T0 Gaming Guild Saves the World.

Chapter 309, Section 308: Within the Red Mist
Following the headless horseman's clues, a map was found at the boundary between reality and illusion.

The Twilight Vampire Tomb was called "Wanderer's Paradise" by its builders.

All things considered, the underground palace's functional and residential areas are equivalent to the size of nine stories of the Temple of the Clarity.

Upon entering the ninth floor of the temple, Jiang Heyi and his group fought their way through for quite some time before finally reaching the core area.

After King Slime joined the party, he learned that there were pastures, grasslands, and orchards outside the core area.

No comparison, no harm.

The palace owners did not have enough resources to build a more magnificent underground wonder. Even if they whipped the ground until it sparked, lashed it with force and heat, without materials, there were simply no materials.

Since craftsmen cannot create matter out of thin air, the connecting channels between regions are extremely perfunctory.

The rough, unpolished rock walls are like walking in the stairwell of a thirty-year-old building, with peeling paint revealing the coarse particles of concrete, and dust that never seems to settle in the corners.

The granular texture of the gray rock layer crumbled and fell as Zhong Zemo forcefully pounded it.

"Yeah, at least this amusement park is in the hallway, like in my neighborhood."

As everyone knows, the house left by Jiang Heyi's parents is located in an old and dilapidated residential area. It is designed to be fully furnished, with complete facilities for interior design and layout, as well as property management services.

The prison guard recently introduced him to a renovation team so he could give his old house a fresh new look.

Thanks to the modular design, Jiang Heyi carefully checked the ground before stepping into the giant blue crystal door at the end of the passage and indeed saw the well-hidden dividing lines.

Each area is like an exquisitely packaged matchbox, and the craftsmen need to create a grand spectacle within this snail shell to fulfill the magicians' fantasies of "paradise".

The door slowly opened, revealing a dark interior, seemingly containing some kind of light-absorbing substance. The light from the crystal chandelier in the passageway did not penetrate the door's wiring.

The Primarch casually tossed out a low-level illumination orb, which quickly dimmed as soon as it crossed the gate line, illuminating only an area less than half a meter in diameter.

Zhong Zemo led the way, and the others cautiously stepped inside.

The dense darkness enveloped the vast space like a thick fog.

Sensing that everyone had entered, the raised crystal gate crashed down with a deafening roar, making everyone's heart skip a beat.

At the same time, a layer of pale red ripples spread out in mid-air, and white light illuminated this place shrouded in eternal night from above.

The milky white marble arches are covered with moss, cracks spread in the decay, and many have collapsed and broken. The broken stones are piled up to form upward steps.

At the end of the arch, a church with beige exterior walls and a red dome comes into view.

The group traversed the ruins, stepping over the rampant vines and vegetation that entwined the arches, the air thick with dust and the smell of mud.

This place has clearly been neglected for a long time. Time has allowed the grass seeds hidden under the brick wall to violently overturn the bricks and stubbornly sprout and stretch out.

Fingertips brushed against an unknown wild grass, French fries rubbed their fingers together, and sniffed.

The faint smell of blood alerted her, yet also confused her.

The church had been abandoned for a long time, with no one worshipping there. The pews inside had long since rotted away. The jailer kicked one of them casually, and it crackled and popped into a pile of wood.

The brightly colored stained glass windows shattered on the floor. The blankets were stepped on, making a series of loud bangs, which startled Orange Tea, who was next to her, so much so that she was about to give her a spirit summoning gift pack.

"It doesn't look like anyone is active there."

Jiang Heyi looked at the hole revealed by the broken glass of the dome skylight and suspected that there had once been a huge light source there, like the artificial sun of each layer of the Clear Sky.

The light in the area now seems to be ignited by the magic of the magic circle, spreading into every corner and shining very evenly.

"That feels so out of place."

He hugged the blankets to his chest, looked up at the skylight, and saw a scarlet ring painted around the skylight.

It's like the cap of a mineral water bottle to the mineral water bottle.

It does feel somewhat incongruous; the colors used in this place of worship and prayer are mostly warm tones that evoke a sense of comfort, but they are mostly soft.

Only this one spot was a brilliant red.

"Hey, I found this."

The jailer found a thick book on the priest's altar in the church. It had no cover and was only wrapped in the leather of some kind of monster.

He instinctively blew a breath, but not much dust was stirred up.

Everyone crowded around and looked through it together.

Most of the book is about sacrificial prayers, including how to restore the prayers of the ancestors, continue the faith, and details of the sacrificial procedures.

Orange Tea murmured, "It seems they were once a tribe with a glorious past."

The jailer asked, "How did you figure that out?"

"It depends on the scale of the ceremony," Orange Tea replied.

