EFB Chapter 257 : Communion Ritual
Chapter 257 : Communion Ritual
"It seems this cup was originally meant to be placed here."Ariel casually uprighted the toppled candlesticks, arranging them on either side of the cup according to customary order.
After arranging the candlesticks, Ariel frowned: "This is actually..."
"Yes, it's somewhat like a communion ritual." Celitia nodded thoughtfully.
The so-called communion ritual was an important part of mass held by goddess worshippers.
They would raise the holy body and holy blood, pray to the goddess for consecration, then share the communion.
A golden cup and offering candlesticks.
Could this place be related to the goddess?
But in this place where the surface and inner worlds overlapped, which goddess was involved?
Celitia couldn't guess.
Gazing at the neatly arranged golden cup and candlesticks, Celitia and Ariel waited quietly for a moment.
To their disappointment, nothing happened.
Ariel pondered: "There's no reaction at all."
"If it really is a communion ritual," Celitia thought for a while, "perhaps the cup needs to be filled with holy blood."
The holy blood in mass was usually not actual blood, but wine.
"But where would we find wine in this place?" Ariel frowned. "We should return to the surface and prepare properly before coming back."
Celitia wasn't quite ready to leave yet, but with no reaction at all, she couldn't think of any solution either.
At this moment, a series of footsteps suddenly came from the hall entrance.
"Lily! Lady Ariel!"
Shanie's voice carried in from outside, echoing continuously in the spacious hall.
The pink-haired girl ran into the hall, and seeing the situation inside by the dim surrounding lights, immediately sighed in relief:
"Thank goodness, you're both safe!"
"What is this place?" Benita followed behind Shanie, also entering and looking around.
Ariel frowned: "Why did you come down too?"
"Benita and I called for ages outside," Shanie complained, "but you had no reaction at all. We were worried, so we came in!"
"It's fine—there doesn't seem to be any danger here." Celitia shook her head. "However, we were just planning to go out to prepare some wine."
"What do you need wine for?" Benita was puzzled.
Celitia pointed to the golden cup in the center of the stone platform, explaining to the two:
"We plan to simulate a communion ritual, so we need holy blood."
"Well, about wine..." Shanie suddenly said, "I think I smell it—there's a faint wine aroma here."
The three people's gazes all turned to her: "Really?"
"It seems to be coming from this direction..."
Shanie wandered around, sniffing left and right, finally stopping at a corner piled with rubble and broken stones.
"Wine should be hidden here, just buried under the rubble. Let's try digging it out!"
Benita muttered: "Who would have thought this broken shovel was actually the right thing to bring..."
Shanie giggled: "I told you my luck has always been good!"
The two worked hard digging on either side, quickly clearing out a small area.
Gradually, Celitia actually smelled the rich aroma of wine.
The corner of her mouth couldn't help but twitch slightly.
Sophia privately calling Shanie "pink-haired puppy" really wasn't wrong.
This level of nose sensitivity was beyond what humans should possess, right?
Digging through the piled rubble, Shanie rummaged around and brought out a reasonably intact oak barrel.
"According to Lily's authentication results, the cup has three hundred years of history. Could the wine here have been stored for three hundred years too?"
Shanie posed a soul-searching question: "Would three-hundred-year-old wine still be drinkable?"
"But I think the key issue is that your village ruins shouldn't even have three hundred years of history, right?"
Benita pondered: "So why would the church basement connect to this place?"
Her question left the other three silent.
After a long while, Celitia spoke leisurely:
"Perhaps this is no longer the ruins we were at, but has connected to some other unknown place."
Shanie was startled: "Can we still get back?"
She hurried to the entrance they came from, searching everywhere, but couldn't find the door or dark passage they had entered through.
"We're done for," Shanie said in terror. "The door really disappeared!"
Celitia wasn't worried: "The good news is we've probably really discovered some mysterious ruins."
She already had a vague guess in her heart.
Perhaps it was this very ruin and its mysterious consecration ritual that connected to the old village site, causing the surface and inner sides to temporarily overlap.
There must be some secret hidden within.
After the brief panic, Ariel completely calmed down:
"Let's simulate the communion first—maybe something will happen."
Since they couldn't get out for now, they could only try more things.
"All of you step back behind me, don't get too close."
Ariel considered herself the eldest of the four and had the duty to protect these three girls.
She would try to complete the ritual.
Picking up the wooden barrel containing wine, Ariel opened the lid and carefully let the fragrant deep red liquid flow out slowly, gradually filling the golden cup.
Celitia and the other two stood in a row behind Ariel, nervously watching her movements.
Seeing the wine fill the entire cup, Ariel slowly raised it, turned to face the three, and began reciting the prayer loudly:
"Behold, the Lamb of the Goddess; behold, the one who takes away the sins of the world—"
Before she could finish the prayer, the golden cup in Ariel's hands began to writhe as if alive, its patterns twisting, and the cup suddenly emitted brilliant golden light.
With the golden cup as the center, everything around transformed into a twisted vortex, enveloping the four of them and pulling them separately into the vortex's depths.
"What's happening?!"
Ariel immediately dropped the cup, resisting the suction from behind her, and unhesitatingly lunged toward Celitia.
Shanie and Benita each had the ability to protect themselves, but Celitia's body was too weak—no matter what, Ariel couldn't watch her face this alone.
Racing before the vortex could suck people away, Ariel successfully embraced Celitia, tackling her backward.
At the same moment, the vortex twisted to its extreme, white light blinded them, and all vision and hearing were lost in that instant.
Their bodies lost weight, floating in mid-air, empty and vast, as if nothing existed.
Only feeling someone holding her tightly, the heartbeat transmitted through bodily contact was the only existence in this world.
It seemed both extremely brief and extremely long.
The next instant, her body sank, and Celitia felt herself crash heavily to the ground.