New concept of the mysterious way to ascend to immortality

Chapter 86: Hunting Trap, Sacrificial Heritage

Yuan Zhu continued to go deeper for more than ten minutes. Seeing that the surrounding environment became more and more exaggerated, with more and more fluorescent fungi, and gradually having the flavor of DND's Underdark, he stopped and began to recall the method of hunting goblins.

He pulled a few cans of chemicals from his satchel, mixing them and stirring until they were evenly mixed. An indescribable odor wafted out. It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't foul either. Instead, it had a pungent, low-quality flavoring.

This is a scent euphoric agent designed and developed specifically for the physiological structure of goblins. When goblins smell it, they become excited, happy, and delighted, their brains triggering certain happy hormones and stimulating their appetite.

It is said that if you pour it on your poop, the goblins will come forward with a look of confusion and disbelief, smear a finger on it, and be caught in the dilemma of whether it is shit-flavored chocolate or chocolate-flavored poop, but in the end they can't help but stick out their sinful tongues.

As for the goblins, with their impressive intelligence, will they become wary of these low-level traps after being deceived? The answer is no. Humans always repeat the same mistakes, so how much better can goblins be than humans?

What's more, this is an irresistible physiological temptation designed by evil humans based on their physiological structure, just like cats cannot refuse the additives in cat food.

Reason tells them that this is dangerous, but instinct continues to confuse and paralyze them.

After shaking the synthetic agent, Yuan Zhu took out a bottle of white wine and poured it in. This was the final step. Adding alcohol could further amplify the chemical stimulation and spread it more quickly.

Bang!
Two black ropes extended from the shadow's uniform, and he threw the two sewer rats he had just killed onto the ground. He then cut a wound in their abdomen and poured the prepared trap on them.

The mixture of chemicals, low-quality industrial alcohol, and fresh flesh and blood unleashed an irresistible temptation for the goblins. Yuan Zhu frowned, extinguished his lantern, and stepped back.

After keeping a distance, I just waited quietly in the darkness.

Soon, a rustling sound could be heard from the sewer. Some underground reptiles and even rats, attracted by the smell, came out and surrounded the two dead rats to eat them. One of them even wanted to drag the food away and take it back to its nest for itself.

Yuan Zhu took out a slingshot from his bag and aimed at the rat that was trying to drag away the food in the dark.

Snapped!
With a dull thud, the steel ball blasted through the rat's eyeball and lodged itself into its brain. The rat went from dragging its food to collapsing and twitching, quickly joining the feast. Its transformation from diner to ingredient was complete.

Snapped!Snapped!
He repeated the process again, increasing the amount of food he used to trap the goblins from two to five. The bugs, who only ate the buffet and never took it home, went on a spree, spreading the chemicals everywhere, further increasing the temptation.

The trap lasted for about ten minutes, and Yuan Zhu had killed several large sewer rats. Their blood, mixed with the prepared alcohol trap, emitted a strong goblin-specific scent, finally attracting a greenskin driven by instinct and fearless of death.

Strange and harsh whispers were heard in the dark sewer. Yuan Zhu tried his best to restrain his breath and hid himself perfectly in the darkness with the help of his shadow uniform, without revealing any sense of his presence.

At this time, with the help of his glasses, he could vaguely see that there were several goblins wandering around not far away.

They obviously smelled the scent of food and became excited under the stimulation of euphoria, but at the same time they were worried that this was some kind of trap and seemed hesitant.

Finally, they picked out the weakest cannon fodder and kicked it out, leaving it to die.

The brave goblin was timid and reluctant at first, but the closer he got to the food that smelled of low-quality industrial alcohol, the more pleasure he felt in his head stimulated his nerves, making him look intoxicated. He couldn't help but dance and twist his body, making loud noises.

It kept approaching, using a sharpened wooden stick to pick apart a large centipede, then pierced a hamster with the tip of its spear and brought it to the front. After several attempts to confirm that there was no trap, it plucked up its courage, picked up the hamster, put it to the tip of its nose and sniffed it, then, with a look of intoxication on its face, it could not suppress its inner desire and began to chew it in big mouthfuls.

The goblin ate more and more greedily, becoming more and more addicted. In the end, he simply ignored it, dropped his weapon, knelt on the ground and bit it hard with his teeth. The way he ate with such relish made the other goblins watching feel indignant and tormented.

They used reason and willpower to fight the temptation of the evil chemical reagents, their inner desires and primitive instincts. They also watched the cannon fodder's actions and fate. After repeatedly confirming that there was no danger, they finally couldn't hold back and rushed forward with a cacophony of cries and screams. They first punched and kicked the cannon fodder, snatched the chopped rat from his mouth, and then swarmed forward to grab other delicious rats.

Yuan Zhu counted them and found that there were about ten of them. It would be impossible to catch them all by subduing them alone.

If you want to refine a ghost, it's best to keep some alive. Ordinary goblins are too weak. While their souls possess spirituality, their bodies also need to be strengthened before they can serve as base material. Therefore, messy testing is inevitable, and there will inevitably be losses during the experimental process. Therefore, the more you capture, the better.

"Boss, activate [Boss Mode]. Once the Tiger Demon appears, everyone will be captured."

Yuan Zhu thought for a moment and decided to activate his Tiger Demon form. He controlled his uniform to protect his backpack, and the shadows on the ground came alive, enveloping and devouring him. Then, his body twisted little by little, and a black tiger silently emerged from the sewer, staring coldly at the reveling goblins.

This was his first time using the power of the Tiger Demon in the real world of Duling, and he immediately had a brand new feeling. It was completely different from when he activated the Tiger Demon in the haunted house. For the first time, he felt a sense of restraint from the world, and the power it could exert was even weaker.

