Chapter 77
Chapter 77
Inside the classroom, Ji Tian froze at Bai Lu’s words, then shook his head with a self-deprecating smile.
“I can’t do it… I’ve never successfully invited a god. I can only summon anomalies.”
His face was filled with sorrow.
He had never once seen what a god looked like. The things that possessed him… were always anomalies.
“That was before,” Bai Lu said evenly. “Today, you ate the candy.”
Ji Tian stared blankly for a moment. Then a trace of longing crept into his eyes.
The Ji family’s path was divine possession: inviting a god to possess the medium. Yet despite being a direct descendant, Ji Tian had never been capable of becoming a proper spirit medium.
It had always been the deepest pain in his heart.
He had all but resigned himself to it long ago. But today, he had personally seen the dragon shadow and divine radiance surrounding Lin Xiaoyu…
“But what if I summon another anomaly? That place… is full of them now.”
The pain of his long years of suffering still left him terrified.
“Don’t be afraid,” Lin Xiaoyu encouraged him. “If you accidentally summon an anomaly, call my name. I’ll go in and bring you back.”
Meng Mo chimed in, “If you can’t reach any other god, Lin Xiaoyu and I are both gods. Just invite one of us. Don’t be scared!”
Meng Mo was curious as well. His very birth was inextricably tied to that place.
Years ago, Nightmare had obtained half a broken feather that drifted out from there. He dreamed a dream, and Meng Mo was born from it…
Even now, Meng Mo himself sometimes dreamed that he had gone to that gate-only to find venomous snakes everywhere around him.
If Ji Tian could successfully invite a god from that place, Meng Mo might finally discover many of the answers he sought.
Hearing their encouragement, Ji Tian summoned his courage and gritted his teeth.
“I’ll… try.”
He rose to his feet and brought his palms together. He shaped his ring fingers and index fingers into sword seals and held them against his forehead. Then he closed his eyes, silently recited the Ji family’s incantation, and began stamping his feet.
…
Elsewhere.
“Invite a god?”
“Brother Fengming… are you serious?”
“Can the Ji family truly still invite a god from that place?”
Everyone was astonished.
Rumors had circulated before, claiming that the Ji family had succeeded in inviting a god, but most people had remained skeptical.
After all, the Divine Gate had collapsed many years ago. Not so much as a trace of it could be found.
But Ji Fengming now dared to declare publicly that he would invite a god. That changed everything.
Even Yin Rumei’s expression turned grave.
“Of course,” Ji Fengming said, still perfectly composed. “Once the gods descend, I trust everyone will naturally understand which choice to make.”
With that, he suddenly pressed his palms together around the half-brick and raised it to his brow. He closed his eyes and began stamping his feet.
His steps grew faster and faster, beating out a rhythm like a dense roll of drums, while incantations poured ceaselessly from his lips.
As he stamped, a sudden clap of thunder exploded overhead.
Crack!
Everyone looked up. The sky, cloudless moments ago, had suddenly turned dark.
It was as if the weather had transformed in an instant, bringing bitter wind and icy rain.
On the school grounds, Yin Rumei and the others felt a bone-piercing chill.
“What… is that?!”
The old woman with the bamboo basket suddenly cried out, “The… Divine Gate?!”
Before everyone’s eyes, an enormous black gate slowly emerged from the gloom above Mingjiang No. 7 Special School.
The great black gate seemed both real and illusory. It spanned the ages and looked down upon the mortal world, surrounded by a heaven-high tide of anomalous aura.
Before it stretched a flight of steps built from white bones, imposing and dreadfully austere.
A single distant glance made everyone’s scalp prickle.
“Yes… It’s the Divine Gate!”
“The Divine Gate has appeared again… It really appeared!”
“Is the Ji family about to succeed in inviting a god?!”
Their eyes widened as they stared at the sight in disbelief.
Even Qin Shiyu and Leng Qingyan were stunned.
“That place… can truly be summoned here…”
Inside the security booth, Shen Yuan’s aged body began to tremble.
…
At that moment, inside the classroom.
As a frigid chill seeped into Ji Tian, he opened his eyes. The desks, lectern, and everything else around him abruptly vanished.
He stood in absolute darkness.
And before him loomed an enormous… pitch-black gate.
“The Divine Gate… I really reached the Divine Gate?”
Ji Tian could hardly believe it.
After the Divine Gate collapsed, the Ji family had tried countless times to invite a god.
He had tried as well.
Every attempt had failed. He had never even glimpsed the gate’s shadow.
Yet this time, he had truly come before it…
“My family has sacrificed everything. I have to see for myself… whether any gods truly remain.”
Gritting his teeth, he walked resolutely toward the black gate.
He climbed the steps built of white bones and reached the gate. Then he extended a hand to push it open.
Boom!
Before he could touch it, the gate slowly swung open on its own.
Beyond it lay bottomless darkness.
Then, within that oceanlike blackness, two enormous blood-red vertical eyes suddenly appeared.
A third followed, then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth…
Six colossal crimson eyes gazed down at Ji Tian like six blood-soaked lanterns hanging in the sky.
Two of the giant eyes seemed unable to restrain themselves. They slowly lowered and drew closer to him.
Ji Tian felt a crushing pressure, but he forced himself to remain where he stood.
At last, he felt their foul, bloody breath wash over him. A faint glimmer arose, finally allowing him to see clearly.
It was an enormous snake’s head. The two bloody vertical eyes were its eyes.
More horrifying still, the snake’s head was covered in human heads. They were piled upon one another like a mountain, and all of them now gave sinister, savage laughs.
Its scarlet forked tongue flicked out and tasted the air, as if confirming something. Then those human heads erupted in shrill, vicious, triumphant laughter.
“Hee-hee…”
“Ha-ha…”
Countless anomalies were laughing.
The giant snake abruptly opened its jaws and lunged to swallow Ji Tian.
At the same time, two more identical serpents bared their fangs and fought to seize him, as though they meant to tear him apart and feast on the pieces.
“No!”
Ji Tian screamed in terror. He hurriedly squeezed his eyes shut and began invoking a name in his mind.
At that instant, sacred radiance appeared behind him.
The three enormous snakes fixed their eyes upon it, as if watching.
A young woman wreathed in the shadow of a scarlet dragon walked calmly forward. She took Ji Tian by the hand and led him away without the slightest hurry.
…
The classroom lights flickered.
Ji Tian jolted awake, gasping violently.
“They aren’t gods… There are no gods left in that place. Only anomalies. The divine snakes that once guarded the gods have been parasitized by anomalies… There are no gods anymore!”
He cried out, his face deathly pale and his forehead drenched in sweat.
…
Meanwhile, outside.
“Did you see that? Three divine snakes! There were actually three divine snakes!”
“We couldn’t see them clearly, but there is no mistaking the eyes of the divine snakes within the Divine Gate!”
“The Ji family succeeded! They didn’t just contact a god-they can even manifest the Divine Gate itself?”
The families that had once worshipped the Divine Gate-the people now called the Refugees-stared at the vision slowly fading from the sky, too overwhelmed for words.
Ji Fengming finally opened his eyes as well.
“Was I… really that powerful this time?”
A flicker of astonishment crossed the depths of his eyes.
In the past, even his son Ji Yun, the Ji family’s most accomplished spirit medium of the present generation, had never been able to truly summon the Divine Gate. At most, he could faintly sense the gaze of the divine snakes’ eyes from far away.
But this time… Ji Fengming had genuinely felt the Divine Gate draw near.
He had even caught a vague glimpse of six blood-red divine snake eyes.
…