Chapter 341: Purgatory? This Place Is Purgatory!
Most of the mysterious people who arrived at the crossroads wore hoods and masks, making it impossible to tell whether they were even alive.
Those who weren’t wearing masks had strangely unnatural expressions, as if they’d been possessed—their eyes were lifeless, like walking corpses.
By this time, the quicker-witted Chosen Ones had already begun to act. After all, they hadn’t been able to find anyone no matter how hard they searched earlier—maybe now they could find the special person mentioned in the rules?
More and more people gathered at the crossroads, and Rahman could barely move.
If his physical constitution hadn’t been enhanced, forget searching for the person with the special mask and the person who looked similar—he probably couldn’t even squeeze his way in.
The advantages of some Transcendents began to show. They could use various methods to push their way to the front.
Before long, Rahman, who was looking around, heard the sound of gongs and drums coming from the distance.
As figures appeared, the crowd around him began to stir.
The sacrificial procession slowly approached, carrying offerings as it appeared at the crossroads.
The closer Rahman was, the more he could feel the sheer volume of the sound.
The bizarre figures at the front of the parade all wore uniform black clothing and covered their faces with eerie masks. The masks had long hair around the edges, revealing only eyes that glinted with cold light.
They held one hand over their chests, their mouths seeming to chant incomprehensible spells.
On top of that, these people had bells tied to their bodies. As they walked, the bells jingled, echoing with the other sounds, as if they could stir a person’s very soul.
Behind them were carts pulled by human labor. On the carts, grotesque muscular men vigorously beat gongs and drums. On the floats behind them, bizarre women with graceful figures sang and danced. Their extremely twisted dance moves were somewhat frightening, but after watching for a while, one could become strangely mesmerized.
The scene was filled with a festive yet eerie atmosphere that made one’s blood run cold.
On the giant cart at the very center of the procession stood a slightly terrifying half-body statue. When the statue appeared, the nearby crowd went into a frenzy, muttering prayers and begging for the god’s protection and forgiveness for their sins.
Looking at all these varied scenes was truly dazzling.
The parade also included all kinds of offerings—meats of unknown origin, fruits that looked abstract in shape, and so on.
Just then, Rahman, who had been admiring the parade, suddenly widened his eyes.
Because of his background in archaeology, he absolutely loved this kind of special celebration.
But as he observed the parade, he suddenly noticed that across the street, on the opposite side of the procession, there was a bizarre creature without a mask who looked exactly like him.
Not just similarly dressed—identical in appearance.
This immediately made Rahman think of Rule 3.
[Rule 3: If you see a bizarre creature that looks exactly like you, find a way to kill it. This is very important to you!]
He desperately wanted to rush over and execute this bizarre creature right away, or at least hold it in place and find a way to deal with it.
But the parade was marching right through the middle, and he simply couldn’t get across.
This left Rahman anxious and helpless. Even taking a detour seemed too late, and besides, the people here were too enthusiastic—he couldn’t even get out if he wanted to.
But just then, something even more worrying happened.
When the cart carrying the offerings stopped at the crossroads, it suddenly came to a halt.
The lively parade instantly fell eerily silent—frighteningly so.
And the bizarre passersby nearby were constantly placing their belongings onto the offering cart, praying for the god’s forgiveness.
Rahman knew he had triggered a rule.
[Rule 5: If you encounter a parade, you may watch, but if the parade suddenly stops, please lead the way and leave. Otherwise, you will be dragged into the parade.]
He seemed to feel that some people in the parade were walking toward him.
Are they going to sacrifice me as an offering?
Or maybe they’re going to grab some people to sacrifice to the god.
But then again, it made sense—he remembered that when he first arrived, there were many floating corpses and skeletons in that river. Weren’t they all sacrificed?
Could the rule be hinting that after seeing someone who looks exactly like me, I should quickly lead the way and leave?
Sure enough, some “chosen” people were grabbed by the muscular men who jumped down from the carts. No matter how they cried, shouted, or begged, it was useless.
