American variety show world begins with subduing Jason

"Ahem, that's because the Divine Realm has lost its master..."

An elderly man with one eye, wearing a black eye patch, cleared his throat and took over the conversation.

"When I first entered this industry decades ago, my mentor told me some related secrets..."

The Aztec gods mysteriously disappeared long before the colonists arrived, causing the entire priestly class to lose most of their spellcasting abilities. This plunged the vast empire of tens of millions of people into chaos, which is why it was quickly defeated by the colonial army in conjunction with the Holy Church.

In other words, if the rumors are true, the Divine Realm is indeed currently empty.

The group of mediums around him had obviously heard him talk about it once before, so they weren't too surprised, but instead showed expressions of longing.

The secret realms and ruins once inhabited by gods—any small item from them would be an invaluable treasure to these people at the bottom of the superhuman realm.

Jess, who was also lost in thought, took a while to come to his senses, and a look of loneliness appeared on his face.

“Those things are too far removed from us, Miss Pauline…”

Exploring those hidden realms is the privilege of the strong; neither Teotihuacan nor the Garden of Eden in the present world has anything to do with us.

The young woman shook her head, her face beaming with delight.

"Don't be so discouraged. Change your mindset. We may not be qualified to participate, but we can sell the information to those who are."

She grinned triumphantly, stroking the chalky white mark on her arm.

"Upon learning of this, I immediately contacted Her Majesty Mary, the Voodoo Godmother of New Orleans, who bestowed upon me a witchcraft tattoo, making it much safer to deal with evil spirits in the future."

Mrs. Bella, who was standing next to her, rolled her eyes at her and tapped the table.

"Stop with the digressions and get started. Since the Christmas attack, everyone has gone to other places to lay low, and we haven't gotten together for more than half a year. Is there anything we want to trade?"

……

……

The pale moonlight spilled onto the water, gilding the fine ripples with a silver edge.

In the distance, tall buildings stand tall, while on the dark streets, people occasionally shout and curse in Black slang.

This is Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan, a financial and violent crime capital.

A small black bat silently glided across the night sky, bypassed the brightly lit city, and disappeared into a secluded mansion hidden deep in the forest on the outskirts of the city.

On the second-floor balcony, a wisp of white smoke dissipated, revealing a man in a black motorcycle leather jacket who bowed to the black-haired youth holding a glass of red wine.

"Lord Craven, as you instructed, the message has been sent out through indirect and secret channels. The middleman was dealt with and a counter-divination ritual was performed, so no one will be able to trace its source."

He frowned and said cautiously, "That bastard Blade has been keeping a close eye on us lately. This time we almost stumbled upon the anti-divination ritual. I wonder if he's noticed anything..."

The black-haired youth lazily raised his crystal goblet, swirled it in the moonlight, and through the crimson liquid, everything in the world appeared red.

“Very good!” Craven raised an eyebrow and smiled. “As long as a few points are revealed, some self-righteous fools will spread the word quickly for profit, and within a few days everyone will know, without us even having to risk our lives to help spread it.”

As for that mixed-race bastard, we don't need to worry about him for now; the elders have more important tasks to assign him.

"Your wisdom is as vast as the night sky," the man complimented. "The results are even better than I imagined. I heard feedback before I came back; it's as if a whole group of people volunteered to help."

Craven took a sip of "red wine," and as his lips parted, a gleam of cold white teeth was revealed.

"Go ahead and relax." He gestured with his chin toward the lobby on the first floor, indicating to his subordinates.

There, the specially made dark glass windows were tightly closed, and not a single light could be seen. If you listened carefully, you could hear the sounds of heavy breathing, shouting, laughing and moaning mixed together, and the smell of decadent desire would hit you.

As he watched his subordinates transform into wisps of smoke and slip through the crack in the door to join the "battle," the smile on Craven's face gradually faded.

Rumors spread too fast? Could it be that the old man has become wary and sent someone else to intervene?

He pondered for a moment, then turned and went back into the house. He walked through the magnificent and luxurious furnishings, came to the study, pushed open a bookshelf, and entered a small secret room. He respectfully addressed a blood-red mirror.

"Your Grace, things over there have been taken care of. It should cause some chaos for the authorities."

