Who Was I Sacrificing To?!

"An evil god?" Elliot sounded a little amused. "No, I just wrote these at random."

He now had a stack of cards in his hand. The [Sun Wukong] card he had just inserted into the [Ritual] slot popped back out, and he promptly inserted another. Soon, a small pile of rejected cards had formed in front of him.

"Sun Wukong, Dong Zhuo, Nini, Astartes-none of them work... does it have to be someone from this world?"

Elliot hesitated, then picked up another card.

[Elliott Sterling]

The image printed on this card was of himself.

He had just had a sudden idea. The game on this Difference Engine offered an absurd degree of freedom. He could even type on the keyboard to talk directly to NPCs, and scan information from newspapers into it.

Then... could he write his own cards and scan them in?

The ultimate secret of any card gamer was always conjuring cards out of thin air!

Elliot casually wrote out a stack of characters, some real and some fictional, and tossed them in. After scanning them, the Difference Engine actually printed a pile of cards for him!

But these cards seemed to be collectibles only, unusable in the game. He had tried so many, and not a single one worked.

He had also tried writing himself in, which gave him a card of his own.

Elliot looked at the card in his hand, somewhat hesitant.

This card was different from all the others.

Those earlier cards had only a name, with the rest of their faces blank.

But this [Elliott Sterling] card had a simple drawing on its face, just like the girl's card.

A rather languid young noble sat at a card table, propping his head on one hand while idly holding a card between the fingers of the other.

The drawing was simple but expressive. It was clearly him as he sat in this secret room right now.

That made Elliot wonder again. Was there really something strange about this Difference Engine?

But thinking about it, if a camera was pointed at him, it would make sense that it could draw him. After all, the card simply showed him playing cards here.

Then, should he put himself into the [Ritual] as the recipient of the offering?

Elliot hesitated.

Vanessa was utterly bewildered.

She could tell that the entity controlling her did not intend to have her sacrifice to Jingyuan.

But what in the world were all those things it had put in earlier?

Vanessa could not help recalling the information she had read in "The Sins and Punishments of Sacrifice-The Pitiful Extraordinary Ones":

The three elements of sacrifice: ritual, offering, and target.

Not one of the three could be missing. Any omission would prevent the sacrifice from succeeding. Once all three were assembled, the sacrifice could proceed.

The earlier rituals had all failed, lacking the three required elements. The ritual had already been drawn, and Vanessa could see no mistakes or omissions. The offering, meanwhile, would only be chosen after the ritual began.

So had the failures just now been caused by the target?

Were those entities not gods capable of receiving sacrifices? Had the wrong recipients been chosen?

Vanessa had never heard these names before, but for many of them, merely hearing the name made her heart tremble uncontrollably, as though she had touched some indescribable horror!

Remembering that this was an entity capable of controlling her, Vanessa began to panic. Who exactly was she going to sacrifice to?!

Especially now, after so many rapid attempts, her movements had stopped completely.

That entity was hesitating!

Vanessa no longer dared to think any further. A target that could make even an entity that held her life and death in its hands, that treated her as nothing, hesitate... just how terrifying an entity could it be?

Buzzz!!!

A humming sound came from beneath her feet, and the blood smeared across the floor instantly lit up!

Vanessa froze, then her pupils abruptly dilated.

The ritual... had begun!

According to what she had read in the book, once a ritual began, the sacrifice had to be completed. Any interruption or failure would be regarded as blasphemy against the responding entity, bringing down a terrifying calamity beyond imagination or resistance!

But... heavens! Who exactly was she sacrificing to?! And what offering should she present?!

She had absolutely no idea!

Vanessa's mind went blank. She had actually violated the most inviolable taboo-sacrificing to a completely unknown entity!

Quick, stop! Stop! Vanessa screamed inwardly, but she did not dare make a sound.

Now that the ritual had succeeded, everything she said would become part of the sacrifice.

If she actually said, "Stop the ritual," it would be treated as a wish, one that required an offering to fulfill.

And such an offensive act would almost certainly be twisted, wouldn't it?

Vanessa was truly trembling now. One slight mistake in her response, and she would probably die here.

Who knew what terrifying entity was on the other end!

Inside the mansion.

"So it really does let her sacrifice to me."

To his surprise, Elliot found that the [Sacrifice] slot swallowed the card and brought up an [Offering] slot.

"But how will it work out what happens next? I don't have any Path... should I try putting in an offering first?"

"But... what should I use as the offering?"

Vanessa was still trembling where she stood when her body suddenly stiffened. That entity made her speak.

"I offer the excess nail on the little finger of my left hand as a sacrifice."

Vanessa: ???

The girl felt as though her brain had jammed.

Just a piece of fingernail?!

Would that really not anger the evil god?

After all, a Path was a Path precisely because it had been discovered through extensive trial and error. Changing the offering without authorization, sacrificing either more or less, could anger the evil god.

Evil gods like [Shengtuo], who accepted anything, were exceedingly rare. Most sacrifices had to follow the Path strictly. The book had devoted three whole pages to the severe consequences of an incorrect sacrifice.

If the girl had merely been trembling earlier, unsure what kind of evil god she would sacrifice to, her face was now ashen.

Any kind of evil god could crush her with ease!

Elsewhere.

After making the girl finish speaking, Elliot saw the tabletop in front of him suddenly split open. Its panels withdrew to either side, revealing a platform as though it had entered combat mode.

But this time, three cards appeared on its surface.

[Bestowal] [Blessing] [Distortion]

Elliot paused, then turned over the first card.

[Bestowal]

"The giver loses its form; the receiver gains its shadow."

The other two cards were swallowed back into their slots, leaving only the [Bestowal] slot on the surface.

Elliot nodded in understanding, having roughly grasped what it meant.

It seemed he could only choose one of the three.

Then... what should he bestow?

There had originally been quite a few cards on the table, but when the tabletop split open just now, they had all been taken away.

Only the two [Path] cards remained.

Was he supposed to bestow a [Path] card on her? But these were things the girl herself had found by leafing through a book, weren't they?

Elliot felt a little awkward. After hesitating, he put [Path Two] in anyway.

A bloody light flashed within the ritual.

Vanessa saw a card suddenly appear on the floor covered in her blood.