When Golden Finger Meets Salted Fish

With the sacrifice interrupted, this alternative method of transferring spiritual power naturally couldn't be abandoned halfway.

The altar's suction force was powerful, and those transferring spiritual power quickly realized something was wrong. While channeling energy to Tan Xin, they frantically consumed spirit stones and medicinal pills to replenish their spiritual power. However, their absorption rate couldn't match the altar's extraction speed. Before long, the spiritual power within them was completely drained, and Jiang Mo even felt her empty meridians gradually beginning to ache...

Perhaps only a breath passed, or perhaps much longer, but Jiang Mo felt she had reached her limit. In her daze, she seemed to ask the system: "System, what should we do now? Do you have any remedies?"

Had the system answered? Jiang Mo couldn't remember. Perhaps it had, but in her confused state, she couldn't hear clearly.

Zhu Baiyi and Qingyu's situation was somewhat better than Jiang Mo's side, as their cultivation was higher and their internal spiritual power more abundant. Zhu Baiyi turned her head and noticed the White Tiger was somewhat exhausted, and looking further back, she saw Yun Qingyue in an even worse state.

Unlike the other three, Zhu Baiyi was of mixed human and demonic heritage and a demonic sect leader, with fewer concerns about most matters. Seeing that the two wouldn't last much longer, she finally took advantage of a moment while absorbing spirit stones to deliver a palm strike. This strike was unremarkable, showing little imposing might, and landed lightly on Jiang Mo, yet it was enough to separate her from the group.

With the spiritual power transfer interrupted, the energy within Jiang Mo became momentarily chaotic. As she fell to the ground, a sweet, metallic taste surged in her throat. She immediately swallowed it back, having to admit that even being injured was better than continuing.

Jiang Mo had never been in such a sorry state before. She lay prone on the ground for a moment to recover before mustering the energy to look back.

Yun Qingyue had originally been positioned behind Jiang Mo in the energy transfer chain. Now that Jiang Mo's connection with Tan Xin was broken, it naturally affected Yun Qingyue's transfer as well. With her lower cultivation, she suffered even greater damage, and a trace of bright red blood appeared at the corner of her lips as she fell.

Jiang Mo turned just in time to see this, and that spot of red immediately caught her attention. She hurriedly suppressed her own injuries, turned to support Yun Qingyue, and anxiously asked: "Senior Sister, Senior Sister, are you alright?"

Yun Qingyue's energy was somewhat depleted, but overall she wasn't seriously injured. She waved her hand and replied: "I'm fine."

Having barely escaped their predicament, the two looked back to see the other three still struggling desperately. They naturally couldn't ignore this. Looking up at the altar again, they saw that its red light had intensified, identical to its state during the previous sacrifices—perhaps the energy converted through the Seven Treasures Glass Heart was purer, but the altar's state when absorbing their spiritual power was no different from when it had consumed the blood, flesh, and souls of the sacrifices.

"What should we do?" Jiang Mo asked, stuffing medicinal pills into both their mouths, her mood growing heavy.

Yun Qingyue swallowed the pills, her mood even heavier than Jiang Mo's. Among the three people currently in danger, besides Tan Xin, one was her Master and the other her mother. She couldn't bear to watch them remain in peril.

But what could be done? The altar required too much energy; they simply weren't enough!

Just as the two were in complete disarray, Zhu Baiyi also reached her limit. She was quite decent, not rashly withdrawing, but called out to Tan Xin in front: "Young monk, I can't hold on anymore, we need to withdraw first."

With these words, Zhu Baiyi forcibly broke their connection.

However, just as Jiang Mo couldn't hear the system's response earlier, Tan Xin's consciousness had also fallen into a trance—or more accurately, his mind had already lost control, and he couldn't perceive anything happening around him. After Jiang Mo and Zhu Baiyi successively withdrew, only one slender figure remained, still holding both arms outstretched, maintaining the previous posture.

Zhu Baiyi only realized this after withdrawing, and her expression immediately darkened. She mentally exclaimed: This is bad. It was just meant to be an attempt; surely we won't lose the young monk's life?!

This thought had barely formed, and before Zhu Baiyi and the others could even consider countermeasures, a brilliant light suddenly erupted before them.

It wasn't coming from the altar, but from Tan Xin's body, which had suddenly begun to radiate. The light was like a blazing sun, dazzlingly bright, making it impossible to look directly at it. People both inside and outside the barrier almost simultaneously closed their eyes.

༻༺❀༻✧⋆｡°✩☽༓☾✩°｡⋆✧༺❀༻༺

Shortly after placing his hands on the altar, Tan Xin entered a profound, mystical state.

His entire being, or rather his consciousness, seemed to split in two, and he subsequently witnessed two sets of memories spanning tens of thousands of years. One belonged to the Seven Treasures Glass Heart, and the other to the merperson pearl.

Tens of thousands of years ago, the cultivators of the world established a sealing formation to close the passage to the demonic realm. The Seven Treasures Glass Heart was dug out of its owner's chest with their own hands, and thereafter suppressed the seal for tens of thousands of years. Until ten thousand years ago, the deeply hidden sealing formation was discovered, and it was removed—not by human cultivators, but by remnant demonic creatures who wanted to destroy it, though they ultimately failed.

The Seven Treasures Glass Heart escaped, instinctively fleeing to Foguang Temple, but brought catastrophe upon the temple. Finally, under the protection of the old abbot's self-sacrificial secret technique, the entire Foguang Temple passed through a barrier and fell into the Canglán Secret Realm.

