The Vengeful Extra's Ascension-Chapter 224: Ritual!

The forest recoiled as Albedo moved through it. The recoil wasn’t out of fear, at least not in the way living things understood it, but instead rejection.

Albedo noticed various ancient wards that were etched into bark and stone shuddered as his presence hurriedly passed through them, their long-set enchantments whispering warnings to one another in old, brittle mana languages.

Roots all throughout the Forest withdrew while canopies creaked. Even the ambient life-force of the Northern Greenwood thinned where he ran, as though the land itself did not wish to be touched by what was hunting within it.

Albedo did not slow down his chase, burning through an intense amount of mana as he had fully unfolded his Source Code, no longer just passively using it but instead using it as an active tool to find his gold.

Violet light burned faintly behind his eyes as the world resolved into layers, physical terrain overlaid with mana residue, blood-aspected distortions, suppression scars left by disciplined hands.

And beneath all of it was Lilian, as Albedo had already latched onto her unmistakeable aura. The Blood of the BloodHaven clan would not fade away quietly, especially when she was resisting.

Even though Lilian was no doubt suppressed and even forcibly had her aura masked, it left behind a signature like a wound in reality, subtle, fading, but persistent. Source Code locked onto it instantly, extrapolating trajectory, speed, and containment vectors.

"They moved fast," Albedo murmured, leaping a fallen tree without breaking stride. "But not fast enough."

The trail led deeper first, zigzagging through the forest in deliberate misdirection. False paths branched off, each one layered with illusion residue meant to mimic Lilian’s aura just convincingly enough to fool lesser trackers.

Source Code discarded them in milliseconds. The real trail curved northward, toward the forest’s edge. Towards a sense of real civilization.

Albedo burst through a curtain of hanging moss, and the ambush sprang.

Blood-aspected suppression slammed into him from three angles at once, dense and heavy, attempting to anchor his mana circulation to the ground.

Crimson sigils flared between the trees as figures emerged from concealment, cloaks snapping back to reveal pale faces, crimson eyes, and fangs bared in disciplined silence.

It was Vampires. Definitely not Everglade elite soldiers, but they were certainly trained vassal hunters, old bloodlines loyal enough to die quietly.

"Containment pattern, put this fool down," one of them hissed.

Chains of coagulated blood mana lashed outward, interweaving into a net designed to constrict both body and soul.

Albedo didn’t dodge at all however, darkness instead surging inward. The suppression chains that had been flung out struck his shadow and vanished, absorbed as if they had never existed. The vampires barely had time to react before the forest floor beneath them liquefied into a black mirror, reflecting a sky that wasn’t there.

Illusion snapped shut. The hunters found themselves standing in a forest of corpses. Their own corpses actually, and that horrified them, putting them on the back-foot.

Each corpse reflection showed them already dead—throats torn out, hearts crushed, bodies hanging from branches. The illusion wasn’t fear-based. It was certainty. A glimpse of outcome so absolute the mind struggled to reject it.

Two of the Vampire’s faltered and Albedo moved, appearing behind the first, fingers piercing cleanly through the man’s spine as Darkness condensed into a singular killing spike. The vampire never screamed, his heart simply stopped existing.

The second tried to retreat, blood-mana flaring as he attempted to phase through the trees, but Albedo’s Crimson Apocalypse Flames ignited, roaring across Albedo’s arm as he swept it forward, his fire erupting and devouring the mana structures as readily as flesh.

The vampire’s body disintegrated mid-step, leaving nothing but drifting ash and a scream that cut off halfway. The third Vampire ran away, and Albedo just allowed him to, using his Source Code to track him for exactly four seconds before Albedo snapped his fingers.

Gravity inverted all around that Vampire, causing him to slam into the canopy above as Gravity increased all around him, his bones viciously shattering under the pressure as he was crushed against the bark reinforced by centuries of enchantment.

The Vampire slid down the trunk lifelessly before he hit the ground, dead.

Albedo didn’t look back however, as Lilian’s trail was already moving and he needed to keep on it. The forest thinned as he pushed northward, ancient trees giving way to younger growth, then to worn paths half-reclaimed by nature. The scent of smoke and iron crept into the air.

All of that meant he was getting closer and closer to civilian proximity, which was good for him, and the Vampires definitely knew that, as the next wave of attacks from Everglade minions didn’t bother with subtlety.

