Chapter 1: An Unknown Ritual

Darkness is the warmest color, evil thoughts are the most comfortable emotions, Thanatos' consciousness floats in the chaos, the boundless Milky Way is just a ribbon at hand, and the stars that symbolize eternity are just shining points on the ribbon. He doesn't know why he left his mother and brothers and sisters, he just feels unprecedented hunger enveloping him.

The god who feeds on the souls of humans before they die has never felt such hunger. His thirst for energy has basically occupied all his thoughts at this moment. He estimated that he had not eaten for at least a thousand years. And his memories during this period also disappeared with the collapse of energy. Thanatos wanted to sigh, but he didn't even have the strength to sigh. As the price of traveling through space, he was almost dragged to death by original sin, and original sin erased most of his sanity and memory.

"All... will... end...,... the disaster... will... stop,... the sacrifice... will be empty..." A distant voice came, and Thanatos listened intermittently, his mind in a mess. The excessive energy deficit had left him with no energy to even think. He listened for a long time but couldn't understand what was being said.

The next second, a tearing pain came, and the body of the god was crushed and reassembled. Thanatos didn't know whether he had a soul, but at this moment, he felt that he had given birth to a soul, left his body, and flew to the direction where the sound came from. Thanatos was powerless to reverse the situation, and allowed the irresistible huge suction to pull him into the deep black vortex. At least it was black, Thanatos thought before he fell asleep.

He didn't know how long it had been. When he opened his eyes again, he saw a river of blood. The thick black velvet curtains hung on the ground, stained with blood. The narrow, dark room was strangely lit with long white candles. Under the flickering candlelight, he could see the densely painted magic circles on the wall that he couldn't understand.

Thanatos sniffed the bloody smell in the air. It was sweet with a hint of mutton smell. It was overnight sheep blood. He held a small silver paper cutter in his hand. The blood on it flowed down his arm and into his clothes, making the white shirt stained with bright red. Thanatos felt the subtle energy fluctuations and licked it uncontrollably. It was human blood.

After receiving a tiny amount of energy replenishment, he finally had time to observe the corpse in front of him.

The body looked like a man in his fifties, with fine but heavily wrinkled clothes, as if he had been in a fight. He fell on his back with a horrified expression, his hands stretched forward stiffly, and his fingers were broken in the opposite direction, almost falling off his palms.

The real fatal wound was the one centimeter long wound on the left chest of the corpse, which went straight to the heart. The width of the wound was the same as the width of the paper cutter in his hand.

This was not an interesting situation. In the past, Thanatos would not have cared, but now it was difficult for him to even move, not to mention that this body was facing murder charges, and he was likely to be sentenced to death.

"Endo-sensei! Endo-sensei!"

"Husband! Husband! Open the door!"

Thanatos glanced at the body on the ground. If nothing unexpected happened, this must be Mr. Endo. Seeing the door being knocked down and about to break, Thanatos had to cut his finger with a paper cutter. The moment the golden blood flowed out, the space became distorted, accompanied by bursts of subtle roars.

Thanatos' eyes went dark, and he knelt on one knee uncontrollably. If possible, he did not want to strengthen his authority in this way.

The golden divine blood flew to the corpse, and a faint light flashed. The corpse and all the human blood in the room disappeared. The rice-sized divine blood expanded to the size of a ping-pong ball, flowing with an ominous black light. Thanatos quickly opened his mouth and swallowed it. As the light entered, the influx of energy made Him squint His eyes in satisfaction. He had not eaten for thousands of years, and now the power flowed through his body, making Him extremely satisfied.

Compared to the dispensable corpse, Endo's soul was the main meal. Although it was unknown why the soul of the possessed body was not in the house, Endo's soul was enough to support his initial activities.

"Endo-sensei!"

"Husband! Say something!"

Rapid knocks on the door rang out one after another. Thanatos put on the hood behind him, and a silk black robe covered the sheep's blood on his clothes. The dark shadow under the hood also blocked his unique eye color at this moment - dull gold. It should have been a dazzling color, but it was filled with deathly silence due to the lack of energy, just like a bright yellow gem falling on black velvet.

