The Ritual Arts always required a sacrifice to be completed, and as a result of this sacrifice, the Ritual Arts were known to produce significantly stronger results than the Runic Arts. But even with all these advantages, many mages had abandoned the Ritual Arts because most rituals required sacrifices that were far too great! A ritual could require anything from an internal organ to the lives of millions of people as a sacrifice to complete a spell, and most mages were not willing to pay such a steep price!

The [Ritual of Immortal Severence] had been created by a lost civilization millennia ago, and this civilization had intended to use this rune as their final weapon against an evil god that enslaved their people! The ritual was extremely complex to create, but its effects were very simple! When activated, the ritual would reduce the magical power of any being trapped within the magical circle by ninety percent!

The only people whose powers wouldn’t be reduced were those marked with a special rune, but in order to achieve this, the ritualists would need a sacrifice that was equivalent to the strength of the being they wished to trap in the ritual! For someone like Jason, nearly one million people would need to be killed to activate the ritual, but if done properly, the ritual had the potential to grant mere mortals the opportunity to challenge the gods! And right now, Jason was the god that needed to be killed!

"Don’t let up! Keep attacking!"

One of the men shooting at Jason yelled as they continued their onslaught! The cloak covering the man’s face fluttered from the intense winds blowing around, and it pulled back to reveal the face of a Machina! This man was Varon, one of the Machina that had been in the Hall of Heroes during Jason’s trial a month ago! Before that trial, Varon had been the voice of reason for his people, and he had done his best to make them trust the council since he believed that the council would give the Machina the justice that they deserved! But during that trial, Varon had realised just how foolish he had been! Not only was the council biased towards Jason, but the council had completely ignored the lives that Jason had taken, and they gave Jason one of the most prestigious positions in this Domain! It was a slap to the face of every Machina! To know that the man who massacred your people was being rewarded rather than punished! Varon wouldn’t take this insult lying down!

After that trial, Varon’s heart had darkened, and he began to dream of getting his revenge on Jason, but Varon knew that the power difference between Jason and the current Machina was too great! There wasn’t a single Machina that could match Jason, and even if they joined all their forces, they would still lose against Jason’s army! But then, Varon had been granted an opportunity by a mysterious man who promised to help them get revenge. The man was the one who introduced them to this ritual and pushed them to sacrifice millions of people to complete it! It was a gamble, and there was a chance it would fail, but Varon decided to go ahead with it because this is what he wanted! Varon wanted revenge, and the mysterious man had promised to get revenge for him, so Varon would stop at nothing to get it!

"Varon, the ritual is complete! Jason is weakened!"

Sexes, the second Machina that had been at the trial, shouted from the side where he was also shooting a massive raygun at Jason’s location, and Varon narrowed his eyes as he shouted!

"Keep shooting! We have to break the shield down!"

The Machina all continued to shoot at Jason, and they could feel the magic shield weakening from their relentless attacks! Inside the shield, Jason was frowning in annoyance as he stared at his system tab and the changes he could see there!

——

Mana Points: 89,109/8,910,956

——

STATISTICS

Strength: TITAN Rank I [65.1%]

Stamina: TITAN Rank I [68.4%]

Agility: TITAN Rank I [67.1%]

Durability: TITAN Rank I [69.5%]

——

What the hell was this? Jason’s power had dropped significantly, and Jason wondered what had happened. The system came up with an explanation.

[The user’s stats have been temporarily reduced as a result of the [Ritual of Immortal Severance]. As a result of this reduction, the user has suffered a [Location Lock] that prevents him from leaving this region. In order to counter these effects, the user must destroy the Ritual Element used in the creation of this Ritual or the user must wait for the ritual to pass its time limit.]

Jason read through all this with a frown on his face, and he quickly asked the system how long that time limit was! The system said it did not know the time limit since the time limit depended on how many souls were sacrificed for the ritual, and Jason cursed as he glared up at the attackers who were still shooting at him. Jason had one hand raised to support the defensive runes blocking the attack, and Jason spread his senses out to read the Magic Essence of the nearest attacker. It didn’t take long for Jason to figure out that these were all Machina! So the Machina were here for revenge? That was good. Jason had initially decided to spare the lives of the remaining Machina so that they could focus on raising their next generation, but since the Machina were so desperate to die, