Standing on the top of a tent, Loki observed the various other burning tents in the area.
'What are they doing?'
'What is their aim?'
Loki looked back at the symbol carved on the piece of skull he'd hijacked.
The symbol was quite unique and easy to recognise.
It was divided into three parts.
In the background were several scratches that resembled the roots of a dead tree.
On top of this, in the centre, was an arrow that pointed downwards.
The third and final part was a line curved like a snake coiling around the arrow in the centre that was pointing downwards.
Loki guessed the symbol was responsible for the state of the person inside the ground.
But to his surprise, even after the symbol had been separated from the man's skull, it constantly leaked spirituality.
It appeared that the roots on the last layer of the symbol funnelled spirituality into the symbol, passing it along the arrow that pointed downward and along the slithering curves around it.
It reminded Loki of a picture he'd recently seen using his divination.
The picture of the burning camp that he'd seen from the top view while using dream divination.
The tents in the camp that were burning were all arranged in a similar pattern to the symbol in his hands.
'Is it a part of some ritualistic magic?'
The space around Loki suddenly tore and revealed a Sunny, "Only five minutes before they start waking up from their sleep."
Loki looked away from the piece of skull in his hand and looked at all the frozen people in front of him.
Loki nodded towards Sunny and let him leave. But that was when he noticed the Death Eaters he'd seen with Nicholas earlier walking towards the exit.
He spotted Hermione among the hostages but remained calm as he focused his senses to check what the Death Eaters were doing.
When they began to take blood from the hostages, Loki's mind clicked in place with a theory.
'Are they performing ritualistic magic to sacrifice all the people in the camp?'
'If the tents are arranged like 'Her' symbol, wouldn't the exit that everyone is at be the spot where the ritual culminates?'
Loki frowned.
'Firstly, what are they going to do with the result of the ritual?'
'And what are they using to power such a large sacrifice ritual in the first place?'
'I'm quite sure it'll take a lot of energy to allow 'Her' to do something to kill all the people here because a barrier around the planet is keeping out all the outer gods.'
Loki with a worried expression scanned across the area, trying to find if there was any creature like the Basilisk to power up such a ritual.
There were none.
But then Loki's eyes fell on the situation near the exit with the death eaters.
'Wait a minute! What if the Death Eaters are going to use their lives to power the ritual!?'
'Damn…why are they even performing the ritual then if they're just going to die?! Aren't they scared of death or something!?'
Loki shook his head away from thoughts that wouldn't help him immediately and started to think of a solution. His mind blazed through several possible ways he could interrupt the ritual and he eventually settled on one.
He pulled out his pocketwatch and checked the time with firm eyes.
'Four more minutes.'
'I can't steal from all the skulls in such little time.'
'But, it is plenty for me to create an error in the ritual and cause it to become imbalanced so that the Death Eaters are killed without any gain and the hostages are rescued.'
'But to create the error, I probably need Salazar's help since he's the only God I know that is awake.'
Teleporting away from his location, Loki vanished before anyone could spot him on the tent.
"Do you think you can take me on Arthur?" Nicholas asked with a lot of patience.
Arthur only straightened his back and spoke with anger, "Bombarda Maxima!!"
Nicholas could've dodged the spell but he was forced to block it when he realised it would disturb the ritual behind him if he dodged.
It wasn't anything hard to do as Nicholas just used the shield spell to redirect the spell cast by Arthur into the ground, causing it to explode into a fog of dust.
The death eaters smiled when they saw Nicholas helping them but no one noticed a small part of the heel of his shoes split away from it and sprouted legs to walk away.
Prenelle handed the little rickety machine a small scroll of paper before the machine jumped away into the spirit world and vanished.
'*Phew* that was easy…' Loki thought as he looked at the handful of skull bones he'd stolen to create an imbalance in the ritual so that all the Death Eaters would die needlessly.
The space around Loki twisted a little causing him to immediately go on guard.
'How did anyone find me? I'm currently concealed by 'Him'!'
But instead of a terrifying beast, a crazed Beyonder or even an outer god what lept out of the spirit world was a small creature that looked like a rubber door wedge.
'Huh?'
The creature walked with the help of hops and jumps until it reached Loki's feet and stumbled on it, dropping a small scroll that was in its hands in the process.
'An alchemical creature? Nicholas?'
With caution, Loki picked up the scroll and opened it, he recognised it was Prenelle's handwriting.
In it were six simple words.
[Don't let the Death Eaters die.]
Loki turned the note around and found six more words.
[The one leading them is fine.]
Loki's hands froze.
'What!? Why!?'
'The !$@# is wrong with your head!'
'Did you get corrupted by 'Her' already!?'
A string of curses formed in Loki's mind as his hands trembled, in fear or anger he couldn't tell.
Loki took a deep breath and calmed himself. Although he didn't understand why Nicholas and Prenelle wanted him to leave the Death Eaters alone, he knew they wouldn't ask something like this for no reason.
'For the Death Eaters to live it means the ritual must never activate, but I can't simply steal all the other skulls that have 'Her' sacred emblem carved into them in time.'
'Is there no other way?'
Loki frowned, spending the next twenty seconds thinking of a plan.
And to his luck, he was graced with an idea.
'I don't know if this will work and if Salazar will hate me for this but this is the only way.'
'This is your punishment for leaving me to face two True Gods alone you %#$@!'
'Well if you don't then the planet will go boom either way…so you better.'
Picking up all the pieces of skull he'd stolen Loki acted on the first plan that sprouted in his mind.
He blew on the whistle to summon Sunny once again and when the Niffler popped out of the spirit world, Loki spoke, "Bring the Basilisk to my location after thirty seconds."
Seeing the urgency in Loki's eyes, Sunny didn't question his words and left to finish his task, leaving Loki to finish his.
Loki immediately began to teleport around the camp, using the pieces of skulls he'd stolen to rearrange the structure of the symbol formed by the buried people there.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
A/N : Join my Patreon (p@treon.com/hooin_kyoma_au) to read 20 chapters ahead for just $3.