The Invincible Female Ghost Is A Bit Of A Hopeless Romantic Chapter 248: The Ritual Spirit Really Intends to Grind Them

Its eye sockets held no real eyes, yet it was more horrifying than anything with eyes.

Every step it took made the surrounding lights dim a fraction, and people’s breaths seed to be cut by a piece.

“You’re good at severing paths.”

The ritual spirit stared at Lu Yuan, its voice pressed extrely low.

“But you may sever my paths, you cannot sever my seat.”

“You see one flaw of mine and think you can flip the altar?”

“You are wrong.”

“If the altar flips, the seat presses you down.”

“If the seat moves, your life is exchanged for it.”

As it spoke, it suddenly reached out and touched Lu Yuan’s brow.

The motion was so fast it left almost no trace.

Lu Yuan felt an extre coldness arrive before his eyes, every hair on his back standing on end.

At a critical instant, he abruptly raised his ritual sword and held it across his brow, shouting a short but crushing anti-demon incantation:

“Open!”

Sword t fingertip.

This ti there was no tallic clash, only a muffled “puf.”

Like a red-hot nail driven into wet paper.

Lu Yuan was blasted back seven steps, his rear foot landing on the edge of the salt formation, the ground imdiately giving way beneath him.

He forced himself to remain upright, but his right hand holding the sword trembled terribly, blood from his palm running down the hilt.

The ritual spirit hadn’t won without cost either.

The finger that had pointed at Lu Yuan’s brow had its bone sliced open by the sword’s qi, a thin black skin cleaved off.

When that black skin split, the ritual spirit emitted a faint first hiss, as if a breath leaked out.

Because that breath leaked, the murderous intent across its face detonated completely.

“Good.”

“Very good.”

It laughed low, a sound like wind scraped up from a grave.

“Then let show you what ‘once the altar rises there is no returning’ truly ans.”

It suddenly spread both arms wide.

The next mont, all the paper banners lining the stone path ignited on their own.

Not fire, but ashy gray yin flas.

With the yin flas, seat shadows, paper faces, old na ledger pages, bone tags, and red cords all layer upon layer rolled up in midair.

Like countless funeral cloths animated, the entire stone path instantly beca a long corridor of an ominous seat.

Most terrifyingly, those seat shadows that should have been re illusions began to grow real.

Lu Yuan watched as a paper person’s hand slowly extended from the lamp’s shadow, fingers long and thin, fingertips resembling folded paper corners, reaching slowly for his throat.

“It’s turning the whole road into seat surface!”

Song Qinghe’s voice trembled.

Zhou Heng ground his teeth and rose, his long sword barely supporting him on the ground as he barked:

“We can’t let it lay the seat, no one can touch the ground!”

Lin Zhaoxuan could no longer care about the pain in his shoulder, he raised the Thunderclap Token to strike again, but the mont he tried to channel qi, the ritual spirit signaled across the void.

Under that signal, Lin Zhaoxuan felt as if an invisible giant hamr struck him in the chest, his breath stalling and nearly collapsing to his knees.

“It’s suppressing our divine gate!”

He panted, a vein bulging on his temple.

“I can’t raise the token!”

Lu Yuan felt his vision blur too.

The ritual sword remained in his hand, but its sword intent seed half-bitten away by the ritual spirit; the gold patterns along the spine flickered uncertainly, no longer as bright as before.

If he forced it, the sword might be consud into useless scrap before the ritual spirit could finish them.

Yet just then, the ritual spirit suddenly raised its hand and seized that blood-red crack before its altar eye.

It seed to be “sewing” itself.

This seam was not a repair, but a change of offering.

Lu Yuan realized in an instant: although his earlier strike had wounded it, it had only provoked its true ferocity.

What the ritual spirit intended now was not retreat but to use its rage to firmly “resit” on the offering seat.

If it resealed that breath-exchange opening, the current wounds would be forcibly suppressed by the seat’s power.

It must not be allowed to take its seat.

