Chapter 517 — A Detailed Explanation of the Mechanism of Sacrifice

After a long day's march, night came again. This time Shen Mu did not trouble to seek out ruins for rest; instead he let the box carry the sleeping dragon-qilin and press on through the night, while he himself walked in the darkness, keeping pace with the box. Once more, in the black of night, he saw many strange and uncanny things: cities that surged into being out of the dark all at once, living beings beyond counting, and battles of vast scale — sights he had never seen when he followed Lizheng into the dark Waste.

And whenever he stepped into the light of the box, the visions in the darkness vanished from sight; the box's divine radiance seemed to carry him back across into the world he had come from. To step into the darkness was to cross over into another world: the dark realm. Strangely, he could feel no world barrier.

That was all but impossible. Between any two worlds there is a world barrier; to pass between two worlds is to be squeezed by the forces of both, and the stronger the traveler, the stronger the pressure.

That there should be no barrier at all between the dark realm and the real world was bizarre indeed.

Shen Mu stepped into the light of the box and sat down upon it, staring blankly, lost in thought.

Then his eyes suddenly brightened and he laughed.

"I know an expert in such matters. Why not call him up and ask him, and then all will be clear? " Eager and full of spirit, he halted the box, jumped down from it, and took a white-bone altar out of his Taotie pouch.

Upon the altar stood the statue of a demon god with four heads and eight arms.

Shen Mu took out a cinnabar brush and drew various runes upon the demon-god statue; then he roused the talisman treasure with his vital essence and performed the rite, unleashing the divine power of the talisman command that summons ghosts and dispatches gods. A short while later the rite was done, and the demon-god statue did not stir. Suspecting something amiss, Shen Mu performed it a second time; still the statue gave no response.

"Elder Brother Dutian, your little brother summons you here in reverent fear, and offers up flesh and blood, a feast most fine. I beg you, elder brother, to deign to move your august feet hither.

" Shen Mu prayed on: "If elder brother Dutian does not come, then your little brother will pray ten times, a hundred times a day, until elder brother descends. Your little brother bows low in fear and trembling.

.

.

" "Shut up! Who is your elder brother?

" Suddenly one face upon the demon-god statue opened its eyes, and the eyeballs rolled swiftly round in a full circle; only after finding no sign of a trap did a wisp of consciousness descend into it. The other three faces came to life as well.

"I never swore brotherhood with you, so don't go claiming kin at random — we are not close!

Pray a hundred times a day and this old fellow will be pestered to death! Cult Master Shen, what have you called me here for? " Shen Mu let out a breath and smiled. "There is a matter that puzzles me. " He recounted all he had seen and heard in the darkness, then said, "Why do the two worlds overlap? Why, when I passed through, did I meet no world barrier, and suffer no repulsion?

" The puppet demon-god statue rose from the altar, pulled up a piece of white bone, put it in its mouth and chewed it like a stick of sugarcane.

"Here I thought you had summoned me for some new scheme or trick. So it is trifling stuff like this.

" Shen Mu, observing the courtesy owed by a disciple, said, "Might I beg elder brother Dutian to instruct me? " The Dutian Demon King shuddered and said hastily, "Don't be so polite. When you are this polite, I always suspect you mean to make things hard for me!

What you speak of touches on the question of a world's energy.

In a world, the energy that composes it is fixed. A person's birth, cultivation, and death do not change the composition of the world's energy. This is the most basic of laws! " Shen Mu fell into thought, then said suddenly, "A person's birth, cultivation, and death do not change the composition of energy. Then what if that person becomes a god or a demon, and grows neither old nor dies?

" "Even becoming a god or a demon does not change the fixed energy of this world; it neither increases the energy of that world nor diminishes it. " The Dutian Demon King said, "A world's energy is constant; only a limited part of it can be altered. When a person crosses from this world into another, the energy of this world is less by the energy of one person, and the energy of that other world is more by the energy of one person.

That breaks the original balance, and he is subjected to a force twice his own. That is why crossing worlds is so hard, and why flesh-and-blood sacrifice is needed.

" Shen Mu suddenly felt the scales fall from his eyes. "So the principle of flesh-and-blood sacrifice is this: the flesh and blood of living beings in this world are offered up and sacrificed into another world, where they become the energy of that world! " The Dutian Demon King nodded. "And the god or demon who is sacrificed, as the exchanged energy, descends from that other world into this one, making up the energy that the flesh-and-blood sacrifice lost, and thereby holding the energy of the two worlds in balance. Take this altar of yours: the energy in the bones upon it was just now sacrificed by you, sacrificed away into my Dutian world. And as an exchange of energy, I have descended into this sinister world of yours.

" Shen Mu's eyes lit up. "So that is how it is. Just now you said that only a limited amount of energy can be altered — what did you mean by that?

" "Flesh-and-blood sacrifice builds a bridge that pierces through both worlds. If my power were great enough, I could smuggle a portion of that power in along the bridge, and not abide by the balance of energy at all. " The Dutian Demon King laughed. "Last time you summoned me, the power sacrificed was very small, while I mustered a very great deal of energy to descend into this world. That amounts to forcing my way in. But to force energy in, I must bear the pressure of two worlds at once, so the power I can squeeze through is still limited — it will soon exceed my limit.

How much power can be smuggled across depends on the strength of the one being sacrificed. " Shen Mu understood, but frowned.

"Yet in the darkness of the Waste, the two worlds overlap and no world barrier exists. How is that to be explained? " The Dutian Demon King laughed with a heh-heh.

"What if the energy forced in should exceed the limit this world can bear? " Shen Mu was deeply shaken. "You mean. . . " "A flesh-and-blood sacrifice on a grand scale, building tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of bridges, with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of gods and demons smuggling themselves across together, pouring their own energy into that world!

" The Dutian Demon King smiled grimly. "Burst that world's barrier wide open!

Once the world barrier is burst apart and no barrier remains, then they can storm in en masse without the slightest hindrance! " Shen Mu shuddered, broke out in one cold sweat after another, and his face showed disbelief.

"You mean the world in the darkness of the Waste is a world whose world barrier has been burst apart?

" "The one that was burst apart need not be that world in the darkness. " The Dutian Demon King said with a smile, "Do you not think your world, too, might be a world that was burst apart? " Shen Mu shook his head.

"If this world had been burst apart, you could have descended here at will long ago. I saw that world in the darkness: countless demon gods opening one spatial rift after another, leading their demon sons and demon grandchildren through to slaughter. It stands to reason that it is that world whose world barrier was burst.