NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 847
Cough.
Cough.
Toxic smoke invades the lungs, forcing a fit of coughing.
Is the blackened blood the result of the toxic gas mixing with it, or has Pierre Martin’s body always been in such a state?
The black sludge flows down like it’s trying to paint the black eggs before me, as if contaminated by the crimson drippings. The blood is so viscous that unlike ordinary blood, it flows for a moment before stubbornly halting to choose a spot to remain as a stain.
No matter how hard the heart works, does that blood truly circulate through the body?
“Ah… I hear whispers. A voice tells me I’ve surpassed the price I can bear…”
Pierre Martin mutters in his blurred vision.
As he does, he begins to slice various parts of his body with a dagger made of obsidian.
His trembling hand feels around the vicinity of his heart.
Through the remnants of sensation alive within him, he finds the left ventricle of the heart and guesstimates the location of the blood vessels leading from there. After confirming the spot where the diaphragm might be, he lifts the obsidian dagger and begins to cut there.
The sharply honed dagger plunges into his flesh.
The skin that is cut silently seems to take its time to acknowledge the injury, revealing the vibrant red interior without a drop of blood at first. Then, blood starts to bead and eventually gushes forth…
Gulp.
It’s as if the mouth that spills the blood has been relocated to his chest.
“Ah. Did I cut too deep…?”
Gulp gulp, the blood starts to spew out.
Perhaps due to the stickiness of the blood, it oddly doesn’t flow as Pierre Martin desires it to.
Poof.
He wonders if he made a mistake in how he cut, or if his condition led to this blunder… Yet soon he concludes that it’s not that he miscalculated, but rather the transformation of his blood because of the cost of magic.
“Actually, it’s not so bad… Not so bad… Heh, look… My blood has become similar to wine…”
With a frenzied smile over that realization, Pierre Martin kneels before the egg made of shadows.
He then rests his hand on his chest, cupping the fluid like it’s destined to flow into a glass, gathering the blood as if it were wine.
The blood, tainted and changed due to the cost of magic, is so murky that it appears like wine in color.
But even as it collects, the fragrant aroma of grapes is nowhere to be found—only the horrific smell of blood and rot remains. And the only thing tickling his hand is the sickeningly sticky sensation.
Along with that, his trembling body and fading vision render his sense of smell dizzying…
Ah. How harsh is the punishment of blood seeping from the body?
It robs him of proper sensation, making it difficult to think clearly.
Countless thoughts flicker only to be cut off abruptly, memories so fragmented that the word “fragmented” hardly does justice to them. Numerous instincts urge him to cling to his reasoning, demanding to surface amidst a final reprieve.
He feels a glimmer of the light of life that shines just before death, much like the candle blazing most brightly before it extinguishes.
His body calmly announces its end while granting him a fleeting grace.
With his vision clearing and senses slightly revived, it’s as if his body offers a small mercy, sparing him the pain of battling the illness for just a moment.
In that moment of reprieve, Pierre Martin moves his body to splash the blood pooled in his hands over the egg.
Splash.
Blood sprays and pours onto the egg, as if he’s saying that it is not an egg, but a phantom, beginning to absorb the blood within. Despite being stained, the egg shows no sign of change—no smudges, no sticky residue—standing there unmoved.
Pierre Martin, gazing at the egg, raises the obsidian dagger again.
Now, as if to reject the last mercy, the final reprieve bestowed upon him, he begins to cut his own flesh once more.
The madness of a human sacrifice, sacrificing himself.
Given the amount of blood flowing out, it wouldn’t be strange if he collapsed from shock at any moment.
But this crazed shaman is overcoming even that, as if determined to drain every bit of blood from his body, starting to slice into the area of his aorta with the obsidian dagger.
No matter how near death one may be, pain cannot be entirely absent.
Overcoming that primal fear is truly no easy feat.
Yet this mad shaman dissects his own body as if it were nothing.
