The Witch's Taste

Chapter 384 Void Sacrifice
The secret to solving this space killing formation undoubtedly lies in the datura flowers growing on the cliff.

Just like the key must be placed on the outside of the door, it is a deliberate precaution left by the civilization that built this place.

Out of caution, Chen Ziang asked Nishikawa Meihui to summon another ghoul and brought the mandala flower into the chaotic space.

Sure enough, no matter which space the opponent is located in, the direction of the mandala flower will change accordingly - or in other words, it ignores the intricate connections between these spaces and always points to the route leading to the end point, the Mandala Temple.

Holding another mandala flower high, Chen Ziang and the three witches smoothly passed through the chaotic space and stood in front of the gate of the mandala temple.

This temple is much taller than any temple built in human history. The height of the main entrance alone is several hundred meters. It can be considered that the civilization that built this temple is probably taller than humans. .

After the ghoul went in to explore the way and confirmed that there was no ambush, Chen Ziang also led people into the temple.

At the back of the hall is a long corridor with statues standing at intervals.The shapes of different statues are completely different. Some look like upright humanoid creatures, some look like humanoid beasts with multiple legs on the ground, and there are also oozes with unstable shapes, octopus monsters with many tentacles, and monsters that look like a ball of fire. Intangibles and so on.

The only thing they have in common is that they all "hold" the Mandala Magic Sword - they may not necessarily have hands, but they will definitely use other methods to hold the hilt of the Magic Sword.

In front of each statue, light blue words appeared in the air.They emit a blur of light that slowly reorganizes into recognizable words until someone begins to focus on it.

Chen Ziang looked at the first statue.Its appearance is like a mysterious man wrapped in a cloak. The cloak is not known to be his clothes or his outer skin. It tightly wraps his inner body. Only the blade of the Mandala Sword passes through the gap. It stretched out from the middle and stabbed straight into the solid ground.

The text in front of it reads "Gaintul, master of the monastery. He was given the mandala sword from the temple of the goddess. Later, based on the memory he provided, we restored this temple."

Then, a voice sounded in my mind:

"Do you want to borrow my mantle?"

Chen Ziang was silent for a moment, then asked the witches:
"Can you hear me?"

"What did you hear?" Mizuhara Saori next to her asked.

"...It's nothing." Chen Ziang immediately understood that the voice was specifically speaking to him.

"What's the cost of inheriting the mantle?" he asked in his mind.

"A keen question." The statue did not move, but the voice continued to ring in his heart, "In order to use the Mandala Sword, you have already paid the maximum price, so we will not make additional demands."

Chen Ziang: ……………

"Huh?" he asked in confusion.

"The magic sword can destroy all evil." The voice said, "At the same time, it also destroys yourself. This is the price of using it."

"Every user will eventually sacrifice his soul for the magic sword with glory. We will leave a small amount of souls in the hall, which contains our power, to help subsequent users so that they will not suffer because of Die early for other reasons, and ultimately miss the destined glorious ending.”

Chen Ziang was silent for a moment, and asked:

"Excuse me, how exactly do you honorably sacrifice your soul?"

"When using the magic sword, you will feel intense pain." The voice explained patiently, "This kind of pain that transcends entities and directly affects the soul comes from the extraction of your origin by the magic sword. He is so The earth treats all equally, harming your enemies and yourself equally.”

"Your life will contribute countless souls to Him, and the last soul must be your own. This is the ultimate glory that belongs to the sword holder."

Chen Ziang felt a little overwhelmed. Firstly, when used, this thing would extract the essence of the soul. Secondly, he did not notice any pain at all.

Of course, he can't directly ask the other party "Why don't I feel the pain you mentioned?" because the other party obviously regards it as some kind of honor. If he is a bug to the Mandala Sword, then the other party will do it after knowing it. It's really hard to judge what the reaction will be - judging from common sense, there is a high probability that it will not be a positive reaction.

"Then how do I judge how much of my soul origin has been extracted?" Chen Ziang carefully considered his words, "I mean, how do I judge how long it will take for me to move towards that glorious ending?"

