Who invited the witch into the eerie game?

Chapter 117 The Ritual Cannot Stop

"Would you like to open the box?"

Cao Ziyue placed the box containing the giant fox's tail fur on the offering table and asked a question subconsciously.

"Of course not!"

Zhou Chuan said, "What if a gust of wind comes and blows it away?"

That makes so much sense that he couldn't refute it.

The problem that had been troubling me for a whole day and night was easily solved.

However, what Cao Ziyue didn't know was that Zhou Chuan was starting to have doubts because of his question.

Zhou Chuan originally believed that the success rate of the ceremony was about 70% to 80%.

Now, only 30-40% remains.

Because he wasn't sure whether he should open the box or not.

But since we're already here, we have no choice but to bite the bullet and go for it.

As a con artist, his greatest skills are weaving lies, manipulating people's minds, and even distorting and exploiting traditional rules.

But this time, he needs to summon the fox spirit of Fox Demon Town through a ritual.

If you gain the fox spirit's approval, you'll have a chance to leave alive.

Zhou Chu'an, holding a magic sword, began to mutter incoherently.

The essence of ritual is deception.

However, the offerings were real.

In this situation, there is a chance that his deception will become real during any ritual he performs.

Zhou Chuan had studied the specific principles. Simply put, as long as the offerings provided are genuine, even if the actual process he followed was suspected of fraud, the result was often correct.

In mathematical terms, it means "to assume one".

To explain it using the analogy of solving a crime in the world of anime, it's like activating the skill "false evidence".

Cao Ziyue, He Nini, Kono Seiichi, Liz, and Shen Junxian stood in different positions, each with a different expression.

For some reason, ever since Zhou Chuan began the ceremony, the atmosphere around them has become increasingly eerie.

He Nini's face was pale, and her eyes were filled with unease.

Kono Seiichi placed one hand on the short sword at his waist, warily scanning his surroundings.

Shen Junxian seemed somewhat numb, staring blankly at Zhou Chuan's actions with a strange look in his eyes.

Cao Ziyue frowned, feeling like something was missing, like something was wrong.

As for Liz, she was filled with curiosity about all of this.

Yes, she was very excited.

I'm so excited.

"This humble Taoist priest, Zhou Chu'an, respectfully invites the fox spirit to descend!"

Zhou Chuan took a deep breath and spoke in a deliberately low, mysterious, and solemn tone.

As he chanted, the air seemed to thicken and grow colder.

Suddenly, the sounds of insects chirping and wind blowing around the ancestral hall disappeared.

All that remained were the chilling whispers under the blood moon.

"What is that sound?"

He Nini was terrified, and her body began to tremble uncontrollably.

However, she dared not look.

"Hehehe————"

Suddenly, a woman's giggles rang out without warning in everyone's ears.

The laughter seemed to be right next to their ears.

You can even feel the breath blowing.

He Nini sobbed silently, then suddenly hugged her head and squatted down.

From a distance, Su Xiaoshuang noticed He Nini's reaction and her expression turned somewhat strange.

I don't know why, but this scene feels very familiar.

Has she seen her somewhere before?

I can't think of anything right now.

Furthermore, in her view, nothing happened at the Three Fox Shrine.

However, something strange and ominous must have actually happened, otherwise these players wouldn't have reacted this way.

Could it be the Holy Spirit doing something?

The ceremony continued at the Sanhu Shrine.

As the host of the ceremony, Zhou Chuan also noticed it.

The eeriness and ominousness of this ceremony were greater than ever before.

He was very panicked.

However, the ritual could not be stopped, otherwise he felt he would die.

However, this situation is tough on Cao Ziyue, Shen Junxian, Kono Seiichi, and He Nini.

Around them, a cacophony of voices surged forth.

There were the sounds of children crying, old people sighing, men and women laughing and joking, and a torturous sound like fingernails scratching a blackboard.

These sounds were elusive, sometimes near, sometimes far.

Sometimes it was clear as if it were right next to my ear, and sometimes it was blurry as if I were looking through a thin veil.

"Who?! Who's there?!"

Kono Seiichi shouted sharply, drawing his short sword from his waist. The blade gleamed coldly in the blood moonlight.

But apart from the swaying shadows of the trees, there was no one around.

"Calm down, is this the effect of the ritual?"

Shen Junxian muttered to himself, his eyes beginning to glaze over.

