I Became a Witch in a World Full of Urban Legends

“I told you. I’m a god,” she said, raising her eyebrows at the old man.

As she finished speaking, she could feel her eyes heat up slightly, but not in an uncomfortable manner.

It was warm and soft, like a hot compress on her head, which made her feel very comfortable.

At the same time, she could feel something sparking in her heart, like a fire that gradually became bigger over time.

“Don’t joke about that,” the old man chuckled. “How could you be a god?”

The old man immediately swallowed his chuckles upon seeing a flash of light reflected against her kitchen knife.

His chuckles, however, were like water, dousing the fire brewing within her, and she was freed from that warm feeling that seemed to envelop her.

If that doesn’t prove I’m a god, then I don’t know what will. Even Jumeng did less to convince me!

“Who cares if you don’t believe me?” She pouted, slashing her kitchen knife in the air. “Now, more questions.”

“Do you know what happens when you hear the whispers, like becoming a priest of this temple? Are there others like you?”

“If it really is that easy to become one, then I live in an eternal nightmare,” he said cryptically. As he spoke, his voice started to shake, and his body began to shake violently as cold sweat dripped out of his forehead. His eyes darted left and right, and a few syllables of the forbidden language leaked out of his tongue from time to time.

Under his skin, the flickers of a scarlet lantern flashed intermittently.

It was as if he were hiding among the shadows, grabbing at him and squeezing every last drop of blood left in him.

His senseless babbles soon became coherent, and even though Yibei didn’t recognise the language, she understood every single word.

Priests occasionally hallucinate even during the day after listening to the whispers.

Some hallucinate twisted shadows that crawl in dark corners; some deserted villages; some strange figures walking with bloodied lanterns; some a giant figure that looms beyond the endless mountains.

They knew something would bear itself in their bodies, and that thing would be born and devour their bodies from the inside as they clawed their way out.

They lost weight day by day, and one day, their bodies would be torn open by the scarlet lanterns as they wither away silently.

Only a few people managed to maintain their sanity and not succumb to the lantern’s light, and they were “lucky” enough to become priests who lived in the ancestral hall.

Their job? Simple. Remain in a half-awake state, commune with the gods, and grasp forbidden knowledge that is too complex for the human brain.

Hearing this, she suddenly thought of an exactly familiar scene that often occurred in her state of sleep.

“In a half-awake state?”

“Yes,” he said, regaining control as he peeked at her. “In dreams, we commune with the gods, and when we wake up, we obtain the knowledge they share with us. Some learn more, some less, and everything they share with us is different.”

This is exactly how it is with Sixian, but instead of me teaching her, she’s teaching me…

A small fraction of the priests are lucky enough to be chosen to be spat out to the outside world, with the duty of bringing food back into this unfinished world.

The other priests will leave the ancestral hall in early spring and late autumn to rally the villagers to perform sacrificial ceremonies.

The sacrificial ceremony is meant to awaken the corpse of the serpent god—the corpse of a timeless, mythical monster. It should have disgusted the villagers, but it smelled as sweet as honey.

“You sacrifice urban legends?” Yibei widened her eyes as the old man continued the babble. “I thought they were your food, not…”

Yibei was worried. She knows very well the side effects of swallowing the core of an urban legend.

Plus, the Night Division Records state that in the event of overconsumption, even powerful myths will be affected by the memories and powers contained within the urban legend’s core.

And for how many years have bamboo scrolls existed? A thousand? Two thousand? Maybe longer!

And if the villagers were feeding their god with urban legends, wouldn’t it have gone completely nuts?

This relevance made her shake a little. She considered that, if it had a little sanity left, it might be able to be communicated with. However, it must have gone insane by now, and it might attack her as soon as it reveals itself to her.

“They are indeed our main source of food,” the old man crooked his head up. “But only the dead ones. We save the living, squirming ones for our god.”

“In the fifth year our ancestors imprisoned the god, we suffered a famine. In the tenth, we ate all the remaining livestock,” he continued. “In the thirteenth, there was only a jar of pickles left in all seven villages, and it triggered a war.”

As he spoke, the corners of his mouth turned up in a strange arc, like a snake that was smiling.

“And we had an abundance of food once again.”

Cannibalism.

Lu Yibei’s stomach didn’t feel well. There were only three or four villages left in this world, to her knowledge.

“They are your main source of food, but what are the other sources?”

“…”

He was silent as his gaze landed on the door. However, his eyes seemed to look through the door and at the water tanks in the courtyard.

“The water tanks?”

“Children. Too deformed to bother saving.”

Jesus Christ, do the people here eat anything? She thought, once again feeling a nauseous chill run down her back. Both the gods and the villagers are crazy!

“Your customs are… interesting. Had I known this, I would’ve brought some enoki mushrooms and taught you how to cultivate them. It’s so small, but even a handful of enoki mushrooms feeds me for an entire week!”

The old man immediately broke out of his daze and asked, “Enoki mushrooms? What is that?”

“Forget it. It’s disgusting. It tastes bad. You don’t want to know.”

Better not give them false hope. I don’t know if I’m coming back here.

“Last question, you said you learnt a lot of knowledge in your dreams… mind sharing?”

The old man’s body violently trembled as he backed away from her, screaming towards the ceiling.

“No! No! I didn’t tell her anything. I didn’t!”

His screams were human, but they seemed to distort with an unconcealable malice in his tongue.

He shrunk himself into a ball as he started to laugh and cry to himself, babbling to himself.

And her eyes began to burn intensely.

Her vision blurred, and through the blur, she saw figures towering over them, like an endless, black waterfall that surged violently beyond the limitless mountains. Countless soldiers held scarlet lanterns, crawling all over its body like ants, stabbing at it.

Clack… clack… clack…

Yibei snapped herself out of her daze, and the old man lay limply on the ground. Large bruises covered his body as if a python had just squeezed him dry.

“Somebody’s coming,” she whispered to the old man.

“It’s… the Old Ladies. They’re here for the sacrifice.”