Chapter 20

Chapter 20: sacrificial rite

This sewer system was huge. In Duncan’s eyes, it already went far beyond what a city needed just to drain waste. The runed gas lamps everywhere and the reinforced structures that were sturdy enough to act as shelters made him guess a lot about what this underground facility was really built for.

No matter what the builders had in mind at the beginning, one fact was obvious: in the depths of this vast structure, hidden from the eyes of the surface world, this dark, cold place had become a nursery for some kind of evil power.

A Cult that claimed to worship the Sun in name, yet only made people feel a chill.

At the junction of several sewer corridors was a wide underground space. Solid concrete pillars held up a brick-built dome. Metal pipes crossed and joined around the dome like a web. Bright gas lamps lit the whole place and also lit up the crowd that had gathered in this “meeting point”.

At a glance, there were at least hundreds of black-robed figures squeezed into this foul, damp place. In the middle of them was a raised platform. A tall figure in a black robe stood on it. That was clearly the person of highest status among them.

The person on the platform did not wear a hood like the others. Instead, he wore a golden mask. The mask’s design was strange, like a disk that sent endless rays of light spraying outward, but its surface was also covered in many broken cracks.

Behind the masked man stood a strange totem on the platform—a tall wooden pole. A blazing fireball was fixed to the top. The core of that fireball seemed to be some kind of metal. Its surface was full of small holes, and the flames spurted out from those holes.

This was the scene Duncan saw when he was “escorted” here.

The black-robed people gathered in the hall noticed him as well.

“On the way here to the assembly site, we caught a runaway sacrificial victim!” One of the black-robed men who had been escorting him stepped forward and spoke respectfully to the “Leader” on the platform, his tone clearly eager for praise. “This sacrificial victim stayed in the dark for too long. His mind is already a little confused. Please show your power and let our Lord’s glory descend upon this pitiful body!”

The Cult leader on the platform, wearing the Golden Mask, turned around. He stared closely at Duncan’s blank face. His voice held a trace of surprise and coldness: “A runaway sacrificial victim?”

Duncan did not react at all. He only looked around this place with curiosity, including the Golden Sun Mask on the Cult leader’s face and the blazing fireball totem behind him.

Maybe these symbols were strange and eerie to ordinary people in this world. But Duncan saw it almost at a glance. These things were imitating the Sun.

They were not imitating the glowing orb in the sky now, the one bound by torrents of fire and two layers of rune rings. They were imitating the Sun Duncan knew, the Sun that shone with ten thousand rays of light and burned fiercely.

These people really worshipped the Sun. They worshipped a Sun that seemed to have “fallen” in some ancient age, and they worshipped it as a kind of God.

Duncan raised his head. His expression was calm as he used his gaze on the black-robed priest looking down at him from the platform. But maybe because the muscles of this body’s face had rotted, that calm look only made him seem even more like some dull, mindless thing in the priest’s eyes.

The priest in the Golden Mask stared at Duncan for less than two seconds. Then he turned his head and ordered a person standing beside the platform: “Go check the place where the sacrificial victims are kept. Be quick and report back.”

After giving that order, he nodded to the black-robed men who had “escorted” the sacrificial victim back. There was a hint of praise in his tone. “You did well. Even if this is only a tiny merit in our Lord’s eyes, when sunlight shines upon all things again, it will become your eternal glory.”

It was only a bland, routine compliment, but the black-robed men acted like they had been greatly encouraged. They became excited, praising the “true Sun God” as they pushed Duncan to the front of the platform. Only then did the masked priest finally speak to Duncan: “Poor one who walked onto the wrong path… have you felt the deep cold among lightless rock and mud?”

