Huosiming, who was fast asleep, slowly opened his eyes and rolled over groggily.
A new era was about to dawn, though no one could foresee whether it would be a golden age or an uncontrollable catastrophe.
The First Blasphemy, Chapter 42: Sacrifice 1
Thump-thump-thump… A rhythmic sound of footsteps echoed in the apartment. Father William paced back and forth in his own apartment. Because of the trouble he had caused in Exmouth Town, he had left the little town, come to Kundalup District, and finally settled in this apartment building.
Father William had been here for almost a month. During this time, he had not been as unrestrained as in Exmouth Town, sacrificing the townspeople to the Holy Grail. Kundalup District was a more prosperous urban area, unlike the remote Exmouth Town. It was densely populated and commercially developed; any slight disturbance would be very sensitive.
Father William considered that the blood sacrifice to the Holy Grail must continue. He had to truly awaken the Origin Power within the Holy Grail to restore his granddaughter’s normal life. Father William felt he should learn from his mistakes. He couldn't be as ostentatious as before in Exmouth and attract attention.
Moreover, Father William felt a sense of urgency to complete a blood sacrifice as soon as possible. He sensed his own divine source power becoming restless because it had not received the baptism of the Holy Grail's divine source power for nearly a month. If this continued, he too would suffer a backlash from the divine source power, ultimately being corroded and transforming into a twisted monster devoid of self-awareness.
He had to start targeting the other residents in this apartment building. But how could he make the residents disappear without implicating himself?
"I've got it. Strike while the iron is hot. Why must I bring them to my apartment one by one for blood sacrifice? Why can't I have the blood sacrifice completed within their own apartments?” Father William’s face, usually adorned with a gentle smile, now contorted into a wicked grin. "Indeed, one must think more. Power alone is not enough."
In Father William's apartment, there was a spare bedroom that no one used. Father William stood before a large plastic barrel, estimating its capacity at seventy to eighty liters. He picked up a small knife and made an incision on his arm. Dark blood immediately began to flow from the wound. Drop by drop, the black blood flowed, and by inertia, it dripped into the large plastic barrel.
This barrel had originally contained more than half its volume of blood. It was likely animal blood that Father William had obtained from somewhere. Now, as the black drops from Father William's arm fell into the barrel, the red blood within gradually turned black. Father William looked down at the black blood in the barrel and smiled, very satisfied with his results.
His plan was to incorporate the entire apartment into the ritual array for the blood sacrifice. Unknowingly, he would sacrifice each of his lovely neighbors. This process would not be quick; it would take some time. This was inspired by the blood sacrifice ritual taught to him by Dracula Vlad.
Theoretically, a blood sacrifice ritual was used to offer one person. Therefore, expanding the ritual array to cover the entire apartment and sacrificing all the residents at once should also be theoretically feasible. And this barrel of mixed blood, infused with the blood of a divine source power user like himself, was the key.
He spent several days, casually sprinkling this barrel of mixed blood into the lawn surrounding the apartment. When this black blood was sprinkled on the grass, it left no trace on the ground. Instead, as if alive, it sank directly into the earth, disappearing from sight. At least, it was invisible to the naked eye. Only the flowers and plants that were splashed immediately withered and died; they were the only proof. But who would pay attention to insignificant flowers and plants?
Besides the perimeter of the apartment building, Father William had also made some arrangements within the building's grounds. For instance, he made certain ritual markings on the walls or floors of all the other neighbors' apartments. Of course, these markings were invisible to the human eye, just like what Father William had sprinkled on the outer lawn.
Father William himself did not know how the blood sacrifice ritual was activated. He only knew that once he placed the Holy Grail and accurately outlined a certain ancient runic pattern around it with the mixed blood of a divine source power user, the entire blood sacrifice ritual array would be prepared. As for how to activate the ritual? The moment all the ancient runic patterns in the ritual array were completed, whether they were for the Holy Grail, the focus of the ritual, or the sacrifices, the entire blood sacrifice ritual would self-activate. There would be no anomalies affecting the surroundings; everything would be silent. All Father William had to do next was wait.
