Pastor's Tantra

March 21st, night.

Aleister, the honey badger, Prince Szijjaldo and Fenrir all gathered under the moonlight to watch the moon witch Selene perform a ceremony.

This is the first day of spring, which means the revival of all things and the rebirth from the dead. On March 21st, the sun will appear in Aries... Aries is the constellation representing Xi Tiansi, Xi Tiansi itself is the third sun in this world, and Xi Tiansi is also Hengwo's lover, the split self and her son.

Therefore, this is the night when the concept of "creation" is the strongest in the whole year - no one else!

Selene put on a pure white woolen robe, facing the moon, and carefully washed her hands with a silver basin. When she washed her hands, she seemed to be concentrating on stroking the moon in the water.

"What are you doing?"

Szijjaldo asked Aleister modestly.

But Aleister could only shake his head.

Not to mention her - I'm afraid even the well-informed elves in the Theocracy know nothing about this. Only Haibasha, who sold the Egg Moon Secret to Aiwas, could answer this question.

After all, the Moon Witch itself is a lost heritage, and the last Moon Witch is Hengwo himself. And Aleister is not qualified to read the Egg Moon Secret, so he can't understand what Selene is doing.

However, the essence of the ritual is interoperable.

Therefore, she tentatively inferred: "Perhaps it is touching the 'Moon in the Water' to complete the Twin Mirror Ritual. The sacred number of the moon can be 1, the sacred number of water as a mirror is 2, and 3..."

As Aleister whispered, Selene raised her hands shining in the moonlight from the water, letting the water fall on her head and wet her long hair.

She raised her hands high to the moon, and then used the little finger nails of both hands to cut the palm of the other hand - she only had long nails on her little finger, as sharp as a knife.

And when the blood dripped into the silver basin, it did not disperse in the water. Instead, it gathered together, making the moon in the basin gradually become a blood moon.

Then, Selene began to sing clumsily but sincerely in Elvish.

The light singing voice would remind people of the sea, breeze, and moonlight.

"... I understand, the holy number three can mean self-sacrifice. The blood offered is also a kind of dedication, which fits the holy day of March 21st and calls for the power of creation."

Aleister realized that her inference was not wrong.

She recalled another thing - Cardinal Cyril once mentioned to Aiwass the secret of "The Treasure Book of the Night Hare". The so-called "Treasure Book" may be another translation of "The Secret Book" in the beginning.

As mentioned above, the constant self has abandoned the old self ten times. The first three times were abandoning clothes, abandoning flesh and blood, and abandoning shadows, and the next three times were abandoning reason, abandoning instincts, and abandoning the true self.

Because everything was abandoned, the constant self was left with only "I", so He would eventually become "the constant self".

And Selene also explained to Aleister where her werewolf power came from - it was the "Morning Crow Secret Sequel" about Xi Tiansi that Aiwas had read. She also heard similar whispers... However, she failed to complete the trial of "casting away the shadow" and only obtained the werewolf power from the trial of "casting away the flesh and blood".

Aristotle, the apostle of Wei Zhe, once wrote an important work called "Organon". The syllogism was proposed from this book. This book is an elective course in college, and Aiwas read this book when he was reading in the library... Because it is very close to the mystical classics, it describes the secrets and truths of many things in a metaphorical way.

In the "Category" of this book, Aristotle used the word "category" to describe the unity of form and matter, and gave ten kinds of existence - entity, quantity, nature, relationship, place, time, posture, all, active, and passive. The latter nine are all extensions of "entity".

This corresponds exactly to the ten times of abandonment of the Eternal Self... The things abandoned in the first nine times were just extensions of the "true self". Only the tenth abandonment is the most critical act of ascension.

"In other words, the holy number that allows the Eternal Self to ascend to God is... ten?"

Aleister murmured in a low voice: "But, is there a tenth path... or is it the dismantling of 9 and 1? Love separated from the unchanging eternity... then what will it be if it is put back together again?"

