Chapter 4

Number Four died on the altar.

When the sacrifice began, her blood drained away with her spiritual energy until nothing remained.

From the eight girls stationed at the altar’s eight points, an endless stream of pure-yin blood flowed toward its very center.

There lay the heart of the Changheng Sect’s spiritual veins.

When Number Four closed her eyes, not one person mourned her.

Everyone cheered that the sacrifice was complete and that they once again possessed an inexhaustible supply of spiritual energy.

I buried Number Four’s body on the mountain behind the sect. Then I carefully laid the dress she had just finished embroidering over her grave.

Steady footsteps sounded behind me, followed by Fu Ning’s detached voice. “Essence-Refining Pills.”

“Didn’t the elders forbid you from refining them?”

“You heard everything?” His voice sounded almost self-mocking. “I had some left.”

Fu Ning held them out. I glanced at the pills but did not take them.

“There’s no point. Eating them won’t change the fact that we’re destined to die.”

“…”

“In my mind, the Changheng Sect was always powerful enough to dictate the rules of the cultivation world.”

My gaze settled on Fu Ning’s long, slender hands.

I, too, had once yearned to enter the Changheng Sect. It was the strongest sect in the cultivation world. I had always thought that a genius like me belonged in such a mighty place, where I could become an unrivaled sword cultivator.

But everything I had witnessed in this illusion had utterly changed my mind.

Such an evil sacrifice and such callous disregard for human life had no place in a righteous sect.

“You are disappointed as well, aren’t you?”

After some time, Fu Ning let out a quiet sigh. It sounded almost like laughter, but his voice brimmed with mockery.

I glanced at him in surprise. “As well?”

How could Fu Ning, the greatest beneficiary of this system, say such a thing?

The day after Number Four died, a young woman in an emerald-green dress charged into my room with a sword in hand.

Number Four and I had shared this room. The moment the girl entered, she pinned me against the wall and demanded,

“Where is my sister? They said she sacrificed herself for the sect. Tell me that isn’t true!”

I stared at her in surprise and only then noticed her striking resemblance to Number Four.

The difference was that she wore the robes of the main peak. She was clearly an inner disciple of the Changheng Sect.

I lowered my head apologetically. “Your sister, she…”

Those four words alone made the girl shudder violently. “That’s impossible,” she murmured.

Grief suddenly overwhelmed her. At the sight of Number Four’s clothes still scattered across the bed, not yet put away, she began sobbing as though her heart had been torn apart.

“I was sickly as a child. For decades, my sister searched tirelessly for medicine for me. She entered the Changheng Sect because of me. She told me nothing would happen to her! You all lied to me. Every one of you lied!”

With that, she ran out as though she had lost her mind.

Only after asking around did I learn that she was an exceptionally gifted sword cultivator who had joined the Changheng Sect solely because of Number Four.

I did not see her again after that day.

Another half month passed.

I next saw her just before I was to enter the altar.

An emerald-green figure abruptly burst into the heavily guarded grounds.

Sword in hand and eyes bloodshot, the girl shouted in a trembling voice,

“I knew it! What mighty sect? It’s all a lie! You sacrificed my sister. I’ll kill every last one of you and send you down to join her!”