Sacrificial Alter

Thud!

The crowd cheered out, their eyes fixated on the tribesman's head as it rolled down the hundreds of stone steps. As the head rolled, it left behind a trail of blood, splattering across the stone stairs messily. Strangely, the blood seeped into the stone, vanishing within a few minutes and not leaving a hint of a stain.

As soon as the head reached the bottom of the stairway, thorn vines shot up from the ground, piercing into the eye sockets and rapidly devouring the flesh and brains. Before long, the decapitated head had transformed into a fresh skull, joining the countless other skulls in the small mountain of bones that sat at the bottom of the alter.

All of these things clearly entered Yaan's eyes. It was not difficult for him to keep his eyes opened by a crack, just about enough to see what was going on in his surroundings, without alerting those around him to the fact that he was awake.

Whilst these people posed him no threat, they might start beating him if they knew that he was awake yet refused to move or say anything. For now, Yaan wanted to devote as much of his energy as possible to his recovery, he didn't want to be forced to deal with anything else.

Even so, he couldn't help but watch the Aztecs' sacrifice with intrigue. The term 'sacrifice' made him think of pointless barbarism, but he saw now that this was not the case, this ceremony served a very clear purpose.

This alter contained a formation, a formation which seemed to possess multiple functions. Firstly, the alter drained away its victims blood. As for the use of the blood…

Yaan's gaze landed on a single tree positioned above the alter. Strangely, the tree floated in the air a dozen feet above the sacrificial table, making it the last thing the sacrifices would see before they were forcefully flipped over onto their stomachs and brutally killed.

The tree's roots stuck into a ball of dark red liquid, which again floated in the air, hovering above the alter. Others could not see it, but this ball of fluid was continually nourished by red fumes that drifted up from the alter.

Yaan could see all of this clearly. He immediately understood that…this sacrificial alter's main purpose was to drain the blood from the sacrifices, using the vitality to nurture that elixir!

Indeed, growing on top of the alter was an elixir. The lone red, glowing fruit, was easily recognisable as an elixir; this resource caught Yaan's attention early on.

As for those moving thorns at the foot of the alter, they seemed to belong to some other strange plant. From what Yaan could tell, those thorns consumed the remaining energy contained within the victim's flesh and organs.

Seeing all this, Yaan had a single thought…

The Aztecs were surprisingly efficient!

They did not allow a single spec of their sacrifices to go to waste. Not only that, but they even made sure to invite vast crowds to each sacrificial ceremony, bringing the people together and ingraining the Aztec culture into their hearts, whilst simultaneously acting as a deterrent, scaring them from ever betraying the Aztec Tribe.

The message of these sacrificial ceremonies was obvious; the Aztec Tribe is strong and ferocious, so don't even think of betraying it!

The ceremony went on. One by one, the captives were led up to the peak of the alter, a square pyramidal structure which towered far above the surrounding lands. Yaan had now learned that there were in fact seven sacrificial alters within the tribe. Six were like this one, used regularly and by the normal members of the tribe, whilst the final alter was only used to sacrifice special captives, it was exclusively saved for the execution of powerful enemies!

He still couldn't discern the level of strength possessed by the strongest members of the tribe, but he had a rough estimation. After listening in on the conversations around him, Yaan overheard talk of Obsidian Class warriors within the tribe, so there were certainly Aztecs here at this level. There was also the occasional mention of 'transcendent warriors'…

The term 'transcendent warrior' was clearly something these weaker cultivators used to describe body temperers who had surpassed the Obsidian Class physical strength and 3-Star Realm vital cultivation, forming their Vital Core. In essence, transcendent warriors were 4-Star Realm body temperers.

Humans on the Blood Plane were almost all born with the Mortal Rank Progressive Physique Constitution. Because of this, they did not need to undergo a demonic transformation to cultivate their bodies. They were also able to follow the true body tempering path without much difficulty.

After improving their constitution to Obsidian Rank, becoming Obsidian Class body temperers, they could directly form the Vital Core, fusing it with their physical flesh, thereby combining their physical strength and Vital Energy into one.

'It is almost certain that there are 4-Star Realm body temperers within the tribe, but what about 5-Star Realm? These weaker Aztecs don't seem to properly understand the upper levels of their tribe, they just view everyone powerful as 'transcendents'. There are only around thirty million tribe members, whilst 5-Star Realm body temperers should be quite rare due to the enormous expenditure required to reach that stage. Even so…'

He had some degree of certainty that there were at least no immortals residing in this tribe, but what about in this region as a whole? Was this tribe a part of a larger collective, or did it stand alone?

In the end, Yaan continued to maintain a low profile. He was able to continue recovering like this, so there was no reason to make a hasty movement before he properly understood the situation.

He might need to act eventually, even if he hadn't yet discerned the strength of this tribe, but he hoped to recover his strength before that time.

Gradually, the slaves who remained in the cage, unwilling to volunteer their lives up as tribute, were taken away, one by one. Some were immediately assigned duties as labourers around the tribe, others were simply transferred to longer term holding facilities.

Yaan was amongst those moved to an underground holding facility. The air was warm and humid due to the ground, ceiling and walls being wet, soaked by the rain from above ground which was not channelled away properly and leaked down into the holding cells below.

Yaan was thrown roughly into a stone prison cell, joining five other captives who looked up fearfully at their Aztec kidnappers when they opened the doors.

Well, all but one of the captives wore this fearful expression.

In this group of five, there was a young woman who had a defiant gaze, but like the others, she also remained silent and did not antagonise the Aztecs. When the giant Aztec Tribesmen departed whilst laughing mockingly at their pitiful expressions, the woman clenched her fists and showed a ferocious gaze.

The woman's hair was tied up in a braided fashion, she also wore the furs commonly seen by the warriors here. Whilst most of the warriors were men, there were female warriors too; in fact, this woman was somewhat muscular, she also had the demeanour of a battle-hardened valkyrie.

"Damnit!" She spat out this curse through gritted teeth after the Aztecs moved out of earshot.

"Young miss, please watch what you say!" An older woman grabbed the younger woman's wrist as her eyes darted about worriedly. Her gaze settled on Yaan after confirming that there were no Aztecs around to hear them. She leaned over towards the young woman and whispered in her ear:

"Young miss, you must endure! Tribe leader knows that you have been captured, she will definitely come to save us! Until then, we must endure and not draw attention to ourselves!"

Anyone else would be unable to overhear these quietly spoken words, but Yaan was easily able to pick up on their secretive conversation.

The young woman shook the older woman's hand away, snorting discontentedly as she glanced at Yaan and spoke, not caring for her volume.

"Sister will naturally come to save me, but why should I have to endure this sort of humiliation in the first place? I am a warrior, yet these Aztec bastards are actually looking down at me, laughing at me for choosing life over sacrifice! Damnit, I will definitely pay back this humiliation ten fold, when sister gets here, I will slaughter all those who laughed!"

"Young miss, please keep your voice down!" The older woman urged bitterly.

"Why bother? The Aztecs have left, the cells are spaced too far apart to hear others, and this child is basically dead. Look at how pale and scrawny he is, he looks like he has died from malnourishment, it's really disgusting to look at."

Yaan: "…"

Unknowingly, it seemed that he had been put into a cell with a group of people who were planning to escape! From the sounds of it, they might even be getting outside help…Yaan just hoped that this wouldn't get in the way of his recovery.

So long as nobody interfered with him in any significant way, they could all do whatever they wanted to. The world could burn, but so long as the flames did not touch him, Yaan would ignore the fire and continue along his own way.