Standing atop the summoning circle beneath his feet, Orsaga took a light sniff of the air.
He could already smell the heavy stench of blood drifting nearby.
"Are the sacrificial offerings for the Demon Summoning ritual ready?" he asked calmly.
The steward gulped down a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva and bowed with utmost reverence.
"Yes, my lord! Everything has been fully prepared—we're only waiting for you to begin the summoning!"
At his words, a streak of blood-red light flared from Orsaga's fingertip, vanishing into the void.
In the next moment, a section of empty sky rippled outward in expanding crimson rings.
Even the less perceptive greater-Rank Demons present sensed something—some hidden presence had been veiled from detection, its malicious intent cloaked by the will of the plane itself.
One by one, their heads turned toward the disturbance.
Staring into the distance, Orsaga calmly stated,
"Your security is far too lax. You didn't even notice you were being watched. Fortunately, the preparations are already complete. Otherwise, we'd have wasted even more time."
The steward didn't understand exactly what Orsaga had done, but the meaning was clear enough. Cold sweat broke out across his forehead as he bowed and muttered in a low voice,
"Thank you for your intervention, my lord… without it, we'd have been completely unaware…"
Shaking his head slightly, Orsaga's voice transmitted directly into the minds of the other greater-Rank Demons.
"Let's begin the Demon Summoning. The main forces from other factions may be arriving soon."
With that, he casually took Alison and Golarial by his side and walked unhurriedly toward the nearby Blood Altar.
---
The moment he appeared, the Chloroya merchant guild members who were still making final preparations jumped in fright.
But sensing the unmistakable abyssal aura radiating from him, they quickly regained their composure, stepping aside and bowing slightly in greeting.
"My lord, shall we begin the ritual now?"
Orsaga gave a calm nod.
"Begin."
Meanwhile, Alison and Golarial were left utterly shaken by the scene before them.
The ritual site was surrounded by towering iron stakes covered in barbed thorns, and atop them were countless mutilated corpses, strung up, impaled, or tossed in chaotic heaps.
Humans, dwarves, beastfolk, merfolk, dragons, wild beasts…
Their blood had been extracted drop by drop through magical instruments, flowing into the summoning circle. The heat of the ritual caused the blood to swirl in the air, forming grotesque symbols both on the ground and in the sky.
A closer look revealed that the symbols were composed entirely of interwoven faces—twisted, screaming, weeping.
Grotesque. Disturbing. Saturated in blood.
That was the theme here.
The overwhelming stench of blood, mixed with heat and rot, assaulted their senses like a hammer to the gut. Their elven instincts flared in rejection, and both women felt nausea rise in their throats.
Only through sheer willpower did they suppress the urge to vomit.
Their reactions didn't escape the notice of either Orsaga or the guild's members.
The stewards, though momentarily startled, lowered their heads and said nothing—quickly returning to their tasks.
Orsaga scanned the altar dispassionately and said to the two women,
"This is just a small-scale operation. Barely a few million corpses."
"In many worlds, that's the equivalent of a single orbital bombardment."
"The only reason this unsettles you is because it's presented in such a raw, visceral way."
"In truth, war and conquest in every world follow the same principles. The only difference lies in method and presentation. Whether it's through cold steel or magical fire, it's still sacrifice through plunder."
"And plunder… is the very foundation of the Abyss."
"To steal and to kill—that is the purest expression of this place."
"You and your kind, if you wish to survive here, will encounter this again and again. So the sooner you get used to it, the better."
Before Alison or Golarial could reply, the other greater Demons arrived at the altar.
Orsaga's gaze briefly passed over the gluttonous demon—who looked as though he were contemplating drinking the blood pooled around the corpses.
"Let's begin," Orsaga said flatly.
He then activated his innate ability—unlocked upon reaching Greater-Rank Demon status—Demon Summoning.
---
Seeing him begin, the other Greater-Rank Demons, including the still-hungry glutton, followed suit without hesitation.
As their innate powers surged forth, several massive, abyssal energy currents spread outward from the five of them—converging toward the center of the sacrificial altar along ancient, magical paths.
The ritual runes lit up like starlight, writhing and twisting as though alive.
The grotesque symbols formed by the countless faces began to rotate.
Faint, mind-altering wails echoed through the air—too soft to be heard clearly, yet strong enough to gnaw at the edges of one's sanity.
The corpses, whose blood had already been drained, began to twitch as if jolted by a final surge of life.
In a grotesque display, they began to crawl toward the ritual's center—limb over limb, stacking atop one another.
What emerged was a writhing mountain of corpses.
"RUMBLE…"
Even the sky reacted.
The thunderclouds above, sensing the rising danger, began to churn violently. Lightning bolts tore through the sky, illuminating the area like daylight.
In response, several stewards from the Chloroya merchant guild shouted to their subordinates:
"Engage the anti-plane-suppression formation at full power! We cannot allow the ritual to be interrupted now!"
"Yes, sir!"
---
As the storm clouds grew denser and the lightning wilder, the Demon Summoning ritual neared completion.
The mountain of corpses, driven by the surging energy, began to explode one after another.
Their blood fused into a massive archway, over a hundred meters tall, shaped from flesh and bone.
Then, under the influence of some unspoken force, that blood turned into hundreds of mist-like crimson hands, each manipulated by one of the five Greater-Rank Demons.
Grasping the edges of the gate, they pulled.
"HUMMM…"
A deep, groaning sound echoed across the altar as the gate was slowly pried open.
And through it, Orsaga's will reached across the multiverse—back into the Abyss—where countless abyssal demons awaited their chance to be summoned.
Without hesitation, he and the other four Greater-Rank Demons hurled forth the contracts drafted by Ailorel.
In that moment, millions of waiting demons sensed the call.
Some were mildly curious. Others didn't bother to look.
But a small number were eager.
And in the Abyss, where numbers are endless, a small number still meant millions.
In a flash, every available summoning slot—tens of millions—was claimed by abyssal demons below Greater-Rank.
BOOM!
Without waiting for the gate to fully open, the summoned demons smashed through it—surging into the Seven Seas Realm in a chaotic flood.
Some even attacked their fellow demons, desperate to arrive a second faster.
In moments, the altar became a warzone of shrieking chaos.
And yet, to the entities present…
This was just another day in the Abyss.
__
T/N:
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