Walker Of The Worlds

Chapter 3324: The Ritual Is Completed!

Elyon crossed his arms, his wolf ears twitching slightly. ”We felt the cursed energy spike a few hours ago. The youngsters inside the shrine were unaffected, but we wondered what happened underground.”

Cattaleya leaned forward. ”Did you fight something? You smell like burnt resentment.”

Lin Mu exhaled and shook his head. ”Something stirred, but I handled it. What I found was beyond strange.” He sat down and explained everything he had seen.

The cavern, the corpses, the cursed chains, the memories, and the disjointed story behind the origin of the Ninth Sea.

His companions listened in silence.

Daoist Chu’s brows furrowed the most. ”A combined ritual by five transcendents from three races. That is no trivial matter.”

Elyon rubbed his chin. ”No wonder even the strongest powers avoids this region. If something like that happened here, the lingering aftereffects must still be dangerous.”

Cattaleya whistled softly. ”And I thought I had seen some insane rituals before.”

Meng Bai looked at the swirling mist outside the shrine. ”So the ancestors built this entire sea’s curse to seal a treasure. But the treasure is gone?”

Lin Mu nodded. ”Either used or transformed into part of the array.”

They all grew quiet after that.

They gazed toward the open shrine where the five Shanhu Clan youngsters knelt in prayer. Thick incense smoke drifted upward in pale spirals. The chanting in the clan’s tongue echoed faintly, creating a rhythmic pulse that mingled with the energy in the air.

”It has been fifteen hours since they began,” Daoist Chu murmured. ”Nine more to go.”

Lin Mu sat with his back to a smooth stone pillar and folded his arms.

Meng Bai shifted closer and said, ”This ritual feels very different from the ones in my own world. Ours are usually quiet. You bow, light incense, sweep the tomb, and offer food. But this seems so long and complicated.”

Daoist Chu smiled gently. ”Every culture develops its own ways of honoring the dead. Worlds shape customs, and customs shape clans.”

Cattaleya grinned and leaned back with both arms behind her head. ”Believe me, Little Bai, I have seen rituals that would make you question whether the people doing them were sane. Some demon clans nurture ancestral spirits by feeding them a special mixture of meat, fire, and their own blood. I had to watch one such ceremony once. It was quite intense.”

Lin Mu nodded. ”I have heard those stories too.”

Meng Bai looked toward him with curiosity. ”What about you, Master? What kind of ancestral rites did your people do?”

Lin Mu blinked in surprise. It was rare for anyone to ask about his background. Most people assumed he came from a great lineage due to his strength and talent.

”I did not have anything elaborate,” Lin Mu said. ”I did not come from any major clan. Just a small peasant clan in a remote village. My father was a hunter. My mother was an orchard worker. My grandparents died before I was born, and my mother was an orphan, so I never knew her side of the family either.”

His companions listened with genuine interest.

”We did worship ancestors,” Lin Mu continued with a faint smile. ”But we went to a common ancestral shrine in a nearby city. We offered fruit and incense. Nothing grand. Not like we could afford anything more anyways.”

Cattaleya stared at him in disbelief. ”Hard to imagine someone like you coming from such simple beginnings.”

Lin Mu shrugged. ”I thought the same about many strong people I met in my journey. Some had similar stories.”

Daoist Chu chuckled. ”Many great cultivators begin with nothing but themselves.”

Elyon nodded slightly. ”Strength has little to do with where one is born.”

Lin Mu gazed once more at the swirling mist of the Ninth Sea.

He wondered silently what the ancestors had wanted to protect.What they had feared.And what kind of unity they had wished to forge.

But answers would come only after the ritual ended.

For now, all they could do was wait.

The hours slipped by with a steady rhythm, marked only by the distant rumble of the Ninth Sea’s abnormal tides and the soft murmur of the youngsters’ chanting inside the shrine. Lin Mu and his companions kept silent vigil outside, the dark mist of the sea swirling endlessly behind them.

Then, almost without warning, the atmosphere shifted.

RUMBLE

A deep tremor rippled through the ground beneath their feet. The air grew less oppressive. The tension in the surrounding cursed energy loosened, as if a massive invisible hand had stopped squeezing the world.

Lin Mu lifted his head. ”It is beginning.”

Daoist Chu nodded, sensing the fluctuations. ”The ritual’s final stages are taking effect.”

A low, powerful pulse spread outward from the shrine. It rolled across the barren island like a tidal wave of silent force. When it reached the surrounding sea, the wrathful waves slowed. The whirlpools shrank. The once furious winds softened to a restless breeze.

Even the pitch black clouds overhead thinned, their menacing darkness giving way to a gloomy, storm-gray sky. It was still ominous, but no longer a suffocating curtain of night.

Meng Bai exhaled. ”It looks like day again, even if it is still pretty gloomy.”

Elyon tilted his head. ”A stormy day is better than endless night.”

Lin Mu watched the swirling skies thoughtfully. ”The ritual is definitely suppressing the curse. Only by a little, but enough to stabilize the seas.”

Cattaleya cracked her neck. ”If this little ritual can calm the whole sea even a bit, then whatever the ancestors did before must have been insane.”

Lin Mu agreed silently. Everything he had seen in the cavern only reinforced that thought.

Another few minutes passed before the chanting ceased. Soon the five youngsters emerged from the shrine. Their robes were soaked with sweat, incense ash clung to their faces, and their breathing was heavy, but their eyes shone with pride and relief.

They bowed deeply to Lin Mu and his companions.

”Senior Lin Mu, honored guests, thank you for bringing us here,” Shanhu Guimen said. ”Without you, we would never have reached this place. Our ancestors would have remained unhonored.”