As Sarra titled the metal container surprisingly, fresh red blood poured out of the metal bottle and began to spill on the ground but instead of flowing away under the physical laws, it magically began to rearrange itself into a shape of distorted magical circle with several triangles between them. Maybe it was due to her spell, the blood once forming a circle remained fixed at its position maintaining the shape of the complex diagram. It neither flowed nor ebbed like a normal liquid, and was just fixed into the place.
After finishing the ritual diagram, Sarra quickly kicked off her shoes and walked in the middle of the circle barefoot, with the blood resisting the damage to its shape by itself. In the middle of the circle, Sarra stood in silence for a few seconds, likely making her mind. Then she quickly held her sharp blade by her left hand, and while lifting her right arm up she began to cut herself.
Blade carved with an irresistible force drawing blood from her right arm, but there was limited change of expression on her face due to pain. Her left hand moved quickly as she drew complex symbols on her arm with the blade, with each symbol after its formation absorbing some of the spilled blood from her arm.
Sarra finished scripting her whole arm up to her wrist when finally the blood accumulated from her wounds began to overflow the absorption from the mysterious symbols and began to drip onto the ground - right in the middle of the circle diagram.
"Auditor omnium, sciens omnium;
Ad eam vide omnes. O sectator ventorum, Everto vigil, ego te refero.
Pactum promitto, quod carnis meae et sanguinis aequipollens verbis meis in commutationem tui spiritus ostensionis acquiescam."
As soon as Sarra finished repeating the chant she had memorized, her blood on the ground that had dripped on the magic circle began to boil spontaneously. For a second, a tinge of doubt flashed in the mind of Sarra followed by immense guilt and feeling of what the hell she was doing conjuring a demon of unknown origin and even agreeing to give her flesh and blood to him in her chant…. Is it even worth it?
But the next second, as the atmosphere around her shifted to become frightening suddenly with wild wind beginning to blow around her, she forcefully crushed her fearful thoughts and returned to her previous indifferent calmness with a little tinge of paleness due to loss of blood. Sarra maintained her calm with a single thing repeating in her mind that gave her strength to stand there unbothered.
'It is my purpose.'
By now the blood diagram beneath her feet was rapidly turning brown like blood used for drawing the circle was rapidly degenerating. Her eyes struggled to remain focused in the harsh wind that had come out of nowhere, as finally she felt that familiar presence of someone watching her once again. Her breathing became rough, though the circle around her rapidly degenerated, her blood along with the symbol etched with wounds on her arm burned intensely with the pain. Sarra remained calm and collected to not show any flaw at this final moment of ritual as warned repeatedly by the book.
'Don't engage with them without their acceptance of invitation. Don't engage. Don't engage."
But as Sarra was waiting for the follower of the Wind to accept her invitation to the trade, she suddenly felt a pit in her stomach as the wind around her began to fall down. Her heartbeat sped up as once again as she felt the weakening of the feeling of being watched, which apparently meant that her otherworldly invited fellow was going away.
'It is going to fail again. They are retreating… No. No.. No.. Not again. I can't fail again. '
Desperation flooded in through the crack, formed in her mask of indifference into her heart, as she subconsciously took a step forward and spoke out loud.
"Wait! Don't go. I…"
But as soon as her black lips moved, a chill traveled down her spine, as cold sweat formed over her forehead. Sarra's speeding heartbeat immediately woke her up to the incoming consequence of what she had just done. What had she done? Why had she spoken to him before he accepted the invitation? It was like the greatest taboo of witchcraft which she had broken foolishly and now….
Sarra's thoughts were shattered by the feeble sound of jarring laughter that made her hair stand up in goosebumps. She was a witch, dealing with the supernatural horrors was the thing that she had been training for and doing since her childhood but now for the first time in her life she felt 'What that real fear is' that her sisters had tried to tell her since beginning?
Unnatural Laughter of a demon rang in her ears, first just one sound then it began to distort into somewhat feminine and then somewhat masculine sounds. Soon it began to intensify in her ears from all directions accompanied by the wind and only then she realized that her ritual had not summoned just one demon of wind but several of them together. She was right now surrounded by the several demons in front of whom, she was just a foolish prey nothing more.
