The Incarnation Ceremony
The Incarnation Ceremony
Mayne had learned all that was written in the book thoroughly. He knew that to create a man of God's Punishment Army they needed to sacrifice a witch, whose blood would be blended with a God's Stone of Retaliation before being injected into the man of the Judgement Army. Despite that the process had been improved several times over centuries, the essence had not changed—the number of witches limited the total number of the men of God's Punishment Army, and the will of the Judgement Army significantly determined the success of the incarnation.
After reading the book, he realized the reason for the church taking in so many underage girls. Before their magic powers were gathered, they looked just the same as common people. So there was no obvious sign of potential witches that could be spotted. Yet, once their magic powers began to converge, their bodies, organs, and blood would be shaped. Therefore, there was no other way to obtain more witches except by expanding the scale of breeding underage girls.
That was why he agreed with Heather—everything they had done was extremely evil, and all seniors had their hands soaked with blood because they had slaughtered more witches than any executioners. However, in order to defeat the demons and save mankind from doom, they must continue on.
Only the winner would be eligible for God's favor.
…
Two men of the Judgment Army were lying on the incarnation altar. They were Dylan of the advance battalion and Tucker Thor of the guards of Holy City. Mayne was acquainted with them, especially the latter one, who was a chief justice.
Although they wore smiles on their faces, the archbishop could tell from the tensed muscles and the clenched fists that they were very nervous. He patted their shoulders and encouraged them. "Take it easy. I believe you can make it."
"My lord, when the time comes, all I have to do is to endure the pain?" Dylan could not help asking.
"Yes, just get over it," Mayne said while smiling, "Your name is Dylan, isn't it?"
"You actually remember my name," he said excitedly.
"Of course. You belong to the advance battalion and participated in the defense of Hermes last year. Your captain is... Alicia, if I'm not wrong?"
"Right, right," said Dylan, nodding, "At that time, our team lost many men in a battle, and demonic hybrid beasts killed most of our brothers. I thought of how good it would be if only I had the ability to kill the deformed hybrids. That's why, my lord, I want to be one of God's Punishment Army."
"It's very nice to have the faith of being stronger for the sake of your brothers." Mayne encouraged him before turning to the chief justice. "What about you? Tucker Thor, what has made you come to the decision to become a member of God's Punishment Army?"
"To defend the new Holy City, my lord," he said with determination, "Priests have said that the demonic beasts will grow stronger in the coming years. Last time, they reached the wall of Holy City, and the cathedral would have been destroyed without the help of God's Punishment Army. I wish to be the shield against the demonic beasts and the spear to pierce enemies."
"Very good. Both of you are the pride of the church." In accordance with the steps told in the book, he eased their tension and fear with the conversation. When he saw their emotion soaring high, he waved his hand and motioned to continue the ceremony.
A guard went forward to blindfold their eyes and fixed their limbs firmly on the incarnation altar with bracelets. After that, a witch was carried in and laid between them.
As a witch who was raised by the church, she spent most of her life in the cloister in old Holy City. After the awakening, she would be sent to the Pivotal Secret Area where she would wait for the incarnation. A day before the sacrifice, she would be forced to drink in much Dreamland Water—a medicine made of the sleeping fern and coltsfoot to make sure that she would not be roused by any sounds during the ceremony.
"The code and the age?"
"Number one, 18," the guard answered.
This was a routine inquiry, for only the blood of a grown witch was enough to incarnate two men at the same time. After Mayne rechecked the witch list to reach a final confirmation, he announced that the ceremony had begun.
As an exquisite silver needle was inserted into the witch's arm, her russet blood flowed along the needle to a leather hose that was connected to the needle and to the crystal basin under her. The bottom of the basin was paved with light-blue God's Stones of Retaliation. Over time, the blood gradually immersed the stones. Finally, it filled the basin.
Soon, the God's Stones of Retaliation changed. Through the transparent crystal side of the basin, one could clearly saw that the blue stones were absorbing the blood. After eight minutes, the stones melted away and the turbid blood became clear. Meanwhile, the color of the liquid turned from russet to sky blue.
The seemingly simple operation had taken them tens of thousands of tests to conclude a complete and reliable procedure. It included the details such as the different ages of witches, how to estimate the blood volume of different figures, how to make the silver needle and leather hose, which part of the body was appropriate to insert to get the blood or inject the blood, how to choose the quality and quantity of the God's Stones of Retaliation and so on... The ancient book had recorded every test failure and the improvement, as well as the general principle of incarnation.
