Chapter 462: Evil God Festival - Boathouse

"Sheta."

An extremely indistinct voice drifted through the air, and Spades, who was standing on the boat, instantly turned back, his lips pursed as he looked around at the circle of people, trying to search for Bai Liu's figure from within.

The crowds of people walking towards the festival, dressed up and talking animatedly to each other, did not include Bai Liu.

But that was indeed Bai Liu's voice.

Spades walked against the crowd, exploring the crowd with his line of sight, and simply opened his system panel and threw out a prop, probing the surrounding area to see if there were any other players besides him.

[System alert: No other player's movement track has been detected in the vicinity.]

[System Warning: We are now in the middle of a league game, player Spades, you have not moved within a map for three consecutive hours, you are about to be given a yellow card warning for negative gameplay, please play actively, explore the maps, contact the NPCs, and complete the main quests as soon as possible!

Immediately afterward, the main quest panel automatically zooms in and pops open in front of Spades, with the main quest bolded in red, and the panel practically jumping up to Spades' eyelashes, as if in case Spades couldn't see it.

Spades tsked with an expressionless sideways glance, closing his five fingers and pushing the system panel narrower out of the way with a perfunctory afterglow:

[System Alert: Player Spades' identity is set to be the (Servant) of this year's greatest sacrifice at the Evil God's Festival]

[Main Quest: Find the greatest sacrifice, and offer it to the other side to make a wish to the Evil One.]

The sacrifice you are looking for is the one that has been tortured in the suffering room for the most years since the founding of the Evil God Festival and has the most accumulated pain. This sacrifice has been hidden by the people of Kagome Prefecture in an extremely secret location, and all you have to do is to find this sacrifice and bring it to the shrine to be sacrificed.

Spades once again reluctantly read the main quest again under the system's compulsion, and the next moment he withdrew the panel he continued to search the crowd for Bai Liu's shadow.

A few young girls in summer festival kimonos whispered and brushed past Spades:

"I heard this year, is the Gobune family going to sacrifice that one?"

"It can't be, can it? The Gobunshi family treasured that one so much, hiding him for so many years and sacrificing him, how can our Evil God Sacrifice proceed normally?"

"I've heard that the Gobunshi family has been instructed in their dreams that this one won't be needed for the Evil God Festival from now on, and that the Evil God-sama will pick a new successor."

As a violent player who never collects information, Spades walked quickly past this □□ talkative NPC as if he didn't hear it, without looking at it.

A few moments later, a couple of grown men in bathrobes walked past Spades with a big grin on their faces:

"Last year my family caught an offering at the Ship Palace Night Pleasure Festival to make a successful wish at the Maritime Shrine, and this year was just fine, and this year we caught another one, so it looks like next year should be just fine as well."

"No matter how well off they are, they can't possibly compare to the Gobune family." A man sighs and rubs his chin with his hand, "Ever since that fire five years ago, when the Kitahara family was burned to the ground and fell down, and the biggest sacrifice fell into the hands of the Gobunshi family, I've known that Kagome Prefecture would be under the rule of the Gobunshi family for the next twenty years."

"Eh, didn't they say that this year the Gobunshi family is going to sacrifice their biggest offering?" A man next to me poked his head over excitedly, tweaking his hands and asking after it, "Is it really true? Isn't it said that this sacrifice is very evil? Wasn't it because the Kitahara family was revolted by this sacrifice that they were like that in the first place?"

"After a fire people died and went mad, leaving only a few demented few descendants to live by guarding two or three inferior sacrifices that couldn't be sacrificed at first sight."

"Shhh." The face of the man who first said he had captured the sacrifice was solemn, his eyes rolled from side to side and his voice was lowered, "If you don't want to get your comeuppance, you fools should spare me the mention of that incident five or six years ago."

"Five years ago, almost half the village could have been emptied by this sacrifice, a large number of people jumped into the sea to commit suicide, and everyone was terrified of the shrine."

The man's eyes were serious as he warned, "Why do you think the shrine was moved to the sea? Isn't it because people are afraid to be on the same land as the shrine anymore?"

Several of the men were instantly silenced and gathered with shrunken heads, walking in silence right past Spades.

But Spades still wasn't listening to what these people were saying, and continued toward the end of his gaze:

The system popped up a panel almost unbearably:

[Player Spades is asked to pay attention to the main quest-related information given during conversations with npc's around him! You have already missed two key quest messages!

Spades paused, "Why should I pay attention to what they say?"

The system panel shows: [Some of the key information of the game will be given to the player in the form of NPC conversations, so please pay attention to the information around you.]

"Is that so?" Spades face showed no emotion whatsoever, "I thought the game designer wanted me to follow the path he designed for the game and that's why he gave me the message on purpose like that?"

"I don't like playing games that way."

Spades drew out his whip, his black eyes reflecting the docked, gilded ships in the harbor, his tone cold, "Playing the game like this, what's the difference between me and these arranged NPCs?"

"It's not even my game, it's his."

