FreeBooksOnline Chapter 615-616: Ritual
Chapter 615-616: Ritual
Chapter 615-616: Ritual
After placing the witches in the positions he needed them, Sol immediately cut his wrist to let blood flow out in small trickles. He would've wanted the process to be faster, but keeping the wound open was a pain in the ass due to his regeneration. So, all he could do was repeatedly cut his wrist to gather enough blood for the ritual.
I guess I really cannot fault Camelia after this.
Joking inwardly, to give himself some levity, Sol started manipulating the flow of his blood with his hands to draw the magic circle he had in his mind.
The first step was obviously to form a full-on large circle as the outermost perimeter. He made sure that all of them were inside the outermost circle and soon added a second blood circle inside the first circle that only contained him alone.
Finished with the overall architecture of the magic circle, Sol proceeded with the second phase.
This time, two stars with four branches each were drawn in such a way that they looked like a singular star with eight branches extending outward. The first star formed with its branches stopping just shy of the outermost circle, while the second star, with smaller and shorter branches, stopped at the inner circle that he was positioned inside.
Each of the witches stood precisely on the branches of the largest star.
“A compass?” Ambrosia muttered under her breath as she observed the fascinating formation that Sol constructed. From her position, directly above them, she could see the full scope of the magic circle Sol was drawing and no matter how she looked at it, the shape and content of the magic circle could only be surmised to be a compass. Each of her daughters was standing on one of the branches extending from the star, and from the orientation, it was easy to see that those branches represented the North, West, South, and East.
Interesting.
Ambrosia could more or less understand what Sol was trying to achieve as her eyes paused on the star whose branches represented the North-West, South-West, South-East, and North-East directions.
With him as the center and her daughters as the four directions and then the four blank spaces in between... things were taking quite an interesting turn. Her gaze soon moved to what was happening outside of Sol’s dimension and settled on the bleeding girls – the four Dukes who had defeated Lupus – and she couldn’t help but let out a small smile.
Sol was very daring this time. She could only wait and see what the King of Lustburg had up his sleeve.
***
Finished with his preparation, he couldn’t help but nod his head in satisfaction at his creation. He would have never thought that the few lessons he had received from Medea about witchcraft would prove to be so useful to him in critical moments— be it with what happened with Lilith not long ago or now with him.
Using his blood meant the circle was imbued with his divinity rather than the sum he had stolen from Lupus. He couldn’t afford to waste the divinity of a King-ranked being after all. Even more when it was far more concentrated due to him being a Blessed on top.
Meanwhile, he made sure to consume as much of his own divinity as he could. The concentration of the divinity he consumed was so much that some parts of his hair even showed signs of losing the golden glow that signaled his Blessed status and slowly veered towards becoming a lustrous silver-white.
So this should have been my original hair color, huh?
He was reminded of what happened with Camelia when she acted as if she had lost her divinity and blessing. Her original hair color had been brown, it was the vestiges of a time when she had not yet received her Blessed status back when she was still a teen.
“Well, the first phase of the ritual is complete.”
He took another deep breath, doing his best to fight against the seemingly insurmountable pressure of what was ahead and calm down his wildly beating heart. He was betting a great deal now with his current plans and could not afford to fail. Not to mention, he had the feeling that if he was unable to obtain the Name he sought right at this moment, he would never be able to obtain it in the future. Even if he started from scratch like Tiamat or Lilith, the name he sought would be lost to him forever.
For a better future... For a future with no tragedy... I need to succeed right now.
He would not have the same ending as his alternative future self. “Girls, whatever happens next... do not intervene. Do not move. I simply need you to provide me with your power and concepts.”
A solemn voice leaked out of his lips as he made sure that they would not act and destroy what was pretty much his life’s work due to their worries regarding his safety and state.
“It’s finally time.”
So, lifting his hand, Sol summoned the spear he had thrown away and, after turning it around and bringing the point toward him he pierced his heart in a sharp and swift movement.
Blood splashed, his expressions contorted and all the witches, Ambrosia included, watched with pure incomprehension on their faces.
“Only by facing death can I come closer to The End.”
For a dragon such as Sol, simply having his heart pierced would never be a fatal wound. Even more so since the weapon was devoid of any divinity it was originally imbued with.
However, things changed a great deal when he lowered all his defenses on his own accord and let the spear do its job.
And so, Sol faced deathfor the second time in his two lives. Deep in his sea of consciousness, the letters D and E shone with unprecedented light. Meanwhile, in his dimension, the witches looked at each other in dismay before Medea took in a deep, trembling breath.
“Sisters, it is time.” She said with as much confidence as possible.
Medea, the Witch of Time— the Witch representing the West.
Freya, the Witch of Space— the Witch representing the East.
Persephone, the Witch of Life— the Witch representing the South.
Kali, the Witch of the Destruction— the Witch representing the North.