Ino had immigrated to Australia from Japan through business immigration. He rented a shop in the largest commercial shopping center in Kundalup District, operating an authentic Japanese restaurant. His Japanese restaurant was located in the dining area on the first floor of the shopping center.
Although Ino's Japanese dining business had only been operating for less than a year, it was doing quite well. Firstly, Japanese cuisine was quite popular in Australia. Secondly, Ino's restaurant served authentic Japanese food, much more genuine than the stylish but substance-less Japanese cuisine offered by some so-called Japanese restaurants. At the current rate of development, Ino could obtain his permanent residency visa for Australia within two years.
Today was the weekend, so the restaurant closed early for rest. Ino was also preparing to go home early. His home was in Kundalup District, at Apartment 11, 8th Avenue. Ino had originally wanted to buy a detached bungalow, but his wife, Yumi Anzu, was not accustomed to living in one, so the couple eventually moved into this apartment building.
Upon returning home, as soon as he entered the door, he saw his wife, Yumi Anzu, hurrying to greet him. "Honey, you're back!" Yumi Anzu said while taking his coat. "Inoko called today."
Ino casually responded with an "Oh," and asked his wife, "What did you talk about?" Inoko was Ino and Yumi Anzu's daughter. Ino had temporarily left their daughter with his mother back in Japan. He planned to bring his daughter Inoko and his elderly mother to Australia once he and his wife obtained their permanent residency visas, so they could apply for immigration under the name of his direct relatives.
"Inoko misses us so much! She asked when she could see us," Yumi Anzu said, feeling tears welling up in her eyes. She found it strange. Although she missed her daughter dearly, why had she become so sentimental, getting depressed just from a phone call with her daughter? Moreover, her husband's business was developing smoothly, and she believed they could bring their daughter to them within a year.
"I know, I know, are you that bothered!" Ino felt very irritated. Lately, his wife kept mentioning how much their daughter missed them. Once, twice, thrice, he felt gratified, but saying the same thing every day, what was she trying to achieve? Was she urging him to bring their daughter over quickly? Didn't he want to? Wasn't he trying his best? For some reason, Ino felt annoyed whenever he saw Yumi Anzu these past few days. It was a feeling of discomfort just hearing her voice. He couldn't control this emotion. "You don't need to remind me every day about bringing our daughter over. I'm working hard every day, do you think I'm useless?"
Yumi Anzu heard the displeasure in her husband's tone and began to get angry. So she could only close her mouth and remain silent, feeling very wronged.
The sky gradually darkened, and it was time for dinner. Yumi Anzu served two plates of Japanese dishes on the table, calling her husband to eat, "Honey, dinner is ready. I made your favorite Japanese beef curry rice and shrimp tempura today."
The two sat down at the table and began their dinner. "Ptooey, ptooey…" Ino took a bite of the beef curry rice and spat it all out. "How did you make this curry rice? Don't you know I can't eat anything too spicy?!"
Yumi Anzu found it very strange. She knew well that her husband had a sensitive stomach and was allergic to spicy food. Therefore, she had not bought spicy curry, only plain curry. So she tasted the curry rice on her plate; the taste was normal, only slightly spicy. This was exactly the taste her husband used to love. She had made it the same way today as always.
Confused, Yumi Anzu replied, "It tastes the same as before, doesn't it? Taste mine if you don't believe me."
"Do you think I'm useless? That I don't deserve to eat your cooking?" Ino glared angrily at Yumi Anzu, shouting at her hysterically. Then, like a madman, he grabbed a beer bottle from the table and threw it at his wife.
The First Blasphemy, Chapter 43: Sacrifice 2
It was the first time Yumi Anzu had seen her husband in such a frenzied state. She never expected Ino to hit her. Before she could react, she was hit in the face by the beer bottle. Yumi Anzu felt a sharp pain in her nose and collapsed to the ground.
Unexpectedly, Ino was like a madman today. Seeing her fall, he didn't stop. He pounced on her and began to strangle her, tightly gripping Yumi Anzu's neck.
Yumi Anzu, a frail housewife, had nowhere near the strength of Ino, a man. She couldn't break free from his hands that were suffocating her.