At the same time, the laws of the [Shadow Dimension] of the Duling planet are very strict. In the eyes of the Tiger Demon, it can establish a connection with the shadow under its feet, but it cannot escape into the shadow dimension.

He could only briefly blend into the shadows, using them to sneak, hide, and shadow-escape... but he could never truly enter the Shadow Dimension. The shadow world of the Duling refused to open its doors to this shadow (quasi-)demon god.

Furthermore, the Tiger Demon's strength was perhaps only slightly beyond the limits of an ordinary Transcendent. Therefore, it only felt oppressed, without being rejected by the world or having the urge to ascend. Instead, after coming into contact with the "shadow layer" of the sewer, it experienced a sinking sensation.

Because the shadow power in the Tiger Demon's body exceeds the standard, in the real physical world, its limbs are on the hard floor, very stable, and it can run at will.

But in the extraordinary perception of the power of shadow, its mass presses the ground (shadow layer) downward, and with every step, the shadow sinks and collapses.

Yuan Zhu had a premonition that if the Tiger Demon's shadow energy continued to grow, this downward collapse would only intensify. Until it broke through the critical point of reality, it would completely "sink," falling from the real world into the shadow layer? Or perhaps the spiritual realm?
"So, this is the essence of [Ascension]? The world's rejection will allow individuals with excessive power (pollution) to enter the 'inner side' of the world?"

From the perspective of the tiger demon, the inner world or the spiritual plane is the destination of the "sinking, collapsing" from the shadow's perspective. For the tiger demon, [Ascension] may mean falling into the deeper layers of the world, deeper into the interior.

So the second ascension of the [Spiritual Layer] might be a further fall into the [Nightmare Bubble Layer]?
If there is an inner world, there is an outer world. The goal of ascension to the inner world is the [Spiritual Realm]; then, could the 'external ascension' to Duling Star be the [Sea of Consciousness] represented by the moon?
At that moment, he suddenly recalled the myths of his home planet Earth. When chaos first began to form, it split into two energies: clear and turbid. The light energy rose, becoming the heavens, supporting the thirty-three heavens; while the turbid energy descended, becoming the earth, creating the underworld.

So, do the [Spiritual Realm] and even the deeper and more distant [Foamy Realm] belong to the Duling worldview of turbid qi? And are the Moon's [Sea of Consciousness] and even the [Astral Realm] where the plant race resides, Duling's pure qi system?

Judging from the Tiger Demon's current performance, it has at most touched the surface of "ascension," with a sinking sensation, but is still a long way from truly ascending (or falling) into the spiritual realm. As for reverse ascension to the sea of consciousness? There's even less of a clue.

While the Tiger Demon attempted to interact and explore the Duling Planet through the Shadow Layer, the goblins on the other side were already in high spirits. Under the attack of chemical reagents, they completely ignored the danger around them, each holding aloft the shattered rats, splattering blood all over their faces and bodies, and falling into a frenzy.

The tiger demon felt that it was almost time. If it delayed any further, who knew what kind of eye-catching things they would do.

Just as it was about to close its net, a faint voice suddenly reached its ears. It was so distant that it would have been easily overlooked. But it penetrated its heart, as if someone were whispering something in its spiritual world, making it impossible to ignore.

Could it be that I have attracted the attention of some evil spirit sleeping deep in the sewer, which is silently calling me?

The Tiger Demon couldn't help but shudder. This was too possible!
He was inexplicably summoned by the evil god's sacrifice, and encountered a space connection on the way home. He was pulled into the space of the gods while going to the toilet, and he could even break into the Garden of Disease while exorcising a demon.

It wasn't bad luck; it was simply that the environment in Duling was harsh, teeming with dangers. There were so many dangers that anyone could encounter them repeatedly until they were doomed to die.

Yuan Zhu paused his hunting and asked suspiciously, "Snake, can you hear me?"

Snake Tail responded: "Okay, but that's not a real voice."

The Tiger Demon nodded in agreement: "Yes, I suspect there is some kind of spiritual monster hidden in this sewer, creating illusions."

Snake Tail shook his head and denied it. "Don't scare yourself. I've discovered this is a mysterious spiritual connection, and it's anchored to you. Boss, your soul in human form is too weak to receive it. On the contrary, in Tiger Demon form, your soul expands dramatically, allowing you to receive these messages again. You're like a signal base station, receiving messages from other phones."

The Tiger Demon closed his eyes and felt the vague information. He asked doubtfully, "That's not right. Why didn't I hear this when I was in the haunted house?"

"Because the haunted house is an independent and closed space. Although it exists in reality, there is a barrier between it and reality, so it cannot be heard. I suspect that these spiritual connections are related to the sacrificial ceremony!" Xiao Latiao flipped through Yuan Zhu's experiences during this period and made a bold guess.

The Tiger Demon also recalled carefully, and then his eyes lit up: "I remember, I was used as a sacrifice, and then the 'shadow pollution' took over my body. Then, it seems that I became a kind of anchor point, connecting not only many evil spirits, but also establishing a connection with all the believers present!"

Xiao La Tiao said, "You have not only established a connection with all the believers present, but also with all members of the White Feather Wishing Society in Running City. In the words of Earth's Christians, your sacrifice was equivalent to the suffering of the Son of God, becoming a channel for believers to communicate with the gods."

"Thus, you connect upward to all evil spirits and downward to all believers, becoming the anchor of the ritual. Although the ritual is over, the evil spirits have fled, and the core believers have perished, vomited into the Vajra Temple's pond by you... but those peripheral members who didn't make it in time to participate in the sacrifice still maintain a mystical connection with you. You are naturally their superior!"

(End of this chapter)