It is better to offer sacrifices to gods sooner rather than later.
Moreover, according to the elders of the Ozaki family, the sacrificial ceremony must be performed at night.
In other words, now is the right time.
Several elders of the Ozaki family finished sharing the gold on the dining table, and seemed a little unsatisfied. But in order to do business, they still got up from their seats and decided to lead Long Yi to the place of sacrifice.
That place is located in the mountains to the north of this village.
The mountains at night are shrouded in light mist, and the mountains are rolling under the pale moonlight.
Entering the mountains, Ozaki Ryuichi gradually lost sight of the outline of the village where his old house was located. The scattered lights that represented human society were left behind, and were soon submerged in the silence unique to the undeveloped deep forest.
The vegetation on both sides of the mountain road became rich and dense as the trek progressed, with layers upon layers, like a huge, inescapable cage trapping the Ozaki people in it.
The light cast by several flashlights swayed back and forth in the darkness, and the mountain path seemed to have life and consciousness, winding through the cage made of branches and leaves.
Above this maze of trees are majestic and steep mountains and cliffs. Small pieces of shrubs cover the exposed rocks like hair, and they rustle and sway in the night wind, making these steep cliffs
The mountain looks like it is part of some mysterious, sneaky and huge creature.
Continue walking towards the mountains.
There is no longer a path that can be called a "road" beneath our feet.
In Ozaki Ryuichi's memory, he had never entered the primitive mountain forest north of his hometown.
It seems that even the people in the village are not willing to go deep here.
But for some reason, after entering this deep mountain, he felt a vague sense of familiarity.
Several elders in his family seemed to have a complete understanding of the environment here. Even his elderly grandfather moved unusually fast in the mountains and forests.
"Zhizhi."
In the hidden places around the Ozaki family's route, some mountain rats followed or spread out to explore the surrounding area.
This is the swarm of rats released by Beauty.
The activities of the rats were not noticed by the elders of the Ozaki family, probably not.
But Ozaki Ryuichi, who is a beautiful onmyoji, naturally knows.
At this time, he actually couldn't completely trust his family, but the presence of those mice made him feel more at ease.
In such deep mountains and dense forests, electronic equipment has become unreliable. In Ozaki Ryuichi's imagination, if something unexpected happens during this sacred ceremony, he will try to use the rats to
, bypassing the elders in the family and directly communicating with the outside world.
The mountain forest can also be regarded as the territory of rats.
They can undoubtedly do this.
After trekking and climbing in the mountains for several hours, it was already past midnight.
Ozaki and his party arrived at their destination.
This is the bottom of a steep cliff, surrounded by mountains like airtight high walls. It is majestic and wild, leaving only a palm-sized sky above everyone's heads.
On the mountain in front of everyone, there is a huge dark cave with an irregular oval entrance. Standing at the entrance of the cave, you cannot get a glimpse of the specific environment inside.
"This is it, Long Yi. The cave is very big, and the deepest part is the palace of Jinshan Pigu God. As long as you keep going down, you will find it. Then you have to go in by yourself."
"You have to complete the ritual before dawn. Well... there is still enough time. Don't forget the ritual process we told you. It is not difficult."
Obviously, the elders did not intend to enter this cave with Long Yi.
Long Yi walked into the cave under the watchful eyes of the elders. The moment he entered this dark and mysterious place, he hardly hesitated at all.
If we say that I agreed to the commission of the divine sacrifice in the first place, it was out of selfish motives and a dubious attempt to preserve the considerable wealth in the family.
So until you actually come to the cave of the so-called "Kanayama God's Mansion", what drives and tempts Ozaki Ryuichi to think and act is something else.
An irrational instinct.
It was like something was calling him from inside a deep cave with no end.
Like invisible slimy tentacles, they curled up in his chest, teasing and teasing his heart.
After submerging into the darkness, Ozaki Ryuichi walked to a distance where he couldn't see the flashlight beam behind him. He called out the beauty and gave the final and reasonable explanation:
"Let some of your rats leave the mountain. If we have not left the cave before dawn, or are cut off from the outside world... then find a way to tell the countermeasures room what happened here."
…
"Boss, this compass..."