Through the vicissitudes of time, tens of thousands of years later, it encountered a young monk named Tan Xin...

The merperson pearl's story was even longer and more extraordinary than that of the Seven Treasures Glass Heart. It had originally been the merperson pearl of the merperson clan leader, passed down through generations while witnessing the growth and prosperity of the entire merperson race. It could be said that it had watched every merperson in the clan grow up. Until the sealing formation was established, it was sacrificed by the clan leader, leaving the merperson race as a suppressing object.

But unlike the Seven Treasures Glass Heart, even after leaving the clan territory, the merperson pearl still maintained some awareness of the clan members. It first sensed the death of the clan leader who had lost the pearl, and later witnessed the rapid decline of the entire race under the reduction of their fortune—natural disasters and man-made calamities causing a sharp reduction in the clan's numbers was just the beginning; more terrifying was the decreasing number of newborns among the merperson race.

The succeeding clan leader nearly worried himself white-haired over the clan's continuation, but the situation didn't improve—it worsened... Beginning at some unknown point, the power of the seal diminished, and the merperson pearl, to suppress the seal, had to repeatedly exhaust the energy stored within it. Finally, the merperson pearl couldn't hold out anymore and had to seek help from the clan members, asking them to find ways to replenish its energy.

But the merperson pearl hadn't anticipated that it had mutated under the influence of the sealing formation, and the power of the clan members could no longer compensate for its consumption. Then, one by one, the clan members began to sacrifice their lives to it!

The merperson pearl found it somewhat laughable—those clan members were willing to die not because they were selflessly trying to save the world. They had seen the end of the merperson race, feeling both fearful and unwilling, so they devised a solution that wasn't really a solution—following the current trend, the merperson race wouldn't survive anyway, so they decided to use the entire clan's power to elevate one person.

The chosen lucky one was the cowardly merperson now present. Ten thousand years ago, he had just been born, but the great priest had calculated a glimmer of hope in him. Then everyone successively died, leaving all the clan's fortune to him. At the same time, the merpeople's voluntary sacrifice to save the world was also meritorious, and all the clan's merit fell upon one person, preserving him until today.

༻༺❀༻✧⋆｡°✩☽༓☾✩°｡⋆✧༺❀༻༺

After viewing both sets of memories simultaneously, even with Tan Xin's powerful soul, he couldn't help but feel disoriented. When he regained his senses, he was already enveloped in a dazzling light so bright he could barely open his eyes.

But it was only "barely," so Tan Xin easily noticed something unusual...

His chest was glowing, or rather, the source of the light on his body was his chest, where a Seven Treasures Glass Heart flickered in and out of visibility within the light. He recalled that when he first obtained the Seven Treasures Glass Heart, Tan Xin had once taken it out to show Yun Qingyue and Jiang Mo, finding its light dazzling even then. Now, eighty years later, with Tan Xin reciting sutras and meditating daily, as the Seven Treasures Glass Heart appeared again, its brilliance was many times brighter than before.

Energy continuously flowed from the Seven Treasures Glass Heart into the altar, gradually dimming the light on the heart. It must be said, however, that with the Seven Treasures Glass Heart actively taking over, the young monk's dangerous situation was instantly alleviated.

Tan Xin chanted an unknown sutra while looking up at the gradually dimming Seven Treasures Glass Heart.

As he gazed at the beautiful heart, suddenly, a black cloak descended from above, directly covering the Seven Treasures Glass Heart suspended in midair. This covering didn't obstruct the heart's energy output to the formation; it merely shielded the light it emitted. Those who had closed their eyes due to the intense light now tentatively opened them.

Everything was fine. When Tan Xin looked back, he saw Jiang Mo smiling at him, mouthing: "Treasures invite trouble. I think it's best not to let others know."

Tan Xin put his palms together and bowed, clearly appreciating her gesture.

Fortunately, after several twists and turns, the gluttonous altar finally reached satiation. Its red light flashed a few times before extinguishing, returning to calm. Seeing this, the merperson exclaimed joyfully: "It's done, it's done! The sacrifice has finally ended."

Almost everyone hearing these words breathed a sigh of relief, including the merperson who had started it all, who rejoiced in that moment that he wouldn't have to be sacrificed.

Just then, a voice dampening the mood spoke up: "The merperson's sacrifice occurs once every hundred years. We've luckily escaped this time, but what about a hundred years from now? This is still the deep sea, not an easy place to reach."

The speaker was Jiang Mo. While her words were indeed a dampener, they were also incisive—a hundred years for cultivators differed from a hundred years for ordinary people. Ordinary people didn't even live a hundred years from birth to death, but for cultivators, a hundred years was but the snap of a finger. When the next sacrifice came, it would still be this same group of people facing the same trouble, and no one wanted to visit this deep-sea merperson island a second time.

The atmosphere instantly froze. As everyone looked at each other in bewilderment, Jiang Mo suddenly noticed something unusual beside her. She quickly turned her head to see a small seal emerging from Senior Sister's dantian.

The small seal was carved with the four ferocious beasts. After leaving Senior Sister, it expanded in the wind, growing to the size of a small mountain in an instant.

Jiang Mo looked up in surprise, about to ask Senior Sister what she was doing, when she saw the four-sided seal hovering above the altar suddenly slam down heavily. Vaguely, ancient, unrecognizable text and images appeared beneath the seal, and it seemed one could hear the roars of ferocious beasts.

When she opened her eyes to look again, she discovered that the altar had been shattered to pieces by that single strike.