"Small, unstable tribes often use whatever they have for sacrifices."

"Only large groups can be so adept at selecting and choosing, down to the size and scale of the sacrificial utensils, the number of people to be sacrificed, the timing of the sacrifice, and so on."

The owner of the Wanderer's Paradise clearly recorded four types of rituals in the book.

Small, medium, large, and rain.

The Rain Festival is the largest-scale sacrificial ceremony.

On this day, everyone in the Wanderers' Paradise must complete a purification ritual, taking three baths until there is no dirt left on their bodies.

They must change into new clothes made from the old fabric, and the clothes must be white.

If anyone falls ill on this day, the patient must be locked away in a dark place, drinking only water to avoid the defilement of the devout souls and their resonance with their ancestors.

Fish and rabbits are not allowed among the essential offerings.

Anyone who has daily contact with fish or rabbit meat must fast for two days and wash for two days.

The sacrificial offerings are mainly livestock such as cattle, sheep, and chickens, but the proportion of monster meat must be equal to that of livestock.

Here, the boundary between reality and illusion is still discernible. Some customs and habits are similar to those observed during the Lunar New Year. Fish and rabbits are considered taboo foods, carrying special meanings in religion. They cannot be killed or eaten indiscriminately and are considered forbidden.

What happened next was a bit strange.

All sacrificial offerings must have their eyes gouged out before being slaughtered and then burned in a blazing fire.

The blood of the sacrifice is drained using magic.

During the preparation of sacrificial offerings, the priest must hold strong liquor in his mouth, and members of the clan must drink alcohol beforehand and keep it with them at all times.

The rain festival officially begins at dusk.

Everyone submerged their gold coins, silver coins, crystals, and other valuables into a special container filled with blood—the page with the container's design was torn off and disappeared.

The priests would drag the blood-drained prey across the sacrificial plaza, chanting prayers that were only passed down to the priests.

Finally, the priest will prick his finger and draw star patterns on his face, leading all the people in chanting "It is not my will," until the blood in the container rises into the air with the magic, turning into clouds and raindrops, and falls with a thud.

Everyone dressed in white had to be soaked in the dye, turning every corner of their clothes red.

Finally, with a mouthful of strong liquor, he shouted, "The demon god will surely perish!"

I only flipped through a few pages at random, and the details of the ritual were frighteningly complicated, and the process was far from being as simple as a ritual.

They seem to be performing an exorcism?

Strangely, even in the sacrificial books, this tribe did not leave behind its own name, but uniformly used a star pattern with a missing center and overlapping parts as a designation.

It's as if mentioning the name of one's ethnic group is taboo.

The more he read, the more confused he became. Zhong Zemo took the book and quickly flipped through it, trying to find useful information.

"Tick tock..."

The sound of dripping water was particularly jarring in the church, where the only sounds were the turning of pages.

Without hesitation, everyone drew their weapons, looked up at the dome, and prepared to cast spells.

The dome was empty; the imagined face-jumping attack did not occur.

The sound of dripping water is coming from outside.

"Wait a minute!" French Fries was the first to react, pointing to the skylight in the dome, "Where did that red ring go?"

It's raining.

Without the funds to create an artificial sun, how could they deploy rain-making magic and create a cyclical mechanism?

The sound of dripping water grew louder and louder, and through the skylight, sticky, foul-smelling raindrops pattered down.

A dark red mist suddenly rose from outside the church. "Holy crap, red mist! It's an anomaly! It's an anomaly!"

He pulled Zhong Zemo into bed and shouted with joy.

Except for Orange Tea, who couldn't keep up with the jokes thrown out by the bed, everyone else was having a hard time keeping their mouths shut, trying to suppress their laughter.

After all, Zhong Zemo's current in-game appearance is that of a muscular male elf with long golden hair, and his clothes are black and white.

"Squid, choose a Magic Warrior or Elemental Mage as your second job. Learn Elemental Fusion Torrent, it will suit your look very well."

While remaining on guard, French Fries couldn't help but joke.

"Without the shield, you cannot be protected."

In the torrential downpour of blood, something wet and sticky was wriggling, and the nauseating, slimy sound grew louder and louder, gradually drowning out the raging rain.

"Holy crap, what the hell is this?!"

The jailer suddenly kicked out, sending the fist-sized red shadow flying several meters away.

Startled, he jumped back two steps.

"Ah ...

It wasn't the jailer's scream; the sound came from beneath his feet.

This time, it wasn't just the jailer who was frightened; everyone looked down at the rain-swept area below the skylight with chills.

What the jailer had stepped on was a piece of meat that looked like a shoe insole.

