Today’s blood feast was brought into the hall.
Beneath the high platform, Richard stood next to the "Skull of Dreams," watching the gray-robed faithful push two Elves forward. Like everyone else, his expression was calm with an underlying hint of anticipation.
The two Elves, a man and a woman, were dressed in tattered clothes, revealing scars from repeated torture beneath the torn fabric—not only from the "sacrifice" wounds but also the scars left from "research" and "tests" on the Skull of Dreams.
When they were first brought into the hall, their expressions were numb, but upon seeing "The Saint" and the "Skull of Dreams" below the platform, a look of terror spread from their eyes. They struggled faintly, but The Saint on the platform rely shifted his eyestalks slightly and the Elves beca paralyzed under his gaze, losing their will to resist—then a gray-robed Heretic wielding a sharp dagger stepped forward.
The ceremonial dagger, wiped to a shiny gleam, was watched with implicit expectation by the faithful as its blade sliced into the Elf flesh—arms, thighs, backs, all non-fatal areas, as if deliberately to inflict the maximum torture and pain while preserving life. The "Bloodletter" silently and adeptly cut into the sacrifices.
The "sacrifices," under The Saint’s gaze, could not even cry out or struggle. The couple stiffly stood by the heavy cart, their faces suddenly contorting in grotesque expressions of the imnse pain they were enduring—while fresh blood flowed from their new wounds, seeming to be drawn by an invisible force, floating in defiance of gravity and then gathering in a series of "blood reservoirs" atop the heavy cart.
Blood flowed through the troughs, moving towards the pitch-black goat’s head that appeared to be carved from wood.
At the mont the blood touched the "Skull of Dreams," an aura of terror and an astonishing force violently burst forth from the goat’s head!
The Heretics closest to the event imdiately felt the surge of power. Richard felt as if a multitude of overlapping screams and roars drilled straight into his brain, careening wildly through his mind as if to tear his soul apart. He saw the pitch-black goat’s head, as if coming to life, shaking violently, swaying back and forth. A powerful, malevolent, chaotic will seed to awaken, and Richard could feel it scanning over the hall.
The "Skull of Dreams" had awakened.
The two Elves, used as offerings, had already passed out. The gray-robed assistants imdiately dragged them aside while the Bloodletter who had perford the bloodletting ritual lifted the ceremonial dagger high, ecstatically exclaiming—
"I have been recognized! The Master will accept —"
The next second, a horrific distortion befell the Bloodletter. Sounds of flesh tearing and bones crushing emanated from beneath his gray robes. His clothing bulged as his entire material substance was polluted, mutated, and ground to pulp. Suddenly, as if countless tentacles were growing from beneath his robes, innurable cracks and tongues appeared on his face. However, this extre pain appeared to be unrelated to him. The Zealot cheered, calling out the na of The Saint in ecstasy, until his life force faded, until his body fell heavily to the ground.
The Bloodletter’s "martyrdom" signified the complete success of the ritual.
"Take those two ’blood feasts’ away," The Saint commanded from the platform, "Keep them alive and prepare them for the next bleeding.
"Collect the blood flowing from the blood reservoirs, distribute it to assembly points throughout the City-States, for use in other assembly points’ Dreamscape initiation rituals.
"Those who are chosen, step forward, touch the ’Skull of Dreams.’ Your ti has co."
The Saint’s orders were imdiately carried out. The two weakened Elves were dragged from the hall, leaving two glaring trails of blood. More faithful approached the eerie "goat’s head," collecting the blood of the Elves that had touched the Skull of Dreams. This blood now possessed the power to open the Dreamscape, though not as potent as the Skull itself, it could still guide the user’s spirit into The Dream of the Naless where a ritual was prepared. It would beco a key ingredient for the entry rituals perford by those hidden within the City-States.
But the core explorers would still rely on those "elite priests" who directly touched the Skull of Dreams.
Richard took a deep breath, stepped forward, and placed his hand on the goat horns of the "Skull of Dreams."
Again, a shrill scream pierced his mind. A terrible oppression burst from the goat’s head, a formidable force sweeping through. In an instant, this Heretic felt his consciousness rapidly detaching from his body, "seeing" his perspective rising swiftly while the surroundings darkened. He saw his own fleshly body falling backward, supported and taken away by his brethren...
In his daze, he also saw a strange rabbit doll stealthily following beside his body, seeming to hide in the shadow of his form to evade the gaze of The Saint...
A rabbit? Why is there a rabbit?
Richard briefly wondered, but in the next instant, he forgot his confusion.
The gates to The Dream of the Naless opened before him.
...
Transformation occurred.
