The reason for the smell became apparent when they arrived on the horrifying scene.

In front of the trio laid a ground with no trees whatsoever so they could see everything without any obstruction.

Hundreds of children laid their lifeless on the ground! Each one of them had their throats slit open, blood dripping down to form a large puddle of blood!

They could not understand the purpose of slaughtering all those children. But the reason became apparent when they moved their eyes towards the horrendous sight in front of them.

The ground had various rows of runes created on it. All of the runes glowed with purple light while it absorbed the blood of those children!

The runes were placed in such a manner that they created a star on the outer ring, and rows of runes stretched from each corner to join together in the middle.

The middle part again had a circle of those carved runes as it glowed in a black hue whenever the star-shaped runes provided it with the energy.

It did not take a genius to understand that this was a ritual site! The rituals were common knowledge among the Mages.

The idea was for the Mages to receive something they wanted by sacrificing something of equal value.

The scene in front of Ozul showed that while this was indeed a ritual, but it was a kind that was considered immoral. Evil Mages often did such rituals.

The difference in these rituals was that while other Mages used a non-living thing or an animal as a sacrifice, Evil Mages sacrificed alive humans!

Those living humans also had specific conditions such as they could be virgins, women, or orphan children!

The reason for such rituals could be anything from obtaining some insight to gaining instant power.

But even in those rituals, only one sacrifice was enough to perform the ceremony if the Mage was proficient enough.

Sacrificing hundreds of children for only a single ritual was unheard of!

What type of ritual would need such a sacrifice? This answer could only be obtained from the man standing in front of them and the abomination slowly forming in the middle.

————————

-Sometime Earlier.-

-Unknown POV.-

Everything was in the right place. All that time and the n.o.bles couldn't do anything to find our location.

Even now, my subordinates reported the explosion of Count's estate. This just proved how predictable those arrogant pieces of s.h.i.+t those n.o.bles could be.

My plan until now has been perfect! Only a little more time and I will transcend to a higher plane! Hahaha...!!!

The only risk in the plan was to kidnap these children, but even that went without a hitch!

Even a kid would know that those Beast attacks were just mere distractions, but those fools could care any less about these children when they found such an 'interesting' wonder.

Those hungry n.o.bles just wanted to be able to control the Beasts such as I did, but Lord Zeph knows how much I had to pay to be able to control the Beasts... sigh.

I look towards the terrifying Beast... No, it can't even be considered as a Beast! It seemed as though it was a different ent.i.ty!

After all this, my efforts are finally showing some fruit! This 'thing' required the sacrifice of about four hundred children!

But I can already feel the bone-chilling power from it! Just a bit more... just a little bit more, and all this power will belong to me!!!

The power that could even rival G.o.ds! This is the fruit of my labor, hahaha!!!

However, all of this could only be possible because of that 'thing'. I even had to spread rumors that it was some gift bestowed by G.o.d Zeph so the people under me won't revolt!

I don't understand how such a miraculous thing was in the hands of that filthy Duke!

How much of an idiot could he be that even with all the resources in his hand, he could not find me?! Or maybe I'm just that clever?

Even if he had found me, what could he do? I'm also a Rank-8 Mage and the people under me would not lose to any small kingdom's army!

And what was that thing? Just a leg! But whose leg could it be to contain such extraordinary powers?

From the shape and the tone, it only looked as if it was of some human's, but those snake-like moving black symbols prove otherwise.

Anyways, I don't care since it is now in my hands!

I was just a child when I had read the scripture for this ritual. The purpose of this ritual was to sacrifice those hundreds of children to create this horrifying monster.

However, creating this abomination was not the end goal. The last part was for the person to absorb its power and transcend the limit of mortals!

Just imagining the strength that I could obtain from it gives me gooseb.u.mps.

The only problem in this ritual was that despite the colossal sacrifice, the monster still needed a catalyst to stabilize its power.

I had long ago given up on this ritual when I found out how strong of a catalyst. It was only recently when I listened to the report of one of my spies in the Capital City.

Who would've thought that behind the recent rise of Duke was just a leg?! It was funny, no matter how you look at it.

Just a little more... and the whole world will come to know of me, Podas! Yes, I may have an unusual name, but the world will tremble upon hearing this name in the future!

My dreams were in front of me, waiting for me to grab hold of them.

There were only a few minutes left before the completion of the monster when I felt someone with a huge Mana pool rus.h.i.+ng towards my location!

This amount of Mana would not lose to mine, a Rank-8 Mage's. Wait... it could not be the Duke, right?

Even if it's not the Duke, the person rus.h.i.+ng here would not be my friend.

This would make things a little tricky if he arrives at this time! I had created all those distractions for this moment not to be disrupted.

There were many Beasts of high ranks to stop small-timers from coming near this location. At the same time, most of the upper echelons of the Eclipse's Order were also surrounding me.

Just as I was thinking ways to deal with the person rus.h.i.+ng here, one of my men told me that someone had managed to get past all those Beasts.

I looked towards the direction he was pointing at and noticed three teens. How could people so young manage to get past all those Beasts?!

Did I miss something and created some trail for them to follow here?

However, I could not bother to deal with some pipsqueaks. I ordered my men to deal with those while I prepare to deal with the Rank-8 Mage that is rus.h.i.+ng here.

Anyways, I'm confident in myself to at least keep the guy at bay for some time before that monster emerges.

And once it does, I'll crush all my enemies, hahaha...!!!