"Mommy, Mommy, is that you? I miss you so much—"

He Nini suddenly stood up, her face a mixture of sadness and joy.

She reached out her hand and walked towards the empty space ahead, muttering to herself.

She seemed to see her long-deceased mother.

"Shhh."

Suddenly, Liz made her move.

A sleeping spell instantly put He Nini to sleep.

To combat illusions, and since you can't see them, there's nothing better than putting your teammates to sleep.

Cao Ziyue also felt a moment of disorientation. He seemed to see his girlfriend, who was far away in his hometown, smiling and waving at him.

"No, this is all fake! It's an illusion!"

He bit his tongue hard, and the sharp pain instantly brought him back to his senses.

As for Liz, she looked around and saw familiar faces from her memories almost every time she looked to one side.

But no matter how these illusions unfolded, Liz remained unmoved.

There was absolutely no fear.

Over here, Zhou Chuan's body couldn't help but tremble as he imagined all sorts of ominous possibilities.

The outcome was unexpected. This cold, chaotic, and malicious aura was definitely not a sign of a fox spirit descending.

The conman's intuition was screaming warnings, telling him to stop the ritual.

However, the ceremony cannot be stopped.

-

If you stop, you will die.

Now, all we can do is hope that our teammates can hold on.

Just then, something even more terrifying happened.

Shen Junxian saw the mountain of wealth, the money and jewels he had always dreamed of, glittering in the moonlight, tempting him to reach out his hand.

In reality, his target was Seiichi Kono.

Kono Seiichi's pupils suddenly contracted.

He saw a blood-covered man glaring at him with venom; it was his comrade whom he had accidentally killed during a mission.

"You dare show your face in front of me?!"

Kono Seiichi's eyes instantly turned bloodshot, and his breathing became rapid.

"Go to hell!"

Kono Seiichi let out a beast-like roar, turned around abruptly, and slashed at Li Shen Junxian.

It all happened so fast that no one had time to react!

"Kono, have you gone mad?!"

Cao Ziyue's eyes widened in fury.

puff.

The sound of the blade piercing flesh was clear and jarring.

Shen Junxian's infatuated expression froze. He lowered his head and looked at Kono Seiichi in disbelief.

His body was cut in two, and blood flowed out like a waterfall.

Why————

Shen Junxian managed to utter a few words, his eyes unfocused.

"You deserve to die!"

Kono Seiichi was panting heavily, his eyes still bloodshot, seemingly still immersed in a hallucination, completely unaware of what he had just done.

"Really? I didn't expect I'd been exposed—"

Shen Junxian, who was cut in half, did not fall down like a normal corpse.

His wound did not expose bones or internal organs, but instead gushed out a large amount of dark liquid that emitted a nauseating, fishy odor and was constantly writhing and expanding.

"Heh ————··————"

Shen Junxian made inhuman sounds from his throat.

His body twisted in a way that defied the laws of physics, a black, viscous liquid enveloping his remains, rapidly condensing, contorting, and deforming.

In the blink of an eye, the original Shen Junxian disappeared.

Instead, there was a huge monster nearly three meters tall, covered in pollution, and emitting a foul stench of black fur.

It has the head of a fox, but eight eyes that gleam with a ghostly red light, and its mouth is stretched to its ears, revealing dense, serrated fangs.

Its limbs are thick and strong, and its claws are as sharp as knives, covered in black slime.

Shen Junxian had somehow transformed into a sinister and ominous fox demon.

"roar!"

The mutated fox demon let out a deafening roar, its foul breath blowing towards Kono Seiichi like a whirlwind.

Eight eyes locked onto Kono Seiichi and pounced on him.

Kono Seiichi was awakened by this terrifying sight.

His pupils contracted sharply, and without thinking, he swung his sword back and struck out.

clang!

The blade struck the fox demon's thick arm, producing a metallic clang.

The fox demon's arm was only cut with a shallow wound, and black blood splattered out, falling to the ground and making a sizzling, corrosive sound.

How could that be?

Kono Seiichi was terrified and quickly used the momentum to leap backward, narrowly dodging the fox demon's other claw.

The claws grazed his cheek, the force of the wind making his face sting.

boom!

The fox demon's claws struck the ground, instantly carving five deep claw marks into the hard stone bricks, sending fragments of stone flying.

A sudden battle broke out at the foot of the Three Fox Shrine.