In the ghost car, Takayama Mai, who was sitting in the passenger seat, turned around again and showed Kamiyagawa the [Ore-Seeking Needle].
It can be seen that the pointer on the ancient compass finally no longer swings back and forth, but stably points to a fixed direction.
Now, this thing finally has the function of guiding the way in an absolute sense.
"Continue walking in the direction indicated by the [Looking for Ore Needle] and speed up as much as possible."
Kamiya couldn't tell whether this final change was a joy or a sorrow, so he could only give this order first.
"Leave it to me, boss!"
Oishi Junma was about to step on the accelerator to speed up, but he immediately stopped.
Although I don't know exactly what will happen tonight, I always feel that the situation is very urgent.
So Dashi turned his head and looked at the last row of the ghost car——
In the back seat, Obara Zaiwei was holding her head and sitting quietly with an innocent look on her face.
That's right.
Sister Xiao Yuan, the strongest driver of the hearse group, also came out tonight.
"Otherwise, you would have come to open it earlier?"
With Obara Hayami in the driver's seat, and the path direction already clear, the ghost car ejected directly from the spot and started.
Amid the lightning speed, Kamiya and others confirmed the direction again.
The conclusion can now be drawn.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! From a rough look, the location pointed to by the [Prospecting Needle] should be the Gifu Prefecture area of Nagoya.
As soon as the ghost car entered Gifu Prefecture, Kamiya received a call from Kensuke Yukinari.
With Wu's help, this call was extremely stable.
On the phone, Uncle Jiecheng delivered an urgent message to Kamiya——
Just tonight, strange things happened at the Chukyo Industrial Park and Hanshin Industrial Park at the same time.
Almost at the same time, a large number of residents in these two locations began to eat metal materials in sight without any warning.
Humans gnaw at metal, chew it and swallow it. This is a scene that is difficult to describe unless you see it with your own eyes.
Due to the large scale of such a strange incident, covering two large industrial areas, the countermeasures room immediately dispatched surrounding manpower to intervene.
Kensuke Yukisei himself is currently on his way to Hanshin Industrial Zone.
According to the descriptions of the spirit exterminators who were already at the scene, they did not feel any obvious fluctuations of evil spirits around the people who were greedily eating metal.
Moreover, some out-of-control people chant the name of a god while swallowing metal.
Jinshan Pigu God.
In addition, according to the description of the spirit exterminators who are already at the scene, the metals eaten by the out-of-control people seem to be mainly silver, copper, iron, tin, and related alloys.
But one metal is absolutely excluded.
gold.
They don't seem to swallow gold within sight.
It is not yet known whether this behavioral trend carries a specific meaning.
"I see."
Kamiyagawa picked up Zashiki in his arms and placed it on the empty seat next to him.
He glanced out the car window with his eyes staring at the rapidly changing scenery. As an Aragami, he could clearly feel that just now, there was a thick cyclone in the dark cloudy night sky that ordinary people could not see.
They gathered together and roared towards Gifu Prefecture.
That is a huge "spirit", or a power similar to the incense of faith.
Kamiyagawa: "I should be rushing towards the source of what happened."
Uncle Jiecheng did not ask on the phone why Kamiya had been so coincidental in tonight's emergency. He even felt relieved the moment he knew Kamiya was dealing with the matter.
"Be careful and stay in touch."
Jiecheng finally said this and hung up the phone.
On his end, he is probably very busy right now.
"Jinshan Pigu God...what exactly is going on with this god?"
Kamiya put away his phone and looked slightly solemn.
From the current point of view, the process of chewing metal and chanting the names of gods among the many out-of-control people in the two industrial zones should have produced a large number of "spirits" belonging to the god Jinshan Pigu.
Kamiyagawa didn't know how on earth Kanashanabigujin was able to do this.
The only thing that can be confirmed now is that something big must have happened in Gifu Prefecture.
…
Ozaki Ryuichi held up a flashlight and walked a long way through the dark cave.
Beauty and the Rats are always with him.
The underground environment is perfect for Beauty to display her expertise with the rats she controls.
The scale of the interior of the cave far exceeded his expectations. As the slope continued to descend, the outline structure of the cave continued to change, but no matter how it changed, it never had a tendency to narrow.
The passage is always wide and always points downward.