Duncan could clearly sense the shift in the "atmosphere"—although the scene before his eyes seed to change little, he knew that this "reflection" of Holoss had transford into another kind of ... "entity" after the stroke of nine o’clock.
The wall clock opposite him once again underwent a mirror image effect, with the hands that had been moving counterclockwise now resuming their clockwise motion. Other things in the room that appeared mirrored due to facing the mirror also shifted subtly; the feeling of dimness hanging in the air had diminished considerably. Outside the window, the hazy and blurred deck and the ship’s hull beca clear again, while the sea and sky reminiscent of the Spirit Realm vanished, replaced by that familiar, boundless darkness and mist.
This place was no longer a "reflection." Now, it was sailing through the Dreamscape of Silantis, within the Dream of the Horned Goat—another Holoss.
However, Duncan’s attention was not imdiately on this ship.
"... Those heretics used the skull, ’Skull of Dreams,’ by pouring elf blood over that goat’s head," he said, his expression a complex mix of emotions, "and it actually worked..."
Agatha’s voice ca from the mirror beside him—after the "transformation," she had returned to within the mirror: "From what Rabi described, it seems less like the ritual succeeded and ’Skull of Dreams’ was activated, and more like the Skull of Dreams was enraged and executed those conducting the ritual—they, however, considered this ’execution’ an honor.
"For now, it seems the elves used as ’sacrifices’ should not be in imdiate danger to their lives; the heretics will keep them alive as a stable source of blood—yet before this ritual ’matures,’ it’s likely many elves as ’sacrifices’ have already died on that ship..."
Duncan didn’t speak for a mont, rely nodding grimly. After several seconds, he glanced at the mirror not far away.
Agatha’s figure was reflected in the mirror, but beyond that, the mirror no longer showed the scene onboard the real Brilliant Starship—naturally, the figure of Lucrécia had vanished.
Having stayed at Light Breeze Harbor, she should now have entered the "Dreamscape."
"Lucy, how are things on your end?"
"It seems that Holoss departing from Light Breeze Harbor can’t prevent the occurrence of The Dream of the Naless—I’m back in this forest now. Sherry is with ," Lucrécia’s voice entered Duncan’s mind, "I’ve also contacted Rabi; it’s still parasitizing that heretic and has not been exposed."
Duncan stayed silent for a few seconds: "...What do you make of their ’ritual’?"
"A bunch of lunatics, both crazy and stupid, dealing with shards of ancient gods using crazy and stupid thods. Their thinking is skewed, their thods are wrong, the cost is heavy—yet they sohow achieved results they desired. As a scholar, I neither understand nor approve," Lucrécia’s expression turned complicated, as if carrying a sense of personal grievance, "It’s like a bunch of idiots banging on a malfunctioning differential engine with sticks, and sohow fixing the machine, it’s simply..."
She hesitated for a long while, finally squeezing out, "It’s an insult to intelligent life!"
Duncan said quietly, "But they succeeded—even though it seems like they’re courting death."
Lucrécia’s expression imdiately grew more complex than before.
Noticing the deep bitterness on this ’witch’ Miss’s face, Duncan did not continue to provoke her but subtly changed the subject: "It seems there is indeed more than one ’goat’s head,’ but there may not be many with complete rationality—perhaps only my ’first mate’ really has it."
He paused, pondering and continuing, "And it is precisely because those heretics’ ’goat’s head’ lacks complete rationality, that their absurd ritual has a chance of success—the ’Skull of Dreams’ only reacts instinctively to external stimuli, and one of its instinctual reactions just happened to help those zealots of obliteration open the door to The Dream of the Naless.
"Right now, it’s unclear whether it was the obliteration zealots who blindly stumbled upon this ’thod’ on their own, or if it was taught to them by those Doomsday Preachers babbling about gods. And even if we figured out how the obliteration zealots ’enter dreams,’ the thod for the ’followers of the sun’ to enter The Dream of the Naless is still a mystery..."
"Could those following the Black Sun also have a ’goat’s head’ in hand?" Lucrécia thought of this possibility instinctively.
"Anything is possible—but my intuition tells it shouldn’t be so simple," Duncan frowned, shaking his head as he thought, "So far, the followers of the sun who have entered The Dream of the Naless are only of two kinds: one is the ’Scions of the Sun’ that appeared once, and the other is those inhuman ’Sun Remnants.’ Ordinary Sun Priests and followers, as humans, have not shown up, and whether ’Scions’ or ’Remnants,’ neither are human.
"They are ’Ancient God Parasites’ whose ntal structures wildly deviate from humans.
"The way these creatures enter The Dream of the Naless could be utterly different from the thods of the obliteration zealots."
(Double points period, asking for monthly passes!)
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