"You can't wait, are you?" The voice sounded a little joyful, "After the pain, you will feel empty. The more persistent and intense the pain, the longer and harder the emptiness is to dissipate, it means the less the origin of your soul is left... This There is no need to describe this feeling in words, you should have experienced it.”

Chen Ziang said to himself that I have never experienced this before, and continued to ask calmly:

"But if I die early due to an accident, the Mandala Sword will not be able to take away the origin of my soul, and I will lose the opportunity for glory... That's why you want to help me?"

"That's it." The voice replied, "The vast majority of sword holders will leave a small amount of soul and power here. You can choose who you want to borrow power from. This is not required, but I hope you can also Do this—before you finally return to glory.”

"I understand." Chen Ziang fell silent.

In this universe, the price for gaining power is often equally heavy.For example, in order for a witch to gain superhuman strength, she needs to endure the same inhuman pain.But I have used the Mandala Magic Sword for so many years, and I really have never felt that I have paid any price. It is like a free cheat...

Of course, there is no way to confirm whether the soul's origin is damaged, so to be on the safe side, try to use it less in the future.Or as the master puts it, it might be a safer idea to borrow the power of the previous sword-bearer.

"Are there any life-saving skills?" Chen Ziang asked for advice, "I mean, the cost of using it is relatively small, the ability to save life is stronger, and try to increase the probability that I can return to glory in the final outcome..."

"Wise choice." The voice did not have any doubts and just replied, "Go deeper from here. The 671st remains have the power that is most suitable for you."

"Thank you." Chen Ziang continued to walk forward.

He led the way, while the three witches followed behind, looking around and at his back from time to time, but most of the time they still read the words on the statues along the way.

"Tsk tsk, look at this." Mie Nishikawa whispered, pointing to one of the statues, which had a bloated body and long arms, "Death worshipers, the mortal enemies of the ghouls, existed hundreds of millions of years ago. Then they became extinct. I didn’t expect them to have held the Mandala Sword.”

"Where?" Mizuhara Saori asked curiously.

"Here." Nishikawa Mie pointed to the statue.

Chen Ziang was walking in front, and a hoarse voice suddenly sounded in his mind:

"Shut them up, sword bearer. I stay here to help you, not to listen to irrelevant people pointing out my existence."

Chen Ziang was also dumbfounded. He turned around and said, "They can hear it."

"What?" Takano Seiko asked.

"They." Chen Ziang pointed to the statue of the death worshipper, "They can hear it."

Nishikawa Mie shut up immediately. After all, it is one thing to comment on inanimate objects, but it is another thing to talk nonsense about mysterious existences that you cannot see through. The latter will bring completely unpredictable risks.

Chen Ziang counted patiently until he reached the 671st statue.

There is nothing here.To be precise, it looks empty, but the blue text that emerges indicates that there is the remains of a sword holder here. The text reads:

"The Void Walker has the racial instinct to dedicate everything to the void. But the mission of serving the sword and the desire for a glorious ending made him overcome his racial instinct."

Chen Ziang looked at the empty place and only heard a vague voice saying:

"..."

"What did you say?" Because the voice was too low, he couldn't hear it clearly.

After a long and difficult exchange, Chen Ziang finally managed to understand what the other party meant.

The Void Walkers are a special lower race. They were born from the "void". This unknown existence is always eager to swallow more matter to slow down the expansion of the universe. Therefore, the Void Walkers will dedicate all matter to Void, lest the universe expands endlessly and eventually falls into apoptosis.

Of course, this Void Walker is a special sword holder. He gave up his mission of sacrificing the void and instead served the Mandala Sword.

The power he left behind is also related to his race, which can lend Chen Ziang some special abilities: for a space within a radius of almost 2 meters, he can dedicate any mass or energy in the space to the void.As long as the thought moves slightly, the void will take action to take in the sacrifice he deserves.

This ability is obviously only suitable for defense, because the radius limit of 2 meters determines that it is difficult to use it to actively attack the enemy.

