1102. Not a Word
After the winner was announced and Nam left the stage, Umi introduced the participants of the next round as they entered. One was the peculiar exorcist from the Voracious Cloud Continent, the other was the Blind Man, the urthan chosen of Hodr, the god of cold, darkness, and winter.
"This is the one, right?" Mina asked Mary excitedly. the Chosen of Hestia nodded with a serious face.
"Did you find all the totems?" Seth asked to make sure.
"Yeah, we found all the totems set up around the stadium and apprehended the people who set them up," the head of administration explained. Seth looked at the arena, feeling the massive presence lurking below. All preparations were in place. The show could begin.
"Good."
....
Standing in the arena, he grasped the ragged handle of his sword tightly. He could smell the cold damp air and vividly imagine the sky covered in gray clouds and the arena that was submerged in the pale, gray light, sucking saturation from everything. Maybe the scene he imagined was influenced by his own mindset, but what a fittingly dreary setting for what he was about to do.
He was nervous and depressed. Until the last moment he had hoped things wouldn't actually play out like this, but everything went as they told him. He drank the potion before drawing lots, It raised his luck by 60 points, yet he still ended up matching with the right opponent. Wasn't luck supposed to work in his favor? Did that mean this was really the only way?
The old man wavered, feeling conflicted. Concentrating on the cultivator, who would play along with him, he hoped to find him waver too. Maybe, if both of them didn't want to do this, they could find a way to stop it...? No, there was no ending this now. But it would have made him feel better if he wasn't the only one doubting their actions.
Thanks to the clamoring and noise of the stadium and the blessing of his god, he was able to perceive the rough contours of the arena. However, Fan Juan stood still like a statue. No hint of nervousness, no racing heart, no quivering limbs...
He only seemed to look at him with a cold, haughty stare. There was no wavering or fear, all the old man could perceive from him was a freezing determination. They were about to kill hundreds of thousands of people to unleash hell on Urth, but he stayed calm, not showing any emotion at all. Just how was this man raised to be like this?
"Let the battle- BEGIN!" the announcer suddenly called out. The blind man was too distracted and didn't even notice her moderation before. With the start of the match, he lacked the time for concerns.
Things burning with a foreign energy started flying at him like bullets, but he was easily able to dodge. This was all he had to do in the grand scheme of things. His opponent would set up a formation on the arena at the center of the stadium, he just had to play along. Like a choreographed fight, despite never practicing it, he just had to make it look realistic.
His scratched-up sword sought the throat of his opponent at various moments in the fight, but of course, it always left enough leeway for the exorcist to evade. he could see his opponent's body temperature, making his contours even clearer to his senses.
When the things drenched in energy stopped flying around his ears, he knew it was time for the second stage. He ground his teeth, it was time to shed blood. his blood. The cultivator now started engaging him in melee combat and the blind man had to intentionally allow to be hit, as the formation had to be drawn in blood.
"I'm sorry... so sorry," he thought in his mind over and over as he became clearer and clearer about what was about to happen. Soon the formation would be complete. It would envelop the whole stadium and sacrifice everyone present to allow an avatar of Bragmomal to descend onto this plane and conquer Little Gamma.
The curse around his heart tightened in reaction to his doubts. If it was just his own life, he would have allowed it to crush his heart and just died here... But he couldn't do that. He could only decide to live with the guilt.
"Last one," Fan Juan whispered under his breath, and the old man felt a terrible pain, as the cultivator cut a massive gash across his chest. His blood splattered across the arena floor, completing the core of the formation.
He could feel the life force vividly draining from the air and traveling through the traces of blood. Even without sight, he could clearly feel the pattern of the magic formation that activated under his feet. His heart sank, it was done...
He waited but nothing happened. He didn't know what was supposed to happen, but he expected the screaming of the audience, and the rise of some evil energy, but nothing of the sort happened.
~Not enough...~ a dark voice rumbled quietly in his mind. Was this the voice of the demon they were summoning? What did he mean by that?
"Damn it-! No! No! I didn't agree to this!" Fan Juan suddenly exclaimed. Did something go wrong? before his senses, he detected the cultivator, his contours, the heat of his body, the strong vitality coursing through his veins, as well as his rising heartbeat.
This vitality was now slowly draining down into the formation he was able to feel so vividly. The man attempted to flee from the arena, but he fell the moment he tried to step away. Hectically, he made hand movements and used various foreign energies, but he didn't move away from that spot anymore.
~Not....enough...!~ The voice said again, more forceful this time, the vitality was sucked even quicker from the cultivator. In a matter of seconds, Fan Juan fell silent, unable to move. The old man now also felt the drain of the formation and directly fell to his knees. Yes, this was not how it was supposed to go. Something had gone wrong... But maybe this was for the best.
Something must have gone wrong with the formation and now the demon was taking their life instead of that of the audience. This was at least the old man's hope. With just the two of them, maybe it would all fail and nobody else would have to die. he still held up his end of the deal, so nothing would happen to her...
He thanked his luck. Yes, this was truly the best outcome he could have hoped. Convincing himself, that this was the best and that nothing would happen to her, he slowly slipped into the darkness. In his last moments, he felt a terrifying presence rising from the bowels of the earth. The World gave its farewells, by gifting him one last moment of true existential fear.
...
The formation glowed a deep red. Seth's eyes glinted when he heard a notification that a new formation was memorized. The Sigil of Bragmomal was usable with the <Conjuration > ability he had attained from the demon scroll. It was a surprising message in a weird situation.
While he was distracted, things started to change in the arena. The two participants had fallen to the ground, their life essence being pulled in to power the formation that had lost the totems that would have expanded it to encompass the whole stadium.
Another suspicion had been confirmed with this incident. Seth was now sure that the demons of Bragmomal, the enemy Joannia and the fleet of Epsilon had faced in their homeland, had also aided the Scene in setting up the formation that aided them in their "ascension".
But this time, they had caught wind of it in time. So all that was left was to watch the show.