Lu Yuan’s aura went cold. He suddenly looked toward the overturned-seat lamp at the end of the stone path.

Its fla had completely turned ashy white; within the wick, that tiny paper hand was slowly unfolding, seemingly about to hook the spirits of everyone present one by one.

He suddenly recalled sothing.

The ritual spirit could devour thods, seize seats, suppress shadows, but it feared an “empty seat” above all.

If its seat were made unstable, even for a mont, it would be thrown into chaos.

“Zhou Heng!”

Lu Yuan shouted suddenly.

“Go cut that lamp — don’t cut the lantern body, cut the lantern’s base!”

“Lin Zhaoxuan, borrow your last thunder and strike the bottom of the lamp!”

“Song Qinghe, center the sealing plate and press the north, do not let the lamp shadow touch ground!”

“Everyone else, follow in the ancestral-fire steps, force it off the seat!”

They listened in alarm, but all knew this was their last desperate option; they forced themselves to comply.

Zhou Heng gritted his teeth and executed the most dangerous low-ground thrust, heading straight for the lantern’s base.

Lin Zhaoxuan pressed the Thunderclap Token hard onto the stone, fingers together, forcing out one last thin blue-white thread of thunder.

Song Qinghe’s arms trembled, but she forced the sealing plate back to the north position.

Lu Yuan bit his tongue hard, blood surged up, his feet stamped the Yu Steps in succession, the ritual sword held across his chest, his voice tearing like paper:

“Ancestral fire ahead, the yin seat retreat three feet!”

“If Heaven’s gate does not close, Earth’s gate will not open!”

“With three steps of living feet’s yang qi, I force you from your altar seat!”

“Rise!”

He slamd his foot to the ground, his whole body like a nail, pinning yang qi firmly into the dark sovereign.

The stone path quivered.

A murderous cold light flared up in the ritual spirit’s eyes; it finally could not feign calm, its whole body snapping up half an inch.

That half inch.

Everyone heard an extrely faint sound.

That very faint “crack” sounded as if an old bone stake underneath the earth had broken.

Imdiately, the entire stone path transford.

What had been cold, heavy, suffocating seat-malice was now ignited with viciousness by the ritual spirit in one breath.

The black qi no longer drifted, it rolled.

It rolled like a winter night wind over a mountain, like old ash flung from a coffin, like an entire graveyard opening its eyes at once.

The ritual spirit stood in the seat-eye center, the blood-red crack on its forehead widening; inside was not blood, not flesh,

but a bottomless black.

Within that black, countless offering nas, old plaques, broken seats, extinguished lamps, and half-burned incense tips churned densely together, like a well that could never be filled.

It was enraged to the core.

So enraged it no longer cared about “sitting” or “seat,” nor about manners while feeding.

It suddenly spread its arms; the seat cloth in its sleeves unfurled like two enormous black wings and slapped outward with a boom.

It wasn’t a simple expansion; the entire stone path seed to be ripped into its seat surface.

The black sovereign beneath their feet flipped white in an instant, smoke curling from the salt formation’s edge, as if an invisible rot was eroding upward.

“Crap!”

Zhou Heng had barely spat out the two words when a mass of paper banners above rolled up at once.

Those white paper heads half-exposed on the banners all “stood” down from the banners at the sa ti.

They had no legs, only lanky paper waists swaying in midair.

Like a group of hanged mourning children, their black teeth opening and closing, emitting thin, faint clicks.

The ritual spirit looked at them coldly, its voice devoid of any warmth.

“Since you won’t take the seat.”

“Then I will personally press you onto it.”

Before the words finished, it suddenly reached forward with a grab.

This grab did not seize flesh; it seized the life gate.

Lu Yuan felt his chest as if gripped by so invisible thing, yanked violently; his body staggered forward and knelt two steps.

That small patch of yang qi beneath his feet was instantly drained.

Before his ritual sword could be raised, his wrist went numb; the gold patterns on the blade trembled fiercely, as if soone would snap its spine.