The blood inside its body was crushed by the footsteps, leaving a shoe print on its surface. Its flat body extended a vast number of tentacles, sucking up the surrounding blood plasma. In a short while, its body swelled up as if inflated, returning to its original shape.

The prison guard, drenched in raindrops, vigorously patted his body. Tiny, blood-red insects, the size of rice grains, scurried all over his body like startled ants.

French Fries quickly summoned a fire spirit to dispel the insects, but they were too fast and had already burrowed into his clothes.

Seeing this, Jiang Heyi had a sudden inspiration.

"Take off your gear and put it back in your backpack!"

The jailer's eyes lit up.

The moment they did as instructed, a massive number of insects fell to the ground, having lost their anchor.

The jailer leaped away, dodging the bug's pursuit, and instantly donned his equipment.

He shuddered as he watched the monster sizzling under the fire spirit's flames.

It's not over yet.

More and more rainwater drifted in through the skylight, condensing into clumps as it landed, rolling like spheres. The stench of decay and rot assaulted the senses, making eyes water uncontrollably.

"gather!"

At Jiang Heyi's command, Zhong Zemo took the lead, and the Four Primal Bodies formed the rear guard, maintaining a two-meter distance from the church wall, with the boundary between the real and virtual worlds tightly intertwined.

The raindrops fell in clumps, and the meatballs moved at high speed like rolling wheels.

To avoid triggering deathrattle-type skills, the fries and the blanket were kept firmly in place, and Jiang Heyi, the jailer, and Orange Tea were responsible for cleaning them up the whole time.

The value of the Corrupted Corpse Explosion has been further enhanced.

The necromancer has this skill; the flesh ball explodes upon landing, and it doesn't even survive the rolling phase.

The more minions there are, the stronger the necromancer becomes.

The rain lasted for about half an hour before it stopped, and the surroundings returned to calm.

The thick red fog still shrouded the area, and visibility was no longer sufficient for everyone to see outside the church.

The jailer sent out a spirit to investigate, but it lost contact shortly after entering the red mist.

The zombies and skeletons were summoned one after another, and then all of them lost contact.

It was as if a monster lurked in the thick fog, devouring everything.

"Let's go, let's meet him." Jiang Heyi was certain that something strange had been born from the red mist.

Based on the existing equipment at the boundary between the virtual and real worlds, Candlelight also stated that this was a small to medium-sized dungeon.

It's probably just that the performance was so impressive that they couldn't possibly lose.

As expected, the red mist possesses the power of a corrosive elemental shield, but its strength is far from sufficient to cause destruction.

I forced myself to walk a few meters out of the church, and suddenly a gust of wind blew through the thick fog, stirring up the wisps of mist.

"Ugh~~~~"

Zhong Zemo, who was walking at the front of the group, gagged.

It stinks!

It smelled like a rotten, fermenting garbage heap that had been exposed to the sun for a full day.

"Ah~~~~~"

The low, chilling groans sent shivers down one's spine.

Pushing aside the layers of mist, they came closer and saw the outline of the monster's body.

With just one glance, Orange Tea's heart and lungs stopped, and she was pulled back from falling by the jailer.

It was a resilient, enormous hill of flesh and blood.

Its dark red skin secretes a brownish-red mucus that tightly adheres to the silver coins, gold coins, magic crystals, and gems scattered all over its body.

A dazzling array of colors and vast quantities of valuable items formed the monster's scales.

But there were also strange leather scrolls, like fabric used to mend this ugly, strange body, appearing everywhere, hastily and messily.

Its soft flesh was squeezed, like well-kneaded meat paste, and poured out from the gaps in its scales, forming human-like arms that scraped the ground, leaving white streaks.

The ear-piercing friction sound bombarded everyone's eardrums.

Suddenly, it made a sound.

"Money...contract..."

"Give it to me, give it to me!"

That was the sound of someone breathing out air to speak, but no one could find its mouth.

The speech became faster and faster, more and more urgent, as if someone were whipping him, and the voice gradually became painful.

"Give me your money, give it to me!"

It did not immediately show aggression, but the commanding tone in its words was self-evident.

Jiang Heyi swallowed hard: "How much do you want?"

"all……"

"Your everything!"

"Money, money, money!"

The attempt to establish communication was successful.

Jiang Heyi took a deep breath: "What if... there isn't?"

A beating heart protrudes from the surface of a fleshy hill, pressed against armor forged from money.

The sound of hundreds and thousands of heartbeats, even the loudest bells and drums, is nothing compared to this.

“I can hear the vibrant sound of your lives.”

"Healthy...complete..."

"The body, and also money!"

"Give it to me, give it to me!"

As if triggering the wrong dialogue, this time, the fleshy hill did not hesitate, and the foul-smelling bloody mud poured down.

That was black blood.

(End of this chapter)