Some people opened their mouths wide, some stared with wide eyes, and some took half a step back as if they were digesting the meaning of these three words.
Instantly after that, like dry wood burning, the entire seventh level of the Underworld Abyss boiled.
“Stop the sacrifice?! Really?!”
“No more sacrifices? No more sending people to their deaths?!”
“Mr. Chen said it! It was Mr. Chen who saved Youlan!”
“The Lord of the Abyss Agrees? The Lord of the Abyss really agrees?!”
Cheers, cries, and laughter mixed together, echoing in the ravine and causing the cliffs on both sides to shake with a buzzing sound.
Several ghost cultivators hugged each other and burst into tears, their shriveled shoulders shaking violently, as if they were venting all the sorrow and anger that had accumulated over ten thousand years.
Several people knelt on the ground and kowtowed towards the entrance of the Old Man of the Underworld’s cave, their foreheads hitting the rocks with a dull thud, but they felt no pain at all.
Some people looked up towards the dome, their lips twitching, as if giving thanks to some god.
A young cultivator happily threw his magical artifact into the air, only to be caught and slapped by an old man beside him, who roared, “You wastrel! That’s a magical artifact!”
Yet the old man himself smiled, and that smile stretched across his face, like ice that had been frozen for thousands of years finally cracking and letting the warmth beneath it out.
You Shan, holding his wife and daughter, bowed deeply towards David.
He did not speak, but his hunched back was deeply arched, his forehead almost touched his knees, and his wrinkled back stood out like a mountain ridge under his black robe.
Youhe also bowed, and Youlan, who was in her parents’ arms, sobbed while glancing at David gratefully.
The tears of the family of three mixed together, but they were no longer sobs of deep sadness, but instead of relief at surviving the disaster.
Gui Qi stood at the edge of the crowd, his dark blue eyes fixed on David, his lips moving slightly.
He wanted to say something, but in the end everything turned into an almost inaudible sigh.
That sigh contained relief, gratitude, and hope that he had never dared hope for before.
He had lived for thousands of years and had watched countless members of his tribe disappear into the abyss. Every year when he saw off a member of his tribe, he would watch as their young or old faces were swallowed by darkness.
He thought this was a fate he could never escape, until today, until this stranger from humanity told him—destiny could be broken.
David didn’t say much, just nodded slightly, then turned and walked towards his cave.
In the following days, the atmosphere in the Netherworld Abyss looked completely different.
In the abyss that was once gloomy and eerie, there were some sounds that were rarely heard on normal days – children’s laughter echoed between the suspension bridges, as clear and sharp as wind chimes.
The old man’s chatter could be heard from the entrance of the cave, accompanied by the sound of smoke coming from his pipe;
The footsteps of the young monks running on the suspension bridge were dense and light, as if they were making up for all the excitement they had missed over the years.
The gloom of those sacrifices, like clouds lifted by the winter winds, although not yet completely dispelled, had revealed a glimmer of light that had long been lost.
When the ghost cultivators saw David, they always stopped where they stood.
Some people bowed, some lowered their heads slightly, and some just glanced gratefully and whispered, “Thank you, Mr. Chen.”
That gaze no longer contained scrutiny or distance, but rather closeness and sincere gratitude, like melting ice water in spring—cold but full of life.
The young Taoist had become much more active these past few days, spending his days running around with the ghost children on the rope bridge.
He was shorter than the demon clan children, but he was very agile, walking on the edge of the suspension bridge as if it was flat ground.
The children of the ghost clan were a little quiet at first, but they were quickly guided by the little Daoist boy to relax and move freely. The small figures darted between the rope bridges like lively little monkeys.
Xuanzhenzi sat on a platform at the edge of the cliff, a blade of dry grass caught between his teeth, observing the little Daoist boy’s figure, muttering, “This brat is having more fun than I am. I’ve never seen him this energetic when I took him running away to save our lives.”
Every day, David would sit cross-legged on the Yin Spirit Grass near the fissure, channeling his Chaos Power and feeling the changes within the fissure.
He could feel that, with the cessation of the sacrifice, the latent power deep within the rift began to stir.
The force was like an ancient giant being disturbed and slowly rotating, and every vibration caused the rocks at the edge of the crack to emit a very faint hum.
FAQ Novel
Q: Why did the frequency of sacrifices increase?
A: The sacrifices became more frequent to accelerate the recovery of an entity, reducing the time between each offering.
Q: What solution does David propose for the escalating sacrifices?
A: David suggests stopping the sacrifices entirely to prevent the entity from fully recovering and consuming the Netherworld Abyss.
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