Another set of glowing lines started up as the floating circle started to rotate in mid-air. It was a strange sensation. Eva could sense her blood being stationary, right where she had left it. Yet she could see it ticking around the circle with her own eyes.
And she could see something stretching out from the circle. Thick tentacles, each tipped with a maw of teeth and lined with eyes.
Definitely not the flaming light that had once inhabited the avatar’s smoky body.
The real question was, did she let the enigma continue to come through in the hopes that Void might slip through sometime, or did she cut it off now.
A lightning bolt passed straight through the intangible Avatar and struck the emerging enigma.
Eva wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen, but she had not expected it to explode. Blood and puss splattered everywhere, spraying out from the summoning circle. But it was only the outer layer. Rather than the organic and bloated mess that accompanied many of Life’s minions, a smooth sphere with legs finished climbing out of the summoning circle. The white shell cracked like an egg as it rushed across the surface of the main ritual circle.
Right towards Eva.
Eva swiped out. Whatever it was, it wasn’t of Hell. It couldn’t be good for her.
But her wings never connected. The thing disappeared with a pop before Eva could even see what had been inside the egg. Off in the distance, a bright violet light washed over the treetops.
Juliana must have teleported it. That was the only explanation that Eva could think of. Unless it had been designed to teleport away. She didn’t know what the point of it charging at her was, if that was so.
Regardless, Eva collapsed the summoning circle immediately. The avatar hadn’t stirred in the slightest and she could already see the tentacles of another enigma worming its way out of Hell. No sense giving Life another opportunity to ruin everything by letting more enigmas through.
That plan had been a failure. What else could she do?
Behind her, the light from the thin beam of violet that was running between the eye overhead and the brain slice was growing brighter. Slowly, yes, but steadily. Eva didn’t know what that meant. It probably wasn’t going to turn everything to flowers and sunshine.
Or maybe it would, but that was the problem. Eva didn’t really want to be a flower. Especially not a tumorous one. She doubted that anyone else in the immediate area felt differently.
So summoning Void was a bust. Maybe if she had more time or a Catherine who wasn’t twenty yards away, she could figure out a better summoning circle to use.
Turning back to Life, she considered Void’s original intention. Corrupting it. Somehow, she doubted that encouraging it to lie or walking up and shaking a tentacle with a few hundred dollar bills in her hand would work.
But…
But!
Could it actually be so simple?
Probably not, but she didn’t have any better ideas at the moment.
Eva whipped out a small circle of blood in front of her and started filling it in. She stared at the circle, ignoring another bolt of lightning and trusting someone else to take care of it. She didn’t know ritual circle modification theory well enough, but this… It might work.
It would be a pretty big might. But she was out of options. The only other thing was killing the entire ritual and hoping that they could try again at another time.
Eva’s arms shot skyward, filling the air around her with blood. Because of the distance between the two avatars, she would need a lot of it. Enough to make this ritual circle large enough to encompass the two of them.
She would be right in the center. Dangerous but necessary. Not only could she not move because of the primary ritual, but she was needed to keep her blood aloft. Were she to move outside of it, she doubted that her range would allow her to manipulate the far end of the circle she was constructing.
Eva plunged a tendril of blood into the mass of flesh. A second tendril dove into the smoke of Void’s avatar, but without a proper body, Eva was left supporting the tendril entirely through magic. Gritting her teeth, she inserted the opposite ends of each tendril into her wrists.
This ritual—This treatment, for as long as Eva had known about it, it had required the passing of blood. With the Avatar of Void not having blood, she might have to act as a stand-in. Just in case that was entirely unnecessary, Eva did connect the two hollow tubes outside of her body as well, allowing for a bypass.
Everything ready, Eva shot a glance towards Catherine. Who, by her wide eyes, had obviously recognized what Eva was about to attempt. She shouted something, but Eva couldn’t hear. The distance and ambient noise drowned her out.
She was probably saying something like, “Good thinking Eva, this will work. I’m absolutely confident about it. Also you haven’t made a single mistake in the small modifications you made to your treatment circle. Everything is perfect!”
With that hopeful message in mind, Eva poured her magic into the treatment circle overhead and got it underway.
Immediately, Eva felt a drain on her body. Not just blood, which certainly was moving through the tube, but a physical drain that had her slumping forwards. Both tubes were filled with essence. The smoke was draining from the avatar. She couldn’t see it with her sense of blood, but she could feel it pass through her and mix with her blood before moving out the other side.
Her wings of blood darted forwards to catch her before she completely hit the ground, leaving her propped up but hanging slightly. A good thing her wings were working. She couldn’t even flex her fingers.
She could stare at nothing but the ground, though her sense of blood still worked.
Like the Avatar of Void, Life’s avatar ceased moving the moment the ritual started. Something Eva had been hoping for. During her treatment, she and Arachne had always fallen asleep. Powers were obviously beings quite a bit different from humans and demons, but it was nice to see that it had worked.
Eva let out a sigh filled with relief. Maybe this wouldn’t work out in the end. Maybe this wouldn’t corrupt it enough. But it was her best plan.
All she could think of at the moment. It would have to work.
Chapter 022
Eva’s eyes snapped open to find the stone surface of the ritual circle, still glowing in a vibrant violet light. She wasn’t sure when she had closed her eyes. A deep rumbling in the ground beneath her feet had pulled her out of her torpor.
Seeing the ritual circle sent a jolt through Eva’s body. She couldn’t believe that she had fallen asleep.
Straining the muscles in her neck, she barely managed to look straight forwards. And her head ached every moment of the way. She only just got to see Catherine, Lucy, and Shelby standing on their spots before she couldn’t take it any more and let her head hang back down against her chest.
Not too much time could have passed. All three were standing. Mostly. Lucy’s lower half wasn’t a cohesive set of legs at the moment. More of a mountain made from tentacles that her upper body had perched upon. Catherine might not be the best metric for time passing either, being a demon. Eva wasn’t entirely sure about the stamina of a succubus. Maybe she would have collapsed from exhaustion eventually. However, Eva fully believed that Catherine had the stamina to remain standing for days.
Shelby was the real metric. She was a human. Not even an athletic one at that. Standing in one place for hours on end was absolute hell on the feet. Possible, easily, but Eva imagined that she would be shifting her weight side to side every few seconds.
Though it was somewhat odd that she was standing. Most everyone had chosen to kneel before they had started up the ritual. Save for Genoa and Catherine.