Evil God Festival - Boathouse

On the vast expanse of sandy seashore, countless sacrifices were running as hard as they could; they ran so hard that blood flowed from their seven orifices, so hard that their respiratory tracts seemed to be burning, so hard that their bodies sounded the alarm, and they would never stop.

These sacrifices look up at the beautiful moon and fireworks in the sky, and a trance-like, relieved smile pulls at the edges of their bleeding mouths.

Once they get out of here, they'll be completely free.

Outside, a better world, free of pain, awaited them!

In the front, standing on the fire platform the servant of the Mifune family was indifferently monitoring the fleeing sacrifices, picking up the phone, "Mifune-sama, the sacrifices have already escaped from Kagome Prefecture, is it time to release their [Anchor] to them?"

"Put it down." Mifune's voice came out of the phone, "Be careful not to let them come into contact with the old sacrifices that are running out now, the adults of the seven families are hunting right now, don't let them lose their fun."

This servant glanced back at the mountain when he heard the seven great families.

From a distance, only a small fire could be seen on the other side of the shrine, and instead of informing the fire, the Gobunshi family servant standing on the fire platform laughed a little, "After tonight, the Kitahara family will be completely removed from the eight great families, right?"

Mifune smiled along, "I'll watch the Kitahara family burn to the ground."

"Doesn't Lord Gobune ...... have to participate in the hunt for the old sacrifices this night?" The servant asked back, slightly hesitantly.

"No need." Gosun hooked the corner of his mouth, "Because the most valuable offering is already in my hands."

"Tonight I will sacrifice him to the evil gods."

"Swoosh-bang-bang!!!"

Huge fireworks rose from the back of the watchtower and exploded at the highest point of the hilltop, and under the colorful light of the sudden blossoming of the flowers and fireworks, one could peek out at the top of the hill and see the Mifune family with weapons in their hands, walking towards the shrine from the top to the bottom on guard, while the Kitahara family members at the bottom of the hilltop who had been rounded up and returned to their home ran towards the top of the hill in fear and panic.

"We're entering the shrine." The man at the head of the group entering the Gobunshi family turned around, and snapped at the men behind him, "All of you, keep your skins tight and blindfolded."

"If anyone accidentally takes one look at that corpse and turns into a monster, don't say I didn't warn you in advance!"

"Yes!"

The Gobunshi's well-trained man pulled a thick black cloth from his pocket, then raised his hand and blindfolded it as he stepped into the middle of the shrine's territory.

The man at the head of the group took a deep breath, "Lord Gobune said that he has already sent the sacrifice Bai Liu outside the shrine, all we have to do later is to catch the sacrifice Bai Liu and bring him in to be sacrificed, and tonight's mission will be accomplished."

"Be quick, when the Ship Palace Night Jubilee Sacrifice is finished, the other lords will bring up their old sacrifices that they have hunted for sacrifice, we need to finish the sacrifice of Bai Liu before then!"

The trail at the bottom of the hill.

"Hurry!" The servants trembled and exclaimed, "Ladies and lords of the Kitahara family, please tear off your clothes to cover your eyes!"

"We're almost at the shrine!"

"Please don't ever open your eyes, if you see the evil god in the shrine, you'll either become a sacrifice and go crazy and kill yourself, or you'll become a monster and be hunted down!"

The people on the mountain walked with their feet searching from side to side, and the people at the bottom of the mountain stumbled and crawled, all of them approaching the shrine with their eyes tightly closed, and their faces coincidentally wore a look of fear and panic.

And Bai Liu, who was standing in front of the shrine with his hands behind his back, approached towards Bai Liu little by little, and he smiled with an arched brow, "What an interesting scene."

"Everyone is stumbling, eyes closed, for their own desires, toward the evil god they worship daily, but fear so much."

The moment Bai Liu's words fell, the whip behind his back jerked out and swept toward Bai Liu.

Bai Liu raised his hand to block, and what appeared in his hand was a short dagger, which plunged into the loop of the bone whip, and was struck inward by Bai Liu, spinning around the whip as it traveled downward, and Bai Liu was forced to let go of the whip.

He took half a step back, the whip in his hand disappearing, and when he raised his hand again the whip in his hand reappeared, and Bai Liu swept the end of the whip toward Bai Liu, turning it as he did so, the bone spikes unfurling with a swish.

Bai Liu had no expression on his face, he turned the dagger in his hand, turned the blade into a monkey's paw, and gripped Bai Liu's bone spiked long whip with his empty hand, and pulled it hard to his side, the Bai Liu who was holding the whip on the other side was brought to fall down to Bai Liu's side.

In the process of falling down, the bone whip in Bai Liu's hand disappeared once again, and he turned around and dodged back, avoiding the movement of Bai Liu's monkey claws coming towards his neck, the fatal points, and then when he spun around again and came over, the long whip appeared at his waist again, and he threw it at Bai Liu's face with a whip.

Bai Liu sidesteps to avoid it, and the monkey's paw scratches through Bai Liu's shoulder, leaving four shocking scratches.

