Chapter 247: The Altar Eye!

That grasp hadn’t touched metal, yet the entire ritual sword sank as if into quicksand.

Lu Yuan felt a searing pain in his right wrist, as if a thousand-weight of yin force had twisted it back; the ritual sword nearly flew from his hand.

The altar-spirit’s fingers slowly closed, the blade giving out a terrible “clack, clack” as if it would be forcibly snapped by its yin force.

Seeing this, Lin Zhaoxuan could not bother about thunder backlash; he bit his fingertip, smeared blood on the Thunderclap Token, and slammed it against his chest, forcing his breath up.

“Thunder as tendon, token as bone!”

“If the bone holds, thunder won’t cease!”

“Ancient thunder guards the law, reveal the true body!”

“Apply!”

Thunder patterns suddenly erupted from the token, forming a pale-blue horizontal bolt that struck the altar-spirit’s wrist hard.

But this time the thunder did not drive it back; instead, the altar-spirit used the hand that gripped the sword to swivel, guiding the thunderlight toward the ritual sword.

Zzz—

The ritual sword shuddered through and through, the thin gold inlay on the spine twisted into a dark cyan streak, and the blade’s tip skewed half an inch.

Lu Yuan felt a weight in his chest and was forced back two steps by the backlash of his own sword intent, a corner of the salt formation beneath his feet collapsing.

“It can steal thunder to alter swords!” Lin Zhaoxuan exclaimed in alarm.

The altar-spirit slowly lifted its head, the hint of a smile at its mouth turning so dark it was almost merciless.

“Ritual sword?”

“True artifact?”

“Only a borrowed shell.”

“I have sat the seat for a hundred years, swallowing lamps, swallowing names, swallowing thunder, swallowing positions.”

“What right have you mortals to contest with me?”

When it finished speaking it twitched its five fingers, and with a hum the ritual sword detached from Lu Yuan’s control, being dragged forcefully toward the altar-eye.

For a moment Lu Yuan felt his palm go empty, as if a chunk of his chest had been hollowed out.

If it fully stole his sword, the consequences would be unthinkable.

Lu Yuan’s vision went strangely cold, and he grew suddenly composed.

He realized abruptly that this thing’s strength didn’t lie in brute force but in “devouring method and intent.”

If so, a simple head-on fight would only let it grow stronger by eating more.

He had to sever the mouth it used to feed.

He quickly scanned the surroundings: the seat shadows pressing the ground, the lamp-master floating, the seat-master guarding the coffin, the altar-spirit at the altar-eye — yin paths in every direction.

The only movable things now were his True Fire seal and the faint micro-formation from the Big Dipper seven talismans laid earlier.

“Zhou Heng!”

Lu Yuan barked sharply.

“Cut the banners, not the shadows!”

“Lin Zhaoxuan, retract thunder, don’t strike its body, strike the ground!”

“Miss Song, reverse your plate heart to north, press down three cun to the left of the altar-eye!”

“Cheng’an, Erxiao, pull the salt back three steps, expose the black soil!”

Though the group was almost collapsing, they all recognized the life-or-death moment and forced themselves to obey.

Zhou Heng redirected his sword and violently severed the banner roots on both sides of the stone path; the poles broke, and the paper shadows lacking attachment shivered and fluttered.

Lin Zhaoxuan pressed the Thunderclap Token to the ground; the pale-blue thunder pattern no longer struck the altar-spirit but flowed down the stone seams, forcing the altar-floor yin to surge slightly upward.

Song Qinghe cupped the sealing plate and forcibly flipped the plate heart back to the north, the cold light bearing down three cun left of the altar-eye.

Wang Cheng’an and Xu Erxiao grit their teeth and drew the salt formation three steps back, revealing a damp, black patch of earth.

Seeing the chance, Lu Yuan noticed that although the sword was being dragged, a hairline thread of sword intent remained in his palm.

He suddenly slashed his left hand the other way, cut open his palm, pressed blood to the ground, and chanted rapidly:

“Blood falls as seal, seal falls as gate.”

“Gate opens three cun, sever your soul-root.”

“You feast on law, I sever your road; you seize the sword, I sever the position; you sit the altar, I turn the earth!”

“You borrow ten thousand names, I borrow one mouthful of true blood!”

“Request the Earth Seal, arise!”

With his left hand he formed a perilous ‘Uplift Altar Art.’

His fingers dug into the earth, index and middle like shovels, thumb pressing the base of the ring finger, pinky flaring outward, as if prying something from the ground.

When the hand formation landed, the patch of black soil beneath the blood seal flipped up violently, like someone lifting an old lid from below.

A stench older, heavier, and more rotten than before exploded out from the earth.

For the first time, the altar-spirit’s motion stalled for half a beat.

Lu Yuan’s eyes brightened.

“Now!”

“The altar-eye’s left side, three cun, is its intake for swapping air and offerings!”

“Cut that air!”

