Jason’s thoughts travelled back to the image he had seen before the Machina’s mind had been destroyed! The white-haired man in a pure white robe. That man was the only clue Jason had gotten from the Machina’s mind! If Jason wanted to find out what was going on, he needed to find that man!
’My King! We found something!’
Jason turned to the side sharply as he heard one of his subordinates calling out to him! Jason quickly activated [Eye of the King], and he saw that the subordinate was in the middle of a vast desert! It was already nighttime on that side of the world, and Jason saw a bright red light shining from the top of a mountain as a group of Machina chanted a mantra while floating around a giant magic circle!
’Another ritual!’
The ritual being carried out was releasing an oppressive mana into the air that prevented any of the subordinates around from getting close! The subordinates were only Pawns and low-ranked rooks, and the mana being released by the ritual was nearly strong enough to be from a fucking PRIMORDIAL! Jason thought about calling his subordinates back into the Alternate Dimension, but Jason knew he didn’t have time! Jason didn’t know how long ago the Machina had started the ritual, and Jason was sure that waiting for his subordinates could allow the Machina to complete the ritual! So Jason simply called the large Skrill into the Alternate Dimension before he immediately activated [King’s Substitute], and he vanished from Paris!
....
[The Sahara Desert]
[Peak of Mount Sinai.]
A maelstrom of mana surged across the airspace above Mount Sinai! The sun had already set in the Sahara Desert, and the sandy landscape was covered in the silver light from the moon, but in the region around Mount Sinai, a bright red light pulsed with intensity as a giant magic circle grew larger with each passing second! Around the magic circle, a group of twenty Machina could be seen chanting a magical mantra as they hurried to complete their ritual.
Many people didn’t know it, but humans were not the only part of Earth that had been changed drastically by mana. Long before humans discovered that they could use mana, mana had already existed in the world, but most of it could only be found within the earth in a select number of regions that were known as [Mana Zones]. These Mana Zones were magical hotspots, and it was usually common to see miraculous or uncommon events occurring in these regions due to the high density of mana there! Most humans from older generations had taken these unexplainable situations as spiritual phenomena that they referred to as miracles, but since most of these events had occurred long before humans could sense mana, none of the humans had been able to feel the high-density mana present in these areas!
Within the Sahara Desert, there were more than one hundred different Mana Zones where miracles could be performed due to the high density of mana present there, but of all those Mana zones, the Mana Zone below Mount Sinai was the most dense! The Machina had searched through this entire region to look for a Mana Zone that they could use for this ritual! The ritual they were performing needed to be carried out within the Sahara Desert, but it also required a significant amount of mana from the Earth so that they could anchor the Ritual Element into the planet!
A Ritual Element was very similar to the Keys that Runecrafters used to create their Runes! In the same way a Rune needed a Key that would allow the Runecrafter to funnel magic into the foundation, the Ritual needed an Element that would allow it to work properly! But unlike Runes that could survive for long periods of time since they were drawn using ink and could be activated later on, Rituals were different since they would activate the moment you drew them, and the only way a Ritual can remain active after it is drawn is by absorbing mana from a Ritual Element! Once a Ritual circle is crafted around an area, the Ritual Circle immediately searches for a Ritual Element so it can absorb mana and anchor itself to reality! If the Ritual does not find a Ritual Element, then it would immediately vanish, and the Ritual would fail, but if the Ritual finds an Element, then it would fix itself to that Element and the Ritual would absorb the mana it needs to remain active!
For small rituals, like the Ritual that allowed Azrael to connect himself to the [River of the Afterlife] and turn into an undead, the Ritual Element could be the body of a mage. The mage would provide both the anchor and the mana that the ritual needs to remain active, and that would allow the ritual circle to activate properly, but for larger rituals that require more mana, most ritualists try their best to find a Mana Zone within a world that would allow them to anchor their Ritual to the world itself! Since Mana Zones were so dense with mana, the Ritual Circle would have more than enough mana to activate and carry out its purpose, and by anchoring the Ritual Circle to the world itself, the Ritual becomes a function of the world itself, and it is nearly impossible to stop the Ritual from activating!
It was this same principle that the Machina Ritualists were using to activate this Ritual Circle! The Machina had measured the Magicule density of this region, and they found that Mount Sinai had the highest density of Natural Mana. Since Mount Sinai was also the exact location of the Dimensional Tear they wanted to open, their plan was to allow the other Machina to cause a distraction in the major cities of the world while they focused on completing the Ritual!
Jason appeared in the Sahara Desert, a few hundred miles away from the Sinai mountains, and immediately he appeared, Jason could feel an intense pressure push down on him! It felt like a fucking house had suddenly been put on Jason’s shoulders, and Jason actually grunted from the intensity! No wonder the subordinates hadn’t been able to get close! No one below TITAN Rank I would even be able to withstand this pressure! Jason looked up and glared at the Machina that were still carrying out their strange ritual, and Jason’s eyes immediately bled to red as large bat wings tore through his back! Jason took off into the sky with a massive flap of his wings before shooting towards the Machina!
BOOM!
The desert sand exploded outwards from the sheer pressure that Jason had taken off with, and even the people living hundreds of miles away were able to feel the imposing aura Jason was letting out at that moment! Jason seemed to completely ignore the pressure that surrounded the ritual, and he grit his teeth as he forced himself to go even faster! The ritual was just a few miles away from Jason now, and Jason grabbed the [Spear of Heaven] from his Alternate Dimension before throwing it straight towards the nearest Machina!
WOOSH!
SQUELCH!
The Machina’s eyes widened in shock as the spear tore through its back, and the Machina couldn’t even do anything as the Spear carried it forward and moved to spear the Machina opposite it! The two Machina were then carried away from the Ritual circle and pinned to the desert sand a few miles away! The other Machina didn’t bother to pay any attention to what had just happened to their comrades! The Machina continued their chant, and the ritual circle began to spin slowly as it floated away from them and began moving up into the sky!
WOOSH!
SLASH!
Jason suddenly appeared amongst the Machina with the[Death’s Mirage] pulled back and unleashed a deadly horizontal slash!