"My respected Sir Lionsmith, where did you get such a magical thing?"
He stared at the colorful polyhedron in the bell-shaped cage. Concentric circles nested within each other appeared in his pupils, with complex symbols and patterns flowing through them:
"Even my 'Clear Vision' cannot make any analysis... What on earth could it be that could allow a mere mortal to initiate a blood sacrifice ritual..."
“Ahhhhh!!! — Ugh!”
A shrill scream suddenly sounded from a distance and stopped abruptly in less than two seconds, but it still reached Rosago's ears!
"Um?!"
He put down the colorful polyhedron vigilantly and tightened his grip on the golden scepter.
A layer of golden light instantly covered his body surface. At the same time, countless translucent spikes protruded from the ground around him, densely packed and layered, protecting him in an extremely comprehensive manner.
After doing all this, he turned around and looked in the direction of the scream:
"Is that Smith's voice? Is he in danger?"
Smith was one of the seven knights of the church, but Rosago did not rush to rescue his subordinate and colleague. Instead, he raised his empty hand, turned it over with his palm facing down, and glanced at the back of his hand.
On the rough back of the hand, a pattern composed of seven strokes appeared, emitting a bright glow.
However, at this time, one of the strokes had lost its brightness and turned into a dark dark color.
Rosago's expression froze, his eyes widening in disbelief.
"...Dead!?" He suddenly felt his heart tighten, and a chill quickly climbed up his spine, "What happened? Who killed him?!"
"Boom——"
A long, low sound like rolling thunder descended from overhead. Rosago slowly raised his head like a puppet, his mouth opening little by little.
The dark clouds that had just covered the sky were broken by the "Sun Flame Judgment" that descended from the sky, and quickly dissipated under the sunlight.
At this time, there were only a few scattered cotton-like gray-black fragments left in the sky. According to the previous trend, they would completely disappear in a few minutes.
But now, they seemed to be attracted by an invisible force and gathered into a ball somewhere in the air!
Compared to the huge size that was enough to cover the entire city of Stio a few minutes ago, its volume has become much smaller and the color is not as dark, fading from lead black to gray-black.
Like an ordinary dark cloud, it seemed less threatening in comparison.
however……
A hazy and illusory crimson light was faintly seeping out from within it, and its brightness was rising rapidly, far exceeding that before in just a few breaths!
Chapter 97: Demon
There are two more chapters updated at 20:00 and 22:00 respectively.
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"This is... this is... impossible! How is it possible..."
Rosago was shocked and incoherent, shaking his head, trying to deny reality.
The "dark cloud" that was sparkling with crimson light was slowly floating in the sky. A thin filament that was barely visible to the naked eye protruded from it, extending toward the ground below, and was now shrinking!
At the other end of the filament, there was a figure that was not in human form.
The torn and charred clothes had become tattered shreds of cloth, and as for him...
In other words, "its" body turned into a withered, stiff mummy, its skin was covered with cracks and wrinkles, its face was so sunken and distorted that it was unrecognizable, like a dried salted fish.
The thin filaments extending from the "dark cloud" connected to the chest of the mummy, where a bloody tumor had grown. It was as big as a head, with gullies all over its surface and dripping with sticky decaying fluid.
Thick, short white tentacles were densely distributed on it, waving wildly and frantically, like maggots crawling on rotten meat, as thick as macaroni.
This disgusting and indescribable tumor was beating like a heart. With each contraction, the twisted corpse became more emaciated, smaller and more deformed, like a piece of waste paper being slowly crumpled into a ball.
“Snap!”
Soon, the mummy seemed to have been completely drained of all nutrients and turned into a black hard ball. With a crisp cracking sound, it shattered into countless fine black dust like flour and dissipated in the strong wind that blew up again.
"Gulu..."
It seemed that the fuller bright red tumor was still connected to the filament and was pulled back into the "dark cloud" and disappeared in an instant.
And the already dazzling red light within the "dark cloud"... became even brighter.
Rosago's face was pale, with cold sweat oozing from his forehead. His eyes were fixed on the crimson dark clouds in the sky, not daring to look away.
"How is this possible... 'That' has deviated from the ritual node, the ritual can no longer proceed... Then what is this thing!? Damn it, what on earth did that bastard Augustus do..."
Even though the dark cloud in the sky was much smaller than before, and even though most of the cost of releasing "Sunfire Judgment" was shared by the seven subordinates...
He still had no confidence that he could survive facing the black and red cloud in the sky alone.
"Wait! Could it be that..."
Suddenly, he realized something, a blind spot that he had previously overlooked.
Where is the initiator of the ceremony... Baron Augustus the Lionsmith?
He had always thought that Augustus, as a mortal without any supernatural powers, had launched such a large-scale blood sacrifice ceremony alone. No matter what means he used... he would definitely not be able to survive.
It is estimated that the moment his chant sounded over the city, the huge backlash had completely annihilated his body and soul.
But...what if it's another situation?
Although that situation completely violates Rosago's understanding of the basic principles of supernatural power and is not considered feasible by any supernatural scholar...
However, if that is really the case, then all the incomprehensible things that are happening now...
Then it all makes sense.
As soon as this thought came into his mind, the crimson cloud underwent a terrifying change, as if eager to prove the correctness of his idea.
Its center slowly expanded, and a dark and reddish figure gradually emerged.
It is no longer appropriate to describe it as a "human" shadow, because the part that should have been the "head" was split along the middle seam and separated to both sides, forming an inverted "eight" shape.
