It was nearly nine by the time the group reluctantly left Traveler Street.
They asked the Magic Spirits to temporarily store the items they had bought on Traveler Street at the Magical Creature Club, then entered the Castle and returned once more to the secret passage.
With one hour remaining until the ritual began, everyone gathered at the center of the ritual site, including Sister Callian and Professor Steven Harvey, who had not come before.
The professors set up barriers within the secret passage, made final adjustments, and prepared for every contingency.
When the clock officially struck ten that night, Professor Kazel took his seat upon the bone chair and activated the "Dream Machine"!
A black, mud-like fluid flowed from beneath the bone chair's feet, silently spreading across the entire ritual ground.
Once the black fluid had covered every corner of the ritual site, clay dolls crawled out of the sludge one after another. Following Professor Kazel's will, they formed part of the ritual.
They wore different clothes and possessed different identities, playing different roles within the ritual's setting.
Like a stage play, they acted according to the script.
At the same time, the ritual began to operate. The power generated by the ritual gathered toward the center. The drop of blood floating in midair gradually began to change.
This drop of blood had been extracted from the soil on the sword sheath. Its vitality had originally been restored in order to identify whose blood it was through its properties, thereby obtaining further clues.
Of those clues, the most important was naturally identifying the sword sheath's origin. But now, through the patterns on its surface, they had already more or less confirmed that it was connected to Ares, the God of War.
The origin of this blood thus seemed less