Chapter 25: Salvation

In a very dark and spacious room, a man wearing blue robes and black mask that covered his whole face was sitting there while reading what seemed to be an enormous magic tome of dark magic.

The room was made from stone bricks and had just a few chairs around a small table at the center of it, with him reading peaceful at that place. The room, that was barely illuminated by the light of a few candles in each corner of the room. The coldness and darkness around the room gave a very sinister feeling.

But the man reading seemed to ignore such atmosphere and concentrated deeply on the magic tome in front of him.

"ÆwšÅjミö" The man soon started murmuring incompressible words in a low voice while closing his eyes.

Blood started coming out of the eye sockets of his mask like tears. However, the man seemed unaffected by this and just continued reciting the strange and sinister chanting for a long time.

*Knock*

*Knock*

*Knock*

"Hmm?" The man finally stopped chanting and seemed to have been awakened from a deep dream.

The blood disappeared like it was never there, and soon the book closed itself instantly after the man awakened.

He placed the book on the table and got up to start walking towards the wooden door at the entrance of the room.

When he opened the door, he saw a person wearing a similar outfit to what he was wearing. The only difference being the lack of symbols spread across the robe and the cleanliness of the clothes the newcomer was wearing, all this seemed to show the difference in status between both of them.

"What is it?" The man asked in a deep and serious voice.

"Sir, one of the great masters wants to talk to you at the ritual's place"

"I see..."

The man then ignored the one who seemed to be his subordinate and started walking at a hurried pace towards the mentioned room.

*step*

*step*

*step*

*step*

*step*

After walking a few minutes the man finally reached what seemed to be the ritual's place. The whole room seemed to be at least a hundred meters long on each side and dozens of meters high, black stone bricks decorated the whole place that was being supported by very sturdy iron columns on each corner of the room. This place gave a majestic yet sinister feeling to whoever saw it for the first time.

Hundreds of people wandered inside this place, and all of them were wearing blue robes and a black mask that covered their faces completely, revealing only their eyes, that shone with a golden glow each time you glanced at them.

At the center of the enormous room was a very deep and wide hole completely filled with thousands of human bodies. This horrible view didn't seem to affect those walking around the room, as they completely ignored and even worshiped the mountain of corpses at the center of the room.

The man from before started walking towards the center of the room while looking at a certain person at the side of the mountain of corpses.

"What happened?" The man asked at the figure in front of him.

"That brat alchemist survived, and he probably revealed everything to the militia" The man said without turning around and continued looking at the corpses "Some of our spies at the walls saw him enter the city completely unscathed and without injuries, even after somehow surviving a night in the wilderness..." 

"Shit"

"What's more suspicious is that the old man in the militia was discovered an imprisoned together with other cultists, furthermore, all of this was caused by the alchemist..."

"What?! Then we have to take care of those guys before they spill out all our plans!"

"I know, we have already dispatched a few assassins to take care of them before the interrogation begins"

"Hoh...? What's happening here?" A deep and almost ethereal voice came from behind both men.

"L-Lord?!"

When they heard the mysterious voice they immediately turned around and knelt in one knee while bowing deeply their heads.

"No need to be so stiff~" The mysterious man said silently while chuckling.

A very imposing man was standing there in a relaxed way. Blue robes filled with golden symbols, and a white mask with a long beak on it covered his whole face. His red eyes seemed to peer deep into the soul of whoever looked at them. This man gave an aura of death that exerted a heavy pressure to whoever was near him, the people walking around the room was already kneeling on the ground while sweating profusely.

"Who is this alchemist you are talking about~?" The man asked in a disturbing happy tone.

"O-oh lord, this alchemist was one of our objectives to sacrifice along with his teammates on the expedition they did to the mountains at the border of the human territory. However, we discovered that our plan partially failed, and he managed to survive to tell everything that happened to the militia..."

"Hmm I see... tell me... how many corpses do we need until the ritual is complete~?"

"F-forty one, sir"

"I see~"

The mysterious man soon grabbed the throat of one of the kneeling men with enormous force and lifted him of the ground. The mask fell to the ground and the purple and agonizing face of the man came to view.

"Gha...ag...aghg..."

The man kept trying to breath desperately but was unable due to the brute force of the mysterious man, the grip became so strong that the spine and the neck of the man soon broke, and the life in the eyes of the man disappeared completely before being thrown to the mountain of corpses as trash.

"Now it's just forty~"

All the surrounding people started trembling due to the fear they felt towards this person, and some even threw up due to being unable to resist the deadly aura he gave off.

"I want you to investigate everything about this alchemist, I will not allow anything to go wrong now that we are so near to completing the ritual to bring our Lord Cthulhu back to this world. Every time you mention this alchemist it gives me a really ominous feeling. So if something goes wrong, the next one to be thrown to the sacrifice hole will be you, and I'll make sure to cut you in different pieces for our Lord to digest you more easily" The man said while grabbing the head of the man kneeling in front of him, this time the happy and carefree tone disappeared, and instead a terrific voice resonated across the whole place.

"Y-Yes my Lord!"

"HAHAHAHA! No need to be so stiff. Now I will go back to the dungeon, after all, that lady we captured seems to need some more motivation before she does what we say..."

The man turned back and started walking away from the room. However, before leaving he turned around and spoke aloud one more time.

"Remember well my companions, we seek salvation, we seek chaos. Those who oppose us are heretics that do not understand the mightiness of our great Lord" The man said before bowing lightly to everyone in the room "I, the great Lunatic cultist, as my enemies call me, will bring our lord back to butcher every race alive in this planet, and we will reach the chaos that we seek so much. SALVATION!"

The silent surroundings soon became full of screams filled with madness and fury.

"""SALVATION!""" 

 

"""SALVATION!""" 

 

"""SALVATION!""" 

 

"""SALVATION!""" 

 

"""SALVATION!""" 

 

"""SALVATION!""" 

 

"""SALVATION!""" 

 

"""SALVATION!""" 

 

"""SALVATION!""" 

 

"""SALVATION!""" 

 

"""SALVATION!""" 

 

"""SALVATION!""" 

...

 

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Aspen POV

The hot and scorching sun stood high above me, burning my skin and making me feel twice as tired as I always feel due to my laziness.

*Step*

*Step*

*Step*

The sword on my waist balanced back and forth constantly due to my movement while walking, and the sound of my feet cracking different fragile branches on the ground echoed all around me.

Sigh...

"Why the hell is this place so far away from the capital..."

*Step*

*Step*

*Step*

"Finally"

Soon, I finally reached the wide entrance of a deep cave in the middle of the forest. A place that I discovered in one of my adventures around the territory while traveling during these six years.

"Let's just hope that the people in the city don't start spreading rumors about me leaving the city because I was scared of the war..."

...

Nah, who am I kidding, they probably will say something like that...

Maybe I could have told them something before leaving.

Whatever...

I took my silver pickaxe out of my inventory, and started stretching my limbs before entering the cave.

*Chirp Chirp!*

"Yeah, let's hope we don't die here, Neo..."

*Chirp!*

"Eh? What do you mean with that you can't die in this dimension because you are a summoned creature...?"

*Chirp!*

...

"Great, then I'm the only one in danger."

...

Fuck.

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