Chapter 169: Tianheng Thaumaturges
Zzzzz...
Stepping on the soft grass, that faint sizzling sound kept echoing in Bai Luo's ears.
The poisonous water flowed slowly, showing no signs of life within it.
Bai Luo put away his umbrella, because after entering Musoujin Gorge, it seemed that the rain had been affected by some force — it could no longer fall inside.
Not just the rain; when he looked up, even Gorou, who was standing above, appeared somewhat blurred. If he didn't focus carefully, he wouldn't have been able to notice that someone was standing there at all.
Raising his hand to wave at Gorou, signaling that he was fine, Bai Luo then held the Reverse Blade Sword, which had reformed into a weapon, and began walking deeper into Musoujin Gorge.
Despite the eerie atmosphere, there were still visible traces of human activity here.
However, compared to campfires and food remnants, the bloodstained handprints on the stone walls and claw marks on withered trees were far more chilling.
There were big and small handprints, both thick and slender — it looked like many people had left their bloody marks here.
They must have pressed their hands in an orderly fashion, seemingly conducting some kind of ritual.
"Ritual..."
Muttering the word under his breath, Bai Luo suddenly felt a wave of dizziness.
Stretching out his hand to touch the handprints on the stone wall, his face quickly paled at a visible speed.
"This is..."
It should have been his first time seeing such orderly blood handprints.
Yet now, he felt a strange sense of familiarity, as if he had seen them somewhere before.
But when he tried to recall it carefully, the memory remained stubbornly unfamiliar.
At some point, a rustling sound also began echoing faintly in his ears.
"Heart be pure, Evil be erased, Mind be purged, World be saved..."
Holding his head with one hand, Bai Luo subconsciously recited a chant.
Yes, he had definitely witnessed a scene like this before.
But it wasn't here, not in this place.
In a haze, he seemed to see a little girl.
The girl wore a resolute expression and held a dagger in her hand.
And the words she was chanting were the same as the chant he had just spoken.
"Soul, depart!"
Forming a hand seal, she thrust the dagger toward Bai Luo.
The dagger grew closer and closer; Bai Luo could even see some kind of talisman inscribed on it.
His right hand tightly grabbed the wrist that was stabbing at him, and Bai Luo panted heavily as he slowly raised his head.
"Scram!"
The Reverse Blade Sword flashed, and Bai Luo directly slashed her away with a burst of sword light.
The raggedly dressed madwoman fell into the waters of Musoujin Gorge with a splash and made no further sound.
Was that the work of the Tatarigami?
No...
The scene he had witnessed just now shouldn't have been caused by the Tatarigami's influence; rather, it was that ritual-like setting that had stirred up some of his memories.
But the problem was... when had he ever experienced something like this? Why didn't he remember?
The start of everything is when he had jumped into an icy river to save a child and found himself in Snezhnaya.
He has a complete memory of what has been happening to him after arriving in Tevyat, the only exception is….
Bai Luo froze, his gaze falling on the river-like waters before him.
Except for the time before he was rescued from the river.
After joining the Fatui, he tried to search for traces of his existence in this world.
But no matter how many connections he used, he couldn't find a single clue.
As if, before he arrived, Bai Luo had never existed in this world.
At the time, he simply believed that he hadn't transmigrated as a soul but had crossed over with his body, which was why there were no traces.
But now...
Could it be that something had happened to him in this world before he fell into the icy river?
And that little girl…. he felt she looked very familiar, yet he couldn't recall who she was.
It was as if everything about her in his soul had been severed.
"I'll think about it later, better explore this damn place first."
The headache had already eased. When Bai Luo looked again at the madwoman he had struck into the water, her corpse was nowhere to be found.
Earlier, when his memories had been interrupted and anger surged, he had used Earth Dragon Flash.
Although the Reverse Blade Sword had non-lethal properties, that only applied to ordinary attacks, and Earth Dragon Flash was definitely a skill attack.
She likely could not have survived it.
Returning the Reverse Blade Sword to its sheath, Bai Luo continued deeper into Musoujin Gorge.
Only this time, his hand remained on the sword hilt the entire way, because he had realized this place might not be as peaceful as he had initially thought.
Sure enough, as he walked, Bai Luo saw many people driven mad by the Tatarigami.
Some were miners, some fishermen, there were even ordinary women.
Unlike the madwoman who had attacked him earlier, these people just leaned against each other in a daze, black, filthy blood oozing from their eyes, noses, and mouths.
Only a few noticed Bai Luo walking past.
They merely lifted their heads to glance at him without attacking.
In a place like this, being alive was already a miracle, who would still have the heart to attack?
"Get out of my head... don't grow ears in my brain... stop it..."
Besides that, there were some individuals acting even more crazily, endlessly slamming their heads into the stone walls.
Just like Bai Luo earlier, they too could hear that rustling whisper in their ears.
But unlike Bai Luo, who had a chant to ward off evil, they could only endure that sound day and night, until eventually tearing off their own ears or piercing through their eardrums.
Yet even so, the whispering never ceased, it continued to torment them.
Just as one of them said, it was as if an ear had sprouted inside their brains, and with the loss of their external ears, only the Tatarigami's murmurs remained.
Suddenly, a woman Bai Luo had mistaken for a corpse reached out and grabbed his blood-red robe.
At the moment Bai Luo was about to slash off her hand with his Reverse Blade Sword, he halted.
Because he saw a trace of clarity in her eyes.
"Take... take him away..."
The woman could barely speak, her mouth filled with blackened clots of blood, her tongue already rotted and disfigured.
The 'him' she referred to was the child she cradled in her arms.
The child's age was indiscernible, hell, he didn't even look human anymore.
It's clear that the child had been dead for a long time, reduced to a pile of broken bones. Only by the size of the bones could one tell he had once been a child.
On the broken bones were visible gnawing marks, which meant he hadn't died from the Tatarigami, but from...
Glancing around at the blood-stained madmen, Bai Luo seemed to understand something.
"I will bury him properly."
With a swift Earth Dragon Flash, Bai Luo severed the woman's head, freeing her from her suffering.
Then, picking up the bundle of broken bones, he looked at the group of madmen.
"Heart be pure, evil be erased. Mind be purged, world be saved."
Chanting the incantation under his breath, Bai Luo walked towards the mad crowd.
. . . . .
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