Chapter 374: Modern Mythology: About the Sea Monster
“Rumble! Rumble, rumble!”
On a rainy night, rolling thunder echoed through the sky. Fierce winds whipped huge raindrops against the dilapidated roof and broken window frames of an abandoned house in the wilderness.
In the basement, candlelight flickered. More than a dozen figures dressed in black robes stood in a circle, their lips moving beneath their hoods as they whispered obscure, difficult-to-pronounce incantations.
At the center of the circle formed by the robed figures was a complicated ritual array drawn in blood. Scattered across the array were various ritual implements: ores, shed snake skins, animal bones, stone tablets covered in writing, and other objects.
A person dressed like a priest stood in the center of the ritual array. In his left hand was a strange, rust-covered dagger, while his right arm cradled a somewhat dirty, pale-yellow swaddling cloth.
Inside the swaddling cloth lay a tiny baby girl. She looked extremely weak, her face purplish-blue and her lips pale. Tears still clung to the corners of her eyes as she lay unconscious in the bundle, utterly motionless.
“…Using the blood of an infant as a catalyst… break the seal, tear apart the barrier between the two worlds…”
After reciting the long incantation to its end, the priest’s bony fingers slipped into the swaddling cloth and closed around the infant girl’s slender neck from behind. He pulled her out of the bundle as though she were a chicken or duck being taken to slaughter. Tightening his grip on the dagger in his other hand, he plunged the blade deep into the baby’s chest.
“Waaah…”
The sleeping infant was awakened by the pain and let out a tiny cry, as faint as a kitten’s mew.
The priest paid no attention to the baby’s struggles. He pulled out the dagger and held the infant upside down, allowing her blood to drip into the ritual array.
According to ancient texts, adding the blood of a child under the age of six to the ritual array could greatly increase the chances of summoning the child-eating demoness Lamia. Once she appeared, as long as they could provide her with a steady supply of bait, they could exploit the demoness’s prophetic eye to reap enormous profits…
Their beautiful fantasy had barely begun to take shape when a flash of red suddenly surged upward.
The priest quickly raised his head and looked around, only to discover that, at some point, all the candles in the basement had changed from yellow to an ominous red.
Shifting crimson shadows, like flowing blood, filled the entire basement. The unfinished ritual array on the floor suddenly came alive as well. Every blood-drawn line and symbol writhed wildly like venomous snakes, raising their heads and hissing with sinister tongues.
“Thump… thump…”
A dull heartbeat echoed through the room. At first, the priest thought the heartbeat was his own. But soon, he realized that the floor beneath his feet was trembling continuously.
Once. Twice. Again…
With every tremor, the heartbeat grew stronger, until finally, with a sharp crack, a deep fissure split open beneath their feet.
Black mist carrying the stench of sulfur and blood billowed from the crack. Within the swirling fog, a pale, slender woman’s arm broke free of invisible restraints around its wrist, forced its way through the fissure, and with a sharp smack, seized the priest’s ankle.
The owner of the arm was a breathtakingly beautiful black-haired woman.
She was like rising mist, like a boneless snake, light and limp. She drifted out through the crack together with the billowing black fog, emerging into the world of mortals.
Her skin was whiter and more delicate than milk, while her crimson eyes resembled two flawless, translucent red gemstones. Her thick, curly black hair cascaded down from her shoulders like seaweed, crowned by a dazzling golden diadem.
Even in the dimly lit basement, the crown reflected a dazzling radiance, complementing the woman’s magnificent robes.
The priest’s gaze lingered on the woman’s crown and robes before shifting down to her feet.
According to legend, after being cursed by Hera, the demoness Lamia had been transformed into a monster with a human upper body and a serpent’s tail. Logically speaking, after summoning her, they should have been confronted by a mentally deranged and terrifying snake-bodied demoness. Yet the woman before them possessed a perfectly proportioned human body.
What was going on? Had the ritual gone wrong…?
Just as the priest began doubting himself because of the woman’s abnormal form, there was a soft puff. After a violent tremor, the candles providing illumination suddenly went out in unison, and the entire basement instantly plunged into absolute darkness.
In the darkness, only two brilliant crimson points remained conspicuous.
They were the woman’s gleaming eyes.
