NOVEL NEXT Chapter 248
Chapter 248. Seven Ancient Gods (2)
“Let’s start the ritual soon.”
“Yes.”
Twelve carefully selected mages from the Foundation surrounded me. I bowed my head in front of the incense burner.
This ritual is different from before.
It’s not about demanding or achieving something, but about expressing gratitude. That’s why I’m leading it, not the mages.
“I am Kim Bari. The High Priest of the Seven Ancient Gods, one of the Thirteen Rulers of the Material Realm, Administrator of the Foundation, and a graduate of Seoul National University’s graduate school.”
There was no response.
“To the King of Darkness. The Master of the Inverted Castle, the Black Ouroboros, the Darkness of Life, the Light of Death, I express my gratitude to the Black Dragon. We were able to achieve our goals thanks to your help and sacrifice.”
The attendants brought a goat, and I killed it with my greatsword, then let its blood drip onto the white marble altar. The blood pooled in the grooves carved into the marble altar.
Crunch. I opened the goat’s body.
Next, I took the still-beating heart of the goat and placed it on the altar. The goat’s corpse twitched due to rigor mortis.
Thud.
I placed the goat’s corpse on the altar. I could feel the temperature around me drop sharply. It must mean the ritual is working.
I stared at the Black Altar.
Hasti stood still, watching Dr. Kim. It was strange. The ritual plan Dr. Kim had devised wasn’t an ordinary one.
It wasn’t the posture of a devotee addressing a god, but rather expressing gratitude for the help received. It was a process of communicating with a divine being on equal footing.
When you think about it, it makes sense.
Back when Dr. Kim was fighting the Jeju Island Branch, the Foundation had supported him by sacrificing thousands of pigs as offerings.
Compared to that, sacrificing a few goats is nothing. It’s literally just expressing gratitude. A high-level ritual, though.
The goat corpses piled up on the altar.
I dropped the thirteenth goat onto the altar. Thirteen goat hearts were neatly placed on the altar, and blood was everywhere.
I shook the blood off my latex gloves.
Now, the final part of the ritual.
I sat in front of the altar, and two cages were placed before me. Inside each cage sat a crow. These were genetically modified crows created by the Foundation to communicate with divine beings.
“Ouroboros.”
I looked at the crow.
“Would you say something?”
The crows stared at me.
“Madness. Reason.”
“Conquest. Subjugation.”
“Wolf. Sheep.”
“Victory. Defeat.”
I scratched my head. The Black Dragon wasn’t much of a talker even when it was alive… but still, I should at least be able to understand what it’s saying.
I tilted my head.
“You and your slaves claim to rule the Material Realm, but the Material Realm existed before you and will exist after you.”
The King of Darkness began speaking through the two crows. They were made for this, but I didn’t expect it to work so well.
I looked at the crows in the cages.
“Yes.”
“Congratulations, High Priest of the Ancient Gods. Now you’ve bound the Goddess of Time in chains and made her your slave. You’ve changed the nature of the world.”
I bowed my head.
“Thank you for your help.”
“Remember. We have always existed, and we will exist in the future. The era of dragons and magic, monsters and terror, angels and demons will return someday. Never let your guard down.”
Well, that’s that.
They say the dead don’t speak. The same goes for nobles, and the same goes for gods. It’s best not to take the words of gods too seriously.
“Is there anything else you desire?”
“We supported you not just because you have many prisoners. High Priest, we expect you to show a different side from the scholars. Different from the emperors of the past.”
I still didn’t understand what it meant. Maybe we should’ve used parrots instead of crows. These birds’ pronunciation is too unclear.
The two crows chattered for a while.
It wasn’t easy to understand what they were saying.
“Understood.”
“Revive the Black Wings.”
The ritual was over.
The altar where the goats had been piled was burned and cleared away, but the Black Altar, where the artifacts of the King of Darkness were stored… was left untouched in the Large-Scale Containment Room where the ritual had taken place.
I sat in the break room.
Hasti looked at me.
