Chapter 781: The Ritual of Creating Monsters
March 21st, night.
Aleister, the honey badger, along with Prince Szijjártó and Fenrir, all gathered under the moonlight to watch the Moon Witch Selene perform the ceremony.
This is the first day of spring, which symbolizes the resurrection of all things, the rebirth of life from the dead. On March 21st, the Sun will appear in Aries... Aries is the constellation representing Xi Tiansi, Xi Tiansi, the third sun of this world, and Xi Tiansi is also Hengwo's lover, split self and her son.
Therefore, this is the night of the year when the concept of "creation" is the strongest - no doubt about it!
Selene put on a pure white woolen robe, faced the moon, and washed her hands carefully in a silver basin. As she washed her hands, she seemed to be concentrating on stroking the moon in the water.
"What are you doing?"
Szijjártó asked Aleister modestly.
But Aleister could only shake his head.
Not to mention her—even the knowledgeable elves of the Theocracy probably knew nothing about this. Only Haibasha, who sold the Egg-Moon Secret to Aiwass, could answer this question.
After all, the Moon Witches themselves were a lost tradition, the last of which was Hengwo himself. Aleister was not qualified to read the Ovum-Moon Tantra, so he had no idea what Selene was doing.
However, the essence of ritual is interconnected.
She tentatively deduced, "Perhaps it's touching the 'Moon in the Water' to complete the Twin Mirror Ritual. The sacred number of the moon is 1, the sacred number of water as a mirror is 2, and 3..."
As Aleister whispered, Selene raised her hands, which shone in the moonlight, from the water and let the water fall on her head, wetting her long hair.
She raised her hands high to the moon, then used the nails of her little fingers on each hand to cut open the palm of the other hand - only her little fingers had long nails, which were as sharp as knives.
However, when the blood dripped into the silver basin, it did not disperse in the water. Instead, it gathered together, turning the moon in the basin into a blood moon.
Then, Selene began to chant clumsily but sincerely in Elvish.
The light singing reminds people of the sea, the breeze and the moonlight.
"...I understand. The sacred number three can represent self-sacrifice. The blood offered is also a form of dedication, in keeping with the holy day of March 21st, calling upon the power of creation."
Aleister realized that his inference was not wrong.
She recalled another incident – Cardinal Cyril had mentioned to Aiwass the secret of the Night Hare Treasure Book. The so-called "Treasure Book" might be another translation of the "Secret Book" in the beginning.
As mentioned above, the eternal self has abandoned the old self ten times. The first three times were abandoning clothes, abandoning flesh and blood, and abandoning shadows, and the last three were abandoning reason, abandoning instinct, and abandoning the true self.
Precisely because He has discarded everything, the Eternal Self is left with only "I", and therefore He will eventually become the "Eternal Self".
Selene had also explained to Aleister where her werewolf powers came from—it was from the Dawn Crow Secrets, the book about the Dawn Crow that Aiwass had read. She had also heard similar whispers… but she had failed to complete the trial of "casting aside the shadow" and only gained werewolf powers from the trial of "casting aside the flesh and blood."
Aristotle, the apostle of great wisdom, wrote an important work called "Organon." The syllogism is derived from this book. This book was an elective course in college, and Aiwass had read it while studying in the library... because it closely resembles the text of esotericism, using metaphors to describe many secrets and truths.
In the "Categories" of this book, Aristotle uses the term "category" to describe the unity of form and matter, and gives ten types of existence: entity, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, posture, possession, active, and passive. The latter nine are all extensions of "entity."
This corresponds precisely to the ten times of abandonment of the eternal self... The things abandoned in the first nine times were merely extensions of the "true self." Only the tenth abandonment is the most crucial act of ascension.
"In other words, the holy number for Hengwo's ascension to God is... ten?"
Aleister murmured softly, "But is there a tenth path... or is it the dismantling of 9 and 1? Love torn apart from the unchanging eternity... then if it were put back together again, what would it be?"
