Chapter 84
The arms were horrifying.
The arms in the mirror were the same slender, white arms as Ella's, but what came out of the mirror were strong and thick. They were a man's arms covered in hair.
Those arms had bulging veins and were bruised purple in places, looking like they might be the arms of a corpse. And moreover, as if suffering from some disease, the festering skin revealed bright red skin underneath whenever it touched Ella's body, being pushed and scraped away.
"Kyaaaa!"
The arms embraced Ella and disappeared into the mirror.
Ella screamed in panic, with physiological disgust and the realization that she was being kidnapped, but that was all. Like the final scream of a death row inmate just before death, like the last cry of an animal before being hunted, she disappeared without a trace, leaving only that sound.
And then.
Pop!
Pabat!
Ziii—iiing.
As soon as Ella was kidnapped, the lights came back on as if they had fulfilled their role.
The fluorescent lights emitted light again with noise, and all the electronic devices in the room made their own sounds, announcing that their life had returned.
However, the two people with real life were dumbfounded.
Unable to save Ella who had been kidnapped in the blink of an eye.
They could only stare at the window where Ella had disappeared.
"R-rabbit!"
The first to come to her senses was Lee Arin.
She ran to the window where Ella had disappeared in shock, but the window was just a window.
No matter how much she reached out and touched it, she couldn't enter it.
The window, which had become a mirror due to the darkness outside, only reflected Lee Arin's confused face darkly, and eventually, Lee Arin had to give up trying to rescue Ella through the window.
Instead, she ran towards the door, but.
"Th-this."
Even when she opened the door, she couldn't go out.
Shimmering silver flames blocked her way.
When she reached out her hand, it climbed up her hand and subdued her.
If she pushed her body forward, it became solid metal and blocked her path.
When she tried to concentrate qi to break it, what had climbed up her body became shackles and interfered with her gathering qi, and even if she managed to gather qi and strike, it dispersed the impact in all directions, taking no damage at all.
"Stupid Lee Arin. Look at this."
But Lee Arin didn't give up and tried to go out the door, and Lee Serin checked her smartphone and blocked her, showing her a text message.
『 I'll take care of it myself, so don't worry. 』
What was displayed on the smartphone was a text from Jinseong.
Lee Arin saw this and seemed to hesitate for a moment before lowering her arms and leaning against the shoe rack.
* * *
"Hohohoho! We succeeded! We succeeded!"
"With our skills, it's only natural! Hehehe."
If there were those fallen into despair, there were also those on the other hand who couldn't contain their joy.
The fortune-teller shouted with joy as he looked at Ella, who was choking with her neck in his strong grip. Ella's choking sounds as if she couldn't breathe became the utmost joy for the fortune-teller, and her weak gestures of hitting his arms as if asking to be released were the sweetest sensation for them.
However, apart from obtaining the prey, the bleeding was considerable.
"Ugh, that monster bastard played tricks, damn it."
The fortune-teller tightened his grip on Ella's neck until she finally fainted, and as soon as he confirmed she was unconscious, he tied her tightly with vines and threw her onto the altar. Then he gently stroked his cheek reflected in the mirror as if to a lover.
"Hm, it hurts like hell."
The fortune-teller's appearance reflected in the mirror was truly horrific.
His skin was red and inflamed as if burned, with pus and discharge flowing, and most of his beard, which had been his pride, was roughly torn out. Moreover, there were finger-sized holes in his cheeks, through which teeth and gums were visible.
Not only that, but his face also had scratches as if it had been mercilessly scraped with sharp glass shards.
It was a situation where an ordinary person would scream and writhe in pain.
But the fortune-teller treated these wounds as if he was used to them, bringing items from the desk to treat the wounds.
He thickly applied aloe vera leaf extract that he had personally harvested and squeezed onto his entire reddened skin, and poured dozens of pills made by grinding medicinal herbs that promote healing into his mouth to treat the wounds. And he personally stitched the holes in his face with thread made from cactus.
Although he did gulp down strong alcohol repeatedly during this process, perhaps unable to bear the pain, the fortune-teller finished the emergency treatment without letting out a single groan.
His actions seemed to be effective, as his condition, which should have required immediate hospitalization, gradually improved, and eventually his wounds and skin returned to normal. However, his beard, which he had paid as the price for the Rumpelstiltskin sorcery ritual, did not regenerate.
The fortune-teller looked at his own face, which looked even uglier due to the sparsely remaining beard. Then, as if unable to contain his anger, he approached the unconscious Ella and tried to grab her hair.
"Stop! You mustn't touch her hair!"
But thanks to the fortune-teller in the mirror stopping him, that action ended in an attempt, and instead, the fortune-teller gritted his teeth in anger and struck Ella's chest.
Thud!
That fist, while seeming merciless, was cleverly calculated in strength, not endangering Ella's life but strong enough to crack a rib or two.
"Right. We need to mess with her ribs so she can't escape."
The fortune-teller in the mirror, far from being upset at the atrocity of hitting her chest instead of her hair, nodded with a satisfied expression.
This was because the fortune-teller's prevention of grabbing Ella's hair was not out of sympathy, but solely out of concern for damaging the sacrifice.
Long hair was a treasure in itself.
In most myths, long hair was a standard and symbol of beauty, and the act of cutting and offering it was considered precious as an act of offering the most important elements for women, 'femininity' and 'beauty'.
Moreover, the Coma Berenices constellation, which was important in astrology, was also related to this.
The nickname of this constellation was Ariadne's Hair, or Berenice's Hair.
Berenice II, who was the queen of Egypt, offered her hair to the temple of Aphrodite to pray for the safety of Ptolemy III, and in return, she was guaranteed the king's safety.
