***Edited by Kronost***

Aina woke up to see the dark ceiling and found herself still lying on the operating bed, but the iron ring on her hands and feet had been untied. There was no one in the basement, and the light in the room was still dim.

  “Where did they go?”

Aina sat up on the operating bed, confused, and walked down barefoot. She suddenly felt a rush of heat in her chest.

  “Woo.”

A mouthful of hot blood poured out of her mouth, the floor was covered with blood-red color, and pain rose in her heart. Aina knelt on the ground, shaking. She felt her blood flow become chaotic, her heart started to hurt more, and a great fear spread inside her.

  ‘Am I going to die… I don’t want to die.’

She was miserable, desperate, and at the same time bewildered.

  ‘God’s command was to keep her alive. Why do none of them care about this? These people seem to only care about God’s gift and the Burning Blood.‘

She knew that the Order had been trying to obtain it from the Lord of Ashes for thousands of years and had made countless attempts. However, even though the people outside say ‘great’, do they really believe in the Lord of Ashes?

Aina huddled up in pain and fell on her knees. She felt weaker and weaker, there was a deep sense of drowning, and her hot body gradually became cold. The drowning made her feel so much pain. She lay down on the ground and struggled. Her mind could no longer function properly, and she had a strong sense of dreaminess.

A long time passed.

In the basement, the little girl lay flat on the ground, her eyes closed. She was finally freed from the pain and suffering. Aina gradually recovered from her drowsiness. Her consciousness was still a little tranced, and her body’s senses had not fully recovered.

  ‘I feel dizzy.’

  ‘Where is this place? Am I still alive?’

It took a while for her to come out of the trance, and gradually her senses returned. She was finally able to distinguish her surroundings. She found herself still in the basement of the villa on the small operating bed. But the basement, which was dim before, was very bright at this moment.

A bright spotlight burst upon Aina’s head. The white light was so intense it made her very uncomfortable, and the stimulation of the light made her shed tears.

  “It’s so bright. Oooh!”

She tilted her head and tried to muster the strength of her limbs to get up, but she couldn’t move. Once again, her hands and feet were firmly clamped by strong iron rings.

There were people dressed in black gathered around her, and they were wearing a kind of faceless mask. They should be the seniors of the church.

The joy in Dr. Norn’s eyes was hardly concealed, but he still tried to keep his tone as calm as possible. Otherwise, he would appear unkempt and unpolished.

  “It seems that our operation was successful, and she is still alive.”

  “This time, the gift of God is genuine. We now have the first real Child of God, not in history, but in front of us.”

His voice was not calm, and the expression on his face grew more excited.

  “There’s still some burning blood left, but we need a more stable method. Sooner or later, everyone here will be a ‘child of god’.”

Aina was being stared at by the eyes of greedy and envious people. She felt like she was an object. She couldn’t move even if she wanted to and was placed here for a weird exhibition.

The exhibition lasted for a long time, and Aina, in the spotlight, stopped struggling and let people watch her. The people suddenly retreated to the sides, and the senior priest slowly came to the basement.

The high priest had long received the news of the success, and as soon as he came in, he asked, “The transformation was successful?”

Dr. Norn couldn’t help smiling this time. His face showed a hint of excitement and bewilderment. He had not expected it to be successful.

  “Yes, I thought it failed. But in fact, it succeeded.”

He pointed to the little girl, lying on the operating bed surrounded by onlookers. His face was full of pride.

  “She is still alive, which is the best proof of success, but I don’t know what kind of power she has gained.”

  ‘It turns out… I almost died…’

There was a sense of despair. Aina thought if she was in God’s favor, the adults in the church would look at her differently. Maybe one day, the adults would let her go outside. But people’s attitude towards her has not changed at all.

She was still the same as before, without any freedom or status, just an object born for the Lord of Ashes. But… was she really born, for the Lord of Ashes?

No! She wasn’t special at all, nor was she a witch of blood and flesh. Red pupils and long silver hair didn’t mean anything. In fact, she still remembers clearly… She was actually in the orphanage, and when she saw the high priest walking by her, she smiled carelessly.

So she was selected.

The disgusting gaze still surrounded her, and she suddenly realized something that she had never thought of before.

  ‘Only I and the children in the orphanage have always been foolish enough to truly believe in the greatness of God. And even dedicated our lives to the Lord of Ashes for this faith.’

The adults in the sect did not care about God’s thoughts at all. They were greedy for nothing more than divinity, and for this, they offered sacrifices again and again.

There were many children, like her, in the orphanage. And the adults in the sect never cared about what they thought. Even if she stayed alive, she would not get any freedom, let alone achieve any wish. Aina had fully understood that she was just a slave to the elders in the Order.

After realizing this, she was completely desperate, lying on the operating bed with her eyes blank. She no longer dreamt about the future.

