MTLNOVEL Chapter 112: Who was that?
Leo flinched as he looked at the moon that was almost near to Ophis. "Then let's do it faster!" he said as he took a knife from his backpack and,
Deep inhale~
He inhaled the air as his chest burned fast before spreading the mana into every inch of his body and,
Srcchhh
Leo started to carve around the altar with his strongest knife. He had spent most of his money on this blade just to kill Dracula, just in case… and it was working fine, exactly as he expected from the titanium-alloy, obsidian-etched knife.
The figure stared at Leo, who was moving faster as he drew the circle. The figure sighed. Even though it was the first time doing something like this, seeing the man still had his hopes up.
'Don't cry when you lose your hope,' it thought, before taking its own weapon and looking at the altar symbols one last time, then started to carve around the magic circle where Dracula hovered.
Within a few minutes… both of them were done carving the symbols. Leo panted heavily as his chest heaved with pressure and heat.
Leo and the figure stood aside as they watched… nothing happened.
The figure sighed. "I told you it's not goi—"
"Wait…" Leo raised his hand as he looked at Ophis. Her wrist was cut, and the blood swept down to the altar, so…
Leo looked at Dracula. "We need his blood," he said, raising his knife and sharply pointing toward the hovering body.
"Careful. A single mistake might break the ritual," the figure said, but Leo didn't listen; he just stared at Dracula's body… where could he get the connection… without breaking the ritual.
His leg… his neck… his arms… or….
"His butt."
The figure blinked when it heard Leo's words, and before it could say anything, Leo inhaled, channelled the energy to his fingers and,
SSShh!
The knife sliced through the air. Before—just a few inches—its blade grazed Dracula's butt, cutting the clothes and… skin!
Then the knife was turned crisp by the ritual's energy.
Still, it succeeded in one thing,
Drip…
A single drop of blood dripped from his butt to the ground… onto the symbols of the altar that the figure carved around.
Splash…
The blood splashed on the symbols… for a second, nothing happened, but then,
Spark…
The symbols flickered, and Leo's eyes widened in happiness as he looked around the altar—those magic circle, too, lit up.
SSSsslslnnnnggg
Then a flickering sound echoed in the underground as the blood started to flow out from Dracula's butt…
Due to the ritual, their healing ability was kind of halted, so his butt didn't heal up, and the magic started to suck his blood from the wound and…
A red thread-line appeared around the altar before moving and shooting toward Ophis, who flinched as her body connected with those red thread-lines… her skin glowed gently as her tired and weak expression slowly morphed into a healthier one.
And Dracula's face started to frown as he slowly grew weak.
Leo blinked and then sighed as he sat down in relief. "W-We did it," he muttered, almost crying.
"I-It worked…" The figure was taken aback as it glanced at Leo. He had managed to change the flow instead of breaking it.
A clever one indeed.
The figure smiled under the hoodie… however,
Crack…
Bright red cracks spread around the ritual symbols, as the air around them started to vibrate furiously.
"What's going on?" Leo shouted, seeing a huge wave of air and lightning sparking between the circles and the altar.
The figure frowned as it looked at the ritual and… realised something,
"Ah… shit."
"W-What?"
Leo panicked just when he thought everything was over.
"We created a loop," the figure muttered, pointing out the first ritual was still going on—which meant Dracula kept sucking energy from Ophis... and the second ritual had Ophis sucking energy from Dracula.
The two currents gnawed at each other, round and round, like twin serpents eating their own tails.
It's a loop.
It's a freaking loop.
The figure facepalmed with a disappointed expression, thinking it should have seen that coming.
"At this rate… both of them will die." The words fell flat and heavy, swallowed by the underground chamber's low, constant hum.
Leo's face turned pale. "I-I… I didn't mean… to," he stammered, looking at the moon that had almost reached Ophis.
Ophis's face trembled violently, as if her body couldn't keep up with whatever was happening here; sweat beaded along her brow, and the chains clancked with each tremor.
The figure patted Leo's shoulder. "You have done what you could… this is it." The voice tried to be gentle.
Leo bit his lips as he clenched his eyes. 'Why, God… WHY!!!' he screamed inwardly. He thought he had found a way to help her… a hope, only to be broken down.
Leo clenched his fist as he looked at the chains holding Ophis. The moon reached her face… just a few more… and everything would be over.
The circle's veins brightened, pulsing like a heart about to burst.
What if… he could just jump in and cut the chains before anything happened to Ophis?
That's practically suicide, just like the figure said, but… did he have any other choice—
"Here… carve this."
Leo flinched as a shadow of a green symbol flickered before his eyes like a hologram; a symbol appeared, sharp and intricate, a pattern that felt older than language.
"C-Carve What?" he asked, taken aback, looking at the figure, who was frowning. "What?"
Leo blinked as the green symbol disappeared. "Did you say something?"
The figure nodded. "Yeah, we need to go?"
"…" Leo frowned.
"FASTER!!"
Leo flinched again when he heard that voice in his mind. He immediately picked up a rock and started to draw the symbol that had just appeared in his vision, carved right at the middle of the ritual.
Stone grated under stone; sparks leapt like fireflies crushed into light.
"What are you doing, idiot?" the figure shouted, as the ritual spun out of hand... air shuddering, sparks skittering across the stone.
The Underground creaked. Thin cracks spidered outward from the altar, filling with glows of red and black like veins filling with fever.
Leo didn't care; he kept carving the symbol on the ground and stepped back. For a second, nothing happened—just the ritual spitting lightning and air around like a catastrophic failure.
"What the hell are you doing? We need to leave now!" The figure, without hesitation, grabbed Leo like a cat before he could struggle and was about to run away when—
"Wait!" Leo shouted as he saw the moonlight fall on Ophis, whose face instantly drained into a mummy-like figure. Her skin tightened over bone; a dry crackle ran through the chains as if they, too, were starving.
Leo's heart almost stopped, but then the moonlight struck the symbol he had just created. It suddenly flickered into a heavy reddish black and spread toward the two rituals that were happening, like a tendril and—
Spark!
A huge bolt of lightning sprouted from it like a root and hit both Ophis and Dracula simultaneously, covering them in bright light and then came roaring back in a single brutal wave.
BOOOMMMMMM!!
The entire underground trembled as the altar and everything around it blew apart with reddish-black lightning.
Underground Ceilings fractured and fell, smashing into shards. Shockwaves rippled the dust into rings that raced along the floor.
The figure, still holding Leo in its embrace, was hurled backwards by the sudden force... it happened so fast.
Only dust and reddish-black sparks flew in the underground, hissing through the dark