But something strange happened—the people around them weren’t panicked at all. Instead, they felt lucky that it wasn’t them who got grabbed.
When Rahman prepared to run out with all his might, he suddenly noticed that some things on the offering platform seemed to flash through the rules.
On the offering platform were various animal meats and their heads—pig heads, sheep heads, cow heads, horse heads, donkey heads, and so on.
These heads weren’t ordinary livestock—they were fierce, menacing beasts.
Whether it was the fur color or the teeth, they all looked exceptionally ferocious, and some even seemed to wear expressions of unwillingness and resentment.
Seeing this, Rahman suddenly connected some pieces of information.
“Wait—the Ox-Head and Horse-Face are underworld officials. They went missing while carrying out their duties, and here we have an ox head and a horse head. The rule says to ‘lead the way and leave’—could it be telling me to take this head?”
His thoughts raced like lightning. Rahman felt certain that the Ox-Head and Horse-Face must have run into trouble.
Could the trouble be that their heads were cut off?
If I take the head and then find their bodies, wouldn’t that count as helping them?
Watching the parade’s muscular bizarre men weaving through the crowd and about to walk toward him, Rahman seemed to have made up his mind. The opportunity was only here once. Relying on the advantage of the dense crowd, he shrank into the mass of people and headed toward the offering area.
The parade’s muscular bizarre men couldn’t spot his position for the moment.
There were simply too many people here. If the Chosen Ones’ bodies weren’t tireless, they would easily be squeezed until they had no strength left.
Before long, Rahman squeezed to the front.
The people nearby thought he was going to present an offering, but who knew—he went up and directly grabbed the ox head from the offering platform and ran.
Now the parade’s muscular bizarre men panicked and charged at him one after another, their murderous momentum making it seem like they wanted to twist Rahman’s head off on the spot as a sacrifice.
But the noisy crowd had no intention of making way for them. Rahman continued to shrink into the crowd, dodging the parade’s muscular bizarre men’s encirclement routes, drilling all the way to the back of the crowd, and then ran with all his might.
Actually, he was very worried that the parade’s muscular bizarre men would chase after him—he wasn’t very fast.
But when he looked back, he found pairs of eyes glinting with terrifying light. Whether it was the people making offerings or the people in the parade, they all stared at him with resentful eyes—but they never chased after him.
This bizarre scene made quite a few audience members feel chilled to the bone, as if they’d been cursed by a terrifying group.
Fortunately, the Chosen Ones had been frightened so many times over the past few days that they weren’t as scared anymore. As long as you don’t chase after me, that’s fine.
Phew~
Although he couldn’t feel exhaustion, Rahman, who had run far away, still habitually took a deep breath to calm his emotions.
He’d encountered too much information just now—he needed to find a chance to sort through it.
But before that, he pulled out a piece of cloth and wrapped up the ox head.
He wrapped it so that the ox head looked as little like an ox head as possible, to avoid suspicion.
He’d pretend to be someone selling good merchandise—after all, there were quite a few sellers carrying things in this area.
“I think the rule is most likely telling me to take this head out. I also feel this head is somewhat unusual.”
Because at the beginning, Rahman followed the rule: [Please lead the way and leave, otherwise you will be dragged into the parade.]
“Lead the way and leave” in the rule could be understood as being the first to leave—otherwise you’d be in danger.
That was the literal meaning of the rule, and basically all Chosen Ones could understand it.
Because they’d all triggered another plot point in the parade—discovering someone who looked exactly like them.
But based on the information, Rahman felt that “leading the ‘head’ away” might not mean leaving first himself.
There were also heads on the offering platform, but at the time he’d been frantically observing his surroundings.
If there hadn’t been a crowd surge, he really wouldn’t have dared to grab a head.
So Rahman judged that this was the opportunity for him to fish in troubled waters, and decisively went up to take the head and leave.
He could only take one—the ox head or the horse head. He couldn’t carry so many, so he had to choose the easiest one to grab, or the closest one, and run.
If he got caught, it would mean certain death.