Bai Liu covered his instantly red-stained shoulder and stepped back, he looked up at Bai Liu across the room and suddenly smiled, "Should I really say that it's worthy of being the [me] that can make the Evil God suffer enough to walk out of the temple?"

"You're a lot better than me."

Bai Liu's eyes looked at this Bai Liu with injuries in an obscure and uncertain manner : "Is this your first time going through a copy of the game?"

"Launched so quickly." Bai Liu smiled, "The Evil God's Sacrificial Boat House is indeed my first copy, but I'm curious, I shouldn't have looked like a new player with the way I just acted, how did you deduce that?"

Bai Liu just looked at Bai Liu flatly, he didn't answer Bai Liu's question head on, instead his eyes dropped down and landed on the bone whip on Bai Liu's hand, "If this is your first copy, then you didn't pass the game, there won't be a prop reward."

"How did you get this bone whip?"

"How about one for one?" Bai Liu smiles and looks at Bai Liu, "You answer my question and I'll answer yours."

"You have no skills, so it must be your first game." Bai Liu replied very calmly and dryly, "My turn, how did Bone Whip come about?"

Bai Liu hooked up the corner of his mouth, he lifted up and shook this black bone whip in his hand, "Aren't those the only ways to get props in the game?"

"The first one is a reward, it's the second one is a drop from killing a monster."

The smile on his face widened, "In the Evil God Festival in my worldline, I got the key, entered the shrine map, and found the Evil God NPC as well."

"But I don't suffer when I face Him, so I can't awaken the Evil One."

"But since this Evil God NPC had a face that I disliked, He reminded me of someone I met in reality that I really hated, and since this NPC wouldn't wake up and I couldn't push the progress of the game, I was upset to take this sleeping Evil God NPC and relive what I did to that person in reality. "

"So this bone whip fell out of Jean His body."

Bai Liu as if instantly realized what, the look of a quiet, he slowly lifted his eyelids over, looking straight at Bai Liu, word for word rhetorical question: "You cut him open, his spine to draw out?"

"You could say the same thing." Bai Liu shrugs, "I was going to take some of the other stuff he dropped, but it was all too fragmented and didn't look useful, so I just threw it away where I didn't want it."

"But he grows back, or refreshes, the next night, so I dissected it for many days before I selected this most complete one."

Bai Liu grinned as he raised the bone whip in his hand and tilted his head towards Bai Liu: "How's that? It looks good, doesn't it?"

Xiao Kui, who stood at the side and dared not approach, glanced down the mountain, his expression was solemn, and he turned his head to Bai Liu and suddenly uttered, "Bai Liu! The people of the North Plains Family are coming up!"

Cangta also scrambled down from the top of the mountain in a panic, "Bai Liu-sama, the Gobunshi family's people are coming out of the shrine as well!"

By the time Cangta ran up to Bai Liu, his eyes looked back and forth between Bai Liu and Bai Liu several times in shock, his eyes haloing into two circles, "Eh? How could there be two Bai Liu-sama's?!"

Xiao Kui held his forehead speechlessly, "Is this guy's memory not fully integrated?"

Bai Liu stared straight across the room at Bai Liu, his tone unprecedentedly cold, "Cangta, take Kitahara Xiao Kui and her sister down the side path, I told you about this path, it's the one I sometimes take to the shrine."

Cangta immediately snapped back, "Yes!"

"Over at the boathouse, both the old and new sacrifices are on the run." Bai Liu shifted his gaze slightly and swept a glance at Kitahara Xiao Kui with the afterglow at the end of his eyes, "Kitahara Xiao Kui, your sister was contacted in by someone from the Kitahara family to try to lure you out of the house, but you should be able to judge for yourself whether or not she was genuinely trying to save you, shouldn't you?"

Xiao Kui took a deep breath and clutched her sister's hand, "Uh-huh!"

"Your sister and you are safe." Bai Liu continued, "You will encounter many other sacrifices during the exodus, so if you want to be saved, use your sister as an interface to help divert their escape path."

"That way they won't run into the [anchor] that the Gobunshi family has set up for them."

Bai Liu raised his eyes and leveled them at Kitahara Xiao Kui : "But the world is not as beautiful as the Kitahara's have taught you."

"Besides these anchors, there are many, many others who want to deceive you and feed on your pain."

"It's a cruel world."

Kitahara Xiao Kui replied shakily, "I know."

Bai Liu hmmmed calmly as he turned his head back to Bai Liu who was backing up and trying to make his way to the shrine, he lifted his whip nonchalantly, "Good to know."

"Next, then, learn to live for those who do not feed on your pain, but who will make you weep and suffer, and who will weep and suffer for you."

"They're the kind of dumbasses you learn about in your textbooks that can give you the good life."

Xiao Kui raised her head in shock as she looked to Bai Liu chasing after Bai Liu's back and heard the last words he left behind:

"Take Cangta and run."

Tears fell from Xiao Kui's eyes for some reason, and she choked out a reply, not sure which question she was answering:

"I will."

"I will, Mr. Bai Liu!"