Chapter 88
The obsidian dagger plunged into her chest without any resistance, as if stabbing into tofu. Jinseong began to draw on her chest with the obsidian dagger.
He cut through her skin effortlessly as if cutting something soft and tender, and drew a semicircle on her chest without spilling a single drop of blood, as if cutting a doll. The negligee she was wearing became rags and failed to serve its purpose, and the thin single layer of cloth separated from her skin, revealing her pure white chest.
Jinseong worked on her small chest with the obsidian dagger as if it were a canvas.
As if using the obsidian dagger as a brush to paint a picture, like doing body painting on Ella's skin.
And finally, when something that looked like a picture or hieroglyphs was engraved, he stopped. After drawing the picture, he pulled out the obsidian dagger and grasped the air.
Crack!
With a sound of tearing something, Ella's chest slowly opened. From her chest, which opened without spilling a single drop of blood, a strangely shaped lump of meat floated into the air, its form terrifying enough to appear in nightmares.
It was a tumor called a teratoma.
Jinseong looked at it and opened his mouth.
"Congratulations on coming out of the egg."
He began to cut the lump of meat relentlessly with the obsidian dagger in his hand.
Shunk.
Shu-shunk.
The bumpy and seemingly meaningless parts on the surface of the lump of meat were cut off little by little as if cutting a jewel, and eventually formed a shape.
A lump of meat resembling a human form.
At a glance, it looked like a fetus, and from another perspective, it looked like a newborn premature baby.
Surprisingly, the lump of meat was creating faint vibrations.
Its heart was beating.
Jinseong began to engrave a pattern on the lump of meat using the obsidian dagger, just as he had done to Ella. But unlike with Ella, he engraved only one, and its shape was like a cross with a handle.
It was the Egyptian hieroglyph, Ankh (☥).
Jinseong placed the lump of meat next to Ella.
Then he grasped the air and pulled out numerous boxes that had been buried underground.
Thud!
Thud thud!
With heavy sounds, boxes fell in front of Jinseong and their lids began to open by themselves.
What was visible inside the opened boxes looked like human organs.
They were organoids created through 3D cell culture.
That wasn't all.
In another box, materials that make up a human were roughly stuffed together, with lime powder and charcoal powder floating on water.
Some boxes were filled with what looked like IV bags and blood bags, some had collagen fibers, and some had special culture medium containing a lot of magical power in containers.
Jinseong checked the materials that the Grand Witch had procured using her connections and money once again, and raised the obsidian dagger high into the sky. Then he waited quietly until the obsidian reflected the sun, and when the light sparkled and came down towards the altar, he shouted loudly.
"As the burning sun is eternal, so shall its grace be!"
The sun's grace coming down at the end of the terrible human sacrifice offering a living sacrifice.
That grace was coming down on Ella.
The grace that the fortune-teller should have received was concentrated on Ella, the only survivor.
Moreover, while it might have been wasted after making the surrounding area fertile, it could be concentrated on Ella without loss as the symbol of the 'sun' was strengthened by Jinseong.
When the warm light came down to the altar, Jinseong moved the obsidian dagger back and forth to focus the light.
Like moving a concave mirror back and forth to focus light on one point, he repeatedly shone it on Ella's body, then on the lump of meat's body, and then sent it back to the sky.
And.
Whoosh.
As if that action bore fruit, fire began to burn.
Ella and the lump of meat began to burn.
The flames burning with a red color surged strongly, and eventually turned into a deep color until their forms could not be seen. And then it disappeared shortly after.
Crackle.
With the sound of sparks flying, the disappeared flames spat out Ella.
Ella became naked as the negligee she had been wearing completely disappeared.
But what was unusual was that her appearance was a little different from before.
Life had returned to Ella, who had looked like she could become a corpse at any moment, and the wounds she had suffered had disappeared without a trace. Her skin had become clean without a single scar, as if newly born.
Moreover, she was closing her eyes with a peaceful face and breathing evenly as if the pain she had felt until just now had disappeared.
And next to her, the lump of meat was engulfed in flames, but the flames, as if not satisfied with just the lump of meat, slowly moved and devoured the boxes. It first burned the box with lime powder and charcoal powder floating in it, and then the box containing the organoids burned.
As if still not satisfied, the flames continued to move and burned all the boxes.
It greedily devoured the boxes as if a ghost of will was moving alive.
And as the boxes burned, the flames burning on the altar gradually increased in size.
The flames that had been the size of a fist became the size of a head, and the head soon became the size of a small child.
And when it became about half the size of Ella, as if satisfied, it suddenly subsided and spat out something.
Crackle!
What was spat out with the sound of sparks flying was a young child.
It was a girl with white hair and white skin, just like Ella.
That appearance, exactly like Ella's, looked like a sister in some ways, and like a daughter in others.
The girl breathed evenly with a comfortable face, just like Ella.
And as the girl exhaled, the sun began to withdraw its light as if it had done its job, and eventually, the light that had been brightly staying on the altar disappeared.
Crom Cruach's grace had come to an end.
"Truly, much has been gained."
Jinseong smiled.
Ella, who should have died originally, lived.
Marten gained her own body instead of Ella's body.
And the remaining power of the sun was concentrated in the obsidian dagger.
If desired, he could make it into a powerful cursed object by containing the sun's power as it is, or he could use some of the contained power to develop Lee Arin's enlightenment and physical abilities, and could also give some benefits to Lee Serin.
It was nothing but gain.
Everyone was happy.
How was this not a good thing?
"Om mani padme hum."
Jinseong chanted the mantra for the fortune-teller who had disappeared after giving him so many gifts.
If the previous one was a mantra to pray for his soul, this time it was a greeting filled with gratitude.
But perhaps the fortune-teller received that thank-you greeting in the sky and was angered.
A rough reply flew towards Jinseong.
Whoosh!
"Huh."
In the form of an axe flying at supersonic speed.
* * *
The axe flying at supersonic speed literally tore through the air.
The axe, imbued with red qi that rippled as if on fire, drew a huge red line in the air as it flew towards the altar, aiming to blow off the head of the presumed sorcerer standing there.
Boom!
But before the axe could smash the sorcerer's head, a heat haze arose and slightly altered the axe's trajectory, followed by several layers of energy barriers that blocked the axe.
Seeing the honeycomb pattern drawn on the energy barriers, it seemed he had used an artifact for projectile defense.
"He blocked it."
But the middle-aged man who threw the axe muttered that with an expressionless face.
"Well, he seems to be a gutsy fellow, so he should be able to block this much."
"If he couldn't even receive a greeting properly after performing such a ritual, wouldn't that be rather tasteless in its own way?"
The middle-aged man spat out the cigarette he was holding in his mouth at the sounds coming from both sides and looked at the forest.
The smell of blood vibrating to the point of causing a headache.
A structure that looked like an altar.
And a human-like form lying on it.
All of these were saying that a human sacrifice ritual had been performed inside a pillar of red light.
"Hmph, that's right. For a bastard who dared to do such trashy things in Mother Russia (Мать-Россия), he should at least endure this much."
He didn't know why that sorcerer performed a human sacrifice ritual.
He didn't know why he dared to do that ritual in Russia, not some weak country.
He didn't know what thoughts were in his head, or how gutsy he was.
But if there was one thing for certain.
It was that bastards who do such things needed to have their heads smashed.
He ground out the cigarette that had fallen on the snow with his military boot.
"Show him the taste of Organ!"
With the man's order, the multiple rocket launcher spewed fire.