She felt death approaching. In her dying moments, she seemed to hear a whispering voice in her ear: "Grab the glass shards beside you and kill him. Then you can live."
Yumi Anzu subconsciously glanced sideways. She saw a large piece of glass shard within reach. It was from the beer bottle that had been thrown at her, broken on the floor. This piece of glass looked remarkably bright, like a mirror. Yumi Anzu's subconscious glance startled her. Because through the reflection in the glass shard, she saw that Ino's face was no longer Ino's; it was a stitched-together face, with clear suturing marks visible. The suture line started from Ino's left eye socket and diagonally extended to his lower jaw on the right side of his face. Coupled with Ino's current frenzied expression, it looked extremely grotesque.
Yumi Anzu did not want to be killed by this monster. Before her faint consciousness dissipated, she released her grip on Ino's wrist and quickly reached for the glass shard. Then, using her last ounce of strength, she swung it towards the frenzied Ino's head.
At this moment, the frenzied Ino was entirely focused on Yumi Anzu, who was on the verge of death, and paid no attention to any other sounds. Yumi Anzu's swing landed directly on Ino's left eye and then slid straight down to his lower jaw on the right side of his face.
Ino let out a tragic cry, and his hands immediately moved from Yumi Anzu's neck. He clutched his large face, blood splattering from it. After a while, Ino removed his hands from his face. He stared intently at Yumi Anzu, mumbling indistinctly, "Die… die… die."
Yumi Anzu was stunned. She looked at her husband lying on the ground. His face was a horrific sight; his left eyeball had popped out of its socket, and his right eye was bloodshot and covered in capillaries. Both of his eyeballs stared unblinkingly at her.
"Kill him. He is not your husband. Would your real husband do this to you? Kill him." The whispering voice from before returned to her ear.
"That's right! My husband, Ino, always loved me dearly. The person in front of me cannot be my husband. Yes, I must kill him." Yumi Anzu's eyes lit up. She seemed to have suddenly understood something important. Thus, Yumi Anzu gripped the glass shard tighter. Drops of blood fell from her palm holding the shard, but she felt no pain from the cut.
Yumi Anzu was still very scared. The Ino lying on the ground looked terrifying, and blood was still streaming from his face. He was now completely soaked in blood, looking exceptionally ghastly.
Yumi Anzu cautiously approached the person lying on the ground. She kicked him twice with her foot. The Ino on the ground seemed dazed, only mumbling something but showing no reaction. Yumi Anzu hardened her heart and delivered another blow to his neck.
After finishing, Yumi Anzu slumped to the ground. Time ticked by. The Ino on the ground became cold, and Yumi Anzu gradually recovered. She looked at the cold Ino and cried silently. Was this truly the husband she had once loved?
She didn't know why such a thing had happened today. It felt as if something was manipulating everything from afar, and she and her husband were like puppets on strings. But what was the use of thinking about such things now that it had come to this?
Yumi Anzu did not want to report to the police and surrender herself. She planned to quietly dispose of Ino's body, clean up the mess, and then report him missing after at least two or three days.
First, she removed all the clothes from Ino's body and put them in a sealed bag. Then, she moved the body to the bathtub in the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and soaked Ino's body to drain as much blood as possible. Finally, she put the whitened corpse into a large black garbage bag.
Next, Yumi Anzu used a powerful detergent she had bought and stored at home to clean the bloodstains on the floor and in the bathtub. She repeated this cleaning process more than a dozen times until all the detergent was used up.
By the time Yumi Anzu finished everything, it was already 2:45 AM. She quietly opened her apartment door and peeked at the doors and windows of her neighbors. At this hour, all the neighbors should be asleep. She went out and tiptoed around the upper floors and the ground floor of the apartment. The night was quiet, and the entire apartment building was dead silent.
"Good, I can get started," Yumi Anzu praised herself inwardly. She was fortunate to live on the ground floor; otherwise, moving the body would have been more troublesome.
Yumi Anzu grabbed her keys and used a household handcart to move Ino's body to the trunk of her car. She got into the driver's seat, started the engine, and drove away. "Everything went smoothly; no one should have noticed, right?" she prayed silently.
