great-warnovel Chapter 405 The Blessed Holy Communion
Chapter 405 The Blessed Holy Communion
Chapter 405 The Blessed Holy Communion
Hermione can understand Spanish, but the local dialect is a challenge for her.
The priest on the platform was babbling something in English that she couldn't understand a word of, but fortunately, Umbridge had been a fire watcher here for years and had some interaction with the locals. She leaned close to Hermione and quietly translated.
"The Holy Goddess of Death walks upon the earth, taking away those lives that belong to her, urging all things to reach their end as quickly as possible. She is the mother of the world, and the final destination for all spirits!"
"Ah! Holy God of Death! The great sovereign who manifests in countless forms, the Supreme Mother in colorful robes!"
As the priest shouted, the Muggles below responded with enthusiastic cheers.
"Today is again the monthly Day of Salvation! The Holy Spirit will collect your offerings and reward your piety!"
Such beliefs and cults are not uncommon in the wasteland. They mostly preach about death or doomsday rulers. Some are wizards pretending to be gods, while others are just ridiculous tricks by Muggles.
The Death God of the Deformed City may have originally been a means for a group of native wizards to control Muggles, but now, it has probably been infiltrated by some people.
The stench of Voldemort!
Hermione could smell her good senior's scent on all the priests dressed in robes of different colors. It was likely that Tom had become the mastermind behind these people and had bestowed upon them dark and evil magic.
Hermione, not wanting to alert the enemy, remained hidden in the crowd and continued to observe.
Some Muggles carrying homemade rifles led a long line of prisoners up to the platform with ropes.
You could tell from their skin color that the prisoners were not locals, but rather wanderers from the north of America.
The white people in the building looked around in terror, while the deformed freaks around them screamed and revelled.
An ugly face placed close to them can frighten some women into screaming.
These fair-skinned prisoners, free from deformities, evoked both hatred and pleasure in the Muggles below with every reaction they made.
"Offer sacrifices to the great Mother of Death!" shouted the priest on the high platform.
A prisoner was dragged in front of him, and without another word, a stone dagger stained with dark red blood slit the white man's throat. He struggled to cover the wound with his hands, but his bound hands only allowed him to sway like a fish.
The strong, deformed Muggles beside him pinned him down on the sacrificial altar, and pools of blood flowed down the stone trough from the high platform into a large stone bowl at the foot of the pyramid.
The Muggles gathered around the large stone bowl, watching the singing and dancing, their eyes greedily fixed on the blood plasma that was only covered by a single layer.
It wasn't over yet. Amidst the chanting of the priests and the cheers of the Muggles, a dozen prisoners were killed one by one. Their necks lay limply on the edge of the platform, and their blood was drained away in the chanting. The large stone bowl was already more than half full, and thick blood flowed spontaneously as the ceremony proceeded.
"What evil magic!" Umbridge tried to put on a shocked and disgusted expression; she knew Hermione didn't like these things.
But the witches, graduates of Durmstrang and from the Malay Party, were already used to these scenes.
Hermione ignored the pink toad's show and focused intently on the ritual unfolding before her. The lives of the captives were drained and transformed into evil power, flowing into the stone bowl along with their blood.
"The Holy Spirit is pleased with fresh death; now it is your turn to offer your most precious sacrifices in exchange for the blessings you seek!"
The Muggles' emotions cooled briefly at the call of the priest.
Two children were pushed out from the crowd.
The child's parents stood by, their eyes filled with reluctance, but their fervor overwhelmed their affection. They watched as their child, bewildered, was led onto the platform, but quickly joined the cheers of the crowd.
The boy with a deformed third hand and the girl without a chin who drooled constantly were somewhat afraid of the masked priest.
But the process didn't last long; the dagger, stained with the blood of countless people, mercilessly pierced the chests of the two children.
Something invisible slipped out of their bodies, and two tender hearts were taken out by the priest. They were not discarded like the prisoners, but were placed in an exquisite bronze plate and presented to the blue-robed saint.
"O Almighty Mother of Death, your faithful offer your most precious treasures in exchange for your unparalleled power!"
The ceremony seemed to reach its climax as the Muggles threw the meat and fruit they had hunted into a large stone bowl filled with blood.
They danced to the chants of the sacrificial ceremony.
Before the icon, the two hearts began to dry rapidly.
The head priest immediately proclaimed, "The Holy Spirit has accepted the offerings! Your wishes have been fulfilled!"
This sound was like a switch being turned on, and the Muggles below immediately cheered and rushed towards the large stone bowl, grabbing food and drinking blood from it.
Hermione did not stop any of this. She knew that even if she saved the two children, she could not eradicate these tragedies. She had to eliminate these corrupt wizards and Voldemort, who was hiding behind the scenes!
Clearly, this is yet another trick he's pulled; his penchant for taking children's lives has never changed!
He must be plotting some kind of evil magic to increase his power.
She noticed that after these crazy Muggles ate the blood-stained food, their deformities began to shrink and recover. The tumors started to shrink, the twists returned to their original positions, and the missing organs slowly grew, gradually turning them into normal people.
The process was painful; bones cracked and flesh writhed beneath the skin. The Muggles lay on the ground groaning, yet simultaneously rejoiced at the changes in their bodies.
It was some kind of dark magic that manipulated flesh and blood. Hermione watched coldly as Voldemort used this method to obtain sacrifices from Muggles. The adult prisoners who were killed were the source of the power of this dark magic. Only the two children were his true sacrifices.
This also prevented Hermione from tracing the source of the magic to where he was hiding.
She desperately wanted to kill all the dark wizards on the platform right now, but doing so would alert them. Voldemort was a cautious man, especially after she had killed him once.
He must be quite sensitive to his own magic. If he makes a move here, he will definitely lie low and hide immediately, or even abandon the excellent breeding ground of the Deformed City. That would require a lot of effort to find him.
"Today seems to be a special day, as such sacrifices are being held in every canyon—"
Clusters of firelight flickered from various cracks in the earth, and Hermione and her friends were clearly only seeing one of them.
"These dark wizards playing the role of priests will surely return to a place to receive Voldemort's instructions later," Hermione pondered, intending to follow their trail to find the venomous snake.
"Ms. Umbridge, thank you for your help earlier. What happens next is quite dangerous, so you should go back first." Although he didn't like this pink toad, there was no need for her to come with him to fight Voldemort.
"Oh, that won't do. You are my lord's honored guest, and I must serve you well!" Umbridge wasn't about to let the opportunity slip away, and nervously approached him.