After a few breaths, ripples spread across the mirror like waves on water ruffled by the wind, and a weathered voice, seemingly covered in dust, rang out:

How's the setup going?

"The offerings were transported to the Elizabethan Islands a week ago. Background checks on all 184 people in the local villages have been completed to ensure that no one or their relatives are involved."

Furthermore, the bridges leading to the outside world have been sabotaged; the management personnel are our own people, and they will be closed under the guise of maintenance at the start of the polar night to prevent disturbance.

"Very good." As if Craven were praising his subordinate, his weathered voice also expressed the same appreciation.

"When all eyes are on Teotihuacan, that is when we begin the Eternal Night Ritual."

"There's no need to risk venturing with inferior beings to peer into the realm of the gods; we ourselves will become eternal!"

The weathered voice suddenly changed tone, like a cold, harsh wind.

"Time it perfectly, detonate all the 'bombs' you've planted, keep the authorities busy, then evacuate the Federation and go into seclusion on the Black Continent for more than a decade."

Craven's cheek muscles twitched slightly as he hesitated and asked:

"The family controls a large amount of resources and human agents, which is difficult to deal with in a short time. Should we send servants to temporarily control them?"

"No need," the weathered old man replied indifferently to his request.

"The overall situation is paramount. As long as the ceremony succeeds, these material possessions are insignificant. But if it fails..." He paused.

"...Then it doesn't matter at all!"

Waiting for the Blood Mirror to calm down, Craven bowed respectfully and stepped back out of the secret chamber.

He picked up the wine glass from the gilded low cabinet, tilted his head back, and drank the "red wine" he hadn't finished earlier in one gulp.

Craven exhaled a heavy breath of blood, his eyes deep and unfathomable.

The glass in my hand cracked slightly as I squeezed it.

Prioritizing the greater good? For your eternity, you're going to destroy the vast foundation you've painstakingly built over 200 years, sending all your people from the prosperous New World to slumber in a desolate, godforsaken wasteland...

...Victor, you're so selfish!

Chapter 180 Prelude to the Adventure, Undercurrents

The rotten wooden floorboards emitted a faint musty smell, indicating that they had been neglected and unmaintained for a long time.

A pair of bare feet with sharp claws stood on it. Centered on it, the dampness that had accumulated over the years quickly receded, and a strange smell of dried mud quietly filled the air.

Zhu Mingyao's gaze followed the feet upwards, and in turn, a gleaming yellow bronze armor with mountain patterns, a black iron chain around the waist, a mottled breastplate, and a ferocious red bronze Nuo mask appeared before his eyes.

Under the dim light of an old-fashioned light bulb, a tall and imposing figure stood silently, motionless like a stone statue.

One after another, yellow talismans spontaneously combusted without fire, turning into white ash that fell and imprinted vermilion runes onto the figure's body, slowly seeping into it.

Zhu Mingyao clicked his tongue in admiration. Although he respected his teacher Zhang Shouzhong greatly, he still had to admit that everyone has their own expertise, and Lü Hetong's skills were far superior to his own.

After being refined by others for the past few months, the fierce and ruthless aura of the Yaksha Ghost General [Jiesen] has been completely concealed, and its aura is as smooth as a pearl, showing signs of forming a Yin Core.

Even though the Yin Core realm of a ghost is vastly different from the Golden Core realm of a cultivator, it is still equivalent to a seasoned Innate expert. In terms of close combat ability alone, it is even superior to Zhu Mingyao himself. Moreover, it has thick skin and amazing recovery ability, making it a top-notch tank that spellcasters would love to see.

He took out a bronze talisman with an ox head, made a hand seal, and softly uttered, "Imperial decree!"

The tall figure rippled and transformed into a wisp of smoke, which was then absorbed into the bronze talisman.

Zhu Mingyao politely turned off the light and stepped out of the dark basement, climbing the concrete steps.

He took a breath of fresh air, looked up to admire the magnificent sunset, and slowly walked out of the semi-abandoned courtyard, stepping on the wild wormwood and geraniums that reached above his calves.

Although Lü Hetong returned the control talisman to him, allowing him to use it immediately, he would still need to spend some time and effort honing his skills to use it effectively.

However, it's not convenient to place things like corpse demons in one's own home for rituals.

