himself to earn the female lead’s forgiveness, and they got back together. True love, apparently. The Evil Cultivator redeems himself for the heroine, a tale of mutual salvation...’

’The plot made her want to puke.’

’She couldn’t believe the plot had gone this far off the rails, yet this sacrifice scene still happened.’

"Primordial Sword, return."

She held out her hand and called out. The ice-blue sword circled in the air before returning to her grasp.

Just as Silas Stowe steadied himself, he looked up and saw Celeste Grant standing on her sword above.

He immediately remembered who she was.

"It’s you, The Enchantress!"

She was the one who had lamed him.

Celeste Grant propped the sword in her hand on her shoulder and looked down at Silas Stowe below.

"Well now, you have a pretty good memory to still remember me. I’m a little touched."

’This is Jocelyn Grant’s lover?’

’Celeste Grant almost didn’t recognize him.’

Getting a clear look at his face, Celeste Grant rubbed her eyes.

’This ugly man with a face like old tree bark was Silas Stowe, one of the male leads?’

"My eyes are going blind."

She shot him a look and said, deliberately trying to provoke him, "Good heavens, who are you? Fellow cultivator, did you put on makeup or get plastic surgery? You’ve changed so much I almost didn’t recognize you. That spider-like figure and that face like old tree bark... is this look in style in the Cultivation World now?"

Hearing this, Silas Stowe’s face flushed red with humiliation.

"Shut up!"

"This is all your fault!"

"You’re the reason I’ve become like this."

Celeste Grant pointed her sword at him.

"Fellow cultivator, your looks are certainly... distinctive. Distinctively ugly."

Being called ugly again and again finally broke through Silas Stowe’s defenses. His eyes burned with rage as he stared venomously at Celeste Grant. "I’m going to kill you! I’m going to sacrifice you!"

Celeste Grant sneered and tilted her head with a smile.

"Perfect... I was planning to kill you, too."

As she spoke, she leaped down.

At the same time, she focused her cultivation into her sword and slashed straight toward him.

"Die."

Faced with this ferocious sword strike, Silas Stowe threw out a palm strike to counter. The two forces collided, and the impact instantly destroyed the surrounding buildings.

Cold sweat dripped from Silas Stowe’s forehead.

’This woman is so strong.’

’He had just used eighty percent of his cultivation, yet he still couldn’t block it.’

Her power had already shattered his defense. The Sword Qi struck his body, and blood flowed from his shoulder.

Seeing him injured, Celeste Grant smiled faintly. "Didn’t you say weakness is the original sin? You don’t seem that strong yourself. You’re pretty useless if you can’t even take one strike from me."

Silas Stowe’s expression turned vicious.

"Don’t get cocky. I was just careless. I admit your cultivation is impressive, but you will die today."

Celeste Grant sneered and said, "I don’t know if I’ll die, but I know for sure that you will."