What do you mean by saying that the corpses I sew are all ominous creatures?

"Have your men stay put and tighten the encirclement; don't let a single fly out. The two of us will go in first to scout things out."

"Just the two of us?" Lu Yan hesitated.

"With fewer people and a smaller target, it's less likely to alert the enemy."

I touched the scalpel on my sleeve: "Moreover, when it comes to navigating the Yin Sha lands, I have more experience than your special operations team."

If you confirm it's the main force, then it's not too late to send the signal for a strong attack.

Lu Yan stared at me for a while, and finally nodded.

"Okay, I'll listen to you. But if we encounter danger, we must retreat immediately and not be reckless."

"Don't worry, I value my life more than anyone else."

Five minutes later.

Lu Yan and I avoided the main road and went into the dense forest next to the reservoir.

The trees here, due to years of lack of pruning, grow wildly and twisted, resembling grotesque ghosts in the rainy night.

The mud underfoot was incredibly slippery, and every step had to be taken with extreme caution.

Lu Yan turned off all the lights and followed closely behind me.

I didn't look where I was going.

In this environment, the eyes can deceive, but the malevolent aura cannot.

I mobilized the liquid evil energy within my body, gathering it in my eyes and between my eyebrows.

The world before my eyes changed instantly.

In the originally pitch-black forest, wisps of gray air currents appeared, the traces of death and yin energy flowing through them.

"stop."

I suddenly stopped and reached out to stop Lu Yan.

"What's wrong?" Lu Yan whispered in my ear, her voice barely audible.

I pointed to a large tree about three meters ahead.

Hanging on a tree branch is an inconspicuous tattered doll; if you don't look closely, you might mistake it for trash thrown away by someone's child.

But in my view, the rag doll was wrapped in circles of black threads, connecting it to some kind of underground formation.

"It's the Wind-Listening Curse."

I mouthed, "A kind of evil spell used for surveillance. The caster will know immediately if anyone gets within five meters of it or makes the slightest sound."

Lu Yan's expression changed slightly, and after thinking for a while, she looked at me helplessly.

Clearly, she didn't have a foolproof way to deal with the Listening Wind Curse under these circumstances.

I nodded to her, signaling her to calm down.

Then, I took a deep breath, and the bone needle in my arms began to tremble slightly.

Controlling Qi!

The bone needle shot out from my arms in an instant, its tail still connected to the silk thread I had condensed with my evil energy.

The five-meter distance was covered in an instant. Under my control, the bone needle did not pierce the rag doll directly, but instead circled the rag doll up and down dozens of times.

I didn't destroy it, but instead used my evil energy to create an insulating layer around it, like putting a soundproof earmuff on it.

After retracting the bone needles, I nodded to Lu Yan: "Let's go, be careful."

After that, I led Lu Yan and we quietly bypassed the guard post.

The further you go in, the stronger the feeling of oppression becomes.

The air temperature seemed several degrees lower than outside, and the raindrops felt like they were about to freeze on my skin.

Moreover, the opera music that Jin Wanliang had mentioned finally appeared.

"Ee-ya-"

The voice was shrill and high-pitched, with an indescribable sinister quality.

This isn't normal opera at all; it sounds more like someone screaming while scraping glass with a razor blade.

Lu Yan couldn't help but shiver.

"What kind of music is this? It's giving me the creeps."

""Soul Sacrifice Song"."

I said coldly, "Back in the countryside, some shady sorceresses would hum this tune when they summoned the souls of people who had died violently."

But this voice... it's too eerie. It doesn't sound like it's meant to soothe the soul; it sounds more like it's meant to... bring death.

We finally climbed to the top of the dam.

This is the highest point of the entire reservoir.

To avoid being spotted, we lay prone in the damp grass, peeking out to look down.

The next second, even I, who am used to seeing corpses, couldn't help but have my pupils contract sharply.

The reservoir was in its dry season at the time, and the bottom was dry, revealing a large area of ​​silt and rocks.

On that patch of mud, a huge circular altar was built with bones and blood.

Black command flags were planted around the altar, fluttering in the wind and rain.

In the very center of the altar stood a bronze cauldron that was about half a person's height.

The cauldron is mottled, with a dark red tinge amidst the coppery green, as if it had drunk its fill of blood.

The firewood burning beneath the cauldron was of unknown origin, producing clusters of pale green phosphorescent flames.

The fire did not go out in the rain; instead, it burned even brighter, illuminating the surroundings as if they were in a ghostly realm.

Around the cauldron, two circles of men in black robes knelt.

They bowed their heads, kowtowing repeatedly to the rhythm of the opera. Each kowtow struck the stone heavily with a dull thud, and they didn't care that their foreheads were covered in blood.

What caught my attention the most was one side of the altar.

Dozens of people were piled up there like livestock.

There are men and women, old and young.

Most of them were dressed in rags and looked dazed, clearly having been drugged or possessed.

At the very front of the altar stood a person dressed in a bright red theatrical robe.

The person had a seductive figure, held a folding fan in her hand, and wore a pale mask on her face.

The mask was painted with a ghostly face that looked like it was both crying and laughing, with its mouth stretched to its ears, but bloody tears streaming from its eyes.

That mournful opera singing style came from under this mask.

"Ee-ya—O soul, return—enter my precious cauldron—"

With a long howl, two men in black robes stood up and dragged a vagrant out of the crowd like a dead dog, placing him beside the bronze cauldron.

The homeless man seemed to regain some consciousness and began to struggle desperately, making muffled cries for help.

But the masked actor simply waved his folding fan lightly.

"Festival!"

puff!

A sharp blade instantly slit the homeless man's throat.

The blood gushed out, but instead of spilling onto the ground, it was all drawn into the bronze cauldron as if by some kind of gravity.

Immediately afterwards, the homeless man's body rapidly withered, and a faint gray phantom was forcibly pulled out from his crown, screaming as it burrowed into the cauldron.

"Buzz—"

The bronze cauldron emitted a deep, resonant sound, and the patterns on its surface flashed with a fleeting crimson light.

"brute!"

Lu Yan, standing beside him, gritted her teeth and suddenly raised the rifle in her hand, ready to pull the trigger.

I grabbed her hand.

"Don't move!"

"Didn't you see him killing someone?!" Lu Yan turned her head, her eyes red.

"I saw it. But if you shoot now, you won't save the homeless man; you'll only kill the rest of them."

I stared intently at the masked actor, my tone eerily calm.

"Look at that cauldron."

Lu Yan followed my gaze.

After the cauldron devoured the living soul, a cloud of black and red mist condensed above its mouth.

In the mist, one could vaguely see distorted human faces wailing; those were the wronged souls who had been sacrificed earlier.