Volume 4: The End of the World Chapter 79: Big Feast
The beacon used for transmission was engraved by William inside the treetop temple when he first arrived in this wrong timeline.
Therefore, when he, Flora, and Ebony were teleported back to the temple in Holy Tree City, they happened to see the horrifying scene.
The dry ground originally formed by dead trees was now stained with slippery and sticky grease and blood plasma. The treetops used to shelter from the wind and rain were full of broken limbs, as if they were the ripe fruits that should have grown on these twisted and weird branches.
The smell of massacre permeated the air, a complex stench of corruption, filth, blood, and fear. This stench was enough to make even the most determined people feel nauseous and vomit.
William was not sure what this scene looked like in Floral's eyes, but she had already covered her mouth, and the hand holding the magic medium was trembling slightly. As for Ebony, the moment he saw this scene, he held onto the wooden wall and began to vomit. William was even worried that he would vomit out his own internal organs.
After releasing [Lion Heart] on him twice , it only barely prevented him from vomiting and fainting.
Besides, there are those voices...
William thought.
Compared to the miserable screams and wails that could be heard from time to time in the entire hall, William felt that the chewing and swallowing sounds that were hidden underneath were even more creepy.
"Is this a communion ceremony?"
After regaining her composure from the shock, Flora struggled to ask this question.
"No, this should be called a communion party."
William looked at the drawing of hell in front of him and replied stiffly.
“What’s a party?”
William did not answer the question, but walked forward on the slippery ground.
The noise caused by the portal opening was quite loud, and many people in the revelry should have noticed them. However, no one stopped what they were doing, and most people were unwilling to pay any attention to them.
They are all concentrating and focusing on completing the work at hand.
"Hey...why are you eating this?"
William asked as he walked up to the person closest to him.
The man ignored William. After finishing the rest, he slowly stood up and walked unsteadily to the wall at the edge of the temple.
William did not stop it because he also wanted to see what would happen.
The dry vines on the wall tied her up in an instant, and then as the wall squirmed, the person covered in blood was built into a part of the temple wall, leaving only a vague human outline.
William said nothing, walked over to the other man and asked the same question.
The man just looked up at him and then continued to do his own thing, completely ignoring the fact that he had been ripped open - the food he had just swallowed immediately slipped out of the hole in his stomach and piled up into unrecognizable debris at her feet.
"Are you doing this of your own accord, or is there some reason you have to do this?"
William patiently asked again.
Still no answer, this time the other party didn't even look at him again.
And this silence of doing what I want is enough of a reason.
William knew that the Eucharist was an extremely important custom for the forest elves. As one of the few races in the Vic Continent that still believed in the traditional ancient gods, similar customs were the inevitable price to pay for the blessings of the gods. And in the documents left by the Bronze Calendar, in the early years, various races had even more disgusting customs in order to please those gods.
But the Eucharist should not be performed while the subject is still alive.
Therefore, William simply relaxed his control over his rationality and allowed his emotions to take over his behavior.
The invisible wind blade passed by, cutting the female forest elf's head in half vertically. As she fell, white flames rose from her body.
The half of the child left in her hand fell into the wreckage made up of the other half of her body.
She was the first one, and William, unsatisfied, then raised his head and began to look for the second one.
A burning white skull lit up at the top of the lead-colored spell medium. It floated into the air and began to punish all beings who were continuing the "holy communion ceremony" within William's sight.
One by one, the names were called.
Looking at the sparks being ignited, William suddenly felt that this job was both boring and dull.
It's like crushing the ants that crawl into your room, or completing routine tasks in an online game just to extend your online time.
He could neither gain any pleasure nor vent any of his emotions - he couldn't even feel sad about it.
It's like eating konjac without any seasoning.
It was not until William looked down and saw the child from before, crying and shaking the remaining half of his arm at him, that he came back to his senses.
At this time, with himself as the center, almost the entire temple was ignited by a holy flame of almost pure white.
Most of the corpses, as well as the people who created them, turned into rising ashes in the flames.
A sound seemed to reach his ears from far away. William turned his head and saw Flora who had been forced into a corner.
At this moment, she was struggling to use the magic medium in her hand to erect a frost barrier, frowning as she resisted the white flames that were gradually approaching her.
Ebony, who was not far from her, stood alone in the center of the flames. She seemed very confused as to why she felt that this flame, which could burn most of the people in the temple to ashes in an instant, was not much hotter than the summer sun.
By the way, Flora is also a dead soul, so she will also be included in the attack range...
William suddenly remembered this and immediately cancelled the spell of [Wrath of the Burning Devil], and the flames in the entire temple disappeared instantly.
The legendary fire magic that used undead creatures as fuel burned the crowded crowd in the hall to ashes.
Although the anger that was suppressed in his heart was not vented at all, at least the burnt smell in the air at this moment was much better than the suffocating and disgusting smell before.
Walking back to the others on the charred ground, the two of them looked at the expression on William's face without saying a word, even though one of them was almost burned to death.
"It's just speculation, but they were not performing communion rituals."
After a moment's silence, this was the first sentence William uttered.
His voice was surprisingly calm.
"Why?"
Ebony couldn't help but ask:
"Since the forest elves on this side of the timeline are all undead, they are essentially 'corpses'. So it is reasonable to perform the Holy Communion ceremony even when they still have the ability to move, right?"
Ebony, who had lived in this timeline for several years, had indeed seen communion ceremonies being performed on "corpses" that were still alive. Although he had never seen such a large-scale, crazy party... According to William's previous statement, a party?
"Those people are a combination of women and children. I guess they are most likely mother and son or mother and daughter. Although they are all dead souls, the ritual only focuses on recreating the core imagery and extracting it into an abstract concept. And the fact that all of them were eaten alive is their most important common point."
At this point, William paused again. He recalled the man who did not answer no matter how he asked, but continued to eat mechanically.
He paused for a moment and continued:
"More than that... the fact that they eat like zombies without any feeling at all may also be part of the imagery. "
At this time, Flora asked:
"And what ritual is this part of?"
"yes……"
William was just about to explain his belief in the Dark Mother Goddess' desire for her offspring to return to her, but before he could finish his words, he suddenly remembered something.
There are dozens of saplings throughout Ravenwood, and each sapling has a canopy temple.
Is this the only tree having a big eating "party" right now?
The child returns to the mother's body, and the mother returns to the body of the sub-tree as the daughter of the sub-tree.
The sub-tree returns to the body of the World Tree. With these three rituals nested together, with what degree of completeness will the original mother body in the center of the Holy Tree City return?
…………
At the same time, on the "World Tree" in the center of the Holy Tree City, inside a deep and tortuous secret "tree hole".
"Master Enso... something seems to have gone wrong. The ritual resonance at the location of Zishan's subtree temple is rapidly weakening."
"Is the compost awake?"
"All... all the compost broke free and woke up in a little over ten seconds. Do you think it's possible?"
"Take someone to have a look."
"Okay, I'll leave my work here to..."
"Don't worry about what's going on here. Bring more people with you. Bring the Wild Hunt, the Purple Shirt's tree spirits, and the reinforcements from the Empire's Second Cult, 'Mother'."
"My Lord, is this too cautious?"
"Just do as I say. We must ensure that the ceremony to welcome the rebirth of the Great Mother is foolproof."