He did not want people to see his appearance clearly, because he had become different from the original owner. Although it was only a slight difference at present, he would gradually return to his original appearance over time.

Thanatos stood sideways and suddenly opened the door without warning. The people who knocked on the door stumbled and fell into the room, and then cried out. Although the scene in the room was weird, Endo was a well-known professor of religion after all. It was normal for him to try to restore some sacrificial rituals. At least the three of them didn't think there was anything wrong. When they stood up, they all looked at Anton Yayoi beside them.

"The teacher should have said not to disturb the ceremony." Thanatos spoke indifferently. At his cold words, several people couldn't help but shudder. The ceremony was complicated and dangerous. Any external factors might eventually lead to unacceptable results for humans. As a professor of religious studies, Endo strictly forbade his family, friends and students to disturb him when he tried to restore the ceremony.

"Student Andong, didn't you hear Mr. Endo yelling?" The young man who spoke was Yamada Masakazu, Endo Shinzo's favorite student and Andong Yayoi's senior, and this year he is a second-year master (graduate student).

Yayoi Andong tilted her head to look at Yamada Masakazu and said, "I heard it, but what does it have to do with me? I'm performing the ceremony here."

The small room was less than 5 square meters, and numerous ritual implements, ornaments, and candles occupied most of the space. At first glance, apart from Yayoi Andong, there was no one else in the room.

"My husband didn't perform the ceremony with you?" Mrs. Endo interrupted. She hadn't seen Shinzo Endo the whole afternoon, so she naturally thought that he was performing the ceremony with Yayoi Ando. When she heard the scream, she ran to the ceremony room as soon as possible.

Yayoi Andong raised her hand and pointed at the house. "Can there be room for another person to hide in this house?"

The three of them looked at each other and were forced to accept this answer.

"Where is Endo-sensei? He didn't answer the phone." Kasako Koshimizu glanced at Yamada Masakazu, but saw that he was signaling her to ask questions, so she had to ask Ando Yayoi hastily. She acted a little flustered and unnatural, and her words were unclear, as if she didn't want Ando Yayoi to answer. She lowered her head, and her right hand kept fiddling with the watch on her wrist.

Yayoi Andong pushed them aside and walked out. "I came here to perform a ceremony. I'm leaving now that the ceremony has been interrupted." She saw Yamada Masakazu about to speak from the corner of her eye, and added, "Come to my dormitory if you need anything."

Yamada Masakazu wanted to stop Andou Yayoi, but was stopped by Koshimizu Kasako. She shook her head, "Forget it, let him go. Let's look for him again, the teacher might be somewhere else."

Upon hearing this, Yamada Masakazu didn't know what to say. He could only frown and nodded slightly, "Okay, let's look for it again. There is still a chance..." Hearing Yamada Masakazu say the wrong thing, Xiao Qingshui Kasako hurriedly pulled the corner of Yamada Masakazu's clothes, with a somewhat ugly look on his face.

Knowing that he had said something he shouldn't have, Yamada Masakazu was so scared that he quickly glanced at Mrs. Endo. She looked as pale as a sheet of gold paper, sweating profusely, and obviously not paying attention to what he was saying, so he quickly swallowed the rest of his words.

"Master's wife, let's look for it again." Yamada Masakazu and Koshimizu Kasako looked at each other, restrained their expressions, and spoke gently to Mrs. Endo.

Mrs. Endo had a look of despair and a pale face. She half leaned against the wall, as if the death of her husband had also taken away her soul. "Okay... okay... he will be fine... no..."

Yayoi Andong listened to their conversation gradually fade away, walked through the corridor, looked up, and saw a camera on the wall with a red light flashing. Yayoi Andong knew that it was useless to destroy it, the records were still in the computer, if some people uploaded the video to the cloud at any time, then even destroying the computer would be useless. He hoped that Yayoi Andong was not stupid enough to kill someone in front of the surveillance camera, because he couldn't survive until he changed his body.

Thanatos sighed helplessly. This was not a good start. He hoped that Endo's memory could help him get through this crisis.