“Lu Yuan!”

Song Qinghe cried in alarm, the sealing plate in her palm vibrating wildly, its rim flashing coldly as if thousands of needles stabbed its surface.

She tried to suppress the altar qi, but the ritual spirit only glanced sideways; a sheet of black paper flew from its sleeve.

Thin as a half-burned morial paper, it snapped open in midair with a smack and struck the sealing plate.

“Shatter!”

Song Qinghe was knocked back three steps; the plate center slipped half an inch from her grasp, a sharp pain seized her chest, and a trickle of blood spilled from her mouth.

“Junior sister!”

Lin Zhaoxuan’s face changed dramatically; he forced himself to lift the Thunderclap Token and move forward.

But he only took half a step when the crack on the ritual spirit’s forehead suddenly glead.

Not red, but black-red.

A terrifyingly heavy yin pressure descended without sound.

Lin Zhaoxuan felt his neck as if touched by an icy iron hand; his breath cut short, his foot stumbled, and the Thunderclap Token nearly fell.

“You and your little thunder.”

The ritual spirit spoke faintly.

“You made a sound before.”

“Now it only deserves to light my way.”

It snapped its fingertips.

A spark of black fla popped from the web of its finger and drifted lightly to Lin Zhaoxuan’s feet.

Small as a bead, the fla burrowed into the soil like a living thing.

Imdiately, black smoke burst from a crack at Lin Zhaoxuan’s foot, snaked up, wrapped his calf, and tugged fiercely.

Lin Zhaoxuan dropped to one knee, the Thunderclap Token slamming onto the stone with a clack, his palm buzzing numb.

“Thunder draw!”

He gritted his teeth and shouted, fingers bleeding as he forced his hand down on the token once more.

“Ancestral thunder never ends, Earthly malevolence retreats!”

“Return!”

“Rise!”

But this ti, as the thunder pattern lit, the ritual spirit pressed its palm and the blue-white thunder was forcibly pressed back into the token; the Thunderclap Token’s surface cracked with a sharp sound.

Lin Zhaoxuan vomited a mouthful of blood and was hurled back, hitting the stone wall; his breathing sounded tallic.

“It can even press back thunder...”

He felt hollow, scarcely believing it.

Zhou Heng fared no better.

He had just severed half the paper banner’s root, thinking he could cut off the seat shadow’s attachnt.

When the ritual spirit went berserk, those severed banner shadows did not disperse; instead, like dead snakes with broken cords, they lunged toward Zhou Heng’s sword.

Though fierce, his blade could not counter the seat shadow’s clinging.

Black tendrils crawled up the blade as if wrapping mourning cloth around iron.

Before he realized it, the sword’s spine was encircled and tightened by yin qi, his wrist weighed down like it carried a coffin slab and could not lift.

The ritual spirit did not even look at him, simply closing its five fingers.

“Co—”

With a wrench, Zhou Heng’s long sword was knocked from his hand by the seat shadow, spinning and embedding into a crack at the stone path’s edge.

The blade humd but could not be drawn free.

The next mont, Zhou Heng felt a crushing blow to his chest as if a piece of seat cloth struck him, and he slid back several feet, leaving a pale streak across the ground, blood at his mouth and nose.

Xu Erxiao’s face went white with fright.

He reached to help but paper ash fell from above.

It didn’t float down, it dropped heavily, as if shaken loose from a great height.

Xu Erxiao looked up to see a paper face hanging less than a foot before him; in its hollow eyes two points of red light flickered.

“Ah—”

He scread, flailing his short blade wildly, but only severed half a paper corner.

The paper face didn’t scatter but instead wedged into his arms, like a cold, slimy corpse skin pressing into his chest.

He panicked, slamd backward against the stone wall, his limbs going weak, almost toppling into the yin seat.

Wang Cheng’an tried to pull him, but a lump of black earth rising from the ground caught his foot.

It was no ordinary soil; like mixed with funeral water and ash, glued and wet, it creeped up at the touch of his shoe, winding up his pants toward his knees.

