Chapter Ninety-Seven: The Silent Celestial Palace’s Sacred Prayer Ritual

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The thick, fetid stench of a corpse struck his nostrils, so close it seemed within arm’s reach!

As though, if he moved even a little nearer, those splattered droplets of blood would lash viciously across his face!

Chen Heng’s expression tightened. A chill ran through his entire body, and an indescribably terrifying sensation surged straight into his heart.

Yet before he could make any other move, the instant that flayed, blood-soaked corpse touched his arms, everything suddenly blurred into unreality.

Like a hazy illusion reflected upon the surface of water.

Nothing more than an indistinct phantom…

The flayed corpse had come swiftly.

And vanished just as swiftly.

After only a few blinks, its shrill, miserable wailing gradually faded, as though it had suddenly been cast an immeasurable distance away, becoming fainter and fainter until it was nearly inaudible.

Chen Heng’s face darkened, and his nostrils quivered slightly.

By then, the corpse’s anguished howls had vanished without a trace. Had a few threads of extraordinarily foul, fishy stench not lingered in the air, refusing to disperse, the whole thing might have seemed no more than a nightmare from a dream.

He remained silent for a moment, his gaze flickering.

The wandering cultivator Lu Yu beside him, as well as the qi-refining adept of the Blood Lotus Sect, still appeared utterly unaware. Their eyes were half-closed, their expressions solemn.

Whenever they heard something particularly subtle and profound, they could not help nodding and swaying their heads, striking their palms in admiration.

Upon the thirty-three-foot altar,

Cave Lord Huaiwu remained composed, slowly waving his horsetail whisk as pearls of wisdom poured forth, their resonance rolling like thunder and shaking the clouds of heaven.

He expounded the Dao and interpreted the teachings of the sages.

Everyone within that immense palace seemed tranquil and untroubled, completely oblivious to all else.

As though he alone—he and no one else—had witnessed that scene!

As though it had been deliberately arranged for him alone to see it clearly…

The sermon continued.

Yet in Chen Heng’s eyes, countless bizarre sights had appeared before him: the entire ground crawling with demons and monsters…

…

Coiled densely across the rafters were enormous snakes with human faces, mating in tangled heaps. Their faces belonged to men and women, the old and the young alike. Their serpentine tails, more than ten feet long, hung from the beams to the floor, rustling softly like gauzy curtains stirred by the wind.

Before the four wide-open gates stood a group of red-skinned dwarfs. Each had four eyes and eight ears, and each held a scarlet steel pitchfork. From time to time, they would pluck a piece of half-raw meat from a fork and stuff it into their mouths, devouring it amid splashing blood. Their eyes rolled greedily over Chen Heng, and whenever they gathered to converse, they uttered only unintelligible, grotesque sounds.

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Whenever Chen Heng’s gaze swept toward them, they would scamper away with shrill laughter, chasing one another as though at play.

Yet before long, they would swarm back in a noisy horde, the malice in their eyes growing ever more undisguised, almost ready to burst forth. Thick strands of drool slid from the corners of their mouths and spread across the floor…

Headless, potbellied corpse-fiends writhed and surged like white maggots.

The blood in the pool plucked out the ringing notes of stringed instruments from thin air.

Beneath the sunlight, countless wheels seemed to race endlessly back and forth. Their blazing, firelike hues passed hollowly through the body, leaving behind only strange huffing and puffing sounds.

In the distance, a six-faced golden man as tall as a mountain sat cross-legged near the palace. When it leaned its torso sideways to look at Chen Heng, it blocked even the clouds and mist.

As far as the eye could see,

everything was ablaze with golden light…

“The Mysterious Female is the breath of spirit and vitality; the mouth and nose are the gateways of that spirit and vitality. Let the breath flow out long and return slowly, making it continuous, returning to the root and restoring life. When the yang rises, invite the Great Elixir; combine and bind the essence of spirit and vitality, and it will circulate through the hundred channels, irrigating the three fields. This is the supreme medicine for opening the passages and cleansing away defilement.”

—“At that moment, the Great Demon King Suiyu, having spoken these true words, immediately caused the sixty-six kinds of great tremors to shake the three thousand great thousand worlds.”

…

“Take one pound of Purple Essence Mother Stone and grind it into a fine powder. Add two ounces each of powdered gallstone and Black Crow Gold, and grind them together.”

—“At that moment, the immortals, Buddhas, gods, and sages were terrified. They all raised their heads toward the empty sky and saw a vast, boundless demonic form descending upon the stations of the sun, moon, and five stars. Its radiance illuminated innumerable, immeasurable, boundless heavenly worlds. Its voice shook the disasters of the great and lesser kalpas, causing all who heard it to tremble in flesh and spirit, their bodies losing every trace of light.”