Duncan did not understand what this charlatan was talking about at all, so he stayed silent. The priest clearly did not care whether this “sacrificial victim” could respond. His words were not really meant for Duncan. They were for the congregation around them, and for the “Sun God” he believed in:

“Cold and darkness are the suffering left to this world by the false Sun. Under the false Sun’s rule, the dark ocean of the Abyssal Deep ravages the world. Only scattered, broken pieces of land let living beings cling to life. Yet even on these broken lands, mortals can hardly escape suffering. Old Shadows coil below the ground. In lightless tunnels they writhe, with claws that feed on man. Above the ground, hatred and conflict fill the world. Humans’ pure souls are stained by the breath exhaled by the Eldritch God…

“How can we endure this long suffering? How can we endure the twisted and absurd world brought by the false Sun?

“We cannot endure it. We only wish for our Lord to return. We only wish for the true Sun God to descend upon the earth again, to burn in blood and fire, and to bring order and prosperity back to the Mortal Realm!”

Under the masked priest’s passionate and stirring tone, Duncan could clearly feel the atmosphere in the hall change. The black-robed congregation grew more and more excited. At first they only echoed him. Soon those echoes turned into fervent shouts:

“We only wish for the true Sun God to descend upon the earth again! To burn in blood and fire!”

“We only wish for the true Sun God to descend upon the earth again! To burn in blood and fire!”

“May the true Sun God descend upon the earth again,” the priest on the platform cried. Then he pointed at Duncan. “And today, our Lord will wake further from His sleep—the blood of the lost shall soothe the wounds left after the Sun’s shattering!

“Bring the sacrificial victim up!”

Several black-robed men rushed over from the side, but Duncan moved even faster. He did not wait for anyone to push him and simply climbed up onto the altar by himself.

This body did not work very well, but climbing a platform was still easy enough.

Once he climbed up, he stood right in front of the masked priest. The priest was still frozen in the dignified and mysterious pose he had held when he gave the order just now. The change came so suddenly and so far outside his past experience that the head of the Cult did not react in time. He and Duncan stared at each other through the Golden Sun Mask, and the area around the altar suddenly fell into a strange silence.

Duncan seemed not to notice the change in the air at all. He only felt he had collected more information about this world, and he was very eager to see if, before this temporary body “broke down”, he could witness a few more rare scenes.

“So, uh,” Duncan rubbed his hands together with a kind of curious expectation and asked seriously, “and then? What do we do next?”

The masked priest: “…”

“Did you not hear me?” Duncan frowned—but because the muscles on his face did not work well, the frown did not really show. “I said, what’s the next step?”

Only then did the priest finally react. Even through the mask Duncan saw a flash of confusion in his eyes, but it vanished quickly. The priest pressed down his voice and said, “The Shadows in the dark truly did affect your mind. But don’t worry. The highest and holiest Sun will end your suffering… bring the sacrificial victim before the totem!”

Two black-robed men walked onto the platform at once. They grabbed Duncan’s arms and dragged him toward the Solar Totem Pole with the fireball on top. Duncan had no idea what came next, so he could not “cooperate ahead of time”, but he still did not resist. He stood obediently under the blazing fireball, held in place by the two black robes.

Even though Duncan did not struggle at all, the two black-robed men still used all their strength to grip the sacrificial victim’s arms, as if they were afraid he might break free and resist at the very last moment. Their strength was an anomaly. Duncan could feel the bones of this temporary body slowly cracking apart. He looked at the two black-robed men with real surprise.

Right after that, the masked priest walked closer.

Duncan’s attention went straight to him. He saw the priest pull out a strangely shaped dagger from his robe. The dagger was crooked and twisted like dried finger joints. Its blade was pitch-black, like it was carved from obsidian, and its surface reflected the firelight of the totem, making it look especially eerie.

Duncan quietly got ready to cut his Soul Projection. He knew this temporary body had almost collected all the information it could.

The Cult priest’s benediction rang out over the altar:

“O highest and holiest Sun God! Please accept this sacrificial rite upon the high platform! I offer You this sacrificial victim’s heart. May You return from blood and fire!”

Duncan immediately stopped his action of cutting the Soul Projection and stared at the Cult priest in front of him like he was an idiot.