At this moment of approaching death, surrounded by beings that were just mere moments away from feeding upon not only her body, but also soul abruptly invoked a sense of something even more pressing than the danger and helplessness she was feeling at this moment. A sense of desperation, a sense of panic erupted in Sarra's heart - while losing her life was scary but losing her life without taking revenge for herself made her mind clearer than ever.
A sense of panic pronged Sarra's heart to make a ruthless decision as she took a step back into the circle quickly. Despite knowing that the circle's protection was only for a couple of more seconds, she felt a little secure inside as the only thing that was stopping demons from immediately shredding her into pieces was this circle, however momentarily that protection might be.
Thus, wasting no time, Sarra lifted her blade and unexpectedly cut an even deeper cut on her right arm. Following it was another cut, then another, then another…she slashed the blade over her arm desperately as she tried to scratch the symbols that were glowing red on her arm.
Blood, pieces of flesh fell onto ground in a horrifying scene where Sarra was rapidly lacerating her own right arm, mutilating it beyond one could stomach with a desperate resolve on her face. Through the heart wrenching pain, her hands moved with resolve though they were trembling with each cut she inflicted on her body. By the time she was done, it was her lips that tasted the metallic taste of blood, caused due to her biting her own tongue while holding back her screams from the intense pain.
In her mind, Sarra's logic was clear, "Ritual was based on two physical parts. First was the animal blood circle beneath her feet that was the protection ward she had formed for herself, which worked as long as she remained inside.
And second, these symbols etched on her arm with her flesh and blood as medium that connected her to these visitors of the otherworld whom she wanted to contact. Therefore, she thought that if she removed these symbols then the contact with the otherworld would also fade, leaving her untouched from their attack."
Though her logic was clear, the forces she was dealing with unfortunately worked seldom under the semblance of such structured rules.
Sarra felt her consciousness blur as she saw her arm or rather what was left of her arm in her eyes full of tears, from the mutilated and cut flesh and blood she could even make out some nerves and muscles inside.
Also simultaneously, hearing a shrill laughter of the demons all around her likely mocking her for her useless struggle, was the last thing she heard before falling down unconscious.
Though their connection through symbols was cut and the otherworld bridge that they were using to contact her faded quickly from there, the demons of wind didn't go away. But likely mocking her efforts, some of these invisible demons moved forward by themselves to use their own energy to hold back the dimming connection and quickly enlarged the fading bridge from their side to reach the salivating Sacrifice in front of their eyes until….
Tap.. Tap.. Tap..
A sound of someone tapping the stick on the ground sounded in their ears, and even without seeing, they knew who it was. Owing to their own nature of all knowing, they knew and therefore they screeched in fear and escaped immediately. They didn't even wait for the newcomer to enter completely on the scene.
In a few seconds, the whole area fell silent, devoid of any winds as a frail old woman with a slightly bent body walked in with the help of her walking stick that was making tapping sounds on the ground. She looked at the young girl lying on the ground with a mutilated arm in the pool of her own blood, and there was a shred of kindness in her eyes as she turned beside her to address the air and spoke.
"See, it is decided. I will be taking her. If I wasn't here by myself even you wouldn't be so fast to rescue her from the Evertos. Now you can't object to my choice."
There was a continuous silence in the area, which gave an appearance that this familiar old woman who had once tried to rescue Adele a month ago had finally gone senile due to her age and now was beginning to talk to herself like a mad woman. But the old grandma didn't show any sign of impatience as she waited patiently in the long stretch of awkward silence. She simply waited and waited until finally a resigned 'sigh' rang in the air and this voice came just from nearby.
A cat shook its head as it emerged from the corner of Old woman's sight and spoke in surprisingly human female voice,
"OK, as you wish Aunt Maya. As far as I am concerned Sarra should have died today by committing such a grave… mistake in the ritual. I was overseeing her, but I didn't even expect her to commit such a naive blunder - unexpected especially from her… Sigh. Let it be her punishment. She will go with you."
Old woman smiled and waved her walking stick, "That's one and now I need another one. I hope you will help me as payment for helping your junior sister survive."
Cat instantly shrieked in a cat-like manner and then bolted out from there without looking back. Old woman's crafty smile froze on her old face as she muttered under her breath,
"She cut her control even before I finished my words. Did she really foresaw me making a another request?"