The Father of the Parish struggled desperately. He could not understand how the man before him had set up the altar without even asking him how to perform the ritual.
He seemed to know more about setting up rituals than they did, despite their being believers in Inevitability!
For a moment, the Father of the Parish actually began hoping that the officials from Trier would notice this fellow's "little tricks" and come rescue him. Even facing the Church's judgment would be better than becoming a sacrifice to the Circle of Inevitability!
Having performed a sacrifice in the previous loop himself, he knew better than anyone what happened to the offerings. He did not want to meet his Lord so soon!
Nimrod addressed the Father of the Parish with a smile:
"Actually, I don't need you to tell me how the ritual works at all. Would you like to know why?"
The Father of the Parish, Guillaume, instinctively sensed that something was wrong. He tried to wriggle away to the side, only to hear Nimrod's voice from above:
"Because you are nothing more than 'dream figures' created by Lumian Lee to deceive himself. The rituals you use have never truly succeeded, and I happen to know a few little things."
Nimrod was trying to act as a Fire Thief.
In his understanding, a Fire Thief was someone who stole a "fire seed," and a fire seed often represented "hope."
For that very reason, Nimrod believed that there were two different ways to act as a Fire Thief. The first was to steal other people's "hope"!
Whether through theft or deception, driving others to despair was the basic acting method for a Fire Thief. It was also the most malicious and most conventional approach.
Throughout the long history of the Fourth Epoch,