The mortuary was used to raise zombies, the backyard was used to refine zombies, and even the main room was decorated with large zombies dressed in the official robes of the Later Jin dynasty. This down-to-earth approach, which seemed to be connected to the underworld, was just an expedient measure that the Maoshan elders had to take in the chaotic world. It was not something they were born liking to do.

Fortunately, in times of peace, people's demands for quality of life have increased, and no one is willing to do these things at home. So the Chamber of Commerce sent its feng shui masters to find several secluded houses where yin energy gathered, bought them, set up protective barriers around them, and transformed them into public training rooms for fellow practitioners to do some rather unsavory things like Gu worms and corpse ghosts.

Zhu Mingyao drove out of the two large trees in his beat-up secondhand pickup truck, crunching through the overgrown weeds on the country road for about a hundred meters before turning onto the highway leading back to the city.

To avoid disturbing the residents and for safety reasons, this place is dozens of kilometers away from Los Angeles, and given his mediocre driving skills, it would probably take him quite a while to get there.

In fact, if it weren't for his girlfriend's private message that the recent leak of news about the opening of the secret realm had brought many unscrupulous superhumans to the vicinity of Luo City, Zhu Mingyao would have simply used the [Six Earth Concealing Form Technique] to travel by foot. After all, with his current cultivation level, his speed when he kicked his feet at full speed was almost the same as that of an ordinary car.

The air blasted away by the high-speed movement turned into a fierce gust of wind, rushing in through the half-open car window and causing his short, choppy black hair to ripple slightly.

The wind direction is a bit strange right now...

Zhu Mingyao's thoughts raced silently.

The wind direction he was referring to wasn't the kind that blows directly on your face, but rather the recent atmosphere.

First, information about the opening of the secret realm was inexplicably leaked and spread all over the place overnight.

Then all sorts of extraordinary individuals from the common people flocked to the scene, using every trick in the book—some pulling strings, some inquiring, some even volunteering themselves to the authorities—all with the same goal: to get a share of the spoils in the exploration mission, creating a chaotic scene for a time.

Those amateurish, scattered soldiers are nothing to worry about; nobody takes them seriously. But some forces and individuals even require the Special Investigation Bureau to expend some effort to deal with.

After all, no matter how much power or status a special department has, it is still a subordinate agency of the government. The federal government is not monolithic. When a few organizations that have gotten through to a certain faction of powerful people come to us with a very humble attitude and ask for cooperation, we can't just kick them out. So we have to drag things out and argue.

During this time, Henry Lai repeatedly sent messages urging him to keep his mouth shut, lest anyone find out that he had the qualifications to enter the secret realm and cause trouble for himself.

The situation suddenly changed, and others might not have noticed anything, but Zhu Mingyao had been nurtured by the art of dragon slaying in his previous life and had grown up in an era where everyone was a keyboard politician.

He keenly sensed that there was something wrong with the matter, and it seemed that someone was deliberately muddying the waters.

It's not surprising that news leaks out; there are no absolute secrets in bureaucracy. Even the dirty laundry between the White House president and his interns gets leaked, so it's perfectly normal for secret operations to be exposed.

But the news spread far too fast. This isn't the era of everyone being a self-media creator like in later years. It's as if several sources were working together to make the whole world aware of it in just a few days.

As the last rays of sunlight faded on the western horizon and darkness fell completely, Zhu Mingyao slowed down his driving speed a little.

He turned on the car lights and continued to think.

Moreover, the descriptions are half true and half false, and are highly targeted. The wealth as vast as mountains of gold and silver, the extraordinary knowledge that leads to the path of the gods, and the spring water that can restore youth—all these things combined encompass the desires of everyone from the lowest level of extraordinary individuals to powerful figures, and even ordinary nobles.

This tactic is practically screaming "There's a conspiracy!"

Zhu Mingyao became more alert and decided to have a good discussion with Bai Ziyuan, trying to reveal some of the plot he knew, and to plan their tactics after entering the secret realm.

……

……

The modern Caribbean Sea refers to the area between the Greater and Lesser Antilles and the continental North and South America.

But people hundreds of years ago defined its scope much more broadly.

Thousands of islands and reefs, scattered like stars in the sea, provide countless suitable hiding places for people who walk the path of crime.