As though presenting a scalpel to a corpse lying on a bed, he does so nonchalantly…
The look in his eyes is one of determination.
A fierce resolve to make those who have obstructed him pay the true price.
“Curse, a curse fulfilled by giving one’s own life; a curse laden with sticky thoughts even in death, saturated with the relentless grudge…”
What he performs is a curse.
Not a mere classification of black magic or the like, but a ritual of human sacrifice—that of offering himself in a single-minded effort to hinder Ashtosh Singh. A once normal act of sacrificing humans to the gods, now seen as mad even in bygone times when such acts were common, deemed a taboo even by those who once allowed it.
A sacrificial ritual performed by giving oneself.
If one were to list the heaviest burdens in the world, surely oneself would always be counted among them.
What drives one to willingly offer such a thing to a god?
With a deep desire, even to the point of willingly casting aside what is most precious to oneself, how could that yearning not reach the divine?
“There exists a great one, born between the goddess and the god of the heavens. When the goddess beside the throne below intertwined with the one seated on high; a serpent appeared to deceive and enter, entwining itself…”
Pierre Martin kneels before the egg, beginning the invocation.
His body, red as if drenched in wine, spills blood upon the ground, forming a pool.
“Finally, as the goddess slept with the god, swaddled in the cloth that had been woven, he was born into the world, inheriting the bloodlines of the highest and lowest realms. When lightning gripped his hands, it would rend the heavens and earth and even reach underground, their judgment resounding across the world…”
Pierre Martin’s face becomes increasingly pale.
“…But the queen, upon seeing the child, was furious, saying, ‘O god, how dare you seek to tarnish my authority? How dare you invade and contaminate my domain? You have mocked my life by birthing a serpent; crawling on the earth, you have scorned me by breaching the sacredness of marriage, family, and ethics. How can you bear my wrath? You serpent, convey my whisper to the giant, have that child be torn apart and disappear without a trace, and in that wickedness, the deed was done…”
His tongue grows heavy, making it hard to continue the invocation.
“…What remains is the heart. Holding it, the god said, ‘You shall surely live; you shall be born twice.’ And indeed, it came to pass. Yet, with the queen’s wrath, he could not escape the threat of death after his rebirth. However, in the end, he overcame it and claimed his rightful place, thus earning the authority to exist in the god’s realm and spreading his name and fame across the world…”
His body solidifies into a rigid state.
The blood pooling on the ground.
His pale form mingles with it, resembling a prayerful white marble statue atop a fountain, spewing forth wine.
“…Wine and madness, freedom and liberation. Born twice, the one who shall inherit the throne of the highest. The great being who began to leave footprints in the world through the achievement of being born twice. For you, I perform a Bacchanalia here—a most secret and hidden festival…”
Pierre Martin proclaims.
“The Maenads are absent, yet madness reigns here!”
He screams, spewing blood.
“With that utmost madness! Set against a backdrop of uninhibited tragedy!”
Then, stiffened arms move to grasp the obsidian dagger.
“Here, a sacrifice and festival without the goat! Grant your power to blur the borders of the world and sprinkle your touch to dye it the color of wine—!!!”
With that, he makes the fatal strike to sever his own breath.
Poof.
Gulp.
The sound of the obsidian dagger piercing his body without resistance.
The sound of the last remaining blood escaping from his body.
Thus, the underground space once again fell into silence.
Like the depths of the underworld.
…
…
…
And within that silence.
The egg begins to turn a dark crimson hue.
That color signifies madness.
It is the power that blurs the boundaries between reality and dreams.
The power converging inward.
Corruption heading toward a realm not of reality, but separate from it.
* * *
The one born twice wielding power.
As the distinction between body and spirit blurs, and the borders of reality and dreams collapse…
Information from reality begins to intertwine with that of dreams, and reality’s existence plummets into dream.
It manifests as the wish of the one who offered himself.
The collective unconscious becomes tainted, and it welcomes an unwelcome guest…