They struck as he crossed a narrow ravine, leaping from both sides in a coordinated assault, blood-aspected constructs forming spears and blades mid-air. One unleashed a shriek that shattered illusion layers by brute force, sound ripping through mana like broken glass. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Albedo pivoted his step and immediately allowed Havoc and Ruin to materialize in his hands with a whisper of infernal steel.

Infernal Mode turned on, as Crimson Apocalypse Flames detonated outward this time.

The ravine quickly became an oven. Firestorm waves slammed into the attackers, flames behaving like living predators, curling, chasing, wrapping around evasive maneuvers with cruel intelligence. Two vampires were incinerated instantly, their regenerative cores overwhelmed before they could adapt.

A third landed hard, rolling, already healing himself and trying to go back on the counterattack, but, Albedo shot him in the head, the Infernal Bullet immediately consuming him viciously, the Vampire’s Skull immediately collapsing inward, flesh folding into nothing as the fire ate the mana lattice supporting his existence.

The last one fled toward the treeline, shouting something into a blood-crystal communicator, but Albedo swapped his mode to Mana Drain, and fired off once, the vicious pound punching through the vampire’s back, siphoning every drop of mana it touched. The man collapsed mid-stride, a withered husk before he hit the dirt.

Albedo stepped over the bodies, already running again.

The forest ended abruptly. Trees gave way to farmland, overgrown fields, abandoned irrigation channels, the faint outline of a road no longer maintained. Ahead, a village squatted in the distance, small and unassuming, smoke curling lazily from chimneys.

But Source Code painted it in screaming colors. An intense and structured Abyssal Aura was the largest beacon Albedo could see.

All of that pointed to one thing, this was the ritual site.

Albedo slowed down as he approached the town, presence folding once more, not to hide, but to observe closely, and it didn’t take long for him to notice that the village was wrong.

First of all, the Village was far too quiet. There was no children playing, no sounds of lifestock, and the people walking through the streets did so with a weird, mechanical precision, unfocused eyes, and mana signatures that were dull and warped.

They were all clearly Thralls, Vampiric Magic and Abyssal Aura intertwined. This made it clear Magnus and the Everglade Family were experimenting with dark, abyssal rituals.

Albedo slipped into the village like a ghost.

The first guard never saw him. Darkness rose behind the man and swallowed him whole, body dragged silently into a shadow that no longer belonged to the street.

The second turned and froze as illusion locked his perception into a loop of endless repetition. He saw Albedo walking past him again and again, each step identical, each second resetting. By the time the illusion ended, his throat had already been cut.

Albedo moved methodically now, no wasted motions as every sentry vanished without alarm. Every watcher fell without a sound. Blood pools were absorbed into shadow, bodies folded into illusionary blind spots that rewrote expectation itself.

He descended.

A stone stairwell hidden beneath a derelict chapel opened into the earth, air growing colder, heavier, thick with ritual stench. Abyssal runes pulsed along the walls, layered atop blood sigils so old they predated modern thaumaturgy.

At the bottom of all of this was a wide and circular chamber. A ritual array dominated the space, etched deep into black stone, glowing with crimson and void-light intertwined. At its center, suspended within a lattice of blood and shadow, was Lilian.

Her wrists were bound by runic cuffs, feet barely touching the air, blood-mana siphoned into the array in controlled pulses. Her eyes were closed, expression calm, too calm.

She was conscious, trying to resist and hold on, but was losing.

Albedo felt something in his chest fracture. Vampires stood between him and the array, elites this time, Everglade retainers clad in ceremonial armor, eyes burning with fanatic loyalty.

One of them smiled.

"You’re too late," he said. "The Rite has already, "

Execution Mode.

The pistols merged and Four shots rang out like judgment.

The first erased the speaker’s head. The second punched through a barrier and detonated inside another vampire’s chest. The third tracked, curved, and took a third through the spine as he tried to cast.

The fourth wasn’t fired, as Albedo held it, stepping forward, his eyes locked on Lilian, darkness coiling around him like a crown.

The final vampire lunged, screaming, and then he finally shot the last shot, executing him. The man collapsed, soul severed mid-breath. The chamber fell silent save for the hum of the ritual.

Albedo walked toward Lilian, already reaching into the array, Source Code dissecting every layer, every failsafe.

"I’m here," he said quietly.

but before he could do anything, more Vampires stepped into the room, led by Magnus and many other, more powerful members of the Everglade Family.