Under One Person: Please Call Me Golden Flash

Chapter 18 Human Sacrifice to the Star
As dusk settled, fine dust swirled up on the official road.

As Zhao Zhen was on his way, he lowered his straw hat a little, and a smell of rust suddenly rushed into his nostrils. He was very familiar with this smell—it was the smell of fresh human blood mixed with scorched earth.

He frowned, and his steps suddenly stopped.

The stench of blood is so strong, how many people must have died?
Is there a battlefield nearby where a fierce battle has just taken place?

No, I should have heard about such a large-scale battle when I passed through the previous village not long ago.

However, the reality is that this place is in a remote location, and even passing merchants rarely pass through it, let alone the military.

If it wasn't war, then the fact that so many people died is a little suspicious.

Should we avoid this place and take a detour?
Zhao Zhen's cautious nature prompted him to ponder the matter.

Just then, the faint sound of a child crying could be heard three miles to the southeast, interspersed with maniacal laughter.

Zhao Zhen frowned, and under his wide bamboo hat, the golden talisman was discreetly held between his fingertips.

After hesitating for a moment, Zhao Zhen decided to go and take a look.

If it were an adult, it wouldn't matter, but in chaotic times, people die every day, and Zhao Zhen had long been used to it.

However, Zhao Zhen did not want to get involved in unnecessary trouble, but she did not think she would be so cold-blooded as to ignore the child's cries.

The next instant, Zhao Zhen's figure vanished without a sound.

Over the years, he has traveled extensively and, due to his humble and polite nature, has made many friends among independent practitioners.

This Mirage Thousand Forms Technique, also known as the Mirage Escape, is a secret technique of the Wild Mao Mountain of the Mirage Pavilion in the East Sea. It was passed down to Zhao Zhen by a friend from Wild Mao Mountain during his travels in the East Sea.

The core principle of this method is based on water mist refraction and mimicry. By using a special method of circulating Qi, the body's refractive index is adjusted to match that of the air, thereby achieving the effect of concealing one's form.

If combined with its unique "Illusion Talisman", it can even perfectly conceal its own aura.

Even today, Zhao Zhen still remembers his friend boasting that if he mastered this secret technique, its concealment effect would be no less than that of the Illusionary Body Barrier of the Tang Clan in Sichuan!
Unfortunately, that friend later encountered a sudden warlord battle and was caught off guard, accidentally wounded by a stray bullet, and eventually died from excessive blood loss.

It was precisely because of the bloody lessons he learned that Zhao Zhen, even though his cultivation level is now considered one of the top experts among the younger generation in the world of supernatural beings, still maintains a cautious and prudent personality.

A moment later, Zhao Zhen stood silently on a withered locust tree branch.

Looking up into the distance, one could see a village a hundred meters away, with flames raging in the sky and nearly a hundred corpses lying by the roadside, black blood gushing from holes in their throats.

If I'm not mistaken, the smell of blood is coming from these corpses.

At this moment, three men in black robes were dragging a corpse. The leader held a bronze bell, the clapper of which was actually half a human finger bone.

"The Blood River Chariot is about to be completed!" A hoarse voice pierced the night.

Zhao Zhen, who was observing from the shadows, suddenly narrowed his eyes. To his astonishment, he discovered that the trajectory of the dragged corpse perfectly matched the Big Dipper's orientation, clearly indicating the "human sacrifice to the stars" evil technique recorded in the "Seven Arts of Yin Fu"!
A young girl was hanging upside down from a locust tree at the village entrance, blood dripping from a cut on her wrist onto a bronze cauldron.

Beneath the locust tree, a group of children, none of whom were even ten years old, were crying and screaming in terror.

According to the "Seven Arts of Yin Fu", the method of "human sacrifice to the stars" requires the blood of young girls as a catalyst, along with the sacrifice of several young boys and girls, to complete the ritual.

This evil technique is somewhat similar to the "Seven Fiends Gathering Body" practiced by Zhao Guizhen in later generations. Both belong to the evil techniques of Yemaoshan Mountain. They involve sacrificing seven boys dressed in red with iron scales under their feet to prevent their souls from being reborn for eternity, thereby gaining power.

Although the methods were extremely cruel, the power gained from mastering this technique allowed Zhao Guizhen to defeat his senior brother, who had been cultivating diligently for twenty years, after only half a year of training.

This is why Wild Maoshan has such a bad reputation among the people, because a large part of Wild Maoshan does not have a proper cultivation method, so they will focus on obtaining power through these unorthodox methods.

Even in peacetime, Zhao Guizhen was willing to kill seven children in order to cultivate the "Seven Fiends Gathering Body" technique, let alone in a chaotic world where human life is as worthless as grass.
If Zhao Zhen's guess is correct, this group of people probably chose to massacre the village in order to capture the children!
Thinking of this, Zhao Zhen's eyes turned completely cold.

He took out the last illusion talisman given to him by his friend, affixed it to his body, and after confirming that he had completely concealed his figure and aura, Zhao Zhen slowly walked towards the village entrance.

At that moment, one of the men in black threw the last corpse into the fire, and then turned his gaze to the crying child beside him.

"You brat, if you cry again, believe me, I'll cut your tongue out!"

laugh!
No sooner had he finished speaking than a dagger silently pierced through the man in black's chest.

"Who goes there!" The bell-bearer roared and turned around, the bell ringing out a soul-snatching, demonic sound.

Zhao Zhen's boots shattered the blue bricks, his figure becoming a blur in the sound waves. His attack was ruthless and decisive, giving no one time to react. The second man in black robes suddenly had his neck caved in, the sound of his throat bones breaking mixed with the sound of bells into a strange chord.

Just then, the bronze cauldron filled with blood suddenly trembled violently, and the blood inside transformed into a three-zhang-long giant python that pounced on Zhao Zhen.

Zhao Zhen sneered, his true qi surging around him. With a punch, he blasted the blood-red python back into bloody water, and at the same time, he activated the golden light talisman on the ground without hesitation.

The moment the golden light shone, the black-clad man holding the bell was beheaded by Zhao Zhen in the next instant.

From the moment Zhao Zhen deactivated the Sea City Escape Technique to the moment he killed the three people, the entire process was smooth and seamless, without a single superfluous movement, and it didn't even take two seconds!
As for the preciousness of the Vertical Earth Golden Light Talisman, that was not even on Zhao Zhen's mind.

Keep a Golden Light Talisman for emergencies so you can escape at any time. If you keep it hidden away because it's precious, what's the point of learning the Golden Light Escape Technique?
Even a lion needs to exert its full strength to hunt a rabbit, let alone someone who is far from being a "lion" yet.

Just as Zhao Zhen wiped the blood off the dagger and was about to double-check whether the three corpses were truly dead, the head in his hand suddenly spoke:

"Was that a golden light escape technique? Are you a disciple of the Golden Light Master?"

Zhao Zhen's pupils suddenly contracted as he looked down at the head in his hand.

Although the head had long since been separated from its body, its eyes were still staring straight at him.

Although he had long known that those who practiced the evil arts of the Wild Maoshan Mountain were all extremely strange and unpredictable, the scene before him still made Zhao Zhen's scalp tingle.

(End of this chapter)