He drew in a true breath and twisted his wrist, forcefully borrowing the faint sword intent that remained, turning the whole sword.

The blade reversed and stabbed toward the altar-spirit’s palm.

This strike did not seek to kill but only to sever the route by which it “grabbed sword intent” to feed.

At last the altar-spirit displayed real anger; the altar-eye on its brow flared wide and black gas surged like a tide.

The battle had reached its most perilous point.

When Lu Yuan’s reversed blade drove in, the altar-eye on the altar-spirit’s brow burst open.

The black gas did not spurt so much as overturn, like an ancient swamp sealed for a century whose lid had been pried off, causing everything within to surge out.

There was not a single mixed color in that gas; it was thick as frozen earth, steeped through and through with old malice from offerings and paper ash layered for years.

The lamp flames on both sides of the stone path even seemed to bow lower at once.

Lu Yuan’s sword had only just been driven forward; the tip had not reached the altar-spirit’s palm when it was first held back by that mass of blackness.

It did not block so much as “swallow.”

The sword point was still a good inch from contact yet the space felt like a ten-chang abyss.

The gold inlay on the blade suddenly chilled; the dark cyan streak that Lin Zhaoxuan’s thunder had twisted was now crawling back another fraction, as if countless invisible yin hands were climbing the sword spine.

“Retreat!”

Zhou Heng barked and moved first.

He did not aim at the altar-spirit but swept a slanted blade at Lu Yuan’s wrist, trying to cleverly sever that thrust.

Yet as the sword neared, the altar-spirit raised a hand and flicked; the paper seat billowed out from its sleeve.

Like a torn funeral shroud, it slapped across Zhou Heng’s chest.

He was thrown back, slamming his back into the stone wall; his throat burned and he swallowed blood to keep standing.

“Zhou Heng!” Song Qinghe cried out, nearly losing hold of the sealing plate.

The altar-spirit did not spare Zhou Heng a glance; its eyes were fixed solely on Lu Yuan’s ritual sword, as if staring at a freshly opened piece of meat.

“Fine sword.”

It spoke slowly, a trace of greed threading its voice.

“There is daylight in this blade, ancestral obliteration, and still a taste of living human vitality not yet gone.”

“Useful.”

“In your hand it is too shallow.”

After saying that, it suddenly opened its mouth and lightly inhaled toward the sword.

It was neither wind nor breath but an extremely yin, heavy “offering-suction.”

It was as if every seat-shadow, paper lamp, old name ledger, bone tag, and red cord on the stone path poured into its throat in that instant.

Lu Yuan felt his palm go utterly vacant; the thread tying his spirit to the sword was being ripped away.

His right arm went numb to the shoulder, and white stars flashed before his eyes.

“It wants to seize the sword intent!”

Lin Zhaoxuan’s face changed; he slammed the Thunderclap Token to the ground to anchor himself.

But it was too late.

From the altar-eye on the spirit’s brow a hair-thin black thread shot out, coiling around the sword’s tang.

At that coil the whole sword gave a piercing, terrible keening, like iron being twisted apart on a snowy night.

Lu Yuan’s chest tightened abruptly; his throat burned as his own sword intent rebounded and nearly made him vomit blood.

The ritual sword had originally descended to Lu Yuan from the system; there had been a slender, delicate link between it and his spirit.

Now the altar-spirit was tearing that link piece by piece, like wrenching apart a tendon just reattached.

The pain was not only in his wrist but in his soul.

“Brother Lu!” Song Qinghe’s voice thick with urgency.

“Withdraw the sword! Don’t wrestle it!”

“I can’t!” Lu Yuan gritted his teeth; the blood slit across his left palm was yanked open again by the sword intent’s tremor, fresh blood running along his palm lines.

“It is gnawing at the sword root!”

The altar-spirit, hearing this, gave a faint smile.

That smile was thin, yet colder than rage.

“It’s not gnawing.”

“It is sitting.”

“If your sword has a seat, I will sit upon it.”

“If your law has a root, I will borrow it.”

“You living ones are laughable — you think that holding a true artifact lets you stand against what’s on an altar.”

As it spoke, it slowly lifted the other hand.

That hand was skeletal to the point of mere joints, yet between its fingers were a few thin pages.

The pages were full of black characters, torn from an old name ledger.

It flicked its fingers and the pages silently drifted down.

In the next moment the paper-face shadows that had half-peeled out from the stone sides all surged forward as if obeying a command.

They did not pounce on people but on the “shadows.”

In an instant everyone’s shadow underfoot was lengthened.

Those shadows felt as if dragged by an invisible string from beneath, being hauled toward the altar-spirit’s feet.

Lu Yuan felt his heels sink; he felt his shadow being peeled away bit by bit, as if torn from the soles of his feet.

If one’s shadow were truly taken, the person would lose position; then even the strongest law would be empty shell.

“Tread the shadow!”

Lin Zhaoxuan reacted and shifted his Yu Steps; the Thunderclap Token pointed forward.

“It is altering our positions!”