The fusion of eternity and love sounds like an extremely subtle paradox.
Just like the fusion of the paths of 3+7—those who give of themselves and those who command others—form a perfectly harmonious circle; and 2+8 means transcending a mirror, which also forms a repetitive cycle. Coincidentally, the combination of 1+9 also forms a similar cycle of nothingness...
Does this mean that the tenth path is a non-existent nothingness... or that the tenth path itself is "nothingness"?
"The tenth path?"
Fenrir heard Aleister's whispers.
He spoke casually, "I've heard other astrologers talk about similar hypotheses—perhaps there's a tenth path, or even a zeroth path, in this world. Because the current nine paths aren't enough to explain everything... It's like when we sometimes deduce astrology, only to find the results don't match. This is often because there's an extra star that hasn't been discovered before.
"Beyond the Nine Great Paths, there are other powers. Some believe that it is 'zero,' but I tend to think it is a level higher than 'eternity,' a paradoxical ring of 'one more than infinity'... Speaking of which, which do you think is greater, 'infinity' or 'infinity plus one'?"
"Infinity plus one."
Aleister answered without hesitation, as if someone had asked her that before.
"Me too! You think the same as I do... No wonder you believe there's a tenth path!"
Fenrir was delighted with Aleister's answer. "Some of us originally believed that they were the same size, so there shouldn't be a tenth path greater than the number of dusk. So the extra variable can only be the zeroth path..."
Aleister didn't pay much attention to Fenrir's words, but just focused on Selene's creation ceremony.
She sang an ancient ballad as she circled the basin. Whenever her shadow obscured the water, she secretly sprinkled some of Alphonse's Moon Child bone powder into it. By the sixth circle, she had scattered all of the ashes.
On the seventh circle, she poured a tube of Aleister's blood into it, thus confirming the blood relationship between the new monster and Aleister.
On the eighth circle, she also threw the contaminated "Eye of Mercy" given to her by Aleister into the ritual. This ritual did not deplete its power, but instead purified it with the power of the Eternal Self.
On the ninth round, she threw in the Fool's Liver, which had lost its soul but still carried a rich aroma of wine. This was a directly consumable material. Aleister felt that it would be in vain to keep it for too long, so it was better to use it up quickly and transform it into combat power.
Then she returned to her starting position.
Selene suddenly raised her hand, as if grabbing a handful of moonlight!
She clenched her hands so tightly that her fists trembled - the wounds on her hands, which were originally bleeding, slowly seeped out a golden transparent liquid that exuded a rich fragrance.
That is the "Emperor's Slurry" that draws power from the "Moonlight" to create monsters.
Plants and trees will become monsters if affected by it, and ordinary people will go crazy if they touch it.
The witch created the werewolf in imitation of the moon witch's ability; the werewolves go crazy when they see the moon, also because of their inherent flaws.
As golden threads dripped from her clenched fists, connecting her to the blood moon in the water like olives... Selene closed her eyes and sensed it like a puppeteer.
The water was bubbling with increasingly dense and large blood bubbles, and the liquid gradually turned from transparent to bright red.
A shrill cry echoed out of nowhere, shaking Prince Szijjártó so much that he couldn't help but cover his ears—but it was no use. The sound pierced through his hands, through everything. His eyes instantly turned red, filled with intense anger and restlessness. He bent over, clenching his hands to pull at his ears, his arms shaking violently as if he were about to tear them off.
Aleister and Fenrir also clearly felt a strong sense of nausea and vomiting. Aleister was still able to hold up his shaky body, but Fenrir's reaction was even more severe - he knelt on the ground and suddenly began to vomit.
Only the honey badger reacted relatively little. She just frowned slightly and looked at the silver pool with a diameter of less than one meter.
Increasingly intense blood surged from it, and the shaking blood stained the silver and hung on the wall, forming layers of increasingly rich light pink blood film.
Finally, something crawled out!
(End of this chapter)
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