Chapter 2 - Blood Sacrifice
She looked at the potent radiant knife, recollected how she came across it when she was a teen—fourteen years old and how she never used it for once against anybody, concealing it from all eyes.
It was this unnatural, seemingly otherworldly knife that looked to be formed from an unprecedented multi-dimensional energy that gave her—an ordinary, talentless girl her vast and stupendously spectacular power of Blessing Infusion, causing her to develop the ability to rise to the top of the Strongest Priestess Ranking. But sadly, it was what was going to take her rapidly dwindling life.
Puchi!!
She stabbed herself in the chest—directly at the heart, ceasing her own life. Then her morose and melancholic figure fell to the ground with an accomplished and satisfied smile appearing on her lips, despite all the gloom, resentment, and sadness radiating from her fatally weakened, bloodied form.
Although she lied on the ground with the light in her eyes slowly dimming, she whispered within herself in a struggling manner, saying, 'S-Son, I-I am sorry that I chose to leave you behind in this cold and brutal world. But I believe you will live on for us. You will avenge us all for our inglorious deaths and make the people responsible pay. Goodbye, Aeden. Know, and be rest assured that your mother loves you and will forever do. Farewell, my great champion."
The instant she whispered her last words within herself and died, the wind in the S'hygraverth region—a terrority of ten thousand square kilometers, became exceedingly tempestuous that it seemed it was infused with the boundless anger and wrath of a great and mighty multidimensional god.
Then the vast night sky—directly above the colossal territory, suddenly turned crimson-violet, causing dread to appear in the hearts of many that immediately rushed into different buildings to hide themselves away from whatever had caused the preternatural event to occur.
The phenomenon that followed next was a massive knife suddenly appearing in the sky. This knife—which was in a horizontal position, was over one hundred thousand feet long and a thousand feet wide.
Then radiating from it was a slightly unbearable pressure that mysteriously caused countless sturdy buildings, including ones that could withstand massive, hill-splintering blasts and explosions to begin to develop countless cracks all over their surfaces.
It was like, if the pressure continued on for a few more seconds, the buildings would rapidly collapse upon their inhabitants as large clouds of dusts and massive piles of rubbles, entirely burying them off.
As for the ground, it unexpectedly developed astoundingly large numbers of deep and wide cracks that spread out like endlessly long branches to many other areas of the ten-thousand-square-kilometer territory, causing intense fright and horror to appear and grip the hearts of people.
Due to these unexpected frightful phenomena, numerous powerful experts—one to five-blessings-imbued experts suddenly appeared to unleash certain blessed abilities that will cause the gigantic and seemingly foreboding, divine-looking sovereign knife floating really high in the sky to vanish or be completely destroyed.
However, nothing happened. But in that same moment, a vast and mysterious invisible pulse suddenly emitted from the knife, shredding the immensely powerful, nine to eighteen-thousand-millennia-old powerhouses to countless tiny pieces.
They thoroughly dispersed into the atmosphere as molecule-sized particles of flesh and bones. And who were these old and remarkably enlightened, veteran powerhouses? They were absolutely powerful beings capable of instantly destroying numerous large continents with only their disdainful gazes. Yet, they were instantly decimated by the unseen pulse of unfathomable power that abruptly exuded from the glory, terror, and majesty-invoking knife of unimaginative size.
After appearing in the air for only a few seconds, seemingly showing off its might and glory for all to see and be tremendously awed, it immediately reduced to a really small size—to the size of a baby's index finger and shot forward like lightning to where Aeden was.
The moment it appeared above Aeden, hovering in the air and exuding brightness that was a million times that of a large star, and without affecting the baby's eyes that were wide open—since he stared curiously at it, it unexpectedly struck him in the forehead, instantly turning into an indelible, tattoo-like knife imprint that caused the baby's eyes to intensely glow and suddenly erupt a vast, world-destroying-level pulse of unparalleled devastating power that shot upwards, at a speed faster than light towards the clouds, instantly dispersing them all and tearing open a dreadfully massive—ninety-million-meter wide, pitch-black spatial rift in the sky.
Once that occurred, the knife imprint immediately faded away, leaving behind only Aeden that laid in the wooden basket just beside his mother's bloodied corpse. As for the knife that his mother used to stab herself, it had mysteriously turned to countless tiny fragments, seeming like a pane of glass that fell to the ground with tremendous force and instantly shattered to uncountable smithereens.
Although Aeden's mother, Evolrrhia, had said those Blessings to her baby, if she was alive to see what she had really invoked, she would be endlessly stunned and bewildered. The reason for this was simply because she mentioned the Blessings on a night that could be termed a Grand Auspicious Night, the night of the Alignments of all Grand Celestial Totems.
This had never happened in the history of this universe, where all Celestial Totems will align. And what were these totems, they were simply embodiments of mandates—minor, major, and grand laws of power and authority that could be called down by those favored by the Blessing-infusing utterances of powerful veteran priests and priestesses.
Furthermore, she had used a special and really ancient—million-generation-old, pulsing primordial knife—a knife mysteriously birthed by the Mandate of Destruction itself to stab her chest, directly at the heart, wilfully taking her own life in the process. This act, called Ultimate Sacrificial Licensing Pact, since it fully involved one's blood parent, and in this case, Evolrrhia, who determinedly surrendered her soul, spirit, and vigor to the Mandate of Destruction, had entirely called down its Blessing of Absolute Devastation for her child.
So, on this night, the mandates—nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine of them, had entered into alignment with one another—an unprecedented, supremely special world-awing event that had never happened since the inception of their universe.