Dance of the Gods

It was close to noon when Veronica finally woke up. Her whole body was hurting, it was like she had a really long and tiring workout yesterday. In her ear a small steady noise resounded. It was really annoying, but after a few minutes it became unnoticeable.

Her eyes opened and she spent the next hour staring at the ceiling. Yesterday she killed for the first time, and this time she couldn't blame it on an accident.

She looked at her left hand. It was clean, but the memory of pushing the bullet into the woman's eyes kept appearing in her mind. When she remembered the events, she didn't see the demonic creature, but the red haired woman.

The memories of her pulling the trigger a bunch of times and hitting her in the chest... Veronica had to spend a good while trying to realign her mind.

'I had to kill her... Otherwise both me and Alex would've died... I can't act like this every time I have to do something horrible to survive!... This life I had chosen, won't be easy and I will probably have to do things similar to the previous night...'

The thought was sad, but also true. If she broke down just because she had to kill to survive, then she would be better off dead!

With a newfound determination she got out of bed and put a dress on, her choice of clothing was starting to dwindle, which meant at some point she would have to buy more dresses.

She left her room and found Alex sitting at the counter, speaking with James. They both turned towards Veronica and were surprised to see a small smile on her face.

In reality she felt disgusted by the thought of smiling, but as she acted to be fine, a strange feeling appeared in her mind. It was like some wall she hadn't noticed before. She wanted to experiment further and figure out what it was, but at that moment Alex stood up and walked to her.

"Are you okay?" He asked a bit worriedly. As an answer Veronica nodded with confidence, which caused the same feeling to appear again.

Alex smiled a bit then motioned to the basement door. After they went downstairs he brought out the book Veronica had grabbed and placed it between them.

The cover was the color of red wine, with no writing, or anything that could've indicated its contents. What was a bit disturbing about it, was the blood. There were a few splotches on the outside, like someone held it with bloody hands.

"I think we need something to drink, while looking through this." Said Veronica and Alex wasted no time to grab some alcohol.

When they both had a few sips of whiskey, Veronica finally decided to open the book.

The first page was covered in those strange symbols, like the ones around the Murder Ritual.

"Interesting... This seems to be a special ritual language used by the Villain path..." Said Alex as he looked at the symbols curiously. "Can you read it?" Asked Veronica, but she was met with disappointment.

"I can't, but I highly doubt these actually mean anything... They are all over the place, I think she just used this first page to perfect each symbol. As you know, if you make even the smallest mistake in any ritual's symbolism, something unexpected and near hundred percent deadly, could happen. This is especially true for more complicated rituals, like the Murder Ritual!"

What he said made perfect sense. They spent a few minutes looking at the first few pages, each containing the same symbols, it seemed she really just used this as a sketchbook.

When they got to a further page, they found something much more interesting. There were sentences written in Ancient Rener. Just by one look Veronica didn't fully understand what it was, but when she actually started reading it, she realized... It was a journal.

It didn't contain any dates, which made it a lot more confusing, but it was clear that the woman has written down important information in the book.

The first entry was – 'I have done it! I managed to make the Murder Ritual, I can finally start serving my mistress!'

Veronica tried to read more, but her handwriting was just simply awful. She looked up at Alex, but there was no help there.

She begun turning page after page, managing to read a few words and sometimes even sentences, but most just described how good it felt to kill, it was very disturbing. Eventually though she found a much more interesting entry. It was nearing the book's end, which meant it was quite recent.

'I'm getting more powerful. Each kill brings me more strength, but it's still not enough!... A pair of ascended questioned my mistress today, they asked about those sailors I killed... I should kill ascended and do the ritual with them, they would give me more power!... But I was forbidden to do so...'

Both she and Alex read it with wide eyes, but the next entry was even more surprising. It was harder to make out than the previous, but she managed to get one clear sentence.

'They found me, so exciting, I don't even have to hunt them down, they will come right to my door!'

Veronica stared at these words speechlessly, then cursed herself. She should've known that divining her exact location through anti-divination was too good to be true.