Father William stood in the darkness on the second floor of the apartment, witnessing the entire process of Yumi Anzu moving the body, and then silently watched her car leave.
The First Blasphemy, Chapter 44: Sacrifice 3
Around 5:30 AM, Yumi Anzu returned to the apartment building at 11, 8th Avenue, opened her door, and entered. Along the way, Yumi Anzu had buried her husband's body and felt that no one had discovered her. She took a deep breath and exhaled heavily.
Returning to the bedroom she shared with her husband, she collapsed onto the bed and fell into a deep sleep. For Yumi Anzu, a housewife, the sudden disaster last night had left her exhausted, both physically and mentally, on the verge of a breakdown.
Yumi Anzu didn't know how long she slept before being awakened by the doorbell ringing repeatedly. Yumi Anzu, holding her groggy head, got up, went to the door, and responded to the annoying doorbell, "Who is it?"
Person outside: "It's me, honey, open the door quickly."
Yumi Anzu heard the voice and found it very familiar. She thought to herself, "So, it's my husband Ino who's back." Just as Yumi Anzu subconsciously reached out to twist the doorknob, she suddenly had a jolt and stopped. Because she remembered that she had personally disposed of Ino's body, who could it be outside the door asking her to open it now?
Yumi Anzu suppressed her fear, slowly brought her face close to the door, and peered through the peephole to see who was outside. At this moment, the person outside, perhaps feeling that Yumi Anzu was taking too long to respond, became impatient. So the person outside spoke again, "What's wrong? Honey, are you angry because I didn't come home yesterday? Please open the door, I'll explain."
Through the peephole, Yumi Anzu clearly saw the person outside. It was indeed Ino. His build, his appearance – he was the living Ino! "What's going on? I clearly went to great lengths to dispose of Ino's body yesterday. Could everything that happened yesterday have been a nightmare?" Yumi Anzu's mind was in a whirl, but when her peripheral vision caught sight of the empty detergent bottles she had used while cleaning the bloodstains last night, she immediately confirmed that what had happened was not a dream.
At this moment, the Ino outside began to plead again, "Honey, I was drinking with some friends last night. Open the door, honey, I won't do it again next time."
"Hey! Ino went out having a good time and didn't come home last night, so his wife locked him out?" A neighbor noticed Ino knocking on the door and began to tease him.
"Get lost, Basong Balunha. You worry about yourself and stop going to the casino so often. Be careful your wife makes you kneel on a washboard!" Ino and his neighbor, Basong Balunha, started a verbal spat.
Yumi Anzu had many doubts and fears. But she still opened the door. With a creak, the door opened. Yumi Anzu stared with disbelief at the 'husband' standing at the door. He was indeed Ino; at least his appearance, expression, and every movement told Yumi Anzu that this was the husband she had killed last night.
Looking at the tattered clothes on the 'husband's' body, Yumi Anzu became even more confused, because when she buried Ino's body last night, he was naked. Now, this Ino was strange in every way to her.
"Honey, I'm hungry, is there anything to eat?" the freshly returned Ino grumbled, asking Yumi Anzu to make him breakfast.
Yumi Anzu silently entered the kitchen and soon brought out a plate of pan-fried steak. Sitting at the dining table, she watched the resurrected Ino wolf down the steak. Yumi Anzu wore a look of horror. To test this resurrected husband, she had deliberately added many strange seasonings to the steak, such as dish soap. But this Ino seemed to be enjoying it.
Yumi Anzu was even more certain that this was not the original Ino, because the real Ino was very picky about food. If he had tasted dish soap, he would have exploded long ago. In fact, no normal person would eat something that tasted like dish soap, right?
"Your cooking is really good, I love your food the most. Sorry, honey, I'm going to sleep now; I didn't sleep well last night!" At this moment, after finishing the steak, Ino did not forget to say hello to Yumi Anzu, as if feeling guilty about not coming home last night.
Yumi Anzu didn't know what was happening herself. An evil thought reappeared in her mind: "Kill this resurrected Ino."