The other Chosen Ones had similar thoughts.
After all, their judgment was quick, and they could also search for keywords.
As long as they grabbed one of the ox head or horse head, and left first,
they wouldn’t trigger the rule of being dragged into the parade.
Because some Chosen Ones understood it even more aggressively—Miller thought that the rule said “lead the way and leave, otherwise you’ll be dragged into the parade.”
He interpreted it as: as long as you leave, you won’t be caught.
So that was his judgment when he went to snatch the ox head and horse head.
At this stage, the Chosen Ones had more or less each gotten a head.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want two—it was that carrying one was already exhausting.
The Transcendent from Kangaroo Country was craftier—he planned to take two, but the parade people quickly caught up to him.
He had to drop one and leave quickly.
Now, the vast majority of Chosen Ones still on this level faced the next problem: how to find and kill the bizarre creature that looked exactly like them.
Because at the time, they’d been wearing masks, and that bizarre creature hadn’t.
So it very likely hadn’t noticed that they looked the same.
They could use deception, use surprise attacks to try.
There were many methods—it just depended on how the Chosen Ones found and implemented them.
As for why they had to kill it—probably only after killing it would they learn the information.
For the other Chosen Ones, it was time to start the complicated search for clues again.
But things weren’t so complicated for Zhang Yangqing.
When the parade came, he also saw a bizarre creature on the opposite side that looked similar to him.
That was the target mentioned in the rules.
After seeing it, Zhang Yangqing understood completely.
So this was how his lifespan had disappeared.
Zhang Yangqing remembered there was a vicious spell called “borrowing yang lifespan.”
There were actually many ways to borrow yang lifespan—dropping money, signing agreements, and so on.
Because borrowing yang lifespan was very peculiar—ordinary people couldn’t lend their yang lifespan to others, since this thing was borrowed and never returned.
So those who knew this vicious spell would obtain certain things from the person whose yang lifespan they needed to borrow—skin tissue, hair, and so on.
Using these to create an exact replica of the victim, which could serve as a medium or a substitute.
As long as the substitute was activated, the person could be made to voluntarily lend their yang lifespan.
To avoid having the lifespan stripped away again after obtaining it, killing the substitute was the best choice.
These were roughly the methods. Although they differed greatly from those on Blue Star, the fundamental principle was the same.
Like paper effigies, straw men, nailed wooden figures—all vicious spells of a similar nature.
Of course, the other Chosen Ones didn’t need to know all this—they just needed to kill it.
How to kill this bizarre creature that looked similar to themselves was their headache.
Zhang Yangqing didn’t have that headache, because he killed it on the spot.
According to the original plot, the parade would block the way, and the Chosen Ones couldn’t pass through the parade. They could only watch it leave, then find information and figure out how to kill it.
But the parade could only block ordinary Chosen Ones and Transcendents. If Zhang Yangqing wanted to go over, he could shrink the earth into inches and arrive in an instant.
When his substitute was preparing to follow the plot—watch the parade, leave, and go to a place with few people—it suddenly felt a chill in its chest, its whole body going rigid. It couldn’t even turn its head to see who had killed it.
The substitute collapsed silently to the ground, completely dead—and it died feeling like it had encountered a ghost.
Zhang Yangqing could have followed the complicated plot, but there was no need.
It was placed right in front of me to kill—why would I hesitate?
Just because others can’t kill it doesn’t mean I can’t.
Not directly blasting it from across the street was already me holding back.
Just like that, what would take other Chosen Ones a considerable amount of time, Zhang Yangqing solved in an instant, saving himself the trouble.
Actually, Zhang Yangqing could have done something even more outrageous—he could have cast a spell to take back all the borrowed yang lifespan, and incidentally strip away the yang lifespan of the person who borrowed his.
After all, he was a Heavenly Master—he still had that much ability.
But considering his own special circumstances, and that the person might be part of the upcoming plot,
to avoid danger like last time, he decided to follow the procedure.
Here, he only needed to consider whether the other Chosen Ones could do it, to decide whether he should.
