Ascension: Strongest Fateless Mage

Zevien soon arrived at the location. It was within a dormant volcano, and there were people inside the volcano preparing the ritual.

"P-please let us go!"

"What are you going to do to us?"

"Please, somebody help!"

Twelve young men were trapped inside a cage. Their ages ranged from fourteen to eighteen.

The young men were crying for help, but the five people donned in dark gray robes with red and purple patterns had turned deaf ears to them. They were standing in front of an altar made of bones. A dark-purple skull on top of the altar was burning with violet flames, making it extra creepy.

"They can't fly, right?" Zevien muttered as he floated high in the sky.

They didn't know that Zevien was watching them yet.

After a few seconds, Zevien got an idea. He descended to the ground at the volcano's base, then walked towards the entrance before hitting a wall to make some sound and hid behind a rock. He had already buffed himself with internally cast Somatic Anger and Somatic Happiness.

Those cultists heard slight sounds and became cautious, but they couldn't help but think that another lamb might have arrived.

"L, go and take a look. Maybe it's another lamb."

One cultist left the group and walked towards the entrance before looking around for a few seconds.

"It should be a bird or something." The cultist L muttered with a frown as he didn't find anything.

Just as the cultist turned around...

*Swoosh….*

Zevien disappeared from his location with his swift movements of the cat form combined with vampire wings and arrived behind the cultist in a second before piercing his throat with the dagger.

The cultist opened his mouth to try and warn the other cultists, but alas, with the dagger in his throat, he couldn't utter a single word and died quickly.

Zevien hurriedly took off the robe and wore it himself. The height difference was negligible, so it was not noticeable.

'Hey, Zevy. This ritual is interesting. How about you continue the ritual by sacrificing these cultists instead of the kids?' Tarto appeared on Zevien's shoulder and said through telepathy.

Zevien walked towards the ritual site while replying, 'they probably needed those young men between the ages 14 and 18 for a successful ritual. If the scapegoats aren't them, I doubt it would work.'

Tarto pawed Zevien in the head and said, 'who wants a successful ritual?'

'You mean….,' Zevien raised his eyebrows as he remembered something, 'anything has a chance to trigger the magic spell concept phenomenon...especially killing-related.'

'Alright. Let's do it,' Zevien nodded.

'Yeah, activate it and see how it goes. I also want to see which entity is summoned from this Purple Spectrum magic labyrinth's deep zones,' Tarto said while caressing his whiskers in curiosity.

'However, you have to tell me how strong those four cultists are so that I can make quick work of them depending on their power,' Zevien demanded.

'No need to worry. They all have around one thousand magic power, which means you can kill them easily.'

Hearing that, Zevien grinned as he threw caution to the wind and dashed inside.

His vampire wings flapped once as he zoomed inside with the dagger in his hand.

"Who?!" one of the cultists was sharp and attacked Zevien quickly by conjuring a dark purple whip.

'Are you serious?' Zevien was speechless as that bastard caught his right leg despite his speed.

The other cultists conjured dark purple lances, but Zevien flapped his vampire wings as he zoomed behind the cultist who caught him.

Zevien's physical strength was higher, so he overpowered that bastard and swung him using the whip connection between them before crashing him into another cultist while also dodging the lances easily.

"KILL HIM!" the leader cultist shouted after being swung by Zevien.

"Oh no you don't," Zevien laughed as he disappeared from their view by zooming upward. He then descended like a rocket with the dagger in one hand and a purple orb in another hand.

He appeared behind a cultist before slashing his throat with his dagger.

*Boom…*

At the same time, he released the purple orb of Somatic Anger toward another cultist, blowing him into pieces.

The remaining two cultists couldn't keep up with Zevien's speed as he killed another after a second.

But he kept the cultist leader alive, albeit crippled.

With no working legs or hands to do anything, the cultist leader asked in a shaking voice, "what d-do you want? Why did you keep me a-alive?"

Those young men aging fourteen to eighteen were hopeful and glad that someone finally came to save them.

However, the next second, they felt despair again.

"How do you activate this ritual?" Zevien asked with a wicked smile.

"W-what?" the cultist leader was startled before getting excited, "you want to activate this ritual? We just need three more sacrifices to summon Lord Mura-Oni fully at this location."

"NO! Please help us, big brother!"

"Please don't do that!"

The kids started crying and begging.

Zevien felt bad but had to do this for the leader to spit out the method to activate the ritual.

"Tell me how to activate the ritual, and I will get three more young men here and activate it myself," Zevien said as a nasty grin formed on his face.

"O-ok…ok! Perfect," the cultist leader nodded quickly in excitement before telling the method to Zevien.

After Zevien learned the method, he nodded with a smile and stabbed the dagger into the man's forehead, "thank you."

Afterward, Zevien went to the cage and woefully smiled, "relax. I was just joking about using you all as sacrifices. You are free now."

*Clang..crack..*

Zevien broke the cage and released the kids.

"Then why did you ask for the ritual activation method?" an eighteen-year-old young man with dark green hair asked. He was the eldest in the group.

"Because I wanted to activate it using these scumbags as sacrifices," Zevien said with a grin before he went to gather all the cultists.

On the other hand, the kids started discussing something instead of leaving.

"Why are you still here?" Zevien saw that the kids still didn't leave and said, "you are all free now. Go back to where you came from."

"N-no…we want to see them getting sacrificed," the eldest of them spoke with a slight stammer, but his voice turned firm at the end.

"Wow, you are all so brave. Children of the wild, eh?" uttered Zevien speechlessly.

"It's ok. We know that the ritual won't be successful without required sacrifices," the eldest kid said, "we just want to see them getting burned and…see you kill that half-ass summoned Mura-Oni. You are summoning him because you want to kill him, right?"

"Meow~. It seems that these kids want to benefit from this, Keke," Tarto appeared and laughed.

"Fine, suit yourselves," Zevien shrugged before going to the altar and pouring his mana into that purple skull, which resulted in the skull producing more purple flame.

Zevien then used his mana to control the flame, extracting some of it from the skull and placing it on the cultists' corpses.

The corpses started to intensely burn while Zevien controlled the flame to draw a symbol around the altar as the cultist leader drew on the floor.

"Stay back, kids. It's starting!" Zevien said as he also moved back after seeing the magic circle glowing before a similar magic circle, but vertical, started conjuring on top of the altar.

"ł ₩₳₦₮ɆĐ ɎØɄ₦₲ ₳₦Đ ₳ⱠłVɆ ₴₳₵Ɽł₣ł₵Ɇ₴!"