High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1216: Chapter 278 Seeking the Dao

”Heh, heh heh heh.”

Eerie and shrill laughter echoed throughout the small world. The torn rift in space had yet to fully close, with the golden net and sparks still faintly visible. The toad creature squatting in the center of the magic circle dangled its blue-black tongue from its mouth, and with its bulging eyes half-closed, it stared in the direction of the glint of gold. Its voice, just like its tongue, was sticky and indolent, giving listeners an irksome itch:

”Heh heh... The ewe has already landed in the ’correct’ place... We ought to speed things up a bit.”

After uttering these words, one of its eyeballs ’gollum’, rolled back to the front, resting on the two witches before it. Korma’s eyes had rolled back in her head, and strands of ghastly pale hair appeared amidst her locks at some unknown point, making her look like a pill shorn of its sugar coating, exuding a bitter aura from inside out. Elena, still clutching the silver knife in one hand, had half of her body smeared with fresh sheep’s blood, which set off against her burgundy wavy hair, revealing an unsettling beauty.

The toad creature’s other eyeball ’gollum’, turned in another direction, focusing on a witch outside the magic circle and the black cat beside her.

To be precise, its attention was mainly on the black cat.

”As a reward for facilitating the arrival... now, state your desire, Witch.”

The toad murmured in a sticky voice, its gaze filled with cruelty and greed, but this didn’t mean it would violate the rules set by the Array. According to those rules, upon receiving the appropriate sacrifice, it would also fulfill certain desires of the ritual performer.

”O great and secret presence...”

”Wandering divine spirits of the deeps of Starry Sky...”

”I offer my body, my soul, my everything here...”

”I pray to you...”

”I pray for you to guide the path of the Trickster...”

Korma’s voice was hoarse, but her tone became ever more resolute. As a witch who had achieved registered status, she had sufficient knowledge not to expect a limited contract to demand too high a price from an Outer God. She just hoped to encapsulate all her hopes in a concise phrase before the entity exhausted its last ounce of patience.

”You aren’t ’The black mountain goat of the forest that breeds thousands of offspring’,” Elena’s weak but firm voice interrupted Korma from the other side, her white mask showing cracks, but her eyes remained clear. Upon hearing Korma’s prayer, she clenched her teeth and emphatically repeated, ”You are not the Goddess of Dark Harvest!”

The massive toad loomed over the two witches, seemingly not intending to reveal its name, only ’heh heh’, letting out an eerie sequence of odd and piercing cold laughter.

Korma, crawling on the ground, fell silent for a moment, and without looking up, simply lifted the bronze plate in her hand a bit higher. Inside the plate, the spirit-blood-soaked ’jelly’ writhed crazily, morphing into various shapes but never settling into one, like a slime creature.

The witch repeated her prayer in a parched but firm voice:

”O great and secret presence...”

”Wandering divine spirits of the deeps of Starry Sky...”

”I offer my body, my soul, my everything here...”

”I pray to you...”

”I pray for you to guide the path of the Trickster...”

...

”Heh, heh heh... Such a greedy yet adorable mushroom,” the toad’s laughter was tinged with muffled sounds, making it especially strenuous for the witches trying to decipher its words. Its metaphor was peculiar and spine-chilling:

”You offer sacrifices, seeking desires... heh heh...”

”Life, wealth, reputation, power... heh heh...”

”Other mushrooms are very greedy yet ask for little...”

”Your greed is small, yet your demands are huge... hehe.”

”Seeking a path for a group of doomed...”

Disparate voices interlaced, sounding like dozens of people speaking at once, yet also echoing together to form a single voice that induced a feeling of chest tightness and palpitations in those who heard it.

The toad glanced at the witch beneath it, slightly lifting its eyelids to let more of its gaze seep through, as if wanting to see more clearly just what kind of soul was exhibiting such boundless greed before It.

Korma’s body trembled slightly under the Outer God’s gaze, but the bronze plate in his hands remained perfectly still, held even higher than before. Elena realized in horror that Korma’s arms had completely escaped the bind of their joints, controlled by a distorted force, lifting upward.

She wanted to scream out, but found that only her thoughts were still slowly flowing in her mind.

”The sacrifice... is accepted.”

”The path you seek...”

”Is yours...”

Like a spring, the toad’s dark green tongue shot out, hitting the witch’s forehead hard, leaving behind a black mark that meandered like a tadpole.

The witch’s mind was momentarily dazed.

A grandiose voice echoed through her spiritual world:

”...There are many paths to extraordinary power... one doesn’t always have to travel along the broadest river... sometimes, a narrow, winding path is the fitting ’Dao’...”

”...Power to cast spells can be obtained through sacrifice...”

”...This is a fair trade...”

”And an ancient power.”

Meanwhile, an irresistible force spread out from the void, binding the witch’s soul and body tightly, beginning to drag her into the depths of the void.

The witch suddenly opened her eyes wide, her look revealing a hint of terror and a hint of anger: ”I haven’t left them a way out! You can’t take me away!! You’ve broken the sacred contract!!!”

The massive toad squatted under the shadow of the magnificent archway, its eyes unknowingly narrowed into a slit again, its gaze filled with both amusement and indifference:

”Hey, hehe... contracts are never sacred.”

”The path has been given to you...”

”The appetizer is over.”

Before the echo faded, the magic circle that had settled down began to tremble violently, the air around it vibrating, and the entire small world shaking with it. The sun and moon hung upside down, the forest stood inverted in the void, the sun buried into the earth, and the moon shone with a yellow light, obediently hanging behind the great toad, replacing the collapsing archway.

Like an eye, overseeing everything in this world.

Having finished its summoned ’work,’ this uninvited guest finally broke free from the magic circle’s constraints above the rules, gaining more room to move.

The other eye, always watching the witch and Black Cat outside the Array, slowly and strenuously lifted its heavy eyelids, gradually widening, like a smaller moon, emitting a light that chilled everyone’s heart.