Nighttime, in the northern mountainous region of Igwynt, Field Manor.
Near the stables of the expansive manor, a stable guard curiously watched a carriage searching for a place to park. He turned to another guard who had led the carriage over and asked curiously.
"Hey, buddy, this is an outsider’s carriage, right? Why would it be coming in at this hour? Could it be…?"
"It’s just some unlucky fool who got lost. I’ll take them inside in a bit—looks like we’ll have a little extra for dinner tonight," the other guard said nonchalantly.
Hearing this, the stable guard raised an eyebrow and replied, "Well, that’s a surprise. Who would’ve thought that even at this hour, there’d still be idiots delivering themselves to our doorstep…"
"Heh, this world isn’t short of fools… By the way, buddy, got a match? Lend me a light."
"Yeah, hold on…"
As he spoke, the stable guard started rummaging through his clothes for a match. The moment he lowered his head, the other guard’s expression darkened. He swiftly drew a concealed blade and stabbed it into the stable guard’s throat. The stable guard collapsed with a muffled gasp as the attacker covered his mouth.
Not far away, the carriage door opened. Dorothy stepped out, followed closely by Vania, who anxiously scanned their surroundings.
"Is… is this your Beyonder ability? Controlling the dead… Are you, by any chance, a Beyonder of the Silence path?" Vania hesitantly guessed. She knew that anything related to undead or the deceased was connected to Silence.Realizing that Dorothy might be a Silence Beyonder, Vania grew even more nervous. There was no shortage of cults associated with that path.
"No, this isn’t my ability—it’s just a mystical item. And it has nothing to do with Silence," Dorothy explained simply.
The corpse marionettes controlled by the Corpse Marionette Ring were all biologically alive but brain-dead. In the biological sense, they were still living people, which was why the other guards failed to realize they had been deceived. To them, these were just their usual comrades—completely unsuspecting of the truth.
Using the ring, Dorothy began her infiltration and extermination. She disguised her corpse marionettes as the enemy’s companions, using their ability to speak to gain trust before striking from within. Then, she would convert the freshly killed into new corpse marionettes and form a squad to systematically eliminate the guards scattered around the manor.
Dorothy infused three additional points of Revelation into the ring, expanding her control limit to five marionettes. These five marionettes, using their familiar appearances and voices, continued deceiving and ambushing the guards. The efficiency was astonishing—within less than ten minutes, the outer perimeter of the manor was completely cleared. Now, Dorothy was beginning her infiltration into the interior, while the excess corpses beyond her control limit were hidden away as reserves for the upcoming battle.
Silently and methodically, Dorothy was stripping away the outermost feathers of the Crimson Eucharist mentor. The ordinary lackeys were almost entirely eradicated.
The reason everything was proceeding so smoothly, Dorothy knew, was likely because the mentor was wholly engrossed in a critical moment of his ritual.
"I need to hurry…"
Muttering to herself, Dorothy slipped through a side entrance into the manor. After a cautious glance around, Vania followed her inside.
…
Inside Field Manor, within a vast hall.
The space resembled a chapel, situated at the heart of the entire manor. The ceiling stretched unbroken from the ground to the rooftop, merging the first, second, and third floors into one open area. A walkway with railings wrapped around the upper floors, forming a balcony-like structure reminiscent of a theater. The chapel itself resembled a grand stage below.
A massive chandelier hung from the ceiling, while rows of red candles burned on the marble floor. The stained-glass windows depicted one of the Radiant Saints—the Holy Mother—but her image had been defiled with filthy blood. The blood smeared over her figure had been painted into the shape of a wild wolf’s head.
Before the blood-covered Holy Mother mural, a large ritual circle was drawn on the floor. Most of it was painted in blood, with small portions dusted with an unknown silver powder. At the center of the circle was the spiritual symbol of the Chalice, with the mark of Shadow not far beneath it.
Within the ritual circle sat a chair, upon which Luer reclined with one leg crossed over the other, flipping through a red-covered book. Around him, seven children stood in a perfect circle, evenly spaced, surrounding him.
The children—boys and girls alike—appeared to be between six and twelve years old. Each wore a pure white garment trimmed with fluffy fur, with horned headpieces resembling those of sheep. Their attire made it easy to associate them with lambs—costumes from a past performance.
These children had all been adopted by Luer from the Charity Orphanage over the past seven years, serving as key components of his advancement ritual.
At this moment, all but one of the children stood in a daze. The exception was Anna, who sat bound hand and foot on the floor, her expression frantic as she took in the scene and her fellow orphans.
"Judy! Misha! Wake up, wake up! What are you doing? Wake up—we have to escape!"
Anna screamed desperately at her former companions, but they remained unresponsive.
One girl turned to her with cold indifference and said, "Be quiet, Anna. Father is about to welcome the Sacred Hour. We shall bear witness with our bodies."
"The Sacred Hour… bear witness… What are you saying, Judy?! Hurry, untie me! We have to escape!" Anna pleaded, her voice breaking with sobs. But the girl only responded with an emotionless stare.
Seeing this, Anna struggled to her feet, attempting to charge at Judy to shake her awake. But before she could, a pair of large hands grabbed her arms and threw her to the ground. Anna fell hard and burst into tears.
"Sit still, you little brat!" a bald orphanage caretaker bellowed at her. Meanwhile, Bill stepped into the ritual circle and crouched beside Luer, speaking with concern.
"Mentor, this last girl hasn’t undergone full indoctrination with the cognitive poison. She also doesn’t know the complete song. Will that cause any problems?"
"It’s fine. A choir doesn’t require every individual to know the song perfectly. As long as the majority sings, the resonance will pull the others into harmony. Eventually, even if she doesn’t want to, she’ll find herself singing along. That is the effect of poison contamination through knowledge transmission.”
"We don’t have time to properly educate her anymore. We’ve already exposed ourselves to the Serenity Bureau. They’ve likely reported to higher authorities. Once the ritual is complete, we must leave Igwynt immediately."
"Understood…"
Luer instructed Bill as he turned the final page of his mystical book. On the aged pages, drawn in pencil, was a figure—wolf-headed, humanoid, covered in fur, howling at the moon. Opposite the illustration was a passage of text.
….
The Blood Moon Path: The Ritual for Advancing from Black Earth Rank ’Beastman’ to White Ash Rank ’Werewolf.’
Key Elements of the Ritual:
Procedure:
The ritual must be performed at 2 AM, the Sacred Hour of the Great Gluttonous Wolf. It requires a high-rank presence or an appropriate Chalice artifact to officiate—otherwise, one can only pray for divine attention.
The next section details the specific criteria for selecting ’lambs’ and the precise method of execution…