The delight on the high priest’s face quickly faded, and his expression became serious again. He meditated for a moment and said, “All this grace is due to God’s guidance and protection.”

  “Now, let us go and prepare. We should immediately start a new sacrifice to thank the great Lord of Ashes for the blessing.”

In fact, the high priest knew very well that it was a once-in-a-lifetime privilege to have the Lord of the Ashes descend upon to give a gift. Therefore, if the sacrifice was held again, there would be no new gifts, and the Lord of Ashes would come.

He was just encouraging funders to pay for everything in the Chaos Embers Order. Although he looked down on these stupid people, he knew that if the Order wanted to develop in Noland, it had to rely on these so-called upper-class people.

As for the description of God in Aina’s words, the high priest was very skeptical. After all, she was the only person in the church at that time. Gifts were more common, but commands. Gods who for thousands of years have been too lazy to reason with humanity gave an oracle?

The high priest had just gone to check it. He had not heard of any large-scale natural disaster happening anywhere, which was totally inconsistent with the book.

It was clear that the little girl was only lying.

No one raised any objections. What happened tonight made the greedy people more greedy. They could not wait to ask for more gifts.

Supernatural forces are strictly controlled by the Anti-Magic Bureau. But no matter what society, there are always some people who want to move, try to touch these forces that could make them crazy or even perish.

…………

A few days later, the new sacrifice ceremony was prepared. This time, the sacrifice was held in the lobby of the villa. The villa was not only luxuriously decorated but also occupied a large area. So accommodating dozens of people wasn’t a problem.

It was still raining tonight, white lightning flashed through the window, and thunder rumbled outside. Flickering candlelight placed on the altar illuminated the relatively dark lobby of the villa.

People in black clothes formed an ancient circle and chanted ancient mantras.

Aina was not an apprentice to the priest, so she was not qualified to recite the mantra. As she knelt further behind the crowd, her eyes were as lifeless as they had been at the beginning, and she no longer had any vision for the future.

The priest knelt in the center of the circle. As the host, his wrinkled face was hidden in the black hood, and the shriveled mouth kept whispering obscure spells.

“Infinite disasters, the source of destruction”

“The aversion of the White Mist”

“The Lord of Ashes who annihilated the Stars”

“Presenting to you a thousand different facades”

“Manifest your great existence and make the world quiver”

After chanting the spells, he said in a deep voice, “Sacrifice to the great Lord of Ashes.”

Two men in black stepped forward, holding a rectangular dark red case. A pure white mask was placed on it, and a black tear was drawn below its right eye.

This time the sacrifice was no longer a girl. But a long-lost relic and the provider were naturally the patrons of the cult. Their financial resources were unimaginable for ordinary people. And it was easy for them to get most of the things they wanted. Even relics were not so inaccessible.

Relics were one of the items which were strictly prohibited by the Anti-Magic Bureau for ordinary people. Most of them have magical powers, but at the same time, they also have great danger. Most of the relics were sealed by the Anti-Magic Bureau.

It was said that some of the highest-level relics can even destroy human civilization.

The sacrifice this time was not a living sacrifice. The members of the Chaos Embers Order did not leave but stayed in the villa.

The candles placed on the altar suddenly went out one after another. The high priest trembled slightly, and he subconsciously felt something was wrong.

Immediately afterward, he found that the sound of rain outside the villa had vanished; the entire surrounding area was abnormally quiet, and the strange atmosphere surrounded them.

  “Could it be…..”

  ‘Is the Lord of Ashes really coming? No, this is impossible! It’s only happened twice in the past thousand years… Why would he come at this time?’

His heart jumped, and he turned to look at Aina. ‘Could it be that what she said was true?’  ‘But if what she said was true, how could the Lord of Ashes come twice in a row in just a few days?’

The believers were still praying. The high priest had felt the great oppression first, like a boiling sea falling from the sky. As the only leader of the Chaos Embers Order, he had dealt with countless despairs in the past hundred years. But he had never experienced such an incredible horror.

  “Ah! Up!” Suddenly a believer yelled.

A dense gray mist drifted down from the second floor of the villa, filling the hall. The surrounding temperature started rising. Indescribable voices filled people’s minds, and an enormous figure emerged from the gray shadows, revealing an extremely terrifying appearance.

Like a volcanic serpentine body and shaking wings condensed by black flames, his body changed shape every moment. Because of his influence, the entire villa turned luminous, and from the outside, it looked like a burning house.

People’s faces were full of horror. When they saw him for the first time, many people lost their ability to act, fell to their knees in extreme fear.

The senior priest himself was too frightened. Shivering and squatting on the ground did not dare move.

  “God…”

He almost buried his head in the ground.

The burning body stood on the second floor of the villa, looking down at the frightened crowd. Aina also looked at him blankly, as if she had been frightened out of her wits. But light rose again in her dim eyes.