Grand Ascension-Chapter 121: Fuel

Makun stood at the entrance, the door behind him still open, dozens of eyes fixed on him like he was prey that had willingly walked into a den.

All of them were clapping with different expressions. Some were curious, others mocking, while most of them were zealous, the look of fanatics ready to kill themselves if commanded by the man dressed in black priest robes.

He was confused.

He had expected a cult-like atmosphere ever since he saw the chalet, and after listening to the black-robed man speak, he had expected a ritual, however now, he was being introduced as a guest for the grand sacrifice.

That was not in his deductions, he had no idea what that was about.

Also, Yohan was here.

That meant the other children were probably the two children who disappeared too.

He looked once more at the cloaked figures next to Yohan, he was sure of it, it was Mr. and Mrs. Jones, who seemed to be in a state of trance. They had not moved ever since he entered, what they did was kidnap their own son and bring him here to be used as a sacrifice in a ritual, to gain "The truth about life." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

What parents could sacrifice their children.

Makun’s heart contracted when he thought of this, he had yearned for his parents to no avail, he had been thrown in torture houses from a young age. Seeing Yohan bound and discarded like worthless cargo, seeing a child betrayed by the very people meant to protect him, it reached something buried deep inside Makun, something he had locked away long ago.

He was not just angry.

He was furious.

His fists clenched and for a moment his Ashe flickered at the edges of his vision, orange and hungry.

He breathed, calming himself down, he could not strike, not yet. He first had to figure out what this was.

The priest’s lips curled into a smile that did not reach his eyes. "Ah, Young Apprentice, you must be curious!" The man spoke. "We expected you, come in, come in!"

He invited Makun who stood at the door’s edge to fully enter the room. "You came at the right time, we needed blood, that of a practitioner, to complete our ritual." He said, raising his hand upwards. "Our master, our lord, our all requires blood, requires a route core, only with that would he grant us light."

What is he even speaking about? Makun internally shook his head.

This reminded him of the Heaven’s Gate Convergence of 1997, a cult that had promised its followers transcendence through the sacrifice of the cult members.

They believed in a physical place in the universe where immortal, genderless beings live in bliss and nourish themselves with pure sunlight. They sought to evolve into these immortal extraterrestrial beings.

At the end, they had all died.

Makun truly believed that was the end of every other cult, every cult member dying. However if practitioners were part of it, the meaning of the whole thing changed.

They are gaining something out of this.

"Now that you are here, your blood and your route core is going to be used to appease our lord." He looked at the others. "Brothers, sisters clap for our guest who volunteered to appease our lord."

Clap! Clap! Clap!

Guest? Volunteered? He had killed nine guards to get here. He had followed particles, broken through a veil, climbed a tower. And now they were acting like he had walked in with an invitation. He could not believe they expected him.

"Bring him here." The black-robed priest spoke to the practitioners who stood by his side.

Makun looked at them, sensing their Ashe, analysing them, the 3 initiates and the priest were not warriors, the 3 apprentices were warriors. Out of seven he had to really face 3 of them, 2 second-grade apprentice warrior practitioners and a 1st-grade apprentice practitioner.

It was doable, he had faced worse before.

More than that, he had to get those three kids out of here.

Makun quietly charged his Ashe through a pulsing route core, ready for the coming apprentice practitioners.

Tap-tap-tap!

The apprentices crossed the extremely large room in light steps under the gazes of the crowd, who by now had started chanting, praising their masters, praising their lord asking for him to grant them enough force to conquer, power to uphold the truth, energy to wash away evil.

Makun could hear them chant, each word, each syllable repeated itself in his head.

"Grant us force, grant us might, Lord of truth, lord of light, Wash the evil, cleanse the stain, Through blood and bone, we rise again."

The words crawled under his skin, foreign and wrong, but they did not shake him.

He could not budge under this, not after having looked at the Eyed Hand directly in the eyes, they needed more to scare him.

What was interesting though, was what his sight caught. The chant they were singing expelled energy from each and every one of the members, and this energy went to the priest, which in turn was dispersed to the apprentices that were approaching him.

It felt like the priest was a conduit, a living battery that absorbed the collective faith of the crowd and redistributed it as raw power. The disconnected were fuel, nothing more, their devotion converted into Ashe they could never use themselves, fed to practitioners who could.

So that is how it works.

The cult was not just belief. It was a system, a harvest. The priest reaped what the faithful sowed, and the apprentices were the blades he sharpened with it.

Cling!

One practitioner, a tall man with short hair and serpent tattoos on his neck drew a sword, his blade long and curved, catching the candlelight like a crescent moon.

The second was shorter, bulkier with thick arms and a flattened nose, he pulled twin axes from his belt, spinning them once in his grip with practiced ease.

The third was lean, almost gaunt, with sunken cheeks and eyes that never blinked, he drew no weapon, instead his fists wrapped in chains that clinked with every movement.

All of them rushed towards Makun.