After a witch's body was changed by the magic power, her blood could strengthen the organs and tendons. The recipient would be killed immediately by direct injection of the blood. They had to immerse the God's Stones of Retaliation in the blood to dissolve the "unknown power" before injecting them into the recipients. Even so, the blood was able to damage their mind so that recipient would gradually lose his feeling and intelligence until he was left with nothing but instinct and some strong will. The ones who survived the incarnation would become as strong as the Extraordinary. Moreover, they would keep the ability to tolerate the magic power even without wearing a God's Stone of Retaliation.
Mayne had to say that it was a wonderful combination. The blood of the witch could kill people, and swallowing the God's Stone of Retaliation would also put people to death, while combining these two things would minimize the undesirable effects.
As the blue liquid flowed through the hose slowly into the two recipients, the veins in their arms and necks protruded, and their faces became ferocious, like enduring a great pain. Dylan cried out first, struggling on the altar. His fingers were clenching and unclenching, and yet his hands and feet were fixed and unable to move, so that after a while, his body was covered by a thin sweat.
Tucker was not much better. He growled constantly, his lip stained with bloody foam, and his whole body was twitching.
As the liquid level lowered to the bottom of the basin, Dylan's voice sounded like crying. He shouted out meaningless words randomly, his skin was dissolving, and his body was covered with white smoke. According to the description in the ancient book, his incarnation was levering on the verge of failure. When Mayne was hesitating to see whether he needed to wait a little longer to recheck, the pope held his shoulder from behind and said, "Enough, free him from the pain."
A guard walked over and unsheathed a dagger. He neatly pierced it into Dylan's throat while turning the hilt to end his pain.
After a tough wait, Tucker Thor's twitching eased, his breathing smoothed out with his skin turning from red to light blue. Mayne knew that he had survived the incarnation ceremony.
One succeeded while the other failed. He sighed about the result. In no more than 30 minutes, the church had lost one loyal man of the Judgement Army as well as wasted half of the witch's blood.
Yet, since there were 60 men waiting in line, he had to continue the ceremony.
…
When the whole ceremony was finished, Mayne barely could remain on his feet. He staggered down the stage and sat against the wall, regardless of manners.
The pope walked slowly towards him and stood before him. "To tell the truth, your performance had surprised me, my boy. The first time I hosted the ceremony, I did much worse than you. I was 45-years-old that year, and the strong smell of blood made me throw up directly on the stage, almost resulted in ruining a basin of blood. The mistake even got me whipped hard by the previous pope. After the punishment, he ordered me to get back to the stage and continue the ceremony.
... Mayne opened his mouth but did not know what to say.
"So, clear your mind and take a good day off."
"Yes, Your Holiness." The archbishop took a deep breath and kneeled to give a salute. When he was about to leave, he suddenly remembered the purpose of this visit. "Oh, yes, you've summoned me to the Pivotal Secret Area for... "
"Oh, such a poor memory of mine." O'Brien shook his head in self-deprecation. "I intend to give you a new poison developed by the office."
"A poison?" Mayne asked in disbelief. The Pivotal Secret Area had a department that specialized in the research of the God's Stone of Retaliation, such as Cold Expelling Pill, Fluorescent Stone, Madding Drugs, etc. As soon as they developed new products, they would distribute them to the bishop. However, he never heard that they also worked on poisons, which were something that, according to what Mayne had known, the alchemists should excel at.
"They told me that they got it by accident," the pope said slowly, "You only need to sprinkle it on rotten corpses to make it work, and it has a long-term effect on the people around the corpses. The poison saves us the trouble from ordinary poisons, which were needed to be taken in to make them work. The one who's poisoned will barely be cured without the special antidote. Ask Master Crow's Eye if you want to learn more. I believe that it may have some use in the war of the four kingdoms."
As Mayne heard these words, Broken Tooth Castle, which had taken them so much time to besiege, immediately emerged in his mind, as well as Graycastle, where the war situation was at an unsatisfying stalemate. He restrained his joy and saluted again before saying. "If the poison is really as effective as what Master Crow's Eye said, it indeed will help me a lot."