“Dr. Kim. Did you know they brought a massage chair to the lowest-level break room this time?”
“Yes.”
“That’s funny…”
The sound of the massage chair running could be heard even here. I checked my nails again.
There was no blood on them, but I could still smell blood on my hands. I had slaughtered twelve goats today.
“Can I get one of these too?”
“Buy it with your salary.”
“Okay.”
Hasti looked up at the ceiling.
The mage had thrown off the ceremonial robe from earlier and was now wearing a gray hoodie and short shorts. Their face was as pale as usual, but their eyes didn’t have the usual anxiety.
Hasti always looked anxious.
When Hasti stopped talking, the sound of the massage chair running could be heard for a while.
“Actually. I’ve been feeling bad about it for a while. About the Black Dragon’s death.”
That’s true.
Back when that flying bowling ball, Wilson, was shattered, I was so upset. Some anomalies occurred near where Wilson was broken, but we couldn’t find a way to restore it.
“Yes.”
“It was really shocking, you know? It died after just one hit from the Spear of Longinus. I’d never seen anything like that, even in my home world.”
“Really?”
I don’t remember the details.
I wasn’t the one who fought the Spear of Longinus. From what I remember…
The person who wielded the Spear of Longinus flew up with a jetpack, accelerated as they fell, and then killed the Black Dragon.
It was a shocking event.
“But still. I’m glad today’s ritual helped tie up that loose end. It also felt like sending off the Black Dragon.”
It probably means something different.
To us, the Black Dragon was just a monster to be contained and studied, but to this mage, it was like a pet and a symbol of faith. Saying it’s a symbol of faith sounds a bit weird, but anyway.
Hasti fiddled with their hair.
“Doesn’t it feel sad, like losing a cherished pet? The Black Dragon, and the other avatars of the King of Darkness, have stood with me on many battlefields, facing life and death.”
“Yes.”
They even fought me directly.
“What’s your opinion, Hasti?”
“Do I even have an opinion? I’m just glad I got to talk to the Black Dragon this time. I couldn’t understand what it was trying to say, though.”
Their logic structure seems different from humans.
Monsters, ghosts, gods.
They don’t exist in reality, but in a strange space where belief and illusion, reality and unreality are mixed and indistinguishable.
This is the same. We got a response from the ritual, but it’s all just vague talk.
“It was an idea I never would’ve thought of. Using birds to hear the King of Darkness’s voice instead of speaking directly.”
I nodded. It’s not a method we use often, but it’s effective.
A medium doesn’t have to be a person.
In fact, using animals as mediums has many advantages. Unlike humans, animals can be experimented on freely and cheaply.
The second god.
Popo.
Popo. A fluffy, dog-sized mammalian anomaly. There are 33 of them in the Seoul Branch, each a fragment of a divine being.
Well, that’s just speculation. There’s still a lot we don’t know about Popo.
We placed 33 food bowls in the training ground for Popo. Nanami looked at me as if wondering what the hell I was doing.
“What kind of mess is this?”
“To feed Popo.”
“Really?”
“Since we won the Foundation’s civil war, I wanted to show gratitude to those puppies too. But I don’t know what Popo wants.”
“So… you turned one of the training grounds into a dog café? To play with Popo?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a bizarre idea.”
“First, we’ll bring all the Popo here, feed them, play with them. Then we’ll ask what Popo wants. That’s the plan.”
It was a bit chaotic. Thirty-three Popo were running around the training ground. A few of them went over to Nanami.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Play with them.”
“How do I play with them?”
Nanami picked up the Popo that had walked over to her and threw it like a volleyball to the other side of the training ground. The Popo ran back.
The Popo didn’t seem to mind being thrown. Nanami picked up the Popo that had come back to her and threw it again.
Maybe it’s more like a cat than a dog. Though coming back after being thrown is a bit dog-like.
“What are you feeding Popo?”
“Beef steak. They said they’d bring it soon, so it should arrive shortly.”
“These dogs live better than people.”
I shook my head.
“Military dogs cost hundreds of millions each. Steak is cheap compared to that.”