Wang Cheng’an looked down and nearly sat down from coughing.

“There... there are hands in the earth!”

He rasped.

Only then did everyone notice that when the ritual spirit had “raised the seat,” it hadn’t only spread banners and shadows.

It had turned all the old malices embedded deep under the soil upward.

From the black sovereign popped paper hands, half-bones, strands of red cord, and broken incense ends.

Like an aged yin altar waking slowly from the earth.

And the ritual spirit stood in the center of it all.

It did not hurry to kill.

It savored.

It savored watching them be crushed one by one, dragged, pressed into its seat surface.

Lu Yuan supported himself on the ritual sword, half-kneeling, veins bulging on his forehead, blood at the corner of his mouth; his right arm was numb almost to uselessness.

That grab at the life gate had directly snagged the faint connection between him and the ritual sword, causing his true qi to reverse and churn in his chest.

But the worst was not the wound.

It was the sword shaking.

The gold patterns on the blade had dimd from bright to dull, like a fire line frozen.

Each ti the ritual spirit’s yin qi rolled, the ritual sword shuddered as if its spine were being pinched across the void.

“We can’t let it eat any more...”

Lu Yuan stared at the ritual spirit, his voice squeezed out as if from between his teeth.

Song Qinghe clutched her chest, her eyes rimd bloody.

“But we can barely stand right now...”

Before she finished, the ritual spirit took another slow step.

The step was extrely slow, yet it felt like it pressed on everyone’s heart.

They all felt the sky darken above; the air around them thinned.

Then the ritual spirit’s sleeve flipped out a denser black, within which rotated white circular edges.

It looked as though a mouth under the seat had opened to roll up the shadows of everyone present piece by piece.

Lu Yuan’s heart leapt.

This was not an ordinary seat malice.

This was the “collecting seat.”

Once collection completed, everyone would be forced into yin positions and beco new offerings on its altar.

By then, escape would be impossible; souls might not even remain whole.

“We cannot let it collect the seat!” Lu Yuan roared.

He tried to rise, but as he channeled qi, the ritual spirit pointed across the void.

That finger didn’t land on him, yet it seed to prick the tendons of his right shoulder.

Lu Yuan heard a light crack in his shoulder, and his right arm suddenly went halfway limp; the sword slipped half an inch from his grasp and nearly fell.

Lin Zhaoxuan struggled to lift his head, horror filling his eyes.

“It has severed your ritual path!”

The ritual spirit’s lip curled; its smile was so dark it chilled.

“You were so good at severing paths earlier.”

“Why can’t you cut when it’s your turn?”

As it spoke, it clasped its hands together.

All the paper banners on both sides of the stone path exploded open at once; white paper faces, black teeth, old na ledger pages, seat shadows, extinguished lamps, all went gray-white.

They rolled toward the center, instantly forming a massive vortex of a yin seat.

The vortex’s center was the patch of ground Lu Yuan and the others stood on.

In an instant, the salt formation was shredded, the sealing plate shoved askew, the Thunderclap Token stuck fast with yin qi.

Zhou Heng’s sword couldn’t be drawn, Lin Zhaoxuan’s thunder wouldn’t rise, Song Qinghe’s plate spun wildly, and Xu Erxiao and Wang Cheng’an could barely stand.

The ritual spirit stood at the vortex’s apex and looked down at them, as if inspecting animals pinned on a butcher’s board.

“Take the seat.”

It breathed the two words softly.

In the next instant, the vortex snapped tight.

Black qi, paper shadows, seat cloth, bone tags, lamp fire—all pressed down on them.

Lu Yuan gritted his teeth and raised his sword, barely holding against the pressing force of the seat.

His shoulders and back creaked as if bones were breaking bit by bit.

He knew they were completely suppressed.

Not by a single move or slip, but since the ritual spirit had gone berserk, they had never had any room for a coback.

The ritual spirit really intended to grind them all into the seat.