The fusion of eternity and love, this sounds like an extremely subtle paradox.

Just like the fusion of the paths of 3+7 - those who give themselves and those who command others form an extremely fitting circle; and 2+8 means transcending a mirror, which will also form a repeated cycle. Coincidentally, the combination of 1+9 also forms such a void circle...

What does this mean, the tenth path is the non-existent nothingness... or is it that the tenth path itself is "nothingness"?

"The tenth path?"

Fenrir heard Aleister's whisper.

He spoke casually, "I have heard other astrologers talk about similar hypotheses - there may be a tenth path or a zeroth path in this world. Because the current nine paths are not enough to explain everything... Just like when we deduce the stars sometimes, we find that the results of the deduction do not match, which is often because there is an extra star that has not been discovered before.

"Beyond the nine paths, there are other powers. Some people think that is 'zero', but I tend to think that it is a higher level than 'eternity', a paradoxical ring of 'one more than infinity'... Speaking of which, do you think 'infinity' or 'infinity plus one' is bigger?"

"Infinity plus one."

Aleister answered without hesitation, as if someone had asked her that before.

"Me too! You think the same as I do... No wonder you think there is a tenth path!"

Fenrir was very happy with Aleister's answer: "Some of us thought that they were the same size, so there should not be a tenth path greater than the number of dusk, so the extra variable can only be the zeroth path..."

Aleister didn't pay much attention to Fenrir's words, but just focused on Selene's creation ceremony.

She sang the ancient ballad while circling the basin. Whenever her shadow covered the basin, she secretly sprinkled some of Alphonse's Moon Child bone powder into it. When she turned to the sixth circle, she scattered all the ashes in it.

In the seventh circle, she poured a tube of Aleister's blood into it. This confirmed the blood relationship between the new monster and Aleister.

In the eighth circle, she also threw the polluted "Offering the Eyes of Mercy" given to her by Aleister. This ritual will not exhaust its power, but will purify it with the power of the Eternal Self.

In the ninth circle, she also threw the Fool's Liver, which had lost its soul but still had a strong aroma of wine, into it - this was a directly consumed material. Because Aleister thought it would be bad to keep this thing for a long time, it would be better to use it up quickly and transform it into combat power.

Then, she returned to the starting position.

Selene suddenly raised her hands, as if she had grabbed a handful of moonlight!

She clenched her hands tightly and exerted so much force that her fists trembled - the wounds on her hands that originally bleed slowly seeped out a golden transparent liquid that exuded a strong fragrance.

That is the "Emperor's Flowing Liquid" that draws power from the "Moonlight" to create monsters.

Plants and trees become monsters when they are affected by it, and mortals go crazy when they touch it.

The witch created the werewolf by imitating this ability of the Moon Witch; the werewolves go crazy when they see the moon, also because of their incomplete nature.

And as the golden threads dripped from her tightly clenched fists, connecting her to the blood moon in the water like olives... Selene closed her eyes and sensed it like a puppeteer.

The water was bubbling with increasingly dense and larger blood bubbles, and the liquid gradually turned from transparent to bright red.

A sharp cry rang out of nowhere, shaking Prince Szijjártó so much that he couldn't help but cover his ears - but it was useless to cover them, the sound could penetrate his hands and all matter. His eyes turned red in an instant, and strong anger and restlessness filled his eyes. He bent over, clenched his hands to pull his own ears, and his arms shook hard, as if he wanted to tear his ears off directly.

Aleister and Fenrir also clearly felt strong nausea and vomiting. Aleister could still hold up his shaky body, but Fenrir's reaction was more intense - he knelt on the ground and suddenly began to vomit.

Only the honey badger had a relatively small reaction. She just frowned slightly and looked at the silver pool with a diameter of less than one meter.

Increasingly strong blood surged from it, and the shaking blood stained the silver and hung on the wall, forming layers of increasingly rich light pink blood film.

Finally, something crawled out of it!