Chapter 3: Awakening Ritual
⚠️ Warning: This chapter contains brutal ritual scenes, supernatural horror, and transformation.
Waaaaah!
Were they insane?
Telling me it wouldn't kill me just made it worse. I had to hold on, grip tighter than ever. Yeah, I was safer with him than with those fanatics… but that wasn't saying much.
Eh.
The demon lifted me effortlessly and carried me toward the ritual ground. Apparently, I'd rather stay with him than go with the servants. Smart choice? I had no idea.
The lady from earlier plucked me from my grandfather's arms and whispered something about how what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Yeah, I knew that. But I also knew it wasn't normal to baptize someone in scalding water. I could feel the steam curling up even from here.
Even the servants kept their distance. I wasn't just small—I was the center of attention for the monster and that weird lady, alone on that hellish platform.
The demon dipped his hand into the water, as if to say, see? It doesn't hurt.
I wasn't buying it. Not from a demon.
Squirming in her arms, spitting curses like tiny daggers, I swore revenge. But he didn't flinch. He didn't care. My threats were fuel—feeding something inside him that shouldn't exist.
Wicked adults.
The lady holding me had two pairs of black, feathered wings, folding and twitching like ominous shadows. My grandfather had none—just two massive horns curving from his head, gleaming in the dim light. As for the servants… I couldn't make them out clearly. Only their blood-red eyes pierced the darkness, glowing like tiny embers. Terrifying—but not as terrifying as the water.
I wish thunder would just strike this man dead, I thought as they forced me closer, my tiny struggles futile against their strength.
Aaaaaaaaahhhh…
Thunder tore through the roof with a deafening crack, striking the evil demon squarely.
Yes… he's finally dead.
I blinked.
Nope.
He brushed the residual soot from his shoulders, hair perfectly in place, expression unreadable. Not even a scratch. Nothing.
What a monster.
"To think you'd repeat the same path your father walked when he was young," he said calmly. "How petty."
I couldn't even retort.
Every time I tried to lift my head, he shoved me back down. The water filled my mouth, burned my lungs. The basin was like a bucket—far too deep for a body as small as mine. If I struggled too much, it would swallow me whole.
I didn't want to die.
Not yet.
Not before ending him.
The thought echoed again and again inside my head, pounding like a curse.
End them.
End them.
And then something strange happened.
The water—once scalding—felt cold. Not lukewarm. Ice‑cold.
Beside us, the winged woman watched in silence, her gaze sharp and calculating, as if she were no longer observing a ritual—but studying me.
So I stayed submerged, enduring the alternating assault of heat and cold. I didn't even realize when the once-blue flames began to change.
They shifted colors—sometimes blue, sometimes red, sometimes green, sometimes black. The hues bled into one another, twisting unnaturally. What I regretted most was that I missed it—the fleeting flash of shock that crossed their faces when white appeared among them.
When my lungs finally gave out and I could no longer hold my breath, the vessel containing me melted away in an instant. The flames surged, swallowing my body whole.
Blue was cold—numbingly so.
Red burned like a raging furnace.
Green crawled over me, irritating, as if countless insects were burrowing beneath my skin.
Black filled me with disgust, with hatred toward everything that existed.
And then there was white.
It was faint. Meager.
Yet it erased everything else.
The pain.
The hatred.
The noise.
It gave me peace.
The fire had swallowed me whole.
When they decided I'd "burned enough," they pulled me out.
On the floor beside the still-smoldering ritual flames, a magic circle glowed faintly. A knife hovered above it, and they set me down—handing it to me like this was a game.
The knife had no handle. Just blade.
The moment it touched my hand, it cut me—but the wound healed instantly. Dark liquid ran for a heartbeat before vanishing, like it didn't belong to me.
Play with it?
Did they take a 117-year-old soul for a fool?
I tossed the blade away, but even then it left a mark. The lady beside me laughed at my struggle, sharp and cold, as if my pain were her amusement.
She's on my extermination list.
The blood flowed from my palm—black, thick, like stagnant liquid—pouring out without stopping.
I tried to wipe it away, tried to stop it, but it kept coming. Everywhere it touched, the magic circle reacted, lighting up as the color shifted—from white… to red.
⸻
Soon, I was sitting in a puddle of it.
Normally, that amount would have ended a normal person long ago. But for me, it felt like I'd merely relieved myself. Nothing more.
Maybe I'd been scared for no reason.
I lay down to the side, and as my body relaxed, all my worries seemed to drift away. A strange calm settled over me. Peace.
The magic circle absorbed everything. Every trace. Then it faded and disappeared.
I decided to sleep.
But I couldn't.
A sharp pain tore through my chest, making me convulse across the floor. I couldn't move fast, couldn't stand—could only writhe helplessly.
And then I noticed it. The space around me.
Every demon, my grandfather, even that woman—they had all stepped back, retreating until their backs pressed against the far walls. I couldn't measure the distance, couldn't see the edges of the hall, but the emptiness around me felt endless, like I was lying in the center of a battlefield.
Something was wrong.
Had something happened to me?
No.
Their eyes were alight, sharp with anticipation. This wasn't fear. This was exactly what they'd wanted.
Pain lanced again, my veins puffing and twisting beneath my skin—hands, legs, even my head pulsing with agony.
I screamed, rolling across the floor, my tiny body wracked and exposed.
This was torture.
I felt my body changing in a strange, unsettling way. The pointed protrusions along my back grew larger, sharper, while strands of my hair fell to the floor beneath me. It was as if I were shedding—casting off an old skin that no longer fit.
My consciousness faded soon after.
Even as darkness swallowed me, I could still hear it—
Cheering, echoing from beyond the hall.
⸻
When I woke up, I was lying on a soft bed.
For a brief moment, I thought I was back home. Safe. Normal.
Then I saw the red sky.
Memory came rushing back.
I sat up and stared at my hands. They were far too big—no longer the small, helpless limbs of a baby. My heart skipped.
I wasn't an infant anymore.
But neither was I grown.
Judging by my body, I looked no older than a toddler.