Blacksmith of the Apocalypse Chapter 1067. Paolo’s Time Away

Standing in a white open, golden gate, with a great formation in the background, was an old priest holding an impassioned speech.

“And he raised his hands to the sky and called forth a flock of winged creatures, so they would slay his enemy!” the elderly priest, wearing ostentatious robes cried out in his raspy voice. His wrinkled hands gestured to the sky, as golden rays fell on the crowd of young people before him.

Paolo was among the crowd. He had listened to the creation myth of this place. Not because he was interested, but because he had no other choice. Neither had the people in the crowd. All of them wore heavy handcuffs that suppressed mana and physical power.

Originally, he and his friend Marco had infiltrated the Voracious Cloud Continent to gather information independently to find out more about their potential enemies. Although one couldn’t call their journey calm or safe, it had not been a big problem to traverse the vast planes past the entrance.

Using the rough map and the mapping skill master Mountains had provided Minas Mar, the two had made their way all the way to the vicinity of the provincial capital. They had been able to more or less adapt to the way of the Cloud Continent and collected information from various brokers on the way.

However, things had gone awry in the morning when Marco left to get the information from the information broker. Not because they underestimated the people of the continent, but because a very familiar catastrophe had caught them by surprise.

On Urth, it had long been common knowledge for residential areas to be covered by apparatuses that would block the random opening of gates. This wasn’t the case on the Voracious Cloud Continent. Now, it had been several days since Paolo had been sucked into the Pathworks and was spat out in this foreign world.

The supporter had also been quite unlucky with his first encounter here. Before he could do anything to heal the spatial tears in his body or replace the ragged robed, he was already bound by cold iron chains, that blocked him from using skills or the inventory. This was just a day ago.

Taken for a villager, he was conscripted for this “blessing” against his will and had no idea what was going on as he was pushed among a group of youths, all waiting for the ritual. From what he was able to gather from the priest's convoluted speech, this ritual was a preparation for war.

A summary of the unending speech was that in this world a great saint built the current empire 1000-sothing years ago using the power to summon angel-like creatures. In this world, noble families ford blood pacts with various tribes among the divine beings to gain the right of summoning and part of their powers.

However, once summoned, these angels would choose their contractors themselves. Apparently, Paolo and the rest of the poor sobs here had the questionable honor of receiving the chance to beco a contractor. Technically, they were the people they threw against a wall to see what stuck.

Chosen ones would gain a great standing, as for those not chosen… they stayed suspiciously quiet about what happened to them. Although Paolo had no interest in this and wanted to find a way to quickly return to Urth, the healer saw no way to get out of this situation, so he just had to play along.

The priest’s speech finally ended, and it beca quiet. The ritual began. Paolo used the ti to observe the crowd better. Not all of them were chained here, there was a group of people obviously standing out.

Not being chained, and wearing fine, clean clothing were a bunch of teens and children. They were whispering and talking trying to keep a noble bearing about them. Whenever they glanced at the crowd Paolo was part of, they twisted their faces like they saw shit.

As a modern person he had not too much experience, but judging by the people of Chrona he saw, and stories he heard, he guessed that these were the noble descendants of the clan actually organizing this ritual.

“I guess having a blood relative being chosen is always the better option, compared to gifting power to so ragged stranger..:” the priest thought to himself sarcastically. To think they would even risk their own offspring in this...

His eyes wandered back to the formation, where the great priest finished his incessant chanting. However, nothing happened. Perturbed, the high priest and his assistant discussed this with the older generation of nobles that stayed in the background.

Several minutes later, they repeated the ritual to the sa extent. Nothing happened. Was he lucky and their gods didn't answer the prayers today? A man walked over to the group of nobles' children and told them sothing, Paolo was able to overhear.

“This is nothing unusual, it may take a few more tries. You can take a break while priests rest and recover for the next round,” he told them. Hoping he was lucky, what was he thinking? Many of the youngsters left, probably for more comfortable rooms, sa with their parents. anwhile the “conscripts” had to stay in the burning sun. Only a few teens stayed, now talking less constraint with each other

Paolo observed them, trying to glean sothing from their conversations, when he suddenly got a system prompt.