CHAPTER 58: AWAKENING RITUAL

Deklan wasn’t angry with her.

Of course, the big part was because she was a beautiful woman, but it’s not only that.

Following Deklan was the right move.

It was suspicious of him to suddenly excuse himself when he was supposed to be helping them navigate the inner area. He might belong to a group of bandits, and the last thing she wanted was for him to come along with the rest.

So, it wasn’t that big of a deal for her to stalk him right now.

But it is a big deal when, even after she confirmed that Deklan was not lying, that he really had to harvest a Ghost he had hunted down nearby, she still decided to follow him. Deklan has no room to do both the breakthrough to the bronze rank and the Awakening Ritual.

Deklan stretched his arms, pretending, of course.

Based on the subtle aura nearby, Kaelyn should be on his six, behind a tree right behind him.

She was watching closely from the shadows.

"No matter," Deklan shrugged and stood up. "I only need to lose her."

Meanwhile, Kaelyn peeked from behind the tree, making sure that Deklan wasn’t playing tricks on her.

Her hand rested on the handle of her katana, ready to draw at a moment’s notice.

’Just what is he doing now...? He already harvested the Ghost, and now—he should be exorcising it so that it wouldn’t come back up again. But now he’s stretching?’ She frowned, confused as to what Deklan was doing idling around. ’Either way, I hope you can be trusted.’

Rustle...

Kaelyn snapped her head to the side.

She heard the sound of rustling from the bushes, light but loud enough for her to hear.

"Waaah!"

Kaelyn raised her katana when a pumpkin-head Ghost suddenly flew out from the bushes.

Her reaction was fast enough to block the pumpkin head.

But she was surprised to see sparks when her katana struck the pumpkin head Ghost, almost like its skin was made entirely of steel. She gritted her teeth, shoved the creature aside with a sharp parry, then rose smoothly to her feet, sliding back into her battle stance.

She waited for the pumpkin head to strike again, but the attack never came.

It stayed in the bushes, covered.

Kaelyn infused her katana with mana and chanted a spell, "Spell: Crimson Lash!"

Swish!

In a cleaving motion, her katana glowed red as she fired an arc of energy to the bushes.

Everything was cut seamlessly, but there was no sign of the pumpkin head Ghost.

"Where did it go? I didn’t sense it going anywhere," Kaelyn straightened her back, looking around the area in confusion. "It’s like it completely disappears into thin air."

Just then, Kaelyn’s eyes widened.

She was supposed to be hiding, stalking, but she was being loud earlier.

"Oh, no... Deklan!" She whirled around, heart seizing at the thought that her might’ve heard the loud commotion she made. But the clearing behind her was empty—no Deklan, no footsteps, nothing. Only the mutilated corpse of the grotesque Ghost he’d harvested lay where he’d last stoon.

Kaelyn ran out to the clearing and spun, searching for Deklan, but there was no sign of him.

A frown crept to her face, "Where did he go?"

Kaelyn combed her hair back, annoyed that she lost him that easily.

"He didn’t even exorcise Ghost," Her eyes turned to the mutilated carcass. "Fine, I’ll do it. But still, I need to find him. He shouldn’t be that far."

Of course, the thought of that pumpkin-head Ghost helping Deklan never crossed her mind.

After all, the existence of Exorcists alone would make any Ghost go feral.

Between an Exorcist and a Ghost, there could never be anything but enmity.

It was how it was supposed to be.

Not too far away from the clearing, Deklan maneuvered through the forest with ease.

He went a bit further away from Kaelyn and her group.

Once he was a good distance away, he quickly summoned the Awakening Ritual from his inventory.

Deklan expected it to be a charm that he could use to instantly draw the Awakening Ritual’s formation on the ground, but instead, he got a leather parchment instead. In it was the written manual for him to draw the Awakening Ritual.

"Hmm..." He read the manual and rubbed his chin. "Now that I think about it, isn’t an Exorcist should be someone who was born with Mana Vein? Then how can I awaken a Mana Vein like this? Can I use this for others? So many questions, but no answers."

Of course, that was a glaring hint for the system.

But there was no answer.

Girls like to play hints with each other, so I thought the system would get my hint.

Deklan shrugged his shoulders and immediately went to work.

He has to go back to Kaelyn and his group, so he needs to do this fast.

It took him a full five minutes to finish the ritual formation, an intricate lattice of circles and cutting lines that converged into a crystalline shape at its heart, framed by three layered outer rings. For a first attempt, Deklan couldn’t help but feel quite proud.

It looked far better than anything he’d expected from himself.

As a matter of fact, it looked almost precisely as the formation drawn on the manual.

Especially the circles—he actually made several perfect circles.

