223: Chapter 223 Ritual Blood Pool! Absorption and Refining! Proficiency Increases Significantly!

Deep within the small town, in a clearing that had been deliberately cleared, a huge deep pit suddenly appeared.

The pit was about ten meters in diameter, and over a hundred corpses lay scattered inside.

A layer of blood had pooled at the bottom of the pit.

At the bottom of the blood pool, one could vaguely see lines formed by white bone fragments, creating a complex geometric pattern.

The three stood at the edge of the pit, silent for a moment.

Aurora crouched down, extended a finger to touch a bit of blood that had not yet fully congealed at the edge of the pit, rubbed it between her fingertips, and then brought it to her nose to sniff gently.

Her brows furrowed slightly: "The energy of the blood source tributary node here has not yet been activated."

"This is the base of a ritual. Harrison set up the basic framework for a large-scale ritual here, waiting only for the energy to accumulate to a certain level, or for a specific time node, to be activated."

She stood up, turned to Rowan, and added:

"The scale of this ritual is much larger than the one in Lorne Town. Connected through different blood source tributary nodes, this is just one of them."

Rowan looked at the blood pool at the bottom of the pit: "How should we handle this? Can this ritual be destroyed?"

Aurora thought for a moment and replied:

"It can be destroyed, but it would require considerable time and effort. Furthermore, if handled improperly, the residual energy could trigger secondary contamination."

"However, I have a simpler method. We can use the blood ash bone conch to absorb all the energy from this blood source tributary node."

"Without the energy support, this ritual base will just be an empty shell, unable to function."

"Absorb the node's energy?" Hearing this, Rowan did not answer immediately.

He walked to the edge of the pit, crouched down, and extended his hand.

He sensed carefully and could indeed perceive a rich and pure blood source energy contained within the blood pool.

That energy carried an inexplicable pulsation, creating a faint resonance with the Vampire Prince blood core in his Myriad Furnace.

He thought for a moment, then quietly drove the blood core, attempting to Drain that energy.

It worked.

The blood source energy was drawn over, strand by strand, and slowly incorporated into the Myriad Furnace within his body.

A moment later, the energy of the entire blood source node had been absorbed by him in this way.

Rowan withdrew his hand, stood up, and closed his eyes to sense the state within his body.

In the Myriad Furnace, invisible flames ignited, refining this blood source energy.

Garuvi and Aurora stood to the side, watching quietly as he completed the entire absorption process.

The two women exchanged a glance, both seeing a hint of surprise in the other's eyes.

They could both sense that the massive amount of blood source energy had been directly absorbed into Rowan's body in a way they completely failed to understand.

But neither asked any questions.

Rowan opened his eyes, flexed his fingers, then turned to the two and said in a relaxed tone:

"Let's go. Things here are finished."

"Mm." The two women nodded.

The three turned and walked out of the small town along the path they had come.

When they reached the town entrance, Garuvi suddenly stopped.

She turned around, looked at the dead, silent town in the twilight, was silent for a moment, and then whispered: "You go out first, I will handle the aftermath."

Hearing this, Rowan glanced at her, didn't ask more, just nodded, and took Aurora back to the small hill overlooking the entire town.

On the hill, a breeze blew.

In his Myriad Furnace, the Vampire Prince blood core had completely refined the absorbed blood source energy.

The blood core also seemed to have become more vivid and dripping with color.

[Myriad Furnace Breathing Technique Proficiency + 2813]

His eyes flashed slightly.

This harvest... is terrifying...

Furthermore, this was just the energy from one blood source tributary node and its ritual.

If he could find more similar nodes, or, find that blood source main vein node hidden beneath Gino County, what kind of considerable gains would that be?

Just as he was pondering, a flash of fire suddenly lit up in the small town.

The firelight was initially just a faint blood-red, flickering uncertainly in the twilight.

But soon, that spark spread rapidly, like a waking fire dragon, devouring everything along the town's streets and houses.

The flames burned brighter and brighter, lighting up the sky in the twilight into a crimson red. Thick smoke billowed up and drifted away in the evening breeze.

Rowan squinted as he looked over.

That was Garuvi's Path of Blood Fire...

A moment later, Garuvi's figure also appeared on the hill.

The three stood side by side, silently watching the small town engulfed in flames.

No one spoke.

I don't know how long it had been, when Rowan turned around first and walked along the path down the hill.

...

On the way back, Rowan was also pondering.

The matter of Cedar Town could be considered temporarily resolved.

The serfs who died in Lorne Town, he could also be considered to have avenged them.

But what about the future?

He looked up at the moon. With the Red Moon reviving, such things would only happen more and more frequently; he could not spend time dealing with them every single time.

Thinking of this, he turned to look at Aurora, who was walking by his side, and asked:

"Aurora, is there any way to prevent things like what happened in Lorne Town from happening again?"

Hearing this, Aurora pondered.

She quickly analyzed the current situation while searching her mind for various possible solutions.

After a while, she slowly spoke:

"Actually, there isn't a very good way."

"But this kind of ritual requires specific conditions to succeed; it must have a blood source node as a fulcrum, and the caster also needs a certain amount of preparation time."

"The reason Lorne Town had an incident was precisely because there happened to be a blood source tributary node beneath the town, giving the caster the opportunity to hold the ritual."

"However..." She changed the subject, her tone carrying a hint of confidence:

"If my Wizard Tower is repaired, I can engrave a specialized monitoring magic array in the tower base."

"This magic array can resonate with the ley line energy, covering Gino City and a certain surrounding area."

"Once similar ritual fluctuations appear, I can use the magic array's reverse positioning function to roughly lock onto the location of the blood source tributary node."

She looked at Rowan and added: "Of course, this magic array is not omnipotent."

"The larger the monitoring range, the greater the magic crystal consumption. If the opponent performs the ritual outside the coverage of the magic array, I will not be able to detect it."

"But generally speaking, with this magic array, we can at least significantly reduce the probability of tragedies like Lorne Town happening again."

Rowan listened and nodded slowly.