Shepherd Tantra

Chapter 781: The Ritual of Creating Monsters

March 21st, night.

Aleister, the honey badger, along with Prince Szijjártó and Fenrir, all gathered under the moonlight to watch the Moon Witch Selene perform the ceremony.

This is the first day of spring, which means the resurrection of all things and the rebirth of life from the dead. On March 21, the sun will appear in Aries... Aries is the constellation representing Xi Tiansi, Xi Tiansi itself is the third sun in this world, and Xi Tiansi is also Hengwo’s lover, split self and her son.

Therefore, this is the night when the concept of "creation" is the strongest throughout the year - no doubt about it!

Selene put on a pure white woolen robe, faced the moon, and washed her hands carefully in a silver basin. When she washed her hands, she seemed to be concentrating on stroking the moon in the water.

"What is this doing?"

Szijjártó asked Aleister modestly.

But Aleister could only shake his head.

Not to mention her - I'm afraid even the well-informed elves in the Theocracy know nothing about this. Only Haibasha, who sold the Egg Moon Secret to Aiwass, can answer this question.

After all, the Moon Witch itself is a lost tradition, and the last Moon Witch is Hengwo himself. And Aleister is not qualified to read the "Ovum-Moon Secret Sutra", so he can't understand what Selene is doing.

However, the essence of the ritual is interconnected.

She therefore tentatively inferred: "Perhaps it is to touch the 'moon in the water' to complete the twin mirror ritual. The sacred number of the moon can be 1, the sacred number of water as a mirror is 2, and 3..."

As Aleister whispered, Selene raised her hands, which were shining in the moonlight, from the water and let the water fall on her head and wet her long hair.

She raised her hands high towards the moon, then used the nails of her little fingers on each hand to cut the palm of her other hand - only her little fingers had long nails, which were as sharp as knives.

When the blood dripped into the silver basin, it did not disperse in the water. Instead, it gathered together, turning the moon in the basin into a blood moon.

Then, Selene began to chant clumsily but sincerely in the Elvish language.

The light singing reminds people of the sea, the breeze and the moonlight.

"...I understand. The sacred number three can mean self-sacrifice. The blood offered is also a kind of dedication, which fits the holy day of March 21st and calls upon the power of creation."

Aleister realized that his inference was not wrong.

She recalled another thing - Cardinal Cyril once mentioned to Aiwass the secret of the Night Hare Treasure Book. The so-called "Treasure Book" may be another translation of the "Secret Book" in the beginning.

As mentioned above, the eternal self has abandoned the old self ten times. The first three times were abandoning clothes, abandoning flesh and blood, and abandoning shadows, and the last three were abandoning reason, abandoning instinct, and abandoning the true self.

Precisely because He has abandoned everything, the Eternal Self is left with only "I", so He will eventually become "the Eternal Self".

Selene also explained to Aleister where her werewolf power came from - it was the "Morning Crow Secret Sequel" about Xi Tiansi that Aiwass had read. She also heard similar whispers... However, she failed to complete the trial of "discarding shadows" and only gained the werewolf power from the trial of "discarding flesh and blood".

Aristotle, the apostle of the great philosopher, once wrote an important work called "Organon". The syllogism was proposed from this book. This book is an elective course in college, and Aiwass read this book when he was reading in the library... because it is very close to the classics of occultism, and it describes the secrets and truths of many things in a metaphorical way.

In the "Categories" of this book, Aristotle used the word "category" to describe the unity of form and matter, and gave ten kinds of existence: entity, quantity, quality, relationship, place, time, posture, all, active, and passive. The latter nine are all extensions of "entity".

This corresponds exactly to the ten times of abandonment of the eternal self... The things abandoned in the first nine times are just extensions of the "true self". Only the tenth abandonment is the most critical act of ascension.

"In other words, the holy number for Hengwo's ascension to God is... ten?"

Aleister murmured in a low voice: "But, is there a tenth way... or is it the disassembly of 9 and 1? Love separated from the unchanging eternity... then what will it be if it is put back together again?" The fusion of eternity and love, this sounds like an extremely subtle paradox.

