“This … is a complete set of items for the ritual?” Luther muttered under his breath.

He stood motionless for a long while, his brow knit tight as he wrestled with the weight of this discovery.

“Nonsense.”

He tried to keep a firm hold on his reason, attempting to convince himself that perhaps this was nothing more than an elaborate joke left behind by some clever and mischievous ancestor. Would he not look a fool if he followed through without a second thought, only to learn in the end that it was nothing more than an elaborate trick?

However, certain events that had happened today had already gone far beyond anything Luther could explain.

Why had the stone slab shattered at this very moment, on Halloween night under a blood moon, which just so happened to be the exact timing required for the ritual?

Why could he understand the Agares ancient tongue when he had never seen or heard a single word of it before?

Why … why was he so different from everyone else around him, or even unlike anyone else in this entire world?

There were many legends and stories about werewolves and vampires, dragons and fairies, spirits and demons, gods and devils. But was there any story about a living being like himself, someone who seemed not to exist at all?

Could this ritual be dangerous? Would it summon some kind of demon? Would it demand the sacrifice of his own soul?

Luther squeezed his eyes shut. Deep inside, he already knew what his decision was going to be.

He needed an answer. An answer to a question that had haunted him for almost fifteen years.

“Whatever it takes,” he whispered to himself.

In the worst case … if it killed me outright, maybe that wouldn’t be so terrible. It wouldn’t count as taking my own life, would it? I’m sorry, Grandpa. I’m just so very tired.

Holding the piece of animal hide in his hands, Luther began to follow the instructions written on it step by step.

“First, we need a space large enough with a diameter of ‘ten podes.’”

He realized that the ancient Agares language shared a certain similarity with ancient Greek, and even with English. All of them used “pous,” or “foot,” or the distance of a step, as a unit of measurement.

“About nine feet,” he muttered.

Luther looked around, judged the living room, then dragged the table from the center of the room into the kitchen. That still wasn’t enough, so he pushed the sofa against the wall next to the glass cabinet. Measuring the space once more and confirming that the empty area he had created was just a little over ten feet in diameter, he moved on to the next step.

After sweeping the floor clean, he took the ashes of the Exiled King and used them to draw a large circle with a diameter of nine feet. Then, in the middle of that circle, he drew a five-pointed star - a pentagram.

He hesitated.

“This … looks kind of evil,” he muttered, though his hand continued its work.

He had great grades in almost every subject at school, except for the arts. His drawing skills were awful. He stared dead at the uneven circle and crooked star he had just drawn. It looked misshapen no matter which angle he viewed it from.

Maybe being a little ugly wouldn’t make a difference, right?

He could only hope so.

Next, he placed the five candles of Aamon at each point of the five-pointed star. The three primary feathers of the hell crow were laid out across the western edge of the circle in measured spacing. Each of them was positioned so that half of its quill point was inside the circle while the other half extended outward.

At last, the vial of water from the Flow of Destiny was set at the inner edge of the circle, facing east.

Once everything was ready, Luther turned off the lights.

The entire room was enveloped in darkness, and the only faint source of light was the deep crimson glow of the blood moon shining through the window.

In a chilling, suffocating silence, he picked up the kitchen knife and made a small cut across his index finger, then touched the bleeding fingertip to the wick of each Aamon candle. The candles burst into flames the moment his blood seeped into them.

This ritual seems real! Luther took a deep breath.

The black flames roared to life. Inside the fire, it looked as though countless twisted faces were writhing and moaning in agony.

The sight of those demonic candles, combined with the blood-red moonlight streaming through the window, made the atmosphere in the room feel eerie beyond belief.

Luther stepped into the circle and sat down right in the center of the pentagram to begin the next step.

Raising the knife, without even a frown, he slashed across the palm of his right hand. Unlike the small cut on his finger earlier, this wound had to be much deeper and longer. Blood gushed out and dripped down. He pressed the bleeding palm down onto the ground, and the flames from the five candles flared up in a violent way.

The faces within the fire became clearer, and faint, painful wails began to echo throughout the entire room.

The blood from Luther’s hand did not form a puddle beneath his palm. Instead, as though guided by some invisible force, it split into five narrow streams flowing in different directions. When those streams reached the five-pointed star, they ran along the drawn lines, spreading all the way out to the outer circle, transforming the entire magic seal from the dull black-gray color of ash to a bright, glaring crimson.

Luther felt dizzy, and his body was growing colder and colder.

Perhaps I was losing too much blood.

He curled himself up, struggling to fend off the icy chill seeping into his body.

When the blood touched the Aamon candles, it climbed upward along the carved patterns on their wax bodies, eventually soaking the entire wick.

The flames changed color from pure black to a swirling mixture of red and black, and this bizarre fire spread across the star and the circle.

Although Luther was sitting right in the center of the burning seal, he didn’t feel a single trace of warmth.

His body grew even colder than before, and his mind started to fade.

The flames reached the golden feathers and burned them into ash in an instant. Then, countless raven feathers began appearing all around Luther. At first, they appeared as vague, indistinct shadows, but over time they sharpened into clearer, more solid forms.

They were a deep shade of black, twisting and writhing without rest as they released streams of dark mist that dissolved into nothingness. They resembled smoke more than any true substance, shrouding the boy’s body from head to toe.

If one took the time to look, they would see that it resembled … a cloak.

Luther, however, could not see the scene unfolding around him. He had already lost consciousness and collapsed onto the floor.

His blood kept seeping into the burning pentagram. The water from the Flow of Destiny had evaporated away, leaving behind nothing but the sealed, empty vial.

A faint image of a river made of pale blue light began to appear above Luther.

It was a vast, indescribable current, impossible to fully comprehend. There was no clear beginning or end, and it flowed through countless worlds, which appeared to be nothing more than small stones scattered along its banks.

Drifting along in that flow were innumerable souls, all with their eyes closed, resting in peace.

The Supreme Circulation split off a slender branch, crossing space and time to pass through Luther before merging back into the main river.

The boy’s body began to glow little by little, bathed in the same pale blue light as the magnificent entity above him.

Though all appeared to be progressing as planned, Luther didn’t think that the ritual had succeeded.

He was now floating in midair, watching everything happen to the lifeless body lying below him.

Yes, lifeless. This was not just his soul slipping free of the flesh. He was not unconscious, not in some passing state. His instincts whispered that death had claimed him in full.

His skin was pale. His chest no longer rose and fell. There was no sign of life left.

Blood from his hand now dripped in slow, occasional drops, yet the flames continued to burn, and the ritual kept going.

Perhaps it would just stop when the final drop of blood was gone. Luther thought.

At this moment, he did not feel fear or pain. Only a faint sorrow that he had been unable to keep his promise to his grandfather.

I’m sorry. I broke my word.

Another part of him, however, felt a strange sense of relief.

Hopefully, this would be a long, quiet sleep.

Just as Luther began drifting toward the Flow, a swirling black vortex appeared in the room.

A tall figure stepped out from within it.

The being’s entire body was hidden beneath an endless black cloak made of thick, shadowy mist. Beneath the folds of that cloak, something seemed to slither.

In its left hand, the mysterious figure gripped a scythe taller than itself, its handle bearing a subtle twist. The golden blade glowed with a deep, haunting light, etched with visions of a dreadful world where souls were tormented without end in storming maelstroms that bound sky to earth.

Behind the figure’s head was a disk of amber light.

No, rather, it was a full moon, hanging in silence as its radiance washed upon all heavens.

The one that arrived was a reaper.

The moonlight outside the window seemed redder than ever before.