Song Qinghe clutched the sealing plate hard, cold sweat rolling from her forehead.

“The plate-heart is skewing... it’s forcing altar qi into my plate!”

Lu Yuan felt his heart drop.

The altar-spirit was not only becoming violent; it was transforming the whole stone path into its seat-field.

Once the seat forms, once the seat is set, every living person’s techniques nearby would be forcibly drawn into the yin altar, becoming offerings it could eat or press.

Right now, even with the sword in hand, they were only under its pressure and nourishment.

At that moment Lu Yuan heard a very faint “crack.”

Not a blade split, not bone breaking, but somewhere deep within the altar-eye itself, an extremely hidden place had been scraped by that stroke and given a hairline tear.

The altar-spirit stilled.

It lowered its head and looked at the altar-eye on its brow; in the black gas a faint red surfaced.

“So it can be hurt?”

Zhou Heng clutched his chest, gaze suddenly grave.

Lu Yuan saw it too.

It was not a great wound, not even a true breach, but that speck of red meant the altar-spirit’s “offering intake” had been nicked.

If it was feeding and that route was cut mid-way, there would be a momentary gasp in its breath.

But in the next second the altar-spirit laughed deeper.

“You see it?”

“Seeing it does no good.”

“I stand by receiving offerings; a brief gasp only makes me more ferocious.”

It raised its head and the cold smile turned into outright ferocity.

“Since you dare harm my altar-eye, don’t blame me for collecting all the old debts on this whole seat at once.”

With that, it slapped its chest.

The slap sounded like a drumbeat buried under the ground being struck.

Boom—

The dull blast did not come from its body but detonated from the stone path, the mountain’s belly, and even deeper frozen earth all at once.

Everyone’s eardrums throbbed; the ring of salt formation beneath them split open in three places, white salt spraying like frost.

Immediately, the paper banners’ white faces on both sides of the stone path opened their eyes.

These were not the black-lined circles of eye; they were real, true “whites of eyes.”

Each paper-face’s sockets seemed filled with a turbid human vitality; their mouths split wider and, in perfect unison, slowly turned toward Lu Yuan’s group.

The sight was unnervingly creepy.

Song Qinghe could not help stepping back, but as she retreated the sealing plate’s heart skewed more.

The yin-yang fish on the plate trembled from the altar qi, now pressed as if by an invisible hand into the mud.

“Miss Song, don’t retreat!”

Lu Yuan shouted.

“I’m not retreating... it’s pushing me!” Song Qinghe’s face drained; her hands could barely hold the plate.

“There’s something pressing inside the plate...”

Before she finished, the sealing plate buzzed and the plate surface flipped half a turn by itself.

The yin-yang fish reversed.

That single inversion cracked the already fragile balance of the formation. The altar-spirit’s gaze grew colder; it raised a finger and pointed — not at Song Qinghe, not at Lu Yuan, but at the patch of black earth in the middle of the stone path.

Thud.

The black soil sank slightly, as if an invisible yin nail had been driven in.

Lu Yuan’s heart pounded wildly.

Bad.

It was not pressing people; it was altering the earth veins.

Once the earth veins were nailed, the salt formation, thunder intent, and sealing plate could all be commandeered by it through the ground, turning their side into its inverse seat.

“Lin Zhaoxuan! Stop it from driving that nail!” Lu Yuan shouted, twirling the ritual sword back to pull half an inch of sword intent and slashing toward where the invisible yin nail lay.

Lin Zhaoxuan knew he could no longer hold back; he gritted his teeth, braced his right foot, and cried out:

“Thunder rise not to heaven, but to the earth-root!”

“Borrow the nine-earth true yang to press your yin nail!”

“Ancient thunder above, open earth gate for me!”

“Fall!”

The Thunderclap Token smashed the ground; pale-blue thunder patterns erupted and snaked through the stone seams, heading for the altar-spirit’s finger point.

But the altar-spirit merely cocked its head; with the other hand it formed a claw and struck out.

That grab forced Lin Zhaoxuan’s thunder pattern to twist off-course.

The thunder bent in the earth and rebounded toward Song Qinghe’s feet.

Boom!

The sealing plate shook violently; Song Qinghe was shoved by the thunder intent and nearly lost her footing, the plate almost slipping from her hands.

She felt a warmth in her chest, a bitter sweetness in her throat as her aura overturned.

“Miss Song!” Lu Yuan leaped to help but was brushed aside by the altar-spirit’s sleeve; the seat-sheen within its sleeve lashed like a whip and struck his shoulder.

He was jerked aside; in that instant the ritual sword slipped from his grasp and nearly fell.

In the next second the altar-spirit’s toes lightly touched, its figure flashed; like a black seat-coffin it pressed forward to within three feet of Lu Yuan.

Close now.

Up close it was more terrifying than from afar.

The cloth on it was not cloth but seemed to be countless layers of old funeral wrappings, hemp paper, and coffin dust fused into a living thing.