如同3+7的道途融合——献出自我者与统帅他人者，形成了一個无比契合的环；而2+8则意味着超越一面镜子，这同样会形成一个反复循环的环。巧合的是，1+9的组合也组成了这样虚无的环……

Does this mean that the tenth path is a non-existent nothingness... or does it mean that the tenth path itself is "nothingness"?
"The tenth path?"

Fenrir heard Aleister's whispers.

He spoke casually, "I have heard other astrologers talk about similar hypotheses - there may be a tenth path or a zeroth path in this world. Because the current nine paths are not enough to explain everything... Just like when we deduce the stars sometimes, we find that the results of the deduction do not match, which is often because there is an extra star that has not been discovered before.

"Beyond the Nine Great Paths, there are other powers. Some people believe that it is 'zero', but I tend to think that it is a level higher than 'eternity', a paradoxical ring of 'one more than infinity'... Speaking of which, which do you think is greater, 'infinity' or 'infinity plus one'?"

"Infinity plus one."

Aleister answered without hesitation, as if someone had asked her the same question before.

"Me too! You think the same as I do... No wonder you believe there is a tenth path!"

Fenrir was very happy with the answer given by Aleister: "Some of us thought that they were the same size, so there shouldn't be a tenth path that is larger than the number of dusk, so the extra variable can only be the zeroth path..."

Aleister didn't pay much attention to Fenrir's words, but just focused on Selene's creation ceremony.

She sang the ancient ballad while circling the basin. Every time her shadow covered the basin, she secretly sprinkled some of Alphonse's Moon Child bone powder into it. When she turned the sixth circle, she had scattered all the ashes in it.

In the seventh circle, she poured a tube of Aleister's blood into it, thus confirming the blood relationship between the new monster and Aleister.

In the eighth circle, she also threw the contaminated "Eyes of Mercy" given to her by Aleister into the ritual. This ritual would not deplete its power, but would purify it with the power of the Eternal Self.

In the ninth round, she threw in the Fool's Liver, which had lost its soul but still had a strong aroma of wine. This was a material that was directly consumed. Aleister felt that it would be bad to keep this thing for a long time, so it was better to use it up quickly and transform it into combat power.

Then she returned to her starting position.

Selene suddenly raised her hand as if she had grabbed a handful of moonlight!
She clenched her hands so tightly that her fists trembled - the wounds on her hands, which had originally been bleeding, slowly seeped out a golden transparent liquid that emitted a rich fragrance.

That is the "Emperor's Sap" that draws power from the "Moonlight" to create monsters.

Plants and trees affected by it will become monsters, and ordinary people who touch it will go crazy.

The witch created the werewolf in imitation of the moon witch's ability; the werewolves go crazy when they see the moon, also because of their inherent flaws.

As golden threads dripped from her clenched fists, connecting her to the blood moon in the water like olives... Selene closed her eyes and sensed it like a puppeteer.

The water was bubbling with increasingly dense and larger blood bubbles, and the liquid gradually turned from transparent to bright red.

A sharp cry rang out of nowhere, shaking Prince Szijjártó so much that he could not help but cover his ears - but it was useless, the sound could penetrate his hands and everything. His eyes instantly turned red, and strong anger and restlessness filled his eyes. He bent over, clenched his hands and pulled his own ears, his arms shaking vigorously, as if he wanted to tear his ears off directly.

Aleister and Fenrir also clearly felt a strong nausea and vomiting. Aleister was still able to hold up his shaky body, but Fenrir's reaction was more severe - he knelt on the ground and suddenly began to vomit.

Only the honey badger had a relatively small reaction. She just frowned slightly and looked at the silver pool with a diameter of less than one meter.

Increasingly strong blood surged from it, and the shaking blood stained the silver and hung on the wall, forming layers of increasingly rich light pink blood film.

Finally, something crawled out!
(End of this chapter)