A moment ago, the red points had been more than a meter away. The next second, they were already right in front of him. The priest felt a gust of air carrying a thick scent of blood rush toward him. A powerful sense of danger overwhelmed him, and he held his breath, instinctively trying to flee.
But before he could even take a step, a piercing pain shot through his chest, as though something had punched straight through it.
“Ughhh!”
A scream rang out. The hand holding the baby went limp, and the infant was gently caught by a pair of cold hands.
The red points continued to flicker.
They moved through the vast basement with a graceful, fluid motion, darting about like dragons swimming through clouds. Wherever they passed, flesh was torn apart and blood splattered everywhere. The black-robed figures let out agonized screams before collapsing to the floor one after another with a series of heavy thuds.
Because they were moving so quickly, threadlike afterimages trailed behind the red points.
For a moment, the entire basement was engulfed in the thick stench of blood.
Creaaaak—
A short while later, the dust-covered door was pushed open. The woman in her magnificent robes carried the infant and slowly emerged from the underground passage, eventually reaching the broken window of the abandoned house.
She lowered her head and gently touched the baby’s cold cheek with her bloodstained finger.
Because her injuries were too severe, the frail child had painfully died not long after the woman had taken her away.
Again… another child had died because of her…
A bolt of lightning tore across the night sky, briefly illuminating the woman’s face—and the glistening tear running down beneath her eye.
“Rumble!”
The lightning vanished, followed by rolling thunder, and the entire world plunged back into darkness.
As though sensing something, the demoness weeping by the window slowly raised her head.
Her vivid red eyes glimmered faintly. They pierced through the window, through the torrential rain, through the darkness, through time and space, and looked straight toward Everly on the other side.
Her eyes were filled with a desperate cry for help.
…
“Phew…”
Everly suddenly opened her eyes in front of the computer and straightened up.
She had seen it!
She had seen the sea demoness Lamia summoned once again by greedy humans, seen the demoness kill the summoners and save the infant, and seen Lamia shed tears of grief when she was powerless to save the child…
A voice deep within her told her that this wasn’t an ordinary dream.
It was a precognitive vision.
After so many years, she had once again experienced the same kind of crystal-clear prophetic dream she had had as a baby!
The demoness in her dream was asking her for help.
Her heart was pounding wildly in her chest. Following the call deep within her, Everly quickly got up, got dressed, grabbed her car keys, and rushed outside.
She knew where it was. In her precognitive dream, she had seen a painting hanging on the basement wall. At the bottom of the painting, ornate script identified its subject, along with information about when and where it had been painted.
With those details, and knowing roughly what the building looked like, Everly didn’t even need Orff. A quick online search was enough to locate the summoning site.
According to the weather forecast, the area was expected to be sunny or cloudy for the next few days. Tonight was the only night thunderstorms were forecast.
And Everly’s precognitive dreams could only show her events that would happen at most a few hours in the future.
She didn’t have much time…
Everly gathered various weapons and items, brought Kesuye along as a backup, told her grandfather where she was going, and hurried out.
Her mind was a mess the entire way, her emotions swinging wildly like she was on a roller coaster.
Ever since obtaining a drop of water from the Memory Spring and gaining memories that could never be erased, Lamia’s consciousness had returned to clarity. She no longer slaughtered other infants under the torment of grief over her own dead children as she had in the past.
However, the legends surrounding her remained rooted in the distant past, and Lamia’s summoning ritual still required a large quantity of infant blood. With that much blood loss, a frail baby would almost certainly die.
Therefore, until the mythology surrounding the demoness was completely rewritten and new myths and rituals were created, every time humans summoned Lamia, it subjected her to unbearable torment.
That was also why Everly had never summoned Lamia herself.
In recent years, she had been actively investing in writers and artists, hoping they would use the stories about Lamia she provided as a basis for creating new versions of the mythology that would spread widely and be accepted by the general public. Her goal was to gradually free Lamia from her old image and give her a new life.
But perhaps she simply hadn’t found the right people. Her efforts had failed to produce the results she had hoped for.
She never expected that, at this critical moment, someone would use the old ritual to summon the sea demoness again!
Everly certainly wanted to reunite with Lamia, but absolutely not like this. She believed that the sea demoness mother would never want to return to the human world by stepping over the blood of infants. To a sea demoness, this wasn’t a happy reunion at all—it was a cruel curse!
