Lineage

"Yarn spoke to Ravata: 'Her will is not her own. She is bound by blood, shaped by blood, and so are you. Shed your delusions of power and dominion, for you have never been free-you have always been a slave. Your traditions, your rightful birthright, are all hollow fantasies. Who lurks behind your false mask of brutality and supremacy? What remains when only truth is left?'"

This marked the end of Jasser's third stage: "Lavata Falls and Is Reborn."

With the prayer's incantation finished, the fourth stage came next: sacrifice.

Kradashi roared inwardly. She wanted to reach up and touch the pentagram pendant around her neck, which contained the BIO Species' [Drive Command].

"Ms. Kradashi Weddell, do you need a hand?"

At some point, Xia Xiu had appeared beside Kradashi. He pressed his index finger against her throat, then slowly slid it down to her pendant's chain. He twisted his finger, winding the chain around it.

Kradashi stared at the smiling, squinting blond boy with anguish and fury in her eyes. She could not understand how a BIO Species could defy her.

"Oh, I forgot you couldn't speak. Beautiful lady, may I have this dance?"

Kradashi glared furiously, but Xia Xiu had already taken her right hand. He lowered his head and lightly kissed the Mark of Lavata on its back, then interlaced his right fingers with hers. He placed her left hand on his shoulder and rested his own left hand on her slender waist.

"Come, let us offer a dance to Yarn."

Holding the rigid Kradashi, Xia Xiu began dancing across the hall. The dance looked terribly awkward, but he seemed to enjoy it immensely. He dragged her through a full ten minutes of dancing before finally ending the ridiculous performance.

"Ah, my lady, thank you for the dance, and..."

After finishing, Xia Xiu deliberately took a few steps back, putting ample distance between himself and Kradashi, then bowed in gentlemanly thanks. Kradashi discovered she could move again. She ripped off her pendant, her eyes bloodshot.

"You bastard! I'll make you... urgh-"

Just as Kradashi was about to activate the spell on the pendant, she discovered that her hair was falling out and her skin was sinking inward. Then came her fingers, the bridge of her nose...

Kradashi turned into a lump of flesh at an astonishing speed. Like a flesh-colored blob of jelly, she struggled to reach toward the smiling, squinting blond boy before her. Her two eyeballs shifted as her flesh became redundant tissue. Now one eye sat in her mouth, the other on top of her head.

"Thank you for the feast."

"Equivalent Exchange: Human Body."

The boy with blond hair and golden eyes placed his index finger against his lips as he spoke to Kradashi. Scarlet lines began appearing on the back of his hand, and the number beneath his eye vanished.

"Next comes the offering, great sorcerer Yarn!

I offer you the most entertaining sacrifice, a foolish soul,

and a little blood of Heaven."

Stage four: sacrifice · complete.

Hidden condition: a spectacular performance · complete.

The magic circle began to glow. Kradashi, now a lump of flesh, struggled frantically. Elsewhere, the other blond boy, who looked just like Xia Xiu, also slowly began turning into redundant flesh.

An extraordinarily horrifying smile appeared on Ravata's statue. It began making eerie chewing noises, and with each chew, a portion of the flesh vanished into thin air.

As the chewing grew faster, Xia Xiu soon became the only person left inside the magic circle. Ravata's statue turned its gaze toward him, and he answered with a toothy grin:

"Enjoy your meal, my lady."

The corners of the statue's mouth began curving up toward the outer corners of its eyes, forming an utterly horrifying smile before Xia Xiu.

Looks like she's in a good mood.

The pattern on the back of Xia Xiu's hand finished forming: a scarlet circle surrounded by swirling layers.

Ritual effect: [Yarn's Mark · Vortex]

Bzzzz-

Xia Xiu felt a tremendous ringing in his ears. His soul pulled free of his body. This was the sublimation of the soul; at this moment, his soul would project into the [Ether Sea].

Up and down reversed, and bizarre visions abounded.

He could see the vast starry sky, an inverted ocean, drifting ether spirits, burning demons...

Clang-

"Third Return!!!"

The tremendous sound shattered his hazy consciousness. Xia Xiu awakened within the Ether Sea and quickly stabilized his floating spiritual body. This was the crucial moment.

The sublimation of spirituality, the awakening of the extraordinary, the moment of linking to a lineage.

"Orin!"

Xia Xiu swiftly uttered the linking word for the [Flesh Supremacy Lineage]. An ancient sheet of parchment appeared before him. He quickly placed his hand on it, and his name soon appeared on its surface. A ring of archaic Terran writing emerged automatically across the aged parchment.

[Authorization granted]

An ordinary person who recklessly uttered a lineage's linking word without authorization would die a terrible death.

The instant the link was complete, Xia Xiu briefly glimpsed the body of [The Boundless One Who Overturns] within the Ether Sea. Sheer monstrosity stretched beyond any discernible limit, its form constantly twisting and changing. Xia Xiu knew that from now on, this being would be his [anchor] in the Ether Sea.

Xia Xiu had officially become a member of the Flesh Supremacy Lineage. He was now both an observer of the Ether Sea and one of its constituent parts.

[Ether Sea]: a boundary realm lying between the existing spaces of matter and antimatter. It was a world composed of concepts, and the source of supernatural essence.

Terra's supernatural system was founded upon the [Ether Sea]. This system was collectively known as-Thaumaturgy.

The essence of Thaumaturgy was-the alteration of concepts.

A lineage was an aggregate of concepts. It had another name as well-STC (Standard Template Construct) system technology.

[Ding-]

[Linking to lineage, generating template-]

[Welcome, my dear Orin]

[Xia Xiu]

[Rank: Orin]

++Lineage: [Sin-Eater Church (Flesh-Eating Cult)]

++ARad Field: none

++Class: Third Return (patron of resurrection, transformation, and the protection of children)

++Stage one: Measurer

++EVE Particle content: 100 spirits

++Loudness: 10 dB (decibels)

++Timbre: nonconstant wave

++Frequency: 164-698 Hz (hertz)

++Distortion Stance: 100 (normal)

++Traits: [Flesh Sculpting], [Yarn's Mark]

There was no question about it: this was a personal template. Basically every "NPC" in Terra who possessed a lineage had one.

Early on, the game "Terra Chronicles" had an absolutely fucking absurd setting: the game system and player templates were also lineages of Terra. That meant they could be seen. Fellow lineage holders could see one another's templates-after all, everyone was using the same server.

The bewildered players stared at the personal templates in the NPCs' hands, which were far fancier than their own-the initial player template was essentially a default skin-and had no idea how they were supposed to play this game.

Terra's natives soon taught the players how to play. The major powers of Terra banded together to hunt them down, chasing and hacking at them from the first expansion all the way into the second. They only eased off a little after discovering that players could change their lineage once at no cost, but could not switch freely after that.

Forget the Fourth Calamity. The players nearly got hacked into the Fourth Casualty.

If this had not been Blue Star's first fully immersive virtual reality game, with an in-game currency exchangeable for Blue Star's currency, not even a dog would have played this exercise in masochism.

(End of chapter)

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