Aurora Scroll

Chapter 520 - Destiny Given Form

Izabella watched the traitorous Restil as he sank into a bloody sandpit that suddenly appeared under his feet. The guy struggled but who was he to deny the Blood Goddess her due?

When Izabella agreed to become a Vampire Progenitor by accepting a single drop of Yasterah’s blood, it came with a condition: one in every three of her ‘children’, meaning the vampires she would create and become her household.

On the seventh night of their birth as a vampire, Yasterah expected Izabella’s sacrifice.

Izabella then thought she could use this to her advantage. After all, nobody knew the details of her deal with the Blood Goddess. The leadership of the Blood Church didn't even know she was a Vampire Progenitor. They thought she was just a Vampire Noble, which was something below a Progenitor.

Alan was her right-hand man. She had known him for many years and his loyalty had been proven again and again. He was the first person Izabella accepted into her vampiric family.

Helene was the second. She was a Blood Church acolyte that Izabella had scouted. She was still young but her talents were undeniable. In the Blood Church, she was also tightly tied to Izabella’s own faction. With careful consideration, Helene became the second ‘child’.

Restil’s vampirification was the result of politics. He was Izabella’s rival in the Blood Church. They were gunning for the seat of Vice-Vicar in the past and Izabella got it. However, Restil’s clique kept growing and heavily pressured Izabella’s who had to make many concessions so they would support the raid on the Tower of Remorse.

Izabella’s aim was to free her captured sister. The Blood Church wanted something else. They made Restil their proxy. Izabella knew the bastard would stab her in the back. She carefully set down the board so that when the raid happened, it would be close on the seventh night of Restil’s transformation.

He had no idea he was a sacrificial lamb from the start.

“You! You planned this!” Restil said as he was sinking into the mysterious red quicksand.

“Say my greetings to mother,” Izabella looked down on him with an ice-cold stare.

Her vampiric constitution was no joke. After removing the knife, the wound in her torso had already stopped bleeding.

“YOU BIIIIIIIIIIITCH!!!”

Restil was taken by the Demon Goddess directly into Hell. What fate awaited him, Izabella did not know. However, this was the last time she expected to see Restil ever again. The members of the Blood Church that were loyal to Izabella quickly turned the tables on the other cultists who had sided with Restil.

No mercy on the traitors.

Izabella was a bit worried that the unique dimensional defenses in the Tower of Remorse were unbreachable by the Blood Goddess but she gambled on the deity's power nonetheless. After all, what human works could stand against the power of a god?

“Izabella my sweet child, I have accepted your sacrifice.”

A crystalline blood rose bloomed after the sandpit turned normal. Izabella heard Yasterah’s voice a second time through the medium.

“My Sanguine Lady,” Izabella knelt.

“While I enjoy the little scheme you enacted, I don't appreciate having to work for a gift that should be rightfully mine. Just this one time, child. Understand?”

“Perfectly. Thank you for your grace, Your Holiness.”

“Fufufu. By the by, I feel the presence of... Oh my. Are we having a family meeting and no one told me? How rude.”

Izabella didn't quite understand what she was saying but at this time, a powerful tremor shook the entire place.

***

The Wicked Tempters, followers of Dumuzin, the Demon God of Soul and Madness.

Yuri was the son of the Grandmaster of the cult, Georgi. For all intents and purposes, he was the crown prince of the Dumuzin Cult’s throne. He was the leader of this expedition.

Their objective in participating in the assault on the Tower of Remorse was to create a new Demon King.

The previous Demon King had been defeated nearly 800 years ago. Since then, no new Demon King had risen. That was because the followers of Estelle had separated the Demon King’s body throughout the continent and placed them under heavy seals. This made inheriting the Demon King’s power very difficult.

Out of all the seven great demon cults, the Wicked Tempters were the one gunning for the Demon King’s sealed body parts the most. They had repeatedly tried to unseal parts of the Demon King but the Silver Legion always thwarted their plans.

Grandmaster Georgi then finally decided that enough was enough and decreed the creation of a new Demon King.

It was a dizzying conundrum, after all the Demon King meant the lord of all demons in this world. The power of the Demon King, the one that had been passed down through the ages, was a joint creation of all seven Demon Gods.

The new Demon King was commissioned only by Dumuzin, but the being had to possess a power no weaker than its predecessor or there would be no point. So they had to find a way to create a Demon King without the help of the other six.

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The question was, how?

“Perhaps not directly but how about indirectly?”

It was Yuri who proposed the idea. The cults fought each other as much as they fought the Church. For decades, the Wicked Tempters gathered relics and other vessels that contained the power of the other six Demon Gods. They also siphoned power from the sealed Demon King body parts where they could. After years and years of grueling work, they were finally ready.

They only needed to find a suitable inheritor for the newly created Demon King’s power, which was easier said than done. All test subjects that absorbed that power died gruesomely before transforming into the king of demons.

Yuri was interested in the power but he did not fancy dying. The search for a suitable vessel continued. After eight years of searching, the cult found a promising candidate. After receiving a small portion of the power, not only did the subject not die, but he also developed in the desired direction.

Only, during the testing phase, he went a bit too far and drew the attention of the Silver Legion. He was captured and sent to the Tower of Remorse. The fact that he was a Demon King candidate remained oblivious.