But the advantages are equally obvious. There is no need to pay any price for sacrifice.

Whether it's the Blood Spotted Pin or the Drowned Song, the former locks blood and the latter avoids damage, but both come with correspondingly high prices.For those powerful powers that do not require a price, the price is actually paid in advance by other beings. For example, the price of Touch of the Abyss is paid by the tentacle god Suhu, because he is eager to extend his tentacles to all worlds.

The same goes for [Void Sacrifice]. Considering Void's desire to devour material energy, he seems to be equally willing to pay the cost of this sacrifice.

After successfully obtaining [Void Sacrifice], Chen Ziang also breathed a long sigh of relief.

For him, his life-saving ability has been greatly improved.Normal attacks can be completely immunized by [Void Sacrifice]. Now there are only a few dangers that can threaten him: such as sudden sneak attacks that far exceed his reaction speed, such as attacks on the spiritual level that do not go through the real world. , another example is the curse that acts directly on him regardless of distance...

There are still many fatal dangers, which can only be dealt with by relying on blood-spotted pins and temporary undead transformations.

Chen Ziang thought for a moment and then looked deeper into the corridor again.

They have passed the remains of more than 600 sword holders, and there is still no end in sight in the corridor ahead. No one knows how many sword holders the Mandala Sword has experienced before it falls into their hands. .

Chen Ziang was not interested in doing this statistics for the time being, so he just left with the three witches.

Returning to reality from inside the Mandala Sword, he discovered that Tsukinomiya Suzuna and Xia Zili were both in the room. The former looked anxiously for his figure, and the latter was obviously on the verge of explosion.

"Senior!" Noticing his sudden appearance, Tsukimiya Suzuna rushed over, hugged his left arm and cried, "Where have you gone? Do you know that I..."

Before he finished speaking, Xia Zili had already thrown herself into his arms and hugged him hard.

Tsukimiya Suzuna: ……………

She didn't expect that just a moment later, someone would occupy her senior's arms.

"Don't do that next time." Xia Zili buried her head in his arms and whispered tremblingly, "I will be worried too."

"Yes." Chen Zi'ang reluctantly agreed, then looked at Suzuna Tsukimiya, who was about to turn black, and quietly held her hand.

So the anger in Suzuna's heart slowly receded, and she just held his hand tightly, as if to prevent him from escaping.

Holding one wife, and then holding the other wife, the three of them were in love for who knows how long, before Tsukimiya Suzuna suddenly reacted and said:
"The Federation fleet has arrived, and the fleet is fighting them."

"So fast?" Chen Ziang was shocked at first, then quickly calmed down, "How many enemies are there?"

"Not many, they should be the vanguard." Xia Zili replied, "But the main army will be back soon, so we'd better go back quickly."

"Okay." Chen Ziang agreed immediately.

Now that the federal fleet is attacking, the plan to find the mastermind behind the attack can only be postponed temporarily, otherwise it will be difficult to deal with being caught by the main elf fleet.

The two witches each used their magical powers to take Chen Ziang away from the planet's surface and fly towards the Forever in outer space.

Opposite the Forever, the military was already exchanging fire with the Federation fleet.The particle light spears of various colors clashed wildly, and at the same time, they exploded on the opposite force field shield, squeezing the opponent's energy reserves.

As the federal fleet gradually approached, both sides began to enter the torpedo range, and the lattice defense system also began to roar.Most of the space missiles will be intercepted and destroyed in advance, but there are also a few that slip through the net and explode with bright fireworks on the thick armor surface of the Forever.

The magical powers of the witches were so powerful that they quickly alerted the federal fleet in the distance.A bright red particle light spear was shot, and was caught by Tsukimiya Suzuna's incarnation as a shadow curtain, without any harm at all.

Sure enough, as long as she doesn't attack the cursed self-destructors in the temple, the witch still has impeccable defense... although she doesn't know how long this advantage will last.

As soon as he returned to the Forever, Chen Ziang received another bad news:

Someone inside the starship rebelled.

(End of this chapter)