NOVEL SIMPLE 63: Ritual Sacrifice
With Astrid and Valencia heading back home, the day passed, for them, without incident. The battle, however, raged on without rest. For onlookers who had made the trip to the outermost ring, they headed back home with only one thought on their minds.
“How are they still fighting?”
The fight had moved close enough to see with a good set of binoculars. Yet, everyone who had them wondered how Rainier kept going while drenched in blood. Of course, it was unclear how much of it was his own blood and how much of it was a monster’s blood.
The monsters too, weren’t exempt from this wonder. Missing limbs, horns, eyes, and chunks of their body, each of the Cataclysmic Monsters were looking more like Cataclysmic Zombies.
Sensing the last of the onlookers leaving as night fell, Solomon decided a short strategy meeting was in order. Thanking his past self for investing in the research of near-indestructible phones, he put on an earphone while starting a call with the other two.
“They’re near death.” Rainier’s voice crackled to life a half-second after Solomon started the call. “Stop disturbing me or else at this rate, by the end of battle, I’ll be near death too.”
“Actually near death or just feeling like you’re near death?” Solomon asked with a worried tone.
“Somewhere in between, nothing I can’t manage myself.” Rainier answered with a breathless tone as the sound of bull snorts also got carried over the call.
“Alright, I can agree with that sentiment, I’ll probably be around there too,” Solomon laughed while activating his divinity to reveal the lion’s weaknesses once more. With rotating blue rings extending from his eyes, Solomon threw his spear once more towards the left.
Using the wind to his advantage, Solomon calculated his spear’s path so it snaked in the air to slam through the lion’s teeth and throat. “At this rate we won’t be able to stop the monsters from leaving though. A little more fighting and they’ll do their usual retreat. We definitely do not want these monsters growing once more. Agreed?”
One moment of hesitation later, Rainier agreed. “... Of course, we don’t want them to leave. These will be unstoppable outside of Marcen’s Cliffs. We can call Valencia and the others when they begin their retreat.”
“Sounds good,” Solomon answered before hanging up the call and returning to battle.
Joanna, having not had the chance to talk the entire call, just raised her eyebrows while keeping her thoughts to herself.
Look at Rainier go, putting aside his pride to ask for help! What character growth.
Sighing though, she couldn’t help but lament how those two’s egos were too large to leave her a space to talk. Returning to her role of support, Joanna stayed in the backline as the battle raged on to the middle of the night.
Hours later, just before midnight, as they kept their phones ready, they instead came to a stop as their phones began ringing. Looking down to see Estelle’s caller id, everyone picked up the phone while backing off from the battle.
“Back away, yeah, back away.” Estelle’s urgent voice came over the phone as the sound of battle came over the phone. “Another massive ritual is being activated in the city, and from what I can tell it's a sacrifice ritual. Given the situation, you all must have weakened the monsters enough to be used as ritual fuel.”
Fighting a couple of more important cult members, Estelle grimaced as she watched the ritual on the ground fade. Moments later, Estelle whirled around as the ocean lit up with the glowing light of a ritual.
Running off towards the interior of the city, Estelle wished Solomon, Joanna, and Rainier good luck as she used the remnants of the ritual to trace the divine signatures of the three cult leaders.
Trusting Sylvia to cut off the escape of one leader, Estelle melted into the darkness and blasted through the night sky. Activating both of her divine artifacts, Estelle threw her throwing stars forward preemptively before diving down to the ground.
With Estelle and Sylvia leaping into action, Solomon trusted that the situation inside the city would be resolved. As for the ritual unfolding right before his eyes though, Solomon just watched.
There wasn’t anything he could do to stop it anyway...
Watching the three Cataclysmic Monsters sink into the ritual and do their version of screaming while doing so, Solomon grimaced in a sort of... shared pain almost. With glowing chains shooting up from the ritual and pulling the monsters down faster, Solomon realized they weren’t just getting hurt, but they were dying.
Catching his breath, Solomon waved over the others as they watched the three monsters disappear into the ocean. “How are you two doing?”
“Alive enough,” Rainier sighed after flicking the blood off of his two katanas. “Doing better than whatever’s happening to those monsters.”
“Well,” Joanna nodded while wiping some blood off her face. Out of everyone, she was doing the best. As a support she just took less hits which meant less energy wasted on regeneration. “I’m a little hurt, but I can help fight whatever comes out next. You two should probably get some rest though, yeah?”
“I can keep fighting.” Rainier brushed himself off. “I’ve fought through worse. Even if it incapacitates me afterward a little. Solomon should probably rest though to ensure that he can lead the city should the need arise.”
“Sounds... good.” Solomon agreed after a second. It felt a little bad to step out of battle, but he recognized the necessity of the situation. “Sylvia and Estelle should be holding down the fort inside the city, but we can call them out if necessary. I’ll go declare a level one of emergency to make the three factions do some policing as well.”
Flying off before the others could reply, Solomon came to a stop outside of the Library of Truth headquarters. Running in and brushing aside any workers trying to come talk to him about other topics, Solomon did a quick calculation in his head regarding how long it would take for the first part of the ritual to finish. With everything already activated, they could only watch as the ritual carried out its effects at a snail’s pace.
“About... ten minutes I think?” Solomon murmured to himself before shouting for an assistant. With an assistant running forward, Solomon pointed to the window. “Go look and estimate which of the three monsters is the tallest. Give me an exact height if possible of how much of the animal is left above the ritual. Tallest existing point as well so don’t try and estimate where the body would’ve ended because they won’t regrow the parts we blew off in battle.”
Running to his office, Solomon pulled open a cabinet and flipped open a couple of metal plates. Activating the fingerprint and iris scanner, Solomon waited for the program to recognize him before flicking the switch for emergency level one.
“Now... we wait.” Solomon stood up. Making his way to the bathroom to wash off the blood, Solomon let out a long sigh of fatigue. “What could be on the other side of this ritual? Three Cataclysmic Monsters as catalysts can not be good...”