But now, the time was ripe. The Wicked Tempters under Yuri’s leadership infiltrated the Tower of Remorse and turned the candidate into a fully fledged Demon King.

The candidate wasn't even a Level 3 originally, but after taking in the power of the Demon King, he was able to defeat Warden Myers, a Level 5 peak.

And the newly born Demon King was far from his full strength.

What a lovely pawn we have, Yuri thought.

Despite his subservient form on the surface, the Wicked Tempters did not create a new Demon King out of the goodness of their heart to further the cause of chaos as a whole. No. They did it for their own benefit first and foremost. With the Demon King on their side, the cult of Dumuzin would overtake all the other cults in importance and power. The future where they reign dominant was in front of their eyes!

Being so close to a Demon King was not something that Yuri had experienced before. The aura of madness spreading from the man had already warped the prisoners’ minds. Some were doing self-harm, some were lost in their own thoughts, others were seeing things that weren't there, and so on.

Each Demon King was different, but because Dumuzin was heavily responsible for its creation, the aspect of madness seemed to be the most prominent.

Madness of the soul.

Despite already preparing for this, Yuri was surprised by the intensity of it. This aura alone, if spread unchecked, could cause untold damage to countless people. No wonder a Demon King was a continental threat.

“My Lord, now that you’ve awakened, please follow us. I, your loyal servant, have already prepared a hundred virgins of various races as a congratulatory gift,” Yuri said.

The Demon King, a man with long white hair and silver eyes, sat on top of Myers' chest with his head down the entire time. He did not respond to Yuri’s words. The Demon King’s demeanor was clearly different from the host’s from the report that Yuri read.

This troubled him deeply. Did the previous him even exist anymore, or was the body occupied by something else? How loyal was the Demon King to the cult? To Dumuzin? The bindings seem to be in place but was it effective? Against the lord of madness no less? The power was there and he reacted against those hostile to him, like the case with Myers. Since the fight, the Demon King remained unresponsive.

Surely Yuri couldn't show hostility just to catch a reaction from him. A single look at the great warden, broken all over, was enough to dissuade him from that idea.

After a long silence, the cult wasn't quite sure what to do. At this moment, the Demon King raised his head and looked at the ceiling.

“...Aurora Scroll...”

Immediately afterwards, the entire Tower of Remorse was hit with tremors of unnatural intensity.

***

The first ones who realized the sign were the people fighting outside the Tower of Remorse.

The defenders had put up a valiant effort against the much greater invading cult forces but it was obvious they were at the end of their ropes.

The only Level 5 still fighting on the defensive side was Gregory, Freya’s master, and the guy had seen better days.

Meanwhile, the joined cult forces still had Grausam the Catastrophe and Marlborough the Undying Juggernaut. The Level 5 experts from the Warbringers and the Death Society only had very light wounds and were still at full battle strength.

When the rain of blood happened, these experienced men knew it had something to do with the Blood Church. Worse still, they sensed the sliver of presence from its deity.

Yasterah was no friend of any of them. Even if the Blood Demoness couldn't directly manifest in this world, as was the case for all the big seven, a single word from her projection could still destroy them. To a being such as her, a Level 5 was no different than an ant.

What was happening inside?

Grausam and Marlborough wondered this more than Gregory, because their cult too had designs in the Tower. If their forces succeed...

Then the sky split open as a single ray of bright light descended on the ground. The rain of blood was erased in an instant and supplemented with a majestic curtain of rainbow-colored aurora.

The beam of light hit directly on the Tower of Remorse and, to everyone’s wonder, unraveled the layered pocket dimensions.

From the first floor to the fifth, everyone inside could now see the rainbow aurora in the sky as if they were in a building with no roof.

With the barrier between the prison floors erased, those with a powerful presence could be sensed. It was as if there were suddenly multiple tigers and lions appearing in a small room.

Freya and the others weren't able to process the words that the Demon God of Ice and Time said to them before significant changes happened to the Tower of Remorse.

“Yasterah, Lichzen, Banbexi, Dumuzin, and me... Because so many of us were tearing through the dimensional barrier, something hidden has shown itself. Or perhaps, this event is notable enough to warrant its attention.”

“Greater Demon, what are you up to?” Freya asked.

“...And so it comes,” Isidaris said from behind the rift between spaces while looking at the object forming beneath the changed sky. The healed Olivia knelt at her feet. “Destiny given form.”

***

Tanael watched the ray of light cleave the Tower of Remorse’s pocket dimensions until the fifth floor. He sensed the dreadful presence of powerful beings more clearly now but despite how powerful they were, it seemed everything was engulfed by the ray of light.

Soon, the ray of light dimmed and the shadow of an object could be seen. At the same time, a face appeared in the sky. It was gigantic and androgynous. The face seemed to be made of starlights. It opened its mouth and spoke. The voice could be heard by all, even the deaf.

***

“As is written in the Aurora Scroll, the start of a new age begins here, at this crossroad.”

“Whoever obtains me shall be the herald of the new age, the Age of Heroes.”

“Although the outcome is already written within me, it has not set in stone for any of you. Life or death, rise or fall. The choice, as ever, is yours to make.”

“So mote it be.”