Although Kono Seiichi was very capable, he was at a loss when facing this strange fox demon that was clearly not a normal creature.

He could only rely on his agile movements to dodge, and had very few opportunities to counterattack.

Occasionally, a successful counterattack would occur, but each strike would only leave a shallow wound on the fox demon.

Such a wound is nothing to a massive fox demon.

"This is the incarnation of the Holy Spirit," Tu Shan Fei Yue said.

"Hmm," Su Xiaoshuang said, "It seems to have been affected by the players—"

-

When Su Xiaoshuang first saw the Holy Spirit, she was filled with awe.

However, no one expected that the Holy Spirit would be affected during the ritual performed by the players tonight.

Or is there an influence from the blood moon at play here?

But that shouldn't be the case.

Even if it's an avatar, the real body is right next to it, so it can still be affected?

Su Xiaoshuang continued reading.

Inside the Three Fox Shrine, the attacks of the eerie fox demons were simple and brutal.

Every pounce, claw strike, and tail whip carries a devastating force.

It scratched the ground, leaving it pitted and cratered, and black blood and slime splattered everywhere. Wherever it passed, vegetation withered and stones corroded.

Even some branches of the banyan tree were broken, leaving Su Xiaoshuang dumbfounded.

When they get really ruthless, they'll even hit themselves.

The Holy Spirit is too powerful.

Boom boom boom!

The battle intensified, with Kono Seiichi and the eerie fox demon locked in a desperate struggle.

Cao Ziyue quickly retreated to a safe area.

His face was pale. He hadn't expected Shen Junxian to turn into a strange fox demon so quickly.

Yes.

It was specifically mentioned in the main storyline.

Players are easily assimilated during rituals, but why are He Nini, Liz, and Zhou Chuan unaffected?

What exactly is going on?

Cao Ziyue looked at Zhou Chuan, who was slumped in the center of the formation, his face as white as paper, his eyes filled with terror as he looked at everything in front of him, his body trembling like a leaf.

Without a doubt, the ceremony failed.

Zhou Chu'an not only failed to summon the fox spirit, but instead attracted unimaginable strangeness and misfortune.

However, for some unknown reason, all the strange and ominous things that had been attracted were absorbed into Shen Junxian's body.

However, Zhou Chuan would not say such a thing.

After all, this is a bizarre game.

What if his teammates discover something amiss and then sacrifice him afterwards?

In short, it's all thanks to Seiichi Kono.

Kono Seiichi lost control, exposing Shen Junxian.

Otherwise, the consequences would be unimaginable.

The battle lasted only three minutes, but it felt like an eternity.

Kono Seiichi had several deep, bone-revealing wounds on his body, and his clothes were soaked in blood, making his movements sluggish.

But his eyes grew brighter and more crazed, as if he had entered a state of orcish bloodlust.

"Drink!"

Kono Seiichi let out a deafening roar.

Ignoring the strange fox demon's claws, he poured all his strength into the longsword in his hand, and in a suicidal manner, he leaped up and plunged the longsword into the center of the strange fox demon's head, which was full of eyes.

The longsword went in without piercing the hilt.

"roar!"

The eerie fox demon let out an extremely shrill scream, and all eight of its eyes simultaneously emitted a red light.

Its body trembled violently, and the pitch-black pollution seemed to boil and burn completely.

Kono Seiichi was violently thrown aside by the eerie fox demon, his entire body flying out like a kite with a broken string, crashing heavily to the ground, his fate unknown.

The next second, the eerie fox demon caught up and stomped down with its giant claw.

This time, Kono Seiichi was unable to resist any longer.

He exploded like a watermelon, his flesh and blood scattered all over the ground.

After dealing with Kono Seiichi, the eerie fox demon stared intently at Zhou Chu'an: "Damn mortal, what exactly did your ritual bring?"

what?

Zhou Chu'an stared at the eerie fox demon, trembling uncontrollably: "I have no idea—"

God doesn't know!

The eerie fox demon was furious and wanted to eliminate Zhou Chu'an as well.

Suddenly, it let out a piercing scream, and its body swelled up violently.

"Run! It's going to explode!"

Liz was the first to realize something was wrong. She grabbed the unconscious He Nini in one hand and Zhou Chuan, who had turned into a quail, in the other, and ran away as fast as she could.

Cao Ziyue's pupils contracted sharply, and he immediately summoned a defensive artifact.

boom!

