Ten minutes later, and the Ritual Formation was finally done. Arachne was barely awake as she was being kept distracted by all her friends and Celes water splashes. She was very strong, resisting the urge to sleep by her deadly sin was sothing incredible and comndable.
Maria quickly carried her half-sleep daughter towards the center of the Ritual, where she had carved an altar made of Death Stone, refined, and synthetized with Demonite Crystals of the highest impurity.
This altar was the centerpiece of this Demonic Ritual, Maria had copied it at 100% accuracy from how it was depicted in the Demonic Grimoire. There was a huge pentagram made out of corpses, blood, and souls surrounding the Altar.
It looked ugly and utterly vile, but this was the only way. She was using the corpses of the vampires, which were the strongest corpses she had. Most of them were already zombies, so it was easy for her to tell them to place themselves where she wanted.
Following that, each tip of the pentagram's star contained one special node, where she placed one hundred souls, it didn't matter what they were, but they had to be in constant agony, so, although it pained her to do this, she placed them in cauldrons, boiling with liquified Demonite.
It didn't really matter much though, these were the souls of all the evil vampires that kidnapped and tortured children and people through the various cities, so it wasn't as if they didn't deserve this punishnt.
Maria was harsh, but only against those that deserved it.
"Mama..." Arachne cried, looking at her mother. "I'm sleepy... Hurry..."
"Okay, let's do this," Maria nodded. "Everyone, are you ready?"
The third step of the formation was the aid of everyone else.
Indeed, to maintain this entire ritual, the ancient warlocks and demonic wizards used the mana and lifeforce of other warlocks!
Those already imbued with demonic powers such as the children like Fabian, his friends, Takeshi, Laura, and others were perfect.
Aside from them, Maria had also asked Tyr to help, making him fuse with the entire formation and making chaos energies and miasma flow through everything.
While holding the grimoire, Maria started to chant as she sat down in the altar right next to Arachne, indeed, there were two altars.
The transfer process was slow and painful, but this was the only way.
"Lord of Eternal Sins, I invoke your malice into these unholy grounds."
"With six hundred wailing souls, in perpetual agony."
"With one hundred corpses, fresh and recently dead."
"And with the Mana and Lifeforce of my fellow cultists, I invoke your malicious presence!" FLUOSH!
Suddenly, crimson and black flas started lighting up one after another, across all pentagrams. At the sa ti, the environnt beca incredibly heavy, everyone could feel how it beca increasingly harder to breathe.
A demonic, otherworldly presence erged, and it didn't even co from this world, no, it didn't co from Yggdrasil at all, it ca from the depths of the tower, in the floors known as the "minus floors", where all seven layers of hell resided.
This was the origin of the Sins, and why the Warlocks of ancient tis invoked them here was still a trendous mystery, perhaps to fight against the invading Gods led by Odin, or perhaps for another motive entirely.
Whatever was the case, to be allowed to move a Sin from one vessel to another, the conjurer had to invoke the Presence of the Archdemon that controlled it.
And the Archdemon that Controlled the Sin of Sloth was...
RUMBLE!
The flas surged, slowly taking shape, into the faint figure of a gigantic being, large and muscular, yet with a pair of crimson, lazily looking eyes.
It had several spiraling horns growing upwards, and its face couldn't be discerned.
The Presence was but a small fragnt of the Archdemons true powers, and it wasn't even their complete consciousness either.
By offering all these sacrifices, the Archdemon's Will, as Maria wanted to call it, was summoned.
"I invoke you, Lord of Stagnation, father of laziness, master of slothfulness, Archdemon of Sloth, Belphegor!"
Maria continued the invocation, as Belphegor's presence made itself clear.
Everyone in the surroundings felt an incredible, intense drowsiness.
He didn't speak, he couldn't bother to.
He looked lazily at Maria for a second and blinked.
"I implore of you, Archdemon of Sloth, allow this small, weak vessel so respite. And let the Sin of Sloth rest within my own body, as I am more fit for its existence!"
||||
The flas flickered and the demonic runes spun around the entire pentagram, Belphegor only watched lazily, about to fall asleep himself.
Then, there was silence, Maria had to await Belphegor's approval.
"You... Why... do you even bother?" he yawned, with the voice of an old, lazy man. "Hahh... I
can't even... sleep well right now... so annoying, do as you please. Leave alone."
He quickly disappeared; indeed, he acted just as Maria expected an Archdemon of Sloth would
do!
She was given permission, as the ritual finally and properly began.
RUMBLE!
The demonic flas flickered, transforming into two rivers and piercing Arachne and Maria's chests, rapidly reaching the depths of their souls.
CLASH!
CLASH!
"Ugh...!"
"Aaagh!"
Even Maria felt the pain of this ritual, it was sothing she would have to share with little
Arachne.
However, for her, it didn't matter how much pain she would go through, if it would help her daughter finally led a happier life.
"Don't worry, Arachne... I will carry the sin for you instead."
"Ma... ma..."
Arachne fell asleep after that, and so did Maria.
The two souls found themselves drowning through an endless sea of demonic flas and
shadows.
They tried engulfing them, and as Maria tried to reach Arachne, the girl was quickly dragged
into the depths by sothing else.
Countless black, fleshy tendrils.
"Arachne!"
Maria moved towards her, battling the flas and the shadows, moving as fast as she could.
"Do you think... I will let you... take her away from ...?"
The voice of a tenebrous entity reverberated through the entire mindscape.
And then Maria saw it, countless crimson eyes staring at her, and countless black colored,
fleshy tendrils aiming at her soul.
Maria knew what this entity was.
It was the Sin of Sloth itself!
"Arachne is mine... she's mine... my perfect vessel... We shall... sleep forever... together... we're
inseparable... You... YOU DIE!"
Yet Maria did not panic, she knew exactly what to do.
After all, this was the exact next step of the ritual.
To "steal" the Sin of Sloth from Arachne, Maria had to first beat him in a battle of souls.
"Bring it on..."
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