Starting from scratch, Batman crushed my dream of getting rich

Chapter 255 The whole story
"Really? Did that hungry spirit escape again?"

Upon hearing Ma Zhaodi's question, the shaman sighed deeply, and at that moment, a look of pity appeared on his face.

"The sacrifice was all for nothing."

When Ma Zhaodi heard the word "sacrifice," he suddenly understood something.

“I’m afraid so, old man,” Constantine replied to the shaman. “It tempted my friend to take it from the child’s body and then seal it in a magic bottle—and then it escaped.”

The priest turned and rummaged through a cloth bag beside him, asking, "You must bind Him once more. Can you learn how?"

“It’s not impossible,” Constantine replied, “but I was planning to persuade you to do it yourself. I mean, you know how to seal Him, and you’ve done it before, so why can’t you do it yourself—”

"I can not do it."

The old man shook his head, pinched Constantine's chin, and stuffed an unidentified plant root he had found in his bag into his mouth: "My power is deeply connected to this land, but you are different. If you are strong enough, I can show you the whole story and the full picture of this ceremony."

Constantine said with a hint of helplessness, "I guess there's no other way, is there?"

Ma Zhaodi took another root from the priest's hand, and like the two priests, he put it in his mouth and began to chew.

As soon as the plant roots touched the back of his tongue, a strong bitter taste spread. Ma Zhaodi felt as if half of his tongue was completely numbed by the bitterness, and he briefly lost sensation in his mouth. After it entered his stomach, it began to churn violently from the inside out.

"My God, it felt like swallowing a lump of molten lava."

Constantine's voice came from the side, and Ma Zhaodi subconsciously looked over, but he didn't see him at all—in fact, he suddenly couldn't tell what was in front of him.

He felt his skull begin to tremble and churn, his brain matter boiling and running rampant, eventually breaking completely through the constraints of his skull and flesh, exploding and scattering in all directions.

"Christ—I—hate—psychedelics—"

The voices around him were distant and ethereal; Ma Zhaodi was completely unable to discern who was speaking from their tones, and he was almost unable to think straight at this point.

A moment later, a figure suddenly appeared in the blurry vision. It was the old priest. His pupils had turned blood red. He reached one hand towards his own eye and the other towards Ma Zhaodi—his speed was like lightning, completely impossible to dodge.

Ma Zhaodi watched as the rough, black hand expanded infinitely in his field of vision until he was completely plunged into darkness. The pain was like that near-death experience in the clown theater. Three seconds later, the hand moved away—taking away one of his eyeballs.

At the same time, he was also clutching one of his own scarlet eyes in his other hand.

Strangely, there were no blood vessels attached to either eyeball, nor any blood on them, as if they were just two fruits picked from a ripe tree.

He pressed his scarlet eyes into Ma Zhaodi's eye sockets. In an instant, a burning pain came from the eye sockets, and the light of blood permeated the eye. Suddenly, a snow-white light appeared in the blurred vision.

The three people's thoughts began to race, eventually merging into the light, and everything before them gradually became clear.

"Why is all ancient magic so painful—"

Constantine couldn't help but groan in pain; it was clear that this wasn't his first encounter with this ancient and primitive magic.

After his vision returned, Ma Zhaodi saw a series of corpses before him.

There were children and the elderly, all with dark skin, withered flesh, and empty bellies, only a glimmer of light remaining in their eyes. Swarms of red-eyed flies, drawn by the smell of blood and flesh, feasted on the thick soup of death and disease, baked by the scorching sun, greedily sucking the meager moisture from the corpses' eyes.

This was the day that hungry spirit was born.

“Suffering is silent, famine is mute, but these are all accusing me.”

The old priest's voice came from Ma Zhaodi's mouth, and only then did he realize that he was looking at the other person's past memories from the old priest's perspective.

One by one, gaunt figures stood before him, looking at him silently with pleading eyes. For a moment, Ma Zhaodi truly believed they were looking at him.

“They begged me for protection, but their fear and hunger gave Namos strength—He feeds on them, and the weaker they are, the stronger He becomes.”

As the priest recounted the story, the scene before him began to change, and Ma Zhaodi's body moved involuntarily. He reached out a hand and pulled a small, thin child out of the crowd.

“They are all my children, and I have to fight for them. I have to make a choice—a difficult choice.”

Ma Zhaodi remained silent.

He watched as he led the boy into the hut, tied him up, and then pulled out a knife—it all felt so real, as if he were doing it himself.

The blade severed his tongue, the metallic taste of blood filling his nostrils. Ma Zhaodi wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn't. It was just a memory, and he couldn't control his body within it.

“I cut out his tongue so that he could not curse us, his people who had betrayed him, and then I began to call upon Namos.”

Black smoke composed of mosquitoes and flies rose and churned from the ground, a million buzzing sounds deafening. Ma Zhaodi stretched out his hand and loudly called to the evil spirit, luring it to possess the child's body.

Then, the hunger of the hungry spirit tormented the boy, devouring his flesh and blood.

The boy's eyes bulged out of pain, and he groaned in despair as his limbs twitched and he struggled desperately, but to no avail.

Ma Zhaodi held the dripping blood knife, pinned him down, and began to carve patterns with binding power onto his skin.

Cut after cut, crimson blood flowed from the black skin, each cut a piercing, excruciating pain—for the boy, for the old priest, and for Ma Zhaodi.

Despite the excruciating pain, the old priest's hands remained remarkably steady. Two minutes later, he had finished inscribing the patterns, and Namos was now completely trapped inside the boy's body, unable to leave.

He carried the unconscious boy out of the hut and walked step by step into the distance under the scorching sun.

“I put him in a distant wasteland. I knew that Namos would devour him first, and when his flesh and blood were exhausted, Namos could only continue to devour himself, because that guy could not escape from this body.”

"I left that wasteland and I did not look back."

When the old priest's voice stopped, the illusion before my eyes finally dissipated completely, and it returned to the thatched hut.

Ma Zhaodi reached out and touched his face in a daze. His eyes were intact, only his cheeks were wet with tears.

(End of this chapter)