Spending My Retirement In A Game

Chapter 890: The Ritual

The silent paws pressed onto the ground as the pitch black cat jumped from edge to edge to edge, following the man that her owner had told her to follow. It was a boring man, doing nothing but simple chores all day, cleaning up after his lord. He would sit down and write letters every once in a while, or receive some from other servants.

While the cat was curious, she wasn't in charge of figuring out what the other servants were doing. Her sisters were in charge of those. Frankly, they all seemed to have a much better time with this.

But this small cat only wanted to nap in the shade. This island was far too bright and hot, but there were also lots of tall cliffs so at least there were some darker spots here and there. Though, even those darker spots had been lit up with glowbugs.

Letting out a slight yawn with a long, deep stretch, the cat kept watching the man. He was taking a walk right now, so at least he was doing something a little more interesting than normal. He also carried with him a small bag filled with random trinkets that the other servants had given him throughout the course of the day.

Of course, this had all been reported to the owner through those pesky little mice that the cat wasn't allowed to pounce on. The owner was so mean sometimes; why would he make those mice clutter around them while telling them they weren't allowed to hunt them?

Though, the one time the cat did try, they managed to avoid the attack pretty well. They were also made of the same shadows that the cat was made of, so maybe that made sense. The shadows were superior to all else, even other shadows, after all. Though, wouldn't that mean that she should have been able to catch the mouse?

Trying not to think about it too much, the cat continued following that boring man, until he came to a stop in a dark corner at the outskirt of town. It was actually a very comfortable place, one of the darkest that she had seen here so far. It almost made her tired, but she had promised the owner to stay awake, so she couldn't nap. How annoying.

Either way, the man squatted down and put the bag to the side, so the cat laid down and rested her head at the edge of the small overhang she was laying on in a way that she could see everything that was going on. Though, she could sense everything here in the area anyway.

She already infected the darkness of this corner, and her eyes were sprouting from every surface so she could have a perfect view of the situation. Really, the cat didn't understand why the owner made her watch this boring guy. None of the other cats had this ability, so she should be watching someone more exciting.

Once more, she let out a long yawn and stared at the person's back as he took something out of the bag. It was some kind of small knife, that he quickly used to cut into his palm. Surprised to finally see something exciting, the cat raised her head, watching as the man used the blood to draw something onto the ground.

Letting out a quiet meow, a mouse's head peeked out from the small bag hanging at the side of her body. She looked at the mouse and quickly meowed a few things at it, watching as it jumped back into the bag.

The shadows inside of the bags that all the cats carried were apparently connected to something by the owner's side, so he could be reported to very quickly even if the cats were far away like right now.

As the mouse disappeared, the cat kept closely watching the man. The pattern he was drawing was pretty complicated, but he did it very deliberately as if he had practiced this for a long time so that he could do it as fast as he possibly could. Once the pattern was complete, the man pulled out a few more objects from the pouch. It was a bunch of random, kind of gross trinkets.

Clumps of hair, small dice made of bones, an eyeball the size of the cat's head... even a small bird's skull. All of them were placed onto specific parts of the pattern. And that was right when another pair of footsteps arrived, and a second cat joined the first one. That second one bowed to the first; after all, she was their leader, so of course she should be bowed to.

Either way, the woman that the other cat was supposed to watch was very eagerly walking toward the man. She looked at him with a quick nod, as the two embraced in a short hug. The cat remembered her; these two had met last night and made love. That had probably been the most exciting part about following that man ever since the cat was given this task.

"Mrrrow?" the two cats tilted their heads to the side as the woman undressed, carefully folding her dress and placing it into the man's hands. The woman stepped into the pattern that had been drawn on the ground, and was soon handed the knife that was used to cut the man's hand. The two smiled at each other as the woman pulled the dagger horizontally across her throat.

Deep, dark red blood came gushing out as the woman shivered, doing her best to stay standing up. As her bare body was dyed in her own blood, forming a puddle within the pattern on the ground, she once more took the knife and placed it onto her stomach, right above her belly button.

With a swift motion, she stabbed the knife into her body, vertically cutting up through the flow of blood until she reached her chin.

Now, the woman was barely holding on, when she made a third long, deep cut across her chest right below her breasts. The knife fell to the ground into the puddle of viscera that were spilling out of her body. Even so, she was somehow still standing, with the two cats watching their every move. It looked like the owner was currently already on his way, but it might be a little too late.

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One of the trinkets, an unlit black candle, quickly was set on fire without any source for it. The shadow that was cast by the woman's body onto the uneven cliff-wall behind her didn't actually depict her own body. The cats knew shadows, and that one definitely did not belong to her. At least, not anymore.

Dozens of hands were creeping up from the edges of the parts that the candle lit up; snake-like shadows slithering toward the woman's shadow, climbing into it. And then, those hands took a physical form, pushing her way out through the 'gate' cut into her body.

Like doors, flaps of meat were pushed aside and her internal organs were crushed and fell to the ground as her bones snapped with loud cracking.

The large, grotesque masses of flesh pushed their way out of the body that should not have been able to possibly house them. And the cats just continued to watch. That was their job, after all. Not to mention, as they looked up, the silhouette of a large eagle could be spotted from above anyway. Jumping from that silhouette came a beastman with a large staff in his hand.

The staff grew in size faster than the figure of that beastman, quickly turning into an absolutely massive pillar that he slammed down onto the thing currently forcing its way into this realm.

The impact created a shockwave that quickly extinguished the candle, but it was too late. The hands had caught the attack already, wrapping around it and refusing to let go. But of course, Jyuuk simply shrank it back down to pull it back, swinging it back around to throw another attack at the hands. Or rather, he was trying to push through and strike the body of the woman itself.

Which, of course, succeeded without issue. But it was like the woman's rapidly rotting body was stuck in space as the dozens, no, hundreds of grotesquely branching hands and arms kept forcing their way through.

Jyuuk let out a loud sigh, shaking his head annoyed, "This is going to be pretty annoying, huh?"