The inside of the crack was blood red and filled with teeth that did not conform to any biological principles. They came in various shapes and sizes and were still shaking restlessly.
The parts that were originally limbs were also split into several pieces at the ends, and the bloody tentacles and sharp teeth were wriggling and twitching wildly.
Several wisps of red and black mist lingered around it, revealing the breath of death and destruction.
There are not many features that can be considered "human" anymore, but the top of the head that is split into two parts is dotted with a dirty and rough brown-red, revealing its original identity.
Augustus Lionsmith.
In other words, the deformed creature once known as "Augustus the Lionsmith".
Two violent red lights lit up from the two halves of its head. It opened its bloodshot eyelids, revealing eyes that were shining red.
No, not "two eyes." The two pairs of eye sockets did not change in size, but were filled with several eyeballs, like piled-up soap bubbles, gurgling and turning.
Finally, they turned in the same direction and met Rosago's horrified gaze.
"You actually... merged with 'that'..." Rosago swallowed his saliva, his voice trembling, "No wonder, no wonder I didn't notice where it fell..."
He understood, he understood it all.
Although he didn't know exactly how he did it, he had figured out the general process.
He originally thought that Augustus used the colorful polyhedron as a "trigger" and the divine object as a "medium" to try to summon the attention of a certain evil god and complete the blood sacrifice ritual.
Any extraordinary ritual needs to abide by certain rules and principles, including the drawing of the formation, the selection and placement of various consumables, the design and chanting of the spell, and even the choice of time and venue...
All must meet certain requirements and standards.
The key to the entire blood sacrifice ceremony is undoubtedly the "divine carrier", which is the black object that looks like a piece of gravel and serves as a medium for communication between gods and humans.
It has to be in a specific location to work.
Then according to common sense, if it is to deviate from the specific position node, the ritual will not be able to draw power from it, and the ritual will naturally not be able to proceed as usual and will inevitably collapse immediately.
His guess was correct, but not entirely.
The mistake is...what if the performer of the ritual and the medium who is the core of the ritual...are not separate?
Assuming that the medium and the caster are one, there is no such thing as a "node".
Because in that case, the ritual is essentially "cast" directly by the caster himself. The ritual is to the caster as the spell is to the wizard.
Will the mage be unable to cast spells just because he changes his position?
Thinking of this, Rosago realized an even more terrifying fact...
The crimson light flickering in the black smoke column is not the "stone" carrying the unknown divinity, but Augustus himself!
Augustus himself merged with the "stone"!
He withstood a "Judgment of Sunfire" and was still alive. It seemed that he still had plenty of strength left!
The "Judgment of Sunfire", which was equivalent to a full-strength attack from the Elucidator, was not enough to kill him. It merely interrupted the ritual and caused him some injuries.
What a tenacious vitality, what a terrifying evil existence!
But now, these beings have recovered from the remaining power of "Sunflame Judgment", and are once again brewing crimson clouds, and are once again carrying out the unfinished blood sacrifice ceremony!
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The additional update strategy was implemented at midnight on . The rewards and monthly tickets at that time were: 8800 fire coupons and 137 monthly tickets.
As of on September 206, the rewards and fire coupons are: fire coupons, monthly tickets.
The increases during this period are: 5700 fire tickets and 69 monthly tickets.
因为5700/5000≈1，69/50≈1。
Therefore, the total number of additional chapters in this round is 1+1=2 chapters.
It will be added to the updates of today and tomorrow, so there will be three updates in these two days.
Chapter 98 Fierce Battle
“Cough… cough…”
Augustus, who was surrounded by red and black mist, made an extremely harsh and unpleasant sound, like nails scratching a blackboard or a sharp weapon scratching metal. No one knew where the sound came from.
—if those toothy gaps could be called mouths.
The creature that had once been Augustus clearly no longer had any sanity left, and there was nothing left in his body except bloodlust and frenzy.
"Gululu..."
“Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!”
His piercing and sharp scream seemed to command the cries of the dead, causing waves to surge again on the edge of the dark clouds.
Six extremely thin black threads grew out of it and extended in all directions at an extremely fast speed.
"not good……"
Rosa Gorton felt something was wrong, and quickly placed the golden scepter horizontally in front of his eyes, tightened the muscles in his throat, and uttered a low and mysterious word in a short, swift and powerful voice:
"Eliminate!"
"Bang! Bang! Bang!..."
With a dull bang, the hundreds of translucent spikes standing beside him broke off from the roots and shot towards the low-hanging dark clouds like bullets.
The moment the dark cloud grew black threads, Rosago immediately understood what it was going to do.
The dried corpse that was sucked into pieces was the church knight Smith who screamed and died. The tumor at the end of the filament was absorbed by the dark cloud after draining some kind of life energy from his body.
Then the crimson light in the dark clouds became brighter, and the gray-black color of the clouds became deeper.
It is obvious that the dark clouds and the "Augustus" inside can absorb certain energy from the bodies of living beings in exchange for an increase in their own strength.
Those black filaments that can extend and fly freely are the tentacles they use to accomplish such evil things!
There were six remaining of the seven church knights, excluding Smith who was killed at the beginning. At this moment, the number of deadly threads spreading outward from the dark cloud was exactly six...
There is no need to think about who their target is!
We must stop it! Otherwise, if it really sucks the remaining six church knights dry, who knows how powerful this thing will become?
"Boom! Boom! Boom!..."
Hundreds of sharp translucent spikes almost all hit the dark clouds high above, making a series of tearing sounds like scissors cutting cloth.
