Chapter 70: God Summoning
Two days had passed since they entered the forest, yet the distant castle appeared no closer than before.
The forest was far larger than it had seemed from the altar, its paths shifted without warning, traps lay hidden beneath roots and fallen leaves and monsters attacked whenever the group slowed down.
They had also encountered several guardians, though none had been as powerful or unusual as Yue Qianyin.
By the end of the second day, even Lin Xiaotian had stopped complaining about their pace.
The group rested inside a small clearing while Qiao Xueyi maintained a thin layer of frost around its edge. Su Lan and Ruan Mei sat near one of the trees, while Xingluo checked their remaining supplies.
Wuxia remained close to her, using Soul Perception to observe the forest beyond the clearing. A branch suddenly snapped nearby, and everyone moved at once.
Lin Xiaotian grabbed his polearm, while Xingluo rose with one hand already resting on her sword. Qiao turned toward the sound and pointed her staff between the trees as frost spread across the ground.
After the ambush on their first day, none of them ignored even the slightest movement.
The bushes shook again before a man stumbled through them, he wore damaged military armor, though most of it had already been torn apart.
Blood covered one side of his body, his hair was tangled with dirt, and several deep cuts ran across his face and arms.
Xingluo recognized him as one of the military entrants who had entered the realm with another team.
The moment he saw them, relief appeared on his face, but it quickly twisted into panic. "We are all dead!"
He staggered toward them and raised one trembling hand. "This place is finished, we are all—"
His body suddenly swelled and eyes widened before his chest and head burst apart, scattering blood and torn flesh across the clearing.
Qiao raised an ice wall before the remains could reach them, while Lin immediately moved in front of Su Lan and Ruan Mei. Xingluo drew her sword and searched the surrounding trees, but there had been no visible attack.
The dead man’s lower body remained standing for a moment before collapsing beside the bushes.
"What the hell happened to him?" Su Lan asked, her voice unsteady.
Wuxia extended his Soul Perception toward the remains, but before he could examine them, the forest changed.
The surrounding branches began moving despite the absence of wind, while the shadows between the trees stretched across the ground. Several paths leading away from the clearing disappeared as dense bushes and twisting roots covered them.
"Something is here," Qiao said.
A figure dropped from the branches above, Lin raised his polearm, but Xingluo recognized the newcomer before anyone attacked.
"Miao Tianhe?"
He landed several metres away with a sword in one hand. His clothes were damaged and stained with dirt, but unlike the military entrant, he did not appear seriously injured.
Miao looked across the group before his gaze settled on Xingluo. "So you are still alive."
Lin kept his weapon raised, but Xingluo slowly lowered her sword. She knew Miao Tianhe from the competition, while Wuxia had once trusted him as his closest friend and vice guild leader.
Qiao also relaxed her grip slightly after recognizing him. "What happened to your team?" Xingluo asked.
Miao Tianhe did not answer, his figure disappeared from where he stood and before anyone understood what had happened, he appeared directly in front of Ruan Mei. His sword was already sweeping toward her throat.
Ruan Mei tried to pull away, but the blade reached her first, and blood sprayed across her shoulder.
Lin Xiaotian reacted immediately as he stepped between them and smashed his polearm toward Miao, but Tianhe blocked the strike with his sword and calmly retreated before Lin could attack again.
"Wait," Qiao ordered as frost spread beneath Lin’s feet. "Control your temper bastard and look at situation properly."
Lin glared at her in confusion before turning toward Ruan Mei, there was no wound across her throat or shoulder. Instead, a small tentacled creature writhed at her feet, split open by Miao’s blade as dark blood leaked from its body.
Everyone stared at the creature before looking back at Miao Tianhe. "We are all in danger," he said.
Xingluo tightened her grip on her sword. "Explain."
Miao glanced toward the surrounding forest before answering. "I do not have much time, so I will keep this short, several powerful members of the Church have infiltrated the secret realm."
His expression hardened. "They are preparing a massive sacrifice to summon their god."
The colour drained from several faces, while Wuxia’s expression immediately darkened.
Qiao stared at Miao in disbelief. "How could they perform a summoning ritual here? Would they not need a suitable medium?"
"This realm is the medium," Miao replied. "The legacy contained inside it possesses enough power to support the summoning."
Silence fell across the clearing as the meaning of his words settled over them.
Everyone present understood exactly what a God Summoning meant. It was one of the most dangerous rituals ever performed by the Church.
Despite its name, the ritual did not bring a true god into the world. Church members sacrificed enormous numbers of living beings and used a powerful energy medium to summon a God Beast—an avatar carrying a fraction of their god’s power.
These beasts were not ordinary summons that could be controlled through contracts or commands. They were extremely powerful, bloodthirsty creatures driven by a single purpose: the destruction of humanity.
The Alliance divided God Beasts into five recognized ranks: Human, Legion, City, Nation, and Calamity.
Even the weakest Human-tier God Beast could overpower a Third transition monster by itself. Anything above that level required entire teams of experienced Professionals to confront, while the stronger ranks could slaughter cities without assistance from the Church.
The last recorded large-scale God Summoning had occurred twelve years ago in another subsidiary city governed by the same main city as theirs. It remained one of the worst disasters suffered by the Alliance during the past two decades.
The Church had used the entire city as its sacrificial ground. Millions of people were killed during the ritual, and those who survived its beginning were slaughtered after the summoned creature emerged.
The ritual produced a city-tier God Beast, several high-level Professionals sacrificed their lives merely to delay it, and the creature was only killed after a powerful expert arrived from the main city.
Remembering that disaster, everyone finally understood why Miao Tianhe appeared so desperate.
If the Church successfully used the Ninefold Legacy Realm as its summoning medium, everyone trapped inside would become part of the sacrifice.
The massacre would not end with those trapped inside the realm. Once the resulting dungeon break occurred, the God Beast would escape into the outside world and continue slaughtering until everyone in the city was dead.