CHAPTER 38: RITES OF EXALTATION

"... As gods among men—rightful heirs to the world of which we must never learn."

A quiet voice eerily creeps out in the darkness.

The room is chilly and silent.

Drawn on the floor within it is an ancient symbol in the form of a hexagon, the lines painted in thick blood as black as ink. The hexagon shape has six circles at its edges, each possessing various materials meant to be used as sacrifices.

From Potions, to Armaments, to various Special Resources—all serving as a catalyst.

At the center of the ritualistic hexagon is a ten-layer circle, in which the corpse of a Magivore dwells. It is the same creature whose blood has been shed to draw these symbols and patterns on the ground.

The ten layers of the circle have ancient letters written within each of them.

—Ig. Tur. Alik. Serid. Navuke. Xanzier. Gmaliopu. Qetzocatl. Yiaghdelir. Zemaludsivh

Such an intricate design...

If not for the horrid stench in the room and the sheer malevolence oozing from the nature of the ongoing practice, perhaps one could consider it a beautiful sight. Every material used in this act is expensive—each of them worthy of being an entire Household’s accumulation of wealth.

All of them are merely offerings in this strange rite.

"Arbiters of light..."A man with a slightly hunched figure moves expertly in this place, his practiced movement revealing absurd levels of familiarity with this ritual.

His deep green eyes are barely open, with heavy bags and dark circles beneath them.

Yet he proceeds with flawless motion.

"Seekers of truth..."

The man walks around the hexagon, sprinkling more blood, while also taking a good look at a thick book in his hand. He is meticulous, refusing to get even a fraction of the details wrong.

Flames flicker in the darkness.

The varying fires that surround the hexagon release a special mist, and it fills the room slowly.

Soon, it envelops everything like a fog.

At this point, the man begins to hurry—moving quicker, with his trembling voice not stopping for even a moment’s breath.

"Exemplars that embody depths of the Aego beyond sight

Leapers through the frames of prevalence. Ones who Conjure the laws and Cast away existence.

Harbingers of all that ever will be... governors of the things which we cannot see."

The fires rise into the air, dancing and flickering like small, unstable pillars of destruction.

Specks of light dance in the air like fireflies.

The mist thickens.

Smoke billows and drowns the room.

Noticing this, the man slowly proceeds to the center of the Hexagon, where none of the fog has reached. He is trembling now—his weak body struggling to finalize his long-awaited ritual.

There is no room for failure.

No place for error.

"Only they drink from the everlasting waters of the primordial cup..." As he whispers these words, he feels his body slowly getting weak and his vision getting blurry.

Still, he stands above the corpse of the Magivore, tossing aside his book, while drenching himself with the rest of the blood. He closes his eyes and raises both hands, trembling in excitement as his lips part and he utters the final lines.

"Tribute be given to the Leviathans—the ones who move the world."

Silence.

The world turns silent, as if perfectly still.

The smoke roams through the room, shrouding everything in its embrace, and the flickering lights finally fizzle out. The brilliant dancing specks of flaming lights rapidly lose their lustre, dying out within the clouds of ashes.

In the end, all is baptized in darkness, and the gray fog covers the world.

Then—

"Ack... koff... urgh!"

—The man suddenly bursts out coughing, feeling the choking smoke seep deep into his lungs alongside the horrid stench of Magivore blood and its burning flesh.

He stumbles and nearly falls from his elevated height, quickly getting down from the creature’s corpse. Then, he rushes out of the room with red, watery eyes, as he charges towards the bathroom to vomit.

Bile leaks out of his throat as tears descend.

Snot slowly trails down his nostrils, too.

He kneels on the ground, his body shaking while his face grows pale.

"I failed..."

His tone is grim, and his voice is filled with immense despair. More tears flow down his face, painting the ground beneath him with salty liquid. Perhaps this is simply due to the irritation within his eyes, but the anguish displayed on his face begs to differ.

No... these are tears of pure sadness.

This man is crying.

"Even after everything... I failed in the end."

He had spent a fortune purchasing all the ingredients for this ritual. He used up all his accumulated savings for the entire year, and even obtained some money from his family’s estate.

That wasn’t enough, so he also had to go into debt.

Everything was targeted at this moment!

This precise ritual!

"The Rites of Exaltation... I really thought I got it right this time." He sighs, recalling how precise he had been about every single detail.

He transcribed everything perfectly and ensured he got all the details correctly.

Yet he still failed.

He had tried all manner of variations in the past, but this was the closest he had ever come to perfection. At the beginning of the ritual, he had thought—for sure—this would be the time he had been waiting for.

"My time of ascension... the goal of the Enlightenment Ritual... in the end, I got it wrong again."

For a moment, he is quiet.

Then—

BAM!

"Damnit!" He hits his hand on the hard floor, eyes wide with obsessive desperation. "Why? Why do I always fail? What am I doing wrong?!"

The world offers him no answer.

"What more do I need to succeed in the Enlightenment Ritual? How can I undergo Apotheosis?!"

Still no response.

He rushes back into the smoke-filled room and grabs the thick book from within.

Flipping through the pages like a madman, he looks through all the parts he highlighted and every single detail and imagery he had to spend his whole life transcribing.

The Six Pathways... Ten Temporal Layers... Enlightenment Ritual... Apotheosis!

He grits his teeth in frustration.

"I did everything right! I know I did! I spent all my life on this, so why can’t I succeed?"

Even now, the world offers no respite for this man’s efforts.

No consideration for his resolve.

No mercy at all.

"Why...?" His shrill voice screams out in desperation. "Why can’t I become a Leviathan?!"

Only once in his life... he had met one.

—A Leviathan.

Ever since that moment, something sparked in his mind.

However, over time, this curiosity and interest began to devolve into desperation and obsession.

Now, it is growing into madness.

The man mumbles jargon to himself, going over the ritual.

He arrives at the same conclusion every time.

It was perfect!

’Leviathans... I know you exist! Even if I can’t prove your existence, once I become one, who will doubt my brilliance and throw aside all my research?!’

Right as he is fuming, his scrawny body shaking with maddening passion, a loud sound fills the room. It is an annoying melody that he is all too familiar with.

—The alarm from his clock.

"A-ah, is it time already?" He mumbles to himself, slowly glancing at the clock hung on the wall.

The sight surprises him.

It’s already early in the morning.

He had been up the entire night without even realizing it.

’So much time passed already?’ With bulging eyes, his thoughts flow. ’I completely lost track...’

A regretful sigh escapes his lips almost instantly.

Because of his research, he had experienced many sleepless nights, and even now... to undergo the ritual, he spent the whole night.

He hadn’t even slept a wink.

’And now, it looks like I won’t be able to sleep anytime soon...’ As much as he would like to indulge in a much-needed rest, time simply won’t let him.

In just a few hours, classes are going to start, and he will have to take the First Years in their first-ever lecture. He knows he can’t afford to be tardy, since that would give the students a bad impression of the school, which could get him in trouble.

After all... he doesn’t have the best reputation in the Royal Academy, to begin with.

"I..."His half-shut eyes lazily move as he glances at his smoke-filled ritual room and makes a wry, exhausted smile.

"... Should clean all this up before then."