Material that could be used for sorcery powerful enough to guarantee the safety of a king on the battlefield, not just an ordinary person's safety.
Such material shouldn't be damaged just for venting anger.
Moreover, what hair symbolized was beauty.
Being beautiful had value in itself.
It was natural that a beautiful sacrifice had more value than an ugly one.
That was why he stopped him as soon as he grabbed her hair.
But there was no problem with the ribs.
How did beauty get affected just because a bone was cracked?
Rather, it was even recommendable as she wouldn't be able to control her body properly due to pain, and wouldn't be able to pretend due to fever and coughing.
Unlike giving her medicine, it didn't decrease her value, and it even prevented the sacrifice from trying to escape, so how was this not a good thing!
"You didn't accidentally hit that worthless thing's chest wrong when you hit her, did you?"
"Hohoho. What do you take me for! Of course I avoided the child in her chest! No matter how angry I was, do you think I'd hit a poor baby that hasn't even been born?"
"Tsk, I've seen you go crazy and throw hysterics once or twice."
"Oh my my! Have you ever seen me get angry at kids because of that? I hit the opposite side of the teratoma and broke her ribs, so there's no effect, don't worry! You act like a macho usually, but you're narrow-minded in these aspects!"
"Tsk, if I'm narrow-minded, so are you!"
"Oh my my my. I'm not narrow-minded, I'm delicate!"
"By the way, we were going to change her into white clothes, but that outfit is already white."
"It looks even whiter than what we prepared. Trying to dress in something nice because she’s a witch!"
"Hm, it's good that we don't have to waste more time and can start right away."
"Hohohoho. That's right. She's wearing white clothes as if she knew she'd be a sacrifice, and it seems she's bathed recently too. Smelling her, she's still a virgin... She's the very embodiment of a sacrifice!"
The fortune-teller laughed as he looked at the unconscious Ella.
"She doesn't have any particularly outstanding talents either."
"She really is a girl born to be used as a sacrifice, isn't she?"
"Hahahahahahaha!"
He laughed as if satisfied and began the ritual.
He took out a wooden dagger and axe from the drawer and wore them on his body, and put on a golden mask on his face.
Then he carefully placed a golden cup filled with a transparent liquid that smelled fishy on the altar.
Flutter.
He hung a pure white cloth engraved with Crom Cruach's pattern on the altar, and sprinkled unknown powder on the torch below it.
Poof!
When the powder was sprinkled on the fire, flames spread in all directions as if an explosion had occurred, but strangely, not a single flame caught on the cloth.
The fortune-teller saw the torch blazing and making Crom Cruach's pattern engraved on the pure white cloth shine in various colors, and picked up the cup placed on the altar with a reverent attitude. The patterns made of gold leaf all over the altar shone and sparkled in the torch's light, but the cup made entirely of gold didn't sparkle at all.
He went down below the altar and turned the cup upside down.
Splash.
The liquid in the cup began to pour onto the floor, and despite clearly being an amount that could fit in a small cup, it came out endlessly like water spraying from a hose, filling the area below the altar. And when that liquid submerged the fortune-teller's ankles, he untied a sack placed near the altar and poured its contents directly onto the floor.
Plop.
Plop.
What poured out were the corpses of recently dead animals.
The corpses, which didn't emit any characteristic smell of death but only a fishy odor, began to bleed from every hole in their bodies as soon as they hit the floor, dyeing the sloshing liquid on the floor blood-red.
That scene looked like an altar standing on a bloody pond.
It looked truly cruel.
"Mag Slecht! Mag Slecht! Oh great being! Here a space to worship you has been created, and we offer worship only with the fragrant smell of blood and undecayed death!"
Clap!
The fortune-teller shouted thus and clapped his hands loudly, then knelt down.
Then he prostrated himself on the floor sloshing with bloody water, then raised his body again and shouted with his arms stretched out as if worshipping the sun.
"Great sun! Great lord! Great blessing that inhales sloshing blood and turns the herd into fertilizer! Accept the worship of this insignificant priest who has gained the wisdom of the oak tree! The bravery of the Gael warriors cannot match the dazzling sun, and the cruelty of the barbarians cannot match the hands of the lord, so you are truly worthy of respect!"
The fortune-teller shouted like a priest filled with madness.
"Here is a suitable offering for the lord, oh! Sun! Lord! Please give a suitable reward for the offering, and open a path for me to approach becoming a hero!"
And when that mad cry ended, the fortune-teller stood up. His clothes were in a pure state without a single drop of blood or speck of dust, despite having prostrated on the floor sloshing with bloody water.
Such a pure state.
A pure appearance like the offering placed on the altar.
"...This."
The fortune-teller was bewildered as he looked at his body without a single drop of blood and the gold shining brightly as if emitting its own light, illuminating the forest.
"What on earth."
* * *
"If you're going to perform a ritual, you should do it grandly. Isn't that the very virtue?"
There was a lotus flower.
The pale pink lotus bud was floating on sloshing muddy water, and instead of breathing the fresh air of the earth, it was flaunting its beauty while breathing the humid and smelly air of the underground.
They say the beauty of the lotus was that it bloomed even in mud.
If the beauty of the lotus was said to be that it bloomed even in smelly and dirty mud, that beauty would not fade no matter what the place was or what kind of water it was immersed in.
Yes.
Even if the place where the lotus is floating was underground.
Even if it bloomed with Samadhi fire instead of the sun.
That beauty would not fade.
"If human sacrifice is so good, why don't you offer your own body?"
What the lotus symbolized was purity and nobility.
The blooming of a bud into a flower was the manifestation of energy.
And.
Solar energy.