The slope of the ground maintains a relatively steep angle, giving the impression that it extends all the way to the unknown depths of the earth.
It went down like this for more than an hour.
Beauty suddenly gave an early warning, and the mountain rats crawling everywhere in the underground passage began to chirp and shout anxiously.
With the help of the flashlight, Ozaki Ryuichi found himself walking into a wide and flat underground space.
It has a very regular, almost circular outline, like a large circular square.
It doesn't look like a space formed by nature at all.
There are stalactites growing everywhere in the cave, as well as large expanses of exposed gravel, all of which are drawn into unpredictable long black shadows in the ever-changing bright beam of light from the flashlight.
The constantly twisting haze on the rock wall makes the already mysterious and deep underground space even more sinister and ominous.
"Long Yi, there's... something up there, but I can't feel anything specific."
Beauty was beside me and whispered a reminder.
Ozaki Ryuichi raised his head and raised the flashlight.
There are many cracks of different sizes on the high rock walls of the underground square.
Some are very narrow, probably no more than a few centimeters, while others are wide enough to allow adults to pass through.
The cracks on the rock wall spread everywhere, looking shocking and ferocious. They looked like the gaping mouth of some huge monster, or like the wounds violently torn by gods on the underground rocks.
The height of this underground space is immeasurable, and we only know that it is impossible to reach the top with the light of a flashlight.
This made Ozaki Ryuichi feel uneasy and scared, especially after hearing the reminder from the beauty.
He didn't know if there was some kind of strange existence entrenched in a higher place that he couldn't see, staring down at him from above.
Finally, Long Yi took a deep breath, and the humid and turbid air from the ground poured into his lungs.
"It's an extremely wide space. This should be the mansion of Jinshan Pigu God deep in the cave that Dad and the others mentioned."
Ozaki Ryuichi thought so.
According to the elders in the family, after arriving in this space, Long Yi will see some "maybe a little scary" existences.
But there's no need to panic.
Those are the messengers of Jinshan Pigu God.
The elders all claimed that Long Yi would never be harmed by the angels.
Next, as long as you carry out the fixed worship process and swallow a piece of gold handed over by the divine envoy, the divine sacrifice will be completed.
The Ozaki family will once again establish contact with the god Kanayama Biko.
Enjoy the endless wealth bestowed upon you by this generous god.
"Should I really swallow gold? Be like Dad and the others?"
Regarding this point, Ozaki Ryuichi seems to have not yet completely made up his mind.
And just when he was hesitating, the beauty beside him suddenly pulled him.
Suddenly, the strange familiar feeling that he had felt in the mountain forest and at the entrance of the cave once again flooded Ozaki Ryuichi's heart.
This time it will be more intense.
And Ozaki Ryuichi could clearly feel that at the highest point of this underground space, there was someone extremely noble and extremely great being calling him.
The call that seemed to resonate with the soul was irresistible and even made Long Yi feel a little at peace.
"Have I been here?"
He just had such doubts in his heart.
But, it doesn't make sense.
In Ozaki Ryuichi's memory, he had never explored such a strange place.
Before he could think more about this issue, a sticky sound could be heard from the surrounding rock walls, as well as the screams of rats.
Gudu——Gudu——
Some turbid, sticky, indescribable gelatinous substance, mixed with shining metal, secreted out from the ferocious gaps in the surrounding rock walls.
Ozaki Ryuichi smelled a sour stench.
The gelatinous mucus with shining metal that constantly surged out from the rock wall gave him the feeling of nauseating vomit.
Before he could react to what was happening now, the mucus fell to the ground.
The mucus continues to surge, stretch, and rise upwards, and the various metals trapped in it collide with each other.
In the end, outlines similar to human shapes were formed.
Ozaki Ryuichi saw the humanoid slime in front of him stand up. It first became like a one-eyed old monk, then twisted into a woman holding a hammer, and then changed into other shapes...
The sour stench in the air can no longer be smelled at this time.
It was replaced by the smell of fire and iron, and a dark smell similar to burning incense candles.
"What's this?"
Ozaki Ryuu took a step back, and then he heard the changing human shapes in the mucus speaking the same words in different tones:
"We are craftsmen."
The sound is layered, echoing in the vast underground space.