Chapter 909: Another Ritual

909. Another Ritual

"Hiss, it just self-destructed like that?"

Grelis was deeply shocked.

"It really was too hasty. I still hadn't figured out their goal."

Lin Ye had wanted to chat a bit more, but it didn't really matter. The man hadn't known much to begin with.

"Didn't it say it was going to use us as sacrificial offerings to revive a deity?"

Grelis felt that the man hadn't been lying.

"That's indeed what it believed."

Lin Ye skirted around the area contaminated by the blood-colored powder and walked toward the spot where the man had previously stood.

There was a headless statue there that had yet to be repaired. The statue's bodily structure was extremely bizarre. It was clearly a humanoid statue, yet it gave off a fragmented, inhuman feeling.

Lin Ye didn't approach the statue. He opened the World of Ashes and took out the Spiral Maze of Flesh and Spirit, then tossed the cube of flesh at the statue's feet.

The cube of flesh quickly devoured the statue. Lin Ye picked the cube of flesh back up and returned it to the World of Ashes.

"...What was that?"

Grelis had sensed a certain "weight" on the cube of flesh that surpassed even this temple.

"That is a cage that is very hard to break free from."

Lin Ye continued moving forward. He sensed that someone was hiding within those blood-colored cubes, and that the other party was observing them.

But due to the interference of the blood-colored cubes, Lin Ye couldn't pinpoint those people's locations either.

After absorbing a portion of the blood-colored powder, the Starfish Ornament hadn't shown any problems. It picked up speed, and before long, it found the end of this area.

There was a large door composed of blood-colored cubes.

The door was over ten meters tall, and the walls on both sides were carved with strange patterns.

The Starfish Ornament used the Spiral Bayonet to destroy the door. Behind it was a dark red cube space, and two men in dark red robes stood inside.

"You've come too early. The ritual hasn't started yet."

The one who spoke was an old man with a full head of white hair. He stood at the very center of the cube space, and behind him stood a burly, powerfully built middle-aged man.

"...You're actually not those Cube-Men. I thought you were all cultists who worship the deities who govern cubes."

Lin Ye didn't rush to make a move. He needed to first figure out the origins of these people.

"You even brought relics along with you. I thought you'd just come straight here."

The old man also didn't make a move. Lin Ye had arrived too quickly, and they still needed a bit more time to prepare.

"Who was the person chatting with me earlier? If he hadn't reminded me, I might have let my guard down a little."

Lin Ye calmly locked eyes with the old man. He didn't understand why these people dared to appear before him.

"It was me. I was the one who reminded you."

The middle-aged man behind the old man spoke up.

"I know the price that must be paid to have the system help. No one would hold a ritual just for small talk. You should come up with a different excuse."

Additionally, Lin Ye thought of the previous ritual executor. The system had sent him here, so it was very likely that something had gone wrong with that senior.

For example, he had been dealt with by one of the ritual initiators.

"You're much smarter than the previous executor. If he hadn't been so foolish, we wouldn't have set our sights on you."

A faint smile appeared on the old man's face. The ritual preparations were already complete.

"That's probably not all, is it? You seem to have some understanding of me."

Lin Ye had initially thought this was a trap designed by the cult, but it turned out to be two unfamiliar Controllers.

The cult wouldn't send cultists of this caliber to their deaths.

"Oh, you mean that woman. That was a camouflage crystal provided by a partner. I thought it would stall you for a while, but it was completely useless."

The old man activated the ritual. Under the ritual's influence, the temple began to undergo changes.

"Didn't that partner warn you?"

Lin Ye had some guesses, but he still couldn't be certain.

"Warn us about what?"

The old man suppressed his excitement, keeping constant watch on the ritual's progress.

"Warn you that I am a Master of Ritual Studies. Warn you that you absolutely must not appear within my range of perception. Warn you that you absolutely must not provoke me.

I don't even understand who gave you the courage to face me... It wasn't it, was it?"

Lin Ye glanced back. The man was standing not far away.

"If I had told them your real strength, they wouldn't have dared to make a move."

The man smiled and met Lin Ye's gaze.

"...What do you mean by that?"

The old man continued to advance the ritual, but then he suddenly noticed that the ritual seemed to have developed a slight problem.

"I mean, you're already finished."

Under Lin Ye's control, the old man made a utterly comical movement.

"How is that possible! The ritual hasn't ended yet. You shouldn't be able to make a move against me!"

This was the old man's confidence. He had relied on this very point to deal with the previous ritual executor.

"The premise is that you don't make a move against me. But you seem to have treated me as the target of some ritual."

Lin Ye's understanding of rituals far surpassed the old man's.

"But that was my commission! I wanted you to cooperate with me in completing the ritual!"

The old man hadn't expected Lin Ye to see through his manipulation completely.

"But you made a move that affected me. That's the key point."

Lin Ye didn't kill the old man and the middle-aged man. The ritual had already begun, and that cube space was now in a very bad state.

The old man had wanted to use the system's ritual to turn Lin Ye into the subject of another ritual. But when he made a move against Lin Ye, the middle-aged man behind him had already become part of the Parasitism Network.

Lin Ye had seamlessly modified the ritual, turning the old man into the subject of that ritual.

"This is a deity revival ritual. It's probably going to be quite spectacular later. Aren't you going to stay and watch?"

Just as Lin Ye was about to leave the temple, the man blocked his path.

"The previous ritual executor, did you kill him too? You used those two idiots to lure me here just so I would participate in this ritual?"

Lin Ye stopped in his tracks. He had roughly guessed the cause of this incident.

"That's right. The plan and this temple were both provided by me. You are the protagonist of this ritual."

The man took out a cage the size of a palm, inside which was a shrunken Ayla.

"You want to threaten me?"

Lin Ye looked at the man calmly.

"This isn't a threat. I know your world can restore people, and I happen to be skilled in that area as well. Although this is only a clone here, hindering the restoration speed is still no problem.

Of course, you could also abandon her and escape the temple directly."

The man crushed the cage, and the Ayla inside was crushed into a pool of bloody mist.

Fiery ashes flickering with light appeared near the cage rim. The bloody mist began to restore itself, but under the man's influence, the restoration speed was very slow.

"I hope you don't suddenly die. After some time, I'll make a trip to the Red Sea."

Lin Ye punched the man's clone into oblivion and grasped that pool of bloody mist in his hand.

The man's influence began to fade. A large amount of ash poured into Ayla's body, and Ayla reappeared before Lin Ye.