Chapter 85: The Ritual Part I
"The ritual is about to begin. Shouldn't you be going up there?" asked the first voice.
"Don't worry", the second voice chuckled, and then continued, "Just make sure to secure the new sacrifice. We don't want anything to happen to her now, do we?"
There was a loud snort, which Reeve presumed came from the owner of the first voice.
"That's not something you should be worried about! Anyway, the time for the ritual is growing closer. Tonight, when the blood moon is full, we'll carry out Lord Malum's wishes."
"Just make sure you don't mess this up! We have already wasted six good sacrifices thanks to your carelessness!" reprimanded the second voice.
"My carelessness?" there was another loud snort, which by now Reeve found extremely annoying for some weird reason.
"I'm going to carry out the ritual! Just make sure what happened last time doesn't happen again!"
Sounds of footsteps approaching Reeve's location echoed in the dimly lit, empty stairway. It was thanks to the torches which were located at the walls. Stumbling along the way, Reeve managed to get back to the hall, to find Soren waiting among the dozens of congregants, with an impatient look on his face.
He was talking to a few other congregants, who seemed interested in this new member who wasn't wearing the usual garb.
A few minutes after Reeve had arrived beside Soren, a fat figure came out of the room. The figure was wearing a fox mask, which Reeve found discomforting, and a black robe. This robe looked a bit different to the ones worn by the congregants, in that it had a few silver designs. Looking at them normally, one would see normal designs.
However, Reeve saw something else. The silver designs were runes similar to the ones they had learned in school. However, the lights around the designs were so complicated, that looking at them caused Reeve to have a headache.
When Reeve arrived next to Soren, the congregants who were surrounding him all returned to their respective seats.
"What took you so long? Where had you gone anyway?" asked Soren, in what barely passed as a silent whisper.
"I found out something. They might be hiding something after all."
"Who? And what did you find out?"
"We'll talk after leaving this place."
After a dry cough, a loud voice suddenly said, "Good afternoon, may the pranks of Lord Malum light our path!"
"MAY THE PRANKS OF LORD MALUM LIGHT OUR PATH", voices of the congregants raised their voices in unison, as they repeated what the loud voice had said.
The owner of the loud voice was the fat figure who was standing on what looked like a pulpit of sorts.
"We welcome you to the ritual of Descendance. During this ritual, Lord Malum is going to grace us with his presence, and as unworthy as we are, we are going to witness one of the best moments in this world!" the loud voice began.
Reeve and Soren exchanged a glance, while their eyes were filled with suspicion, doubt … and all the usual emotions that come after hearing that a god was about to descend.
The voice continued, "Tonight, we will offer sacrifices to Lord Malum, so that he will grace us with his awe-inspiring presence!"
'Wait, what? He just said sacrifices. Didn't the two people say they had a sacrifice? So, what is this thing about sacrifices? Am I investing too much into this? Or is Rizaneth's disappearance clouding my judgement?' A list of questions filled Reeve's head.
One thing was for sure. They weren't getting any answers sitting here like this. Well, Reeve didn't know about Soren, but he wasn't getting any answers. In fact, he had more questions.
"Let us begin to sing a hymn unto our gracious Lord", the voice commanded, causing the off-tune voices of the congregation to begin to perform what could not be called singing. No matter how drunk someone was, they would never be able to call this singing.
Yet, it didn't seem to affect the person at the pulpit. To be precise, it seemed as if he was thoroughly enjoying the atmosphere.
Reeve rubbed his temples, unsure of what he had gotten himself into. If he was alone, it wouldn't have mattered much. However, he had dragged Soren into it too. Poor kid.
Glancing towards the kid, he was relieved to see him unfazed by whatever was going on. It seemed as if he was concentrating on something else, which was why he was not focused on this terrible noise someone called singing.
It took a full thirty minutes before the so-called ritual drew to a close. The ritual wasn't anything special. The funny, fat figure on the pulpit knelt down before a large statue, which Reeve was surprised to find behind the pulpit, and uttered some nonsense. Afterwards, the eyes of the statue glowed red, but Reeve passed it off as him hallucinating as usual.
After the statue's eyes glowed, the fat figure spoke some more nonsense, before telling the congregation to return for the final phase of the ritual, which was going to be done during the night when the moon was up.
Reeve found all of this to be suspicious, but so far, he hadn't found a clue as to what had happened to the six students. So far, he had heard that they had tried this funny ritual a few times, but then something had happened, causing it to fail. They were trying it again tonight because of the moon.
If this didn't sound like some ridiculous plot from some thriller novel, Reeve didn't know what else to call it. Since he and Soren had managed to get away from the temple relatively unscathed, it was time to visit the Ogre's head. The reason why it was relative, was because of the song earlier. To him, that was torture he wouldn't wish on his worst enemies … if he had any.
Parting with Soren, who went back to school, Reeve went to the Ogre's head. In case someone's wondering, they had removed their school robes when they left school.
Looking at the lively bar, Reeve let out a sigh, before he went inside.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone