Chapter 73: The Cult of Ragnarok
[An unknown location]
[The Cult of Ragnarok]
Within a dark cave somewhere in the Kingdom of Andura, a gathering was taking place! Long torches cast a dim light across a long tunnel leading deeper into an underground cave, and a long line of mysterious figures walked in a perfectly straight formation as they made their way down the tunnel! The figures all wore long black robes that dragged across the floor with hoods that cast shadows over them to obscure their faces! In their hands, they each held a small bowl that was filled with a thick red liquid that sloshed around with each step they took!
The man leading the line from the front was a massive creature that towered over every other person! He was also wearing a long black robe, but it was impossible to hide the huge biceps and wide shoulders that he had! The man suddenly spoke up, and his thick, reverberating voice echoed off the tunnel walls as he led the group forward.
"In expectation of Ragnarok, we bring forth these sacrifices. We herald the dawn of the final hour."
"For the Dawn of Ragnarok."
The group behind the man chanted in a loud voice in response to the man, and soon, all their voices were reverberating through the cave like the chanting of a demonic cult!
"For the Dawn of Ragnarok!"
"For the Dawn of Ragnarok!"
The light from the torches cast long shadows along the walls as they moved, and a great tension grew across the entire cave as they approached their destination! At the end of the long tunnel, there was an opening that had a dim white light shining from it, and the group wasted no time as they passed through the opening and entered into a massive cavity that looked like the inside of a mountain!
The room was filled with people! More than a hundred figures, all dressed in the same black robe and hood, stood around a large elevated stage in the center of the cave! Along the walls, hooded figures were standing in front of traditional-looking drums and holding two thick sticks as they waited for something to begin! And above the heads of all these people was a large hole like the tip of a volcano that opened up to the night sky and allowed the stars to shine their light down on the gathering like the rays of a lunar god! The full moon could be seen through the hole, but it was not perfectly centered at the hole just yet, and the group was moving according to a schedule that would allow them to synchronize their ritual with the centering of the full moon.
The moment the group that had been walking through the tunnel appeared in the main cave, everybody standing around the stage immediately moved out of the way and created a path for them to go through, and the drummers standing against the wall finally brought their sticks down!
Bang!
The sound of the drum echoed off the walls with intensity, and the group continued to chant.
"For the Dawn of Ragnarok."
...Bang!
"For the Dawn of Ragnarok."
...Bang!
"For the Dawn of Ragnarok."
...Bang!
The chanting continued as they headed for the stage at the center of the room, and at this point, everyone else in the room had also joined the chanting, and their voices shook the cave down to its foundation! The group finally got to the stage, and they began heading up a stair leading to the top!
On top of the stage, there was already someone waiting for them. It was a young boy wearing a long white robe and holding a bowl in his hand! He was on his knees, and he held the bowl out like he wanted to receive something from them! The moonlight above shone down on this boy like a beacon, and the chanting group headed straight towards him and began to pour the contents of their own bowl into his!
The ’bang! bang!’ of the drums continued to echo off the walls, and the drummers sped up their tempo as the boy’s bowl got fuller and fuller! The tension in the room grew into a physical thing as the voices grew louder, and it almost seemed like they were a moment away from going into hysteria! But just before they could lose their minds from their chants, the large man in front of the group finally poured the contents of his own bowl into the boy’s bowl, and he raised his empty bowl up to the shining moon.
Silence!
Every sound in the cave stopped all at once, and the sudden silence would have been enough to make multiple ears pop! The large man looked up with wide, desperate eyes, and the light shining from the silver moon finally lit up his features enough to show that he was not human. His face was that of a bull with a ring in his nose and red skin that was marked with black tattoos! This was a minotaur demihuman, and as the minotaur looked around the room, he felt a great satisfaction in his heart as he saw that he was surrounded by hundreds of demihumans just like him!
Bird-type demihumans with feathers growing from their faces! Lamia that slithered on the ground! Canine demihumans with sharp teeth and hungry eyes! Feline demihumans with dangerous auras! Dragon demihumans with scales and wings! They had all gathered here today for their great cause! They had all gathered for the Dawn of the New Age!
The only person in the room who was a regular human was the young boy kneeling on the ground, and the minotaur felt a great thrill of excitement go through him as he thought about what was about to happen! They would soon achieve their greatest goal, and it was only fitting that their mission of revenge would begin at the hands of their greatest enemy! It is only right that a human would be responsible for the rise of the new age of demihumans!
The moon in the sky was finally reaching the center of the hole above them, and now the light from the moon was concentrated completely on the stage where the boy knelt in front of the minotaur! The minotaur raised his empty bowl towards the moon, and he watched it with a wide, obsessive gaze as he spoke.
"Let the sky bear witness. Let the stars bear witness. Let the moon bear witness."
The moon finally shifted a little more and centered itself in the hole, and the minotaur quickly told the boy to drink the thick, red liquid in his bowl! The boy obeyed and brought the bowl to his lips before gulping all of it down at once, and he grunted as he felt an intense burning sensation travelling across his entire body! He felt like he was about to die, and he groaned as he dropped his head forward to the ground! No one bothered to help him, and they all simply watched as he suffered from the feeling!
The minotaur felt his heart rate pick up as he watched the boy closely! They had searched for a very long time before they found a boy with the exact affinity and mental condition that they needed to complete this ritual. If this did not work today, then all the effort they had been putting in for the past ten years would be for nothing! It had to work!
The tension in the room only continued to grow as the boy groaned and grunted from the pain, but finally, after a few seconds, the boy’s breath evened out, and he let out a long sigh before he sat up on his knees!
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