The Yi people stopped in a clearing in the woods, which Ujida hadn't passed through last time, but she didn't need to look twice to know why they were staying here: in the middle of the clearing, there was pure water flowing from the hole in the rock, and a little farther away under the tree, there was a large flat bluestone, which was a natural altar. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info she washed her hands in the running water along with the other priests in the procession to prepare for the next ceremony.

Several of the chosen young samurai cut down designated branches from nearby, while others helped the priests clear the grounds. There were enough people, and everything was going on much faster than usual, and the preparations for the ritual that would normally take the Paigandala family three days to complete hadn't taken half a day this time. The tree directly opposite the altar was cut down, and all the roots were dug out to make a ready-made sacrificial pit, which the Yi people called the "Eye of the Gruul", and then the warriors, wielding their swords and singing the Gruul hymns, stuck the cut branches around the pit and crisscrossed each other to block the view of mortals, and their work was completed. At the same time, the priests lit a sacrificial fire, burned the stones in the sacrificial fire, and threw them into a ladle of water, believing that the rising steam would cleanse the entire sacrificial site.

Several of the inferior priests who served as drummers beat sheepskin drums tied with brass bells to accompany the songs, and one by one the other priests walked through the steam, and when Ugida put on her mask and was about to walk towards the steam, the high priest called out to her.

"Ujda, you're not going to participate this time. The high priest said.

Ujida blinked suspiciously behind the mask and respectfully withdrew, although she was the daughter of the toast, she was still far from the qualification to argue with the high priest, maybe she would find an opportunity to ask the high priest for the reason afterwards, but now, when the sacrificial songs and drums sounded, and the grand ceremony was about to begin, it was obvious that she did not have the right to question it, and many noble toasts and leaders were watching the ceremony from the sidelines with bated breath!

She retreated to the family and watched as the other priests had completed the cleansing ritual and gathered around the fire to sing and waving straw figures in their hands, all of which were made by the priests themselves, with slave hair braided into them, precious herbs, miniature silver swords and mountain gems, some in buns to symbolize men, and some with hair to symbolize women. The priests sang and danced, praising their families and the sacrifices they were going to pay to the "Gruul gods" for this campaign, talking about where they had captured the slaves and what skills they had learned, calling the straw men in their hands "warriors with swords" or "beautiful women", and wondering if they would really be what they said.

At the end of the song, the priests place the straw men on the altar, and then cut the necks of the white roosters they carry on the fire one by one, and sacrifice the blood to the "fire god who opened the way". Normally, after this session, the priests would pour the remaining chicken blood on the straw man, burn the straw man, and finally the high priest would pour all the ashes into the "Gruul's Eye" as an offering to the Gruul, but this time, the high priest stepped into the field.

He took out a bronze bone and silver face fan from his waist, on which the water turned by the hail from the sky mixed with frog blood and bitter ginger juice was drawn with clouds, rain and hail and other celestial phenomena, and the edge was decorated with a circle of python fangs, which was his unique magic weapon, and the other priests saw him take out this fan, they all stopped their movements, looked at each other, thinking that the ceremony was wrong, otherwise, even if the high priest entered, he should not take out his magic weapon! Ujida also looked nervously at the field, she had never seen or heard that the high priest would enter at this time.

The high priest ignored the silence in the field, waved his hand to signal the drummer priest to continue beating the drum, he raised the fan, fanned it several times, and the sacrificial fire suddenly flew high, turned blue, and spread out, engulfing the altar containing the straw men: "The god Guru himself is here! I hear it!" He said loudly to the people around him: "It will open the city of the people outside the mountain! Let us win an unprecedented victory!" Ujida didn't hear the rest of his words, and the cheers of the warriors around her instantly resounded through the heavens and the earth, drowning out the voice of the high priest.

She didn't feel the arrival of the Gruul God.

Maybe it was just because she didn't attend the ceremony, but she looked at the place where the high priest had stood, where the strange false man stood, who was not dressed in priestly garment, and who seemed to know the whole thing better than their priests. He shouldn't have participated in this ceremony, the ritual has always been only attended by the pure-blooded Yiren, and the half-breeds and slaves can only stay on the periphery, closely guarded to prevent them from disrupting the ceremony, and the participation of the half-breeds is a desecration of the ceremony, not to mention a fake Yiren, he is here, the ceremony should fail...... However, the high priest declared the ritual a success, and Ujida had no evidence that he was a hypocrite...... When she looked over again, the fake man was gone.

When the ceremony was over, the high priest's first order was for Ujda to go to him.

"Ujda, from today onwards, you have to fast for seven days and recite the cleansing mantra a hundred times, and then I will teach you how to use it. He gave Ujida a bamboo stick, seven inches long, made of deep mountain bamboo roots, with silver heads carved with spiders at both ends, bound with leather ropes, and then Ujida had no chance to say anything to him, and the other priests looked at her with envy and jealousy, knowing that she had received another powerful magic weapon from the high priest, and the warriors of the Pagangala family rejoiced when they heard about it, but Ujida himself was not happy.

Strangely, she had been expecting the High Priest to teach her more powerful spells and spells so that she could capture her goal and boast in front of everyone, but now that she had the magic weapon in her hands, she not only did not feel joy, she did not even have the eagerness to try it before, but kept thinking about the strange green flame in the sacrificial ceremony.

That night, she slept in a cloak among the people of Paegandara's house, and the people would not lie down to sleep, they would curl up in a ball and put their weapons in their arms, even the toast nobles would sleep in such an alert position, or rather, the toast nobles would adopt such an alert sleeping position, they did not know what peace was.

In the dream, Ujida dreamed of the great god Guru, and she ran to the god with joy, thirsting for greater power.

The Gruul god turned, and behind it was a bright, green, twisted vortex that Ujida couldn't stop and was sucked into.

The last thing she saw in her dream was a pair of bright red eyes.

She woke up and saw the bright red over the moon.