The other Chosen Ones had no idea about any of this, so the normal procedure applied.
However, Zhang Yangqing wasn’t planning to let this guy off either. He had already recorded the information found on the corpse onto his palm using a special method.
Once he could settle the score, he could go wild.
Everything was under his control.
While disposing of the substitute’s corpse, Zhang Yangqing found a patterned emblem that had fallen from its body.
The pattern on the emblem was identical to the statue in the middle of the parade.
The fact that it dropped from the body proved that the Chosen Ones could obtain this item by killing it.
So this thing must be related to the main quest to some extent.
Just as he was wondering what use this thing had, the sound of gongs and drums nearby stopped, and the parade halted.
Zhang Yangqing suddenly saw the ox head and horse head placed on the offering platform.
Now he figured out why he hadn’t been able to find them.
“So that’s it. If the Ox-Head and Horse-Face were killed by them, then the bodies should be in the direction they came from. This emblem is telling me to find that place, find the bodies of the Ox-Head and Horse-Face, and put their heads back on. That’s why the rule told me to lead the ‘head’ away.”
Zhang Yangqing had already analyzed what the other Chosen Ones would only learn after some time.
Because this was a crossroads, the direction opposite to where he came from was the direction of the Yama Palace.
The parade came from the left side of the intersection from where he came. According to the information, they were going to the river, so the right side was the direction to the river.
So the important locations that the crossroads led to were now clear.
Here, Zhang Yangqing even analyzed the so-called “special information.”
Because the remaining time on the Chosen Ones’ incense sticks was different.
When returning, if there was plenty of time, they could run back the original way—that would be safer and ensure they appeared where they came from.
That would connect better to the next task.
If time was short, there was actually a possible shortcut here.
That was the crossroads—the right side of the retreat path when the Chosen Ones came.
Because the parade was going to dump the offerings into the river, that meant this road should lead to a place with a river.
How far it was exactly, Zhang Yangqing didn’t know either, but Chosen Ones whose incense really wasn’t enough could gamble on this road. Generally speaking, there would be boats by the river.
As for where they’d end up after getting on, that was unknown, but there was a chance of survival.
Zhang Yangqing’s incense burned the slowest—he didn’t need to consider taking this road. When the time came, he just needed to return the original way.
He could easily determine all this information—that was his thinking ability.
I may not need to use it, but I must think of it.
Chosen Ones who could consistently achieve perfect clears—this could be called instinct for them.
At the crossroads, when the parade stopped, Zhang Yangqing took the ox head and horse head according to the rules.
All of this happened in the blink of an eye. Not to mention the bizarre crowd around him, even the bizarre figures in the parade didn’t react in time.
Let alone stopping him—if he wanted to take it, he could even take the head of the statue in the middle.
He was also the only Chosen One who obtained two heads.
The further along they went, the more tense time seemed to become. Many Chosen Ones ran, and almost no one walked as slowly as Zhang Yangqing.
Despite his slow pace, by the time he reached this point, the other Chosen Ones would need more than ten minutes, or even tens of minutes, to get there.
That was the composure of the strong.
When Zhang Yangqing entered a special area, he found that his incense began to burn faster.
The burning speed of incense here seemed to be twice that of other places, but it didn’t seem to affect him much.
But the scene before him made the audience’s blood run cold. At first, they only heard the sound of flowing water. Looking through the light, they could see a small red stream.
Following the direction of the red stream, the scene before them was like a garbage dump—but there was no traditional garbage here. Instead, there were mountains of corpses and skeletons, and the stench of decay filled the air.
These remains were also extremely twisted and tangled, and one couldn’t even find a single corpse that could be pieced together completely.
Looking closely, one could even see pale human faces full of fear under the dim light. Although these faces said nothing, their expressions seemed to tell of the suffering they had endured in life. This area was like purgatory.
Maybe “like” wasn’t even needed—this place was purgatory.
The Chosen Ones who arrived here couldn’t help but swallow their saliva—they were genuinely hungry!