The system panel that popped up disappeared from Spades' face with a zip, and with no emotion on his face, Spades gripped his whip and walked straight towards the large ship docked in the harbor by the sea.

He made his way to the harbor-which was also where Spades had heard Bai Liu's voice coming from earlier-and he swept his gaze around.

On the side of the harbor there is a huge wooden platform with a raised gable at the corners, and inside there is a wooden stage for performing ritual dances, with a thick knotting rope hanging around the wooden frame, and on the knotting rope there are goshu shiratsuki (white paper) hung at regular intervals to ward off evil spirits.

Underneath the high platform there is a wooden board with red paint that reads, [Divine Priest Dance Performance Place].

Across the high stage, down in the harbor, docked a large, gilded ship, or perhaps large isn't an apt description, a theatrical performance stage in the shape of a ship.

The stage was made in the shape of a ship, with three tiers, and each tier had many light bulbs installed on the sides and right at the top, which lit up like day at night and made the center stage sparkle.

All the curtains of the stage were hung to the sides by loops, so that there were layers of heavy crimson velvet curtains on both sides, and in the center was the stage body made up of a shiny wooden floor that had been wiped and lubricated.

At the moment, there are two wooden benches placed opposite each other in the center of the stage, with a piece of watery glass in the middle of the benches, and two actors in hunting clothes are sitting on these two benches and looking at each other through the watery glass, and next to them stands a male actor wearing a quicksand glittery coat, and these three actors are performing indulgently on the stage.

Right in front of the stage stood a small display board which read - "Act I of the Evil God Festival Play".

The audience chairs are neatly arranged at the bottom of the stage, and on the chairs are a group of audience members who are watching the play with great interest. The chairs are not full, and new audience members are constantly coming from far away to sit on the chairs and join the audience who are watching the play.

A newcomer to the audience asked those who had already been watching for a while:

"What is this play about?"

The old audience then sidled up to the new audience who had just sat down and answered in a low voice: "This play is a traditional play for the annual Evil God Festival in our Luming County, about the emergence of the Evil God Festival, its development and changes, and this is only up to the first act."

Someone inquired curiously, "This first act, what is it about?"

"This first act is a background introduction about the process of the Evil God selecting an heir to come to earth and preside over the Evil God Sacrifice." The old audience member pointed to the three actors on the stage, "The ones sitting on either side of the watery wall are the heirs chosen by the Evil God, and the one next to them in the brightly colored gauze is our Evil God Lord."

The two actors sitting on stools on the stage suddenly jolted to their feet and fiercely sparred across the watery wall, hurling insults at each other:

"I'm the one that Lord Evil God appreciates the most! I am the most excellent heir!"

"I am the one who is the logical successor to the Evil God!"

The old spectator watched with great interest, shaking his head and explaining, "The Lord Evil God created all living beings and chose his heir within them, and in the end, there were two heirs that met the requirements, so in order to choose the best heir from among them, the Lord Evil God summoned these two heirs together and made a watery wall to separate them from each other, telling them to --"

The "Evil God" on the stage nodded with his hands behind his back, looking at the two "heirs" who were vying to be the first to succeed him with satisfaction: "Both of you are very good, but there is only one heir for me."

"I'll wipe all your memories and drop you into all the world lines I've created to experience, and the two of you will be given two different identities, that of [Sacrifice] and [Servant]."

"[Sacrifices] get my help back during their adventures, while [Servants] will have countless obstacles put in their way by me." The "Evil God" condescendingly walked around the two heirs, "But this status is not fixed, but can be swapped at any time, at any place, at any moment, the one who is in more pain will become the [Sacrifice], while the one who is in less pain will become the [Servant], and the [Sacrifice] will become the [Servant]. "

"After all the world line adventures are over, [Sacrifice] will become the next Evil God after sacrificing his pain and soul to me."

"And [the squire] will lose everything he has, friends, relatives, lovers, and souls."

At this moment, the old audience just nodded in agreement from the stage: "Yes, that's right, that's the origin of the [offering] [attendant] system in Deer County."

With his back to the audience, the heir sitting across the watery wall suddenly spoke softly, "Sheta."

--This is Bai Liu's voice!

Spades, who was searching for the stage, looked up sharply, and with little hesitation he jumped up with one hand propped up on the edge of the stage.

The moment he jumps up, the curtain behind him falls and the stage is shrouded in darkness. Spades hears the noisy audience discussion outside disappear in an instant, and the footsteps of the three actors on the stage sound in a regular pattern, gradually overlapping to form a single person walking towards Spades.

The stage lights, which had been blinding to the point of being a little shaky, turned into a stream of cosmic stars, and the streams of light swirled around Spades' emotionless eyes, reflecting the man who was walking towards him.

Bai Liu hooked the corner of his mouth, "Long time no see, Spades."

Spades stared at him, not answering.

Bai Liu's line of sight dropped down, he saw the black bone whip held in Spades' palm, and the smirk on his face deepened, "The whip I gave you, is it working okay?"

[System Alert: Player Spades triggers a plot point and enters the "Evil God Ritual Act II Play"]