There were loopholes in his story… quite a few holes for it to be passable. His story was all over the place, and so were his words and sentences; incoherent. If I try to make some sense from his words, then the only thing which I get from all that is….
'The current Guardian of Fire, Vulcan, is residing in this forest and he is the reason for every change that has happened so far here. In addition to that, all the monsters look up to that Guardian, with their own twisted views, including these minotaurs. Although it was interesting to know that another Guardian is here, I am not really interested in him unless he interferes with my plan anyhow… what I want to know is,' I thought before speaking,
"Not to sound rude, but can you just tell me the method of how you convert a person into a minotaur?"
I was initially intrigued to listen to his story, but now all I see is a bunch of nonsense which is only going to deviate to the point where he will try to recruit me or something.
Looking at him, he didn't seem really happy about me ignoring him, but still he spoke without changing his demeanor.
"We place the unconscious person in the centre of this circle, then we pour blood on the person. For the blood we use three sacrificial minotaurs and another one for its head to be replaced immediately with the person who is to be converted," he said gesturing towards the carpet we were standing on.
He spoke with a smile on his face, as if he was trying to boast about their method before continuing,
"There is a circle here that helps to hold the minotaur blood and its mana from escaping and concentrate it all at its centre. The unconscious person's head is replaced during the conversion ceremony as swiftly as possible. The rest is just a blessing from the Fire Guardian Vulcan."
I looked at him without turning back. I could sense the fury emanating from my party members as they looked at that minotaur with disgust. Even I felt like killing that old minotaur, for a moment, as brutally as possible before I calmed myself down cause there were two more things that I needed to know,
"Can you show me the magic circle?"
He looked at me and nodded with a bright smile and then removed the carpet from there, revealing a bright red magic circle etched on the floor. I observed it and pretty much as I guessed, I couldn't understand even one bit of it.
I then looked at Ariel, wondering if she understood anything, and she looked at me before speaking,"I can make out the letters, but I just know the alphabets and nothing more."
"Copy it then. We can learn about it later," I spoke, and she looked at me with a scared look before she asked,
"What are you going…" though she stopped in between as her voice got lower and lower and I sighed before speaking,
"I just want to know the process and see if I can change it accordingly. I am not planning anything heinous, okay? At least trust me that much, idiot."
Hearing my words, she became a bit calm, however she still was looking at me with doubtful eyes as she gulped a few times while looking at me. I, ignoring her, looked at that minotaur before I asked one last question.
"How many in this settlement have the same mindset as yours? Do they know about the ritual?"
And he looked at me with a confused expression as he spoke,"why, of course, they know all about it; and yes they are all the same as both of us. Why did you ask such a simple question?"
I kept myself quiet before I looked outside where the children, men and women were and walked as I glanced at everyone present in the settlement before speaking to the old man,
"Can you show me proof of their loyalty?"
I used blood magic to create a small red fire ball at which everyone began staring at me before I clicked my finger…
-Click
And erasing all the charm magic possibly present in the entire area. I then looked at that minotaur before speaking again,
"Continue doing whatever you were doing," and he looked at me with a complicated expression as he hesitated before speaking loudly,
"Friends and family, this young man here is just like us. A being that has obtained powers by similar means rising way above those of his kins and now this being is questioning our loyalty to the great cause. Tell him what do you live for?"
"We live to become stronger!!
"Tell him what do you live for?"
"We live to achieve the highest power."
"Tell him what you can do to achieve that?"
"We will do anything as long as we can achieve that!"
"Can you sacrifice yourself for the cause!!!"
"We can!!"
"Can you sacrifice your wife, your parents, even your children for the cause?"
"We can!!"
"Can you-
I then cut his head in front of everyone as I couldn't take it anymore. This is beyond reasoning…
I saw the faces of the people, the children, the women and others, but… they are beyond saving. Each of them was the same, with no exception whatsoever, not even the youngest ones… they'll do anything for the 'cause'.
This was absolute madness… damn! This is… I guess, in the end, they are monsters, so I should have at least expected this from them…
"Kill all of them except the children," I spoke and my party members, without any hesitation, moved towards those… monsters.
For the next few minutes, all I heard were screams. The monsters were dying, but it didn't sound bad for some reason… it in fact sounded pleasing… Wait a sec?! Am I becoming a sadist or something?! ….
After everything was done, I saw the children collected in one place and I moved towards them with my eyes fixated on them. They looked at me with pure horror in their eyes and my party members were wondering what we should do with them. Though I already knew what I was going to do with them,
"Blood Sacrifice: Disorientated Illusion," I spoke and then their eyes turned blank before I pointed at the gate beyond which the forest lied and they ran towards it.
"What did you do?" Vatra asked as she looked at me with a bit of a complicated and confused look and I just sighed before speaking.
"I changed them… their nature, you can say? Like I made them into monsters as they should be, erased their intelligence whatsoever they had and now… they will do everything solely based on their instinct…"
Everyone looked at me before Ariel asked,"Was that the right thing to do?"
"I don't know. I just did what I was capable of," I spoke and they looked at me with an odd look before they sighed again. Illiara then spoke,"at least it is better than killing them. Despite being monsters… I don't know… it didn't feel good thinking about killing children."
Yetris seemed like he was unhappy with my decision and I kind of wondered why before I thought… perhaps he wanted to kill them?
As for Ariel and Dion, they looked really glad with what I did. In fact, they were smiling at me and I gave a tired smile in return before looking back at the main hut in the middle of the settlement before speaking.
"Did you take note of that circle?"
Ariel, who was looking in the same direction as me, adjusted her glasses before speaking,"Yes, I got all of it, down to the last detail."
"How long before you can crack it?" I asked as I kept observing the settlement around me and wondered if I could find something else of interest, but after a few moments of analysing, I stopped looking because I could not find anything here.
"Well, then… I guess that leaves us with her," I spoke as I looked at that girl in front of me with the head of the minotaur. Honestly, I have no idea what to do with her… hmmm… or actually there is something that I can do here perhaps…
"Can I have some alone time with her?" I asked as I looked at Vatra and she was a bit scared at first, pondered over it before she nodded. Illiara and Illiana, though, moved in front of Flare with their weapons pointed towards me.
I ignored them as I moved towards Flare before speaking,"if I wanted to kill her… do you really think you guys could stop me?"
My eyes were looking down on them while I passed them before reaching Flare and said,"let's go."
Illiara and Illana just stood there still in their positions. I didn't look at their expressions, but most probably they were too scared to even move…
Flare then followed behind me towards the forest as we reached a little distance from the settlement. I made sure that there was no one watching us and finally, when I was sure there was on one, I looked at Flare before speaking,
"Blood Assimilation Magic."
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