154: Chapter 154 The Blind Man Listens to Heaven, Heaven Speaks of His Death Date

As Chen Fan's knees sank into the mud, the back of his neck still burned—it was the searing sensation left by the gravel that had just grazed his scalp.

Carrying Su Shuang on his back, he could clearly feel that every light cough from the person in his arms sent a painful jolt through his shoulder blades. The force with which her fox tail brushed his hand was seventy percent lighter than usual, like a fallen leaf dampened by dew.

"Can you still walk?" Su Shuang's voice, wrapped in the warmth of Fox Fire, brushed past his ear.

Just as Chen Fan was about to push himself up, he caught sight of the hammer of the thunder god by his feet—the handle was inexplicably plunged into the mud, the hammerhead slightly raised, glowing with a faint blue light in the night mist, like a wild beast poised to strike.

"As long as the Hammer still stands, I can walk." He grinned, sweat mixed with blood droplets splashing onto the ground, spattering mud onto Su Shuang's plain skirt.

But before the words left his mouth, a crimson light suddenly soared from the direction of the Yun Clan's main city, dyeing half the sky blood-red.

The hairs on the back of Chen Fan's neck stood on end—not because of the light, but because of the low-frequency tremor in the air, which strongly resembled the heartbeat of the machinery at the bottom of the Backfire Pool.

"The Sacred Fire... has awakened." Su Shuang coughed lightly against his back, the Fox Fire flickering at her fingertips, making the red mole at the corner of her eye look like a drop of blood about to fall. "My mother once said that the Yun Clan's Sacred Fire seals an ancient demon spirit... but this light is too manic; it doesn't feel like a living thing."

"It's not divine fire," Chen Fan suddenly spoke, tasting rust as his Adam's apple bobbed—he had bitten his tongue while running wildly earlier.

He closed his eyes but could "see" the veins deep within the earth: those dark red lines were surging along the earth's ley lines, and every vessel pulsed with a mechanical rhythm. "This is the soul-drawing pump."

A muffled cough came from the pile of rubble.

Chen Fan turned his head and saw Mysterious Lady slumped among the broken tiles, the front of her plain robe soaked in blood. The light from her life lamp had completely extinguished, like a cigarette butt stamped out.

She stared toward the Yun Clan, her fingernails digging deeply into the bedrock of the earth vein, blood droplets seeping into the stone patterns through her fingers: "The God Descending Sect... lit the fuse three days early.

They intend to use the faith energy of the entire city as fuel to restart the Heart-Burning Altar."

"Why?" Su Shuang's fox tail suddenly tightened, wrapping around Chen Fan's wrist. "What do they need so many souls for?"

"To power the Shadow Pavilion," Chen Fan ground out, rising to his feet. The hammer of the thunder god automatically settled into his palm, the pattern on the handle painfully digging into his palm. "The river of soul lamps I saw at the recycling station before wasn't enough to fill their void.

The souls of the Yun Clan's millions of believers are enough to run the Shadow Pavilion's machinery for ten years."

Su Shuang pressed lightly on his chest: "Then don't go." She tilted her face up, the Fox Fire making her eyes shine brightly. "The fire in your life lamp is barely a bean's worth, and my demonic power hasn't recovered... This pump is ten times heavier than the core pillar at the recycling station."

Chen Fan looked down and saw bloodstains clinging to her eyelashes—splatter from the earlier rockfall.

He suddenly remembered the first time he met Su Shuang, when she was brewing jasmine tea in the Teahouse; the steam rising from the white porcelain spout was just as soft, just as warm.

"My Hammer is never afraid of being heavy," he lifted Su Shuang higher, slinging the hammer of the thunder god over his shoulder, the weight making his collarbone ache. "It's afraid of missing the target."

The vibration from the Black Crow suddenly came from underground, a pattern of three short and one long signal striking his kneecap—this was the signal guiding the route.

Chen Fan walked in the direction of the vibration. A fissure in the earth vein split open beneath his feet, like a dark river with its mouth agape.

He could hear his own heartbeat growing louder, louder than the ringing in his ears, louder than the distant roar—until at one moment, all sound suddenly blurred, as if submerged in water.

"Lost my hearing?" he muttered to himself, reaching up to touch his ear, only feeling numbness.

Worse was the sense of touch: Su Shuang's body temperature, the weight of the hammer of the thunder god, everything was becoming ethereal, like grasping a clump of cotton.

But just as panic began to set in, his brow suddenly grew hot—the notification sound from the critical hit system exploded in his Sea of Consciousness: [Tactile Critical Hit Amplification +18% — Sensory Resonance Deepened].

The feeling under his feet suddenly became distinct.

Chen Fan paused, staring at the crimson flow of fire seeping from the ground—as those sparks landed on his shoe, he "felt" the frequency fluctuation within them, which perfectly matched the blood talisman patterns Mysterious Lady had drawn on the rock wall.

"This earth vein... is a living sacrificial array," he said to Su Shuang, looking down. "Mysterious Lady's blood talisman isn't a seal; it's a marker.

The God Descending Sect used the believers' souls as blood to connect the entire mountain into a soul-drawing pipe."

Su Shuang's fingers gently dug into the back of his neck: "Up ahead... we're there."

Chen Fan looked up.

The runes on the rock wall suddenly lit up, as if someone had splashed them with blood.

The end of the fissure opened into a wide area. In the center, a colossal pillar pierced from top to bottom, wrapped in fire chains as thick as bowls. Dark red light surged within every chain link.

The other end of the fire chains was plunged into the earth, and countless faint whimpers drifted up—human voices, an old man's cough, a child's cry, a woman's scream.

"Hide well." Chen Fan shoved Su Shuang into a crevice. As her fox tail brushed his hand one last time, he turned and walked toward the giant pillar.

The moment the hammer of the thunder god touched the pillar, the critical hit system vibrated again: [Environmental Perception Critical Hit × 240%].

This time, he could "taste" it—what flowed in the pillar was not fire, but undissolvable bitterness, regret that crushed the breath out of one, and the pain of being violently ripped from the flesh.

"You use soul-drawing as fuel," he said in a low voice. The wisp of Su Shuang's Fox Fire in his life lamp suddenly burned even brighter. The blue flame crawled up the hammer handle onto the pillar. "Today, I'll use the life lamp to burn your roots."

The tip of the hammer lightly tapped the pillar.

At the top of the Heart-Burning Altar, the Sacred Fire trembled violently.

The tongue of fire was kneeling before the altar, its seven-pronged tongue licking the residual incense of souls in the air.

It suddenly looked up, the crimson light in its pupils condensing into a line that shot straight toward the depths of the earth vein—there was a blue flame there, flowing upstream along the soul-drawing pillar, like a red-hot knife intending to pierce the soul-drawing formation that had been operating for a hundred years.