The four directions shone with a bright hue, each of them focusing on the concepts and power that constituted their very existence on this plane. Their respective powers started flowing into the outermost circle that they were bound within and soon flowed into the different branches of the first part of the star. The four branches channeled their power into a singular point and soon, all of their powers brewed into one and focused on Sol alone.
“We need to be careful with what comes next,” Persephone spoke as she gazed at him.
***
Sol’s plan hinged on many aspects and luck was definitely one such factor. For most people, luck was nothing but an abstract concept that could not be measured or manipulated, but for Sol, things were a little different from the ordinary. Sol knew that there was a certain someone who would never stay still without acting once the ritual started and he was betting on that.
In the capital of Lustburg, Scheherazade was flying frantically with a worried expression etched on her tiny face. At present, she was accompanying Chloe inside the church and she could not help but fidget restlessly for a particular reason. “Are you alright?”
Chloe asked, but Scheherazade could only show her a weak smile in response, “Sol told me to not intervene this time. Because what he is trying to accomplish involves many Kings and Demigods, and I might die if I try interfering.”
Scheherazade clearly remembered what state she ended up in when she helped Sol while he was trying to become a Duke. Her powers had been very useful back then but she did nearly die as a result and if Sol didn’t awaken when he did, she would have perished without a trace of her left in this world.
Now the situation was far worse and deadly. However, she knew that she could not just stand by and do nothing.
As such, placing her hands together, she prayed. She could not do much if nothing at all for that matter. She was only but a Duke, in the end. But, even so, she made a small wish, a wish for good luck and success in all of his endeavors.
It was nothing but a small wish, but her body froze and here she found herself falling toward the ground. Had Chloe not caught her, she would have crashed helplessly.
Holding on to her fading consciousness, Scheherazade made another wish. She wished that at the end of the day, they would all be reunited and have fun just like they did with everyone present before the war separated them.
***
Scheherazade was not one of the failsafes Sol had in mind. She was too weak to change much at the moment, but there was something else. Someone else who had power high enough to skew the events to his advantage.
For what he wanted to do, it was necessary to affect the order of the world while following its intricate rules. To become a King a being needed their own legend.
Sol had worked tirelessly for his legends to pass, for him to succeed at this juncture, but out of all his measures, the one measure with the most chances of success was without a doubt the girl who had acted alone all this time without any input from him.
Nefertiti.
Presently residing in the forest of the elves, Nefertiti was focusing on the link between her and Sol. This link was something she had selfishly asked him to give her back when they were in the dragon territory because of nothing but her sense of insecurity and inferiority.
Now, though, this link between them was paramount in her having the right timing.
“Girls, are you ready?”
Hiding all the worries in her heart, Nefertiti turned around and showed a bright smile to the small assembly of elves watching her. They were all people she had slowly and carefully converted to a small degree. Sol had expressed his wish of not wanting her to abuse her power of Servitude and that made her worry what what she could do without using this power.
Thankfully, Nefertiti discovered that she did not need the power to accomplish what she had set out to do. The elves were already too entranced by what dragons represented, and it had been easy for her to ensnare the less experienced ones who had no firm faith in any of the other dragons.
A chorus of voices answered her, and the weight on her shoulders seemed to lighten alongside their symphony. She didn’t know how helpful what she was about to do would be but she knew that now wasn’t the time yet.
She had to wait. Just a little bit more.
“Very well, we will soon start the litany.”
It was time for her to help her lord.
***
In the Astral Realm, holding the threads of destiny in her hand and weaving them in an intricate pattern, the three sisters of Fate were hard at work.
Skuld was panting and breathing hard as if she had been running non-stop for a thousand kilometers. She could feel it in her bones, the moment she had been waiting for was fast approaching.
A new nexus, another point that would forever change Fate and advert the dark timelines she had been trying her heart and soul to avoid.
They will wake up, and those who have already woken up might go into a frenzy.
As things were reaching this far, she knew that those who had been asleep even in the Dark Timeline would now wake up to intervene. This would mean that from today onwards, all her future knowledge would be completely useless and even her powers to see the future would be severely affected by the newly awakened adversaries’ influence.
Once all of them woke up, the future might even become worse than what they had anticipated or had to go through already in the other timelines. In the worst case, even Order and Chaos might wake up and enter the fray. Such a scenario would lead to certain doom, there was no doubt about that.
However, Skuld knew. As someone who could see and affect the future, she knew and understood this one truth more than anyone.
“If you let all the possible ways something can go wrong stop you from acting, you will never take a step forward.” She spoke to herself, trying to control her fears.
For every action taken, hundreds of thousands of bad things could happen as a result and yet people had to act and make choices. Even refusing to make a choice was a choice in itself and for that very reason...
“Let’s fight for a better future.”
They had to fight, fight for the future they envisioned. Her hands never stopped, even as she thought of all the possible ramifications of what was about to transpire.
A new age would descend in the world and her darling would be at the forefront.