An explosion, louder than any sound before it, rang out.

The eerie fox demon's body exploded, and pitch-black pollution sprayed outwards like a torrential rain.

The entire Three Fox Shrine was instantly shrouded in a foul-smelling blackness.

Cao Ziyue's defensive artifact was blown to dust, and he was thrown away by the shockwave of the explosion.

When he rolled to the ground, he felt as if his internal organs had shifted.

A sweet taste rose in his throat, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.

Cao Ziyue struggled to lift her head, only to find a scene of utter chaos before her.

The air was filled with a nauseating stench and a strong smell of blood.

The enormous banyan tree had several branches blown off, and the ground was covered with black slime and bits of flesh, resembling hell.

Liz looked a bit disheveled, but she wasn't injured.

He Nini, whom she rescued, remained unconscious.

He wasn't injured.

As for Zhou Chuan, he lay there slumped, his eyes vacant, seemingly terrified.

The eerie fox demon that Shen Junxian transformed into has completely disappeared, leaving behind only a mess of filth that cannot be cleaned up.

Without a doubt, the ceremony was a complete failure, and Zhou Chuan caused disastrous consequences.

During this ceremony, Seiichi Kono and Jun-Hsien Shim died.

Main quest one failed.

What should I do?

Cao Ziyue felt a chill run down her spine and a sense of despair.

What kind of weird place is this?

"Cao Ziyue, you look like you're about to turn into a fox demon."

Liz stood at a distance and kindly offered a reminder.

Fox demon?

Cao Ziyue was startled.

He suddenly looked down at his hands.

His skin turned pale and smooth at a visible speed, and his nails began to grow longer and sharper, with a faint, eerie red hue.

An indescribable, wild power surged into his limbs and bones like a tide.

"No, no! This is—"

Cao Ziyue stared wide-eyed in horror, feeling a terrifying change taking place in his body.

This change was completely beyond his control.

Behind him, something seemed to be about to burst forth from his body—a fox tail.

It has fox ears, fox paws, and a fox tail.

Without a doubt, influenced by the ritual, he is turning into a fox demon!

Panic gripped his heart instantly.

He didn't want to become a weird monster.

However, the changes in the body continue.

A malicious consciousness began to erode his brain, making him dizzy and wanting nothing more than to scream and tear everything in front of him apart.

"The Great Chu will rise, and Chen Sheng will be king!"

Cao Ziyue looked up at the sky and let out a long roar.

Just as Cao Ziyue was about to completely lose her mind and be devoured by this eerie power, an even more terrifying aura descended like Mount Tai pressing down.

Cao Ziyue suddenly raised her head and instinctively looked in the direction from which the aura was coming.

It's that big banyan tree.

At this moment, the blood-red moonlight shone through the layers of branches and leaves, falling on the thick trunk of the banyan tree.

To Cao Ziyue's horror, the naturally formed patterns on the tree trunk began to slowly writhe under the blood-red moonlight, transforming into an enormous eye.

This tree is indeed eerie.

Or it is an extremely powerful, terrifying, and bizarre demigod.

The battle must have startled it awake, since the fighting and explosion had damaged the banyan tree's branches.

The banyan tree's eyes watched him as he transformed into a bizarre fox demon.

An extremely terrifying power was slowly gathering inside the banyan tree, and the shadow of death instantly enveloped Cao Ziyue.

This bizarre demigod must be eliminated.

Cao Ziyue's face finally revealed an expression of utter despair.

He tried to escape, but found his body no longer obeyed his commands; he could only watch helplessly as the banyan tree emitted an increasingly terrifying light—

"No!"

Cao Ziyue cried out in alarm, "Help me!"

He hoped that Liz, He Nini, and Zhou Chuan could be saved, but when he looked back at where the three had been, they were nowhere to be seen.

"That's a demigod, we can't beat it. Cao Ziyue, you help us hold it off, your sacrifice will be worthwhile."

Liz's voice came from the end of the street.

Grass!

Cao Ziyue really wanted to curse.

But it was too late to say anything.

boom!

Cao Ziyue, who had transformed into a bizarre fox demon, was obliterated by the banyan tree.

Almost in the blink of an eye, Cao Ziyue turned into a dried-up fox demon corpse, caught by a branch of the banyan tree and hung up.

The dried corpse swayed in the wind, creating an indescribably eerie scene.