He used a knife he made using the Ghost Conqueror skill to carve the formation, and it looked good.

"Now... the next step should be to place the offerings at the center, right?" Deklan muttered, skimming the manual once more. After confirming it, he swept his hand over the formation, releasing the heap of carcasses he’d gathered over the past week. "I’ve collected plenty by now."

Deklan watched as carcass after carcass was stacked against each other.

He was expecting to be a lot, but when the pile went beyond his own height, he was quite surprised.

It seemed he really did hunt a lot already.

Only when the carcasses reached one and a half of his own height did he finally run out of carcasses.

Anyone who saw him right now would suspect him of doing black magic.

But then again, the Awakening Ritual might as well be black magic.

"Hmm, something is missing..." Deklan folded his arms, staring at the Awakening Ritual—like he was an artist inspecting a masterpiece painting. "Although I followed the manual to the minute detail, it still felt wrong."

[Wrong? Do you even know what you’re talking about?]

Ignoring the system entirely, Deklan opened the Shop and scrolled through the miscellaneous section.

He found what he was looking for—candles.

Deklan planted four candles in a square formation, recalling that the rituals used in horror movies had always used candles. He didn’t know for what reason, or at least he didn’t know for sure, but only when there were candles that the ritual felt right.

"Oh." He crouched and dragged two fingers through the warm, oozing blood seeping from the carcasses. "I’m supposed to use blood to make the ritual, too, right? Let me change that. If I’m doing this, might as well do it properly. Go all out in whatever you do—that’s what Paul always drilled into me."

It took another minute to rewrite the ritual with blood.

And when he finished, he made another small circle that was connected to the main ritual.

A circle where he would be standing to be the target of the ritual.

Everything was ready now.

"Activate!"

Swoosh!

As soon as he chanted that, the entire formation glowed with a blissful bluish light.

The heap of carcasses began to convulse, shuddering violently as the formation stripped them apart and churned them into a raging stream of energy. Amid the chaos, Deklan suddenly remembered the skull he’d taken.

With a flick of his wrist, he summoned it and hurled it into the writhing pile.

"Might as well use that, too," Deklan shrugged. "It belonged to an S-grade Ghost, after all."

Swoosh!

For some reason, the ritual became even more rampant.

Deklan raised his arms to protect his face from the raging current of mana, and as the process continued, multiple notices from the system appeared before him. Not another sharp remark, but notices that were tied to the ritual.

[Awakening Ritual is starting...]

[Checking target...]

From below, Deklan felt a surge of energy that coursed throughout his body.

It was like he was being scanned by it.

[Completed!]

[Notice: the Awakening Ritual has been created using the blood of Ghosts!]

[Effectiveness of the ritual is greatly amplified!]

[Notice: the Awakening Ritual has been enhanced by a forbidden method: Candle of Four Kings]

"Forbidden...? Wait a minute, I thought it was only for aesthetics! Wait!"

Deklan didn’t know what the implications of using a forbidden method were, but it should be really bad.

He’d only added the candles because he’d seen rituals in horror movies, and thought they were just for atmosphere—a bit of theatrical flair, nothing more. Who could have guessed that, in this world, that aesthetic choice was actually a forbidden technique?

[Grit your teeth, host. It’s going to hurt a little.]

"Cancel! Cancel! I’m not good with pain!" Deklan screamed, but it was already too late.

From the ritual formation, a torrent of reddish energy exploded and aggressively infiltrated his body.

It was hot, scorching hot.

Deklan felt his blood begin to seethe, as if molten lava had been forced into his veins. The heat climbed relentlessly, intense—and each heartbeat was a detonation of agony. And the moment the blazing surge reached his heart, his eyes rolled back, and a scream tore through his throat.

One could see his veins becoming visible through the skin.

His entire body sucked in every single bit of the energy that entered like a greedy vacuum.

And across from him, the pile of carcasses began to go shorter and shorter.

Until eventually, it was only the skull remaining.

As expected of a skull from an S-grade Ghost, it contained a lot more mana than even the entire pile of carcasses. It took substantially longer for it to dissipate, starting from its snout, and then slowly crept up to the base.

For a moment, the entire area flashed red.

Deklan’s scream also reverberated through the air, causing the birds to fly away and the animals to hide.

Of course, it also reached Kaelyn.

Kaelyn paused and looked around, surprised to hear a painful scream that came from a person.

From Deklan, to be exact.

She recognized the voice, and without wasting a single second, she immediately darted in the scream’s direction. Like a shadow, she moved quickly and low, easily navigating through the harsh terrain. It only took half a minute for her to arrive.

And the moment she did, she unconsciously sucked in a cold breath.