…

“Place three pints of bitter wine into the furnace and nourish it continuously for seven days and seven nights. Alternate the fire according to the hours of the Rat, Ox, Rabbit, and Tiger. Once the lead has dissolved and the mercury has receded, the medicinal clay may be removed—half a palm’s worth.”

—“If any sentient being fails to respect and worship the demonic way, then upon hearing this sound, that being shall suffer a lowly body, defective faculties, an ugly and foolish appearance, blindness, deafness, muteness, twisted limbs, a hunched back, leprosy, madness, and every manner of illness and torment.”

…

“After sealing it securely, place it in a vessel of fine porcelain and bury it three and one-third fathoms beneath the place where the first rays of dawn arise. Seal it for forty-nine days, then remove it. The Great Medicine will be complete.”

—“Destroy the virtuous, eliminate the remnants of the people; plague waters shall surge together, weapons and flames shall gather round, evil shall breed alongside evil, and calamity shall rise together with calamity… Praise and honor the Great Demon King Suiyu, lord of those who pass beyond all equal karmic obstacles and suffering; destroy life, crush blessings, let the majesty of heaven and earth trample down the righteous law!”

…

Monstrous fiends set hearts trembling, and the terrified horde danced in frenzy!

Nor was it merely these strange and uncanny sights. Even Cave Lord Huaiwu’s voice as he preached from the altar—

in Chen Heng’s ears,

had been completely twisted into a terrifying demonic scripture!

Utter ruin! Utter destruction! Utter devastation! Utter decay!

Gradually, gradually…

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As the demonic scripture grew progressively clearer, it transformed from the respectful hymns and praises offered by others to the Great Demon King Suiyu into a supreme supernatural art personally proclaimed by the Great Demon King Suiyu himself.

Those divine talismanic characters, resembling bird claws or perhaps the hooves of beasts, emerged one by one in the depths of his mind as the demonic chant continued.

Chen Heng felt as though he had fallen into clouds and mist, lost in a hazy trance. When he finally came to himself, half an hour had already passed in a daze.

“…The Great Rite of Silent Celestial Palace for Subduing the Saints and Offering Prayer.”

A complete scripture had suddenly appeared in his mind.

It seemed that with only a movement of thought, if he released the restraints, he could survey it in its entirety.

But Chen Heng had no time to examine it closely. He merely cast a fleeting glance over it before the scene before him startled him into a slight shudder.

The golden man, the dwarfs, the wheels, the great snakes…

At some unknown point, these demons and monsters had drawn near and surrounded him completely. Their illusory forms passed through Cave Lord Huaiwu and the others, as though two different worlds of emptiness had briefly overlapped.

“The Great Rite of Silent Celestial Palace for Subduing the Saints and Offering Prayer.”

One of the red-skinned dwarfs released the steel pitchfork from its hands and prostrated itself before Chen Heng in worship.

It stood beside the Blood Lotus Sect’s qi-refining adept. As it bowed and knelt, its head passed directly through the adept’s abdomen, protruding several inches from the other side. It looked as though a second head had appeared inexplicably at the adept’s waist—an absurd and grotesque sight.

Yet throughout the entire hall, Chen Heng alone could truly see these terrifying beings and hear the sounds they made.

This scene, at once chilling and faintly ridiculous, naturally remained invisible to everyone else.

“The Great Rite of Silent Celestial Palace for Subduing the Saints and Offering Prayer.”

The enormous golden man, as tall as a mountain, also bowed down. Countless towers and pavilions were hollowly embedded in the surface of its flesh.

“The Great Rite of Silent Celestial Palace for Subduing the Saints and Offering Prayer!”

All the red-skinned dwarfs gradually fell to their knees. The wheels came to a halt, while the human-faced snakes that had been mating untangled themselves from the rafters and crawled down…

Every monster roared the same words in a different tone. The grotesque speech that had once been impossible to understand now became clear, every word converging into a single unified cry.

“The Great Rite of Silent Celestial Palace for Subduing the Saints and Offering Prayer! Praise and honor the Great Demon King Suiyu!”

The red-skinned dwarf that had first prostrated itself lifted its head and addressed Chen Heng respectfully:

“Demon Scion.

Please perform the rite…”

Thanks to Electric Electric, who has surpassed all things, for the 20,000-point tip; thanks to Li Pichen for the 5,000-point tip; thanks to Drunken Neighboring Mountain Wind for the 1,500-point tip; thanks to Cloud Returning with a Pinch of Salt for the 100-point tip; thanks to Moon Eternal, Sun Deep for the 100-point tip; and thanks to the Courage of Hercules for the 100-point tip.

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