musicians of old

Chapter 909 Living Sacrifice
It really was a "phantom" from a certain timeline.

Or perhaps it was the remains of the "old days" that Fanning had personally smashed at the last moment.

After Mr. F finished speaking, the believers dressed in clean, light-colored robes slightly adjusted their kneeling positions, circling around the "Egyptian cat god statue" more closely.

They stretched out their hands and began scratching their eyelids.

Generally, it starts with poking and scratching, then clumsily stabbing; first with fingernails, then directly with the whole thick finger, mostly the index and middle fingers, and also the thumb.

Satisfied sighs and twitches emanated from their throats, and the wet, slippery sound of flesh being torn apart echoed as the believers eagerly stuffed their eyeballs into the pupils of the "Egyptian cat god statue."

Those pupils, which were originally upright like conductor's batons, could not possibly accommodate so many eyeballs.

Therefore, they can only accumulate and hang outwards, but they are held together by the fascia tissue and do not fall apart.

So, under the intense, nearby sunlight, they took on vibrant colors and stretched out, one on each side, becoming even more swollen and full.

Just like the two prominent, colorful eyestalks that appear on snails infected with "double-disc fluke".

"Little Red Rose, the world is in great distress, and people are living in great pain." Mr. F's gaze lingered on this scene for a moment, then he continued to look at the sky and the "waves" below the tower from time to time, muttering a few words to himself as he waited.

The lyrics being recited were the "First Light" section from "The Boy's Magic Horn".

Or rather, the "joyful poem" included in the so-called doctrine of the Descent of God Society in Janus.

“Isn’t that obvious?” Fan Ning, the composer of the “Resurrection” symphony, simply scoffed.

After all, in terms of its occult function, "The Boy's Magic Call" was a derivative of "The Secret Realm of Apocalypse".

It was yet another clash of hidden strengths, a battle of erosion and countermeasures against the pollution of true knowledge.

With a fifth-level Order being compared to a sixth-level Order, and both using self-created keys, Fanning might still be at a disadvantage when the real battle begins. However, it would be wishful thinking to think that such a casual act of knowledge contamination could shake Fanning's current divinity.

This includes the process of these human sacrifices in the rear.

It's unclear whether this was a deliberate act by dangerous individuals in front of Fan Ning, or simply a coincidence that things had come to this point.

Anyway, the methods are a bit old-fashioned, and the scale is a bit ordinary.

"If the hard-won 'new world' finally arrives, what would Master Fanning most like to do?" Mr. F lit a slender, light pink cigarette, and continued to ask questions in a casual manner amidst the swirling smoke.

“Cherish it, and enjoy it,” Fan Ning replied immediately, as if in casual conversation.

The horrifying sounds of flesh and blood emanating from the believers' bodies were like the tuning before a concert.

“‘Enjoyment’ is a good prospect,” Mr. F nodded in approval. “Both the method and the object have a lot of room for imagination and expansion.”

“The term ‘New World’ is even more difficult to use,” Fanning said with a half-smile.

Perhaps they are not referring to the same thing at all.

“But I hardly expected to ‘enjoy’ it.”

"what?"

"My expectations are mostly for death and eternal sleep," the dangerous individual said with a gentle yet frank expression.

“I’ve noticed that people who can be leaders of a faction are all very enlightened,” Fan Ning said, making a sarcastic, stern gesture.

"Humans have been bound by old forms for too long. Pogrerich wanted to control the problem simply and brutally, and Bach and the others wanted to go back to the past, but it was all in vain. The root of the problem is rotten; the only way is to break free from the boundaries. Some things were indeed not originally for my personal benefit, although I am included in that, but mainly, it was for all those who can be saved to reach a higher level." This "illusionary" sacrifice came to a temporary end, and Mr. F produced a small hammer for striking a tuning fork. He walked through the unconscious believers with empty eyes and squatted down in front of the "Egyptian cat god statue" with bulging and drooping eye stalks.

"Ting——"

The statue's base was struck, and what came out was no longer simply the A note that Fanning had heard in a certain withered time and space.

The A note was once the keynote of the "Tragedy" symphony.

At that moment, a two-tone sound was emitted.

The jarring and unsettling double notes, in addition to the A note, also include an even louder augmented fourth interval, known as the "devil's interval".

Decrease E.

“What could be some additional factors?” Mr. F, who was holding the small hammer, stood up.

Fanning remained calm and composed throughout.

The second object, an indistinct "phantom" in the shadows, is a Thor ruby ​​bow, its peach-pink imprints resembling unhealed scars under the dark green moonlight.

Without any instruction, the white-robed believers quietly rose and walked toward it.

With an almost reverent pilgrimage-like devotion, one after another, they pressed different parts of their bodies—neck, chest, waist, and abdomen—against the invisible blade of the harp bow.

The flesh and bones were silently sliced ​​apart, piece by piece, large and small, cleanly and neatly separated and falling.

The peach-pink marks on the bow grew ever more vivid, and after being saturated with the forms of life, the shapes flickered more rapidly between the instrument and the weapon.

However, compared to the previous timelines, they are still semi-transparent illusions.

The Gothic Confession Chair, with its black oak carvings of a stake and amethyst studs, exudes an ominous allure.

The believers lined up in an orderly fashion and sat down one by one. The moment the first person's body touched the seat, the amethyst nail suddenly lit up with a ghostly light. The person's body stiffened abruptly, and their expression froze in a moment of extreme pain and relief. A dark red light shone through their skin, and their body quickly carbonized and cracked, eventually turning into a small clump of still-warm black ash.

Then the next person sat down directly on the ashes.
The whole process was very quiet, with only some ashes falling from the side with a soft rustling sound. The penitential chair did indeed become more solid as the charred grease accumulated and thickened.

The Ottoman planetarium features a slowly rotating brass sphere, with missing stars forming a blurred lamp-shaped outline.

The believers used some sharp little tools to silently disassemble each other's bodies. The tools skillfully probed into the joints, accompanied by a slight "click" sound, shoulder blades, elbows, knees.
The still-warm, even slightly trembling parts were carefully inserted into the corresponding missing holes on the planetarium. After finishing, the person quietly made room for the next person, sat back in their original spot, like a machine that had lost its parts, staring blankly as their part became part of the celestial chart.

The gears of the planetarium turned more smoothly, and the pale green shadows it cast became increasingly distorted and erroneous, as if space itself were being redefined.

A Venetian carnival mask, half smiling and half crying, floats silently in mid-air.

The white-robed congregants surrounded it, pulling at their faces, forcibly lifting the corners of their mouths with their fingers to imitate that eternal smile, or drooping their eyebrows and eyes to recreate that endless sorrow.

The strength was so great that the skin was torn and the muscle fibers were exposed to the air, but the eyes stubbornly and vacantly played the role of the mask's expression.

Gradually, the actor's face began to melt, like a heated wax figure, dripping out colorful, viscous liquid.

These droplets did not fall to the ground, but were swept away and swallowed by the even more turbulent colorful "fountain" gushing from the eye openings of the mask, making the mask's expression increasingly colorful and frenzied.

"Isn't it worthy of our respect, Master Fanning?" Mr. F asked, then took off his hat and bowed in gratitude to each of the temporary "phantom objects" that had been reconstructed.

"Why don't you arrange for people from each region to work together at the same time? That's inefficient," Fan Ning scoffed, his tone sarcastic.