Alex on the other hand was fuming from anger. This was a clear evidence who the perpetrator was that killed his men... It was his ex-wife.

For a few moments Veronica tried to find the words to calm him, but she realized that those words simply didn't exist. Some pains only time could cure... or revenge...

After a few more minutes of silence Veronica turned to the final page, but neither of them knew that the last page would be a treasure trove.

There on the pages, about a dozen different orders' rituals were written down. They had the exact main ingredients, rituals and prerequisites to be completed.

Veronica quickly read through them, there were a few duplicates they had already knew about, but most of them were new information.

It contained the Cultivator path's 8th and 7th order, which was named Priest of Creation. There was also the Sinner path's first two orders, the 7th one being Broken Restraint. The next one was Villain and Demon, then the 7th order of the Knowledge Pursuer path, which was Starborn.

Veronica read each with great interest, but when her eyes landed on the last two descriptions her heart skipped a beat.

The first one was something she knew very well since it was her own path, but the second one was new, but very important for her.

The 7th order of the Dancer path. It was called Flexible Warrior. She instantly read the ingredients, which were as always very strange and weirdly disgusting. Roan Tree's Bark and Silent Wraith's Toe Nail.

A shiver went down Veronica's spine and she was glad she only had to bathe in these nauseating items. It would've sucked if she had to eat or drink it!

Her eyes next went to the ritual, but there wasn't anything too special about that. The next thing she read was the prerequisite she had to complete, it was just a strange and disturbing sentence.

'Kill your opponent in a flexible manner!'

She didn't understand the meaning of this, but for one second she didn't feel like advancing. If from now on she had to do something awful for each advancement, then she would rather stay at order 8.

When she brought her concerns up with Alex he just shook his head. Currently he was transcribing all these rituals into a piece of paper, while making sure he divined each one's validity. So far all of them were correct including the Flexible Warrior.

"The prerequisites you have to complete are mostly determined by your path and later on by your circumstances. For the first four orders they are generalized, but after that, you will get specialized ones, which are going to be extremely hard to complete. You probably have to kill because Warrior is in the name of the order, so it will increase your fighting ability after advancement!"

Veronica nodded along and breathed a sigh of relief. If she didn't need to kill at every path, that would make advancing not as shitty.

"What about this 'Killing in a flexible manner'... Do you have any idea what that means?"

He became thoughtful for a moment then just shrugged.

"Not really, but you shouldn't worry about that yet. You still need to gather the ingredients and you haven't acquired a Deeper Understanding of your order either!" He said this, like Veronica should've know what it meant, and when he saw her confused expression he sighed with exhaustion.

"Didn't Suze teach you anything?... I don't understand how can a person be so diligent and lazy at the same time!" He took a sip of his drink, then proceeded to explain what Deeper Understanding meant.

"Before you can proceed to the next order, everyone needs to have a Deeper Understanding of their current order. Without it you basically guarantee a corruption, when you try to advance. This understanding changes per person, but it will always be something you need to learn before advancing."

For a moment Veronica looked away, then remembered that weird feeling she had felt a few times now. It happened mostly when she lied or acted out of her character, with the purpose of furthering her own goals.

Suddenly another thought came to her mind. By her knowledge Alex had all the ingredients for advancement, but he was still only 8th order.

"Is this why you haven't advanced yet? Because you haven't acquired a Deeper Understanding?" Alex glanced up for a moment, then continued to write as he answered.

"Kind of, but I'm also not entirely certain if I want to. With each step you take from a regular human to a higher order ascended, the more you lose yourself and the person you are... This is a danger not many spoke about, but the higher your order the more chance there is for corruption. Nobody is sure why, but I suggest that you think about a lot before advancing... It could save your life!"

Alex continued to transcribe the last page, when Veronica stood up.

"I think I understand, thank you for your advice!" She said then began walking upstairs with a smile on her face.

Behind her Alex just continued and began drinking from straight out of the bottle.

Veronica entered the main room and her heart nearly stopped when she saw the person at the counter. He turned towards her and when their eyes met, she looked away with a blush.

There was only one thought that came to her mind... 

'I forgot about the weapon training...'