The car sped through the night, eventually plunging into a remote wilderness where hardly anyone ventured.
The road was rough and difficult to navigate. By the time the car finally stopped in front of the abandoned house, it was already dark. Lightning flashed across the sky as thunder boomed, while torrential rain hammered against the windows with a rapid rat-a-tat, like drums pounding against Everly’s heart.
Everything was almost exactly the same as in her dream.
Can I make it in time? Is there still time? Can I succeed?
Everly dashed out of the car. As she passed a plant nursery, she casually tossed the Sacred Tree bracelet onto the ground and summoned the Sacred Tree’s true form to follow beside her.
She and Kesuye rushed into the abandoned house. Following the scene she had seen in her dream, they quickly located the entrance to the basement and hurried downward.
“Rumble!”
A deafening clap of thunder exploded in the distance. The instant Everly pushed open the door, the candlelight in the basement turned red. The floor cracked open and black mist billowed upward. Under the excited gazes of the black-robed figures, a pale, slender female arm pierced through the barrier and reached out from the fissure.
The summoning ritual had already succeeded.
Was she too late?!
No—there was still hope…
Maybe the baby wasn’t dead yet!
Everly pointed, and the Sacred Tree’s true form immediately received her command. Its supple branches shot forward with a whoosh, snatching the blood-soaked infant from the priest’s hands.
As she caught the baby in her arms, Everly’s hands trembled uncontrollably.
Her heart felt as though it had been submerged in strong acid, aching with a sharp, bitter pain. Once, Everly had desperately wished to hear her sea demoness mother call her name again. Now, she was just as terrified of seeing the pain and disappointment in Lamia’s eyes.
With cold sweat covering her forehead, she tremblingly twisted open the bottle of Panacea and fed the last three drops of the potion to the infant.
A miracle had arrived.
The dying infant was snatched back from the hands of death by the potion’s power. In a matter of moments, the baby began breathing again. Her heartbeat and pulse regained their strength, and the purplish-blue pallor of her face gave way to a healthy rosy glow.
She let out a soft little “Mm-mm,” kicked her tiny legs, and opened her innocent blue eyes in Everly’s arms.
Under the child’s pure, innocent gaze, the blood splattered from the black-robed figures’ necks transformed into blooming flowers. They spun, leaped, and blossomed, celebrating a life that had been saved, celebrating the reunion of two souls once again.
…
A new orphanage had opened in the small town of Lemot, adjacent to the desert.
The orphanage was run by a beautiful and gentle young woman. She personally tended to every child in her care, looking after them with the utmost devotion. Boys and girls, regardless of race or skin color, whether they had disabilities or not—the orphanage’s director treated them all equally, showering every child with abundant love.
Most of these children were orphans who had lost their parents or other family members in incidents straight out of horror movies.
Rumor had it that the funds for the orphanage had been provided by Everly, who lived at the gas station. She had donated all the assets she inherited from her father, Shelly, to the orphanage, leaving the director to manage them and use them to cover the enormous costs of keeping the orphanage running.
Rumor also had it that the director had once raised Everly herself. Although, judging by their ages, there wasn’t much credibility to that claim, some townspeople swore that they had once caught Everly calling the director “Mom.” The expression on Everly’s face at the time had truly looked just like a daughter calling out to her mother.
Rumor had it that the director actually had quite a powerful background. A young and beautiful woman possessing an enormous fortune should, in theory, have easily attracted the attention of criminal organizations and other unsavory forces. Yet throughout her time running the orphanage, not a single group had dared to provoke her. From time to time, people dressed like officials from government agencies would even come to visit, treating the director with extraordinary respect in their words and manner.
Rumor had it…
In a corner where no one was paying attention, acclaimed author Noah Pipe’s latest novel, Sin in the Mist, had remained at the top of the bestseller charts for several consecutive weeks.
Based on the legends of the demonesses of ancient Greece, the novel gave the mythology a modern reinterpretation, combining ingenious puzzles with a wealth of brilliant twists. Readers were utterly captivated. The powerful bond between the protagonist, Liv, and the demoness Lamia moved countless readers to tears.
Perhaps a new mythology had already begun taking shape in the minds of modern people.
…
**TN
This is the last extra chapter I have. I don’t have the remaining 5 yet.
For now, goodbye~ ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡
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