Page 209

While I was lost in my memories, the door was pushed open. Catherine, not in her usual sapphire blue swordswoman’s attire nor her silver armor, with her golden hair draped over her shoulders, walked in like a moonlight elf.

"Xuan Feng, the ceremony is ready and can begin in just half an hour," Catherine gently walked to my side and said softly.

"Thank you, you’ve worked hard." I gently took the fair hand of the beauty in front of me, feeling somewhat guilty. Although I had accepted the mission to steal the "Doomsday Horn" and averted most of the threats to Fontainebleau, Catherine, who had been handling daily affairs and fighting against human threats, had contributed more than I had.

Catherine had noticed the flickering white light in my hand and understood my recent preoccupations, so she asked, "Are you still thinking about those matters concerning humans?"

I smiled slightly and shook my head. "It’s alright now. Although I feel somewhat sad, I remain a werewolf."

The ceremony Catherine mentioned was the "Black Soul Contract" ritual that would transform the Holy Knight aura of the Light God into a fallen aura. This was also one of the reasons why my orc army was still lingering here. Theoretically, the Light God, as one of the deities of the upper planes, should treat all races of the continent equally. However, when the Light God’s miracles were introduced to this plane by the "Eternal Prophet," this sage used his privilege to enter into a covenant with the Light God, stipulating that only humans could cultivate and use the Light God’s divine abilities passed down by the Temple lineage. No matter how powerful orcs or elves were, even if they cultivated the Light God’s power, they could not use these holy abilities.

This wouldn’t have been a problem, as few had infiltrated the Temple like I had. Orcs and elves had their own power systems and didn’t need to learn from humans. However, a branch of humans emerged that was not widely accepted—the undead. During the Undead War, many of the Temple’s Holy Knights were turned into Death Knights. Most of them retained the skills they had in life but could no longer use them because they had lost their human status. Thus, several powerful necromancers jointly developed the "Black Soul Contract," which could corrupt Light God miracles by trading with powerful demons of the lower planes, turning them into evil miracles and freeing them from the restriction of being usable only by humans.

My top-tier "Vitality Aura," combined with the number one variation of the Nine Yin Supreme Study, "Infinite Phantom," was almost comparable to the leopard clan’s supreme study, "World at Hand," in human form. If I reverted to my werewolf body, it might even be faster. To break free from the limitations of the "Vitality Aura," I naturally needed to use this ritual to modify the aura.

However, breaking the shackles of the Light God’s divine abilities would inherently reduce their power. When demons cast the spell, they would also absorb some of the Light God’s power, causing most fallen miracles to have only half of their original power. To avoid this loss, demons would need to inject their own magic to offset it. The demons living in the lower planes, commonly known as the Abyss, were even darker than the "Great Demon King" Bator. To make them part with their magic, one would need a large number of sacrifices to please them. The best sacrifices were the souls of faithful believers in the Light God. The more devout and powerful the believer’s soul, the more powerful the fallen miracle obtained from the demon. If the sacrifices were sufficient, the fallen miracle might even be enhanced by the demon. It was said that two hundred years ago, a knight named Zigfries voluntarily transformed into an undead and killed over three thousand of his comrades from the "Light Eagle" Knight Order. Using their souls as sacrifices to the demon, he became the strongest Death Knight, known as the "Dark Eagle," and the leader of the Death Knight Order on Necromancer Island.

I happened to have a large number of elite captives from the Radiant Temple, all of whom were powerful elites the Temple was unwilling to sacrifice. The magicians among them, who were only supported by the Temple and were not believers, were persuaded with smiles by the minotaurs and Minotaur warriors, who had blood-stained meat strips between their teeth. They were so impressed that they all defected to my side. As for the senior priests, after multiple rounds of torture, only seventeen weaker priests were willing to swear allegiance to me. The remaining two hundred and thirty-six were extremely resolute, preferring death over surrender. As for the Holy Sword Knights, although there were several Sword Master experts, I had no intention of persuading them. After all, the orcs had not fallen so low as to need the help of human warriors.

Over two hundred senior priests, along with nearly three hundred Sword Master-level Holy Sword Knights, had the power to influence a medium-sized war. If I sacrificed all of them, although the number was less than Zigfries’, the overall effect would far surpass his. Moreover, I was using all the sacrifices to exchange for the corruption of one divine ability, and I was eager to see just how powerful it would become. Of course, before the ceremony, I had already sent Jin Luosha back to Fontainebleau. Although she was deeply attached to me, she was still human, and it was best that she not be exposed to such an evil ceremony.

That night, we held the "Black Soul Contract" ceremony in the square of Snowflake Harbor. Since our chief mage of Fontainebleau, Wellington, was stationed in the south, the ceremony was led by the four ninth-level magicians who had defected. With the assistance of other magicians, they slaughtered over five hundred elite members of the Radiant Temple. Using their blood, they drew a magic array and, with their trapped souls as the core, initiated the dark ritual to summon a demon. It was a form of "oath of allegiance." With such a grand lineup of mages, we successfully summoned Andislapto, a supreme-level great demon of the lower planes. The quality and quantity of the sacrifices I offered were so astonishing that even this top-tier great demon was slightly dazed and very readily transformed my "Vitality Aura" into the fallen miracle, the "Demonic Aura." The color of the aura changed from red to blue-green, and its position shifted from my feet to my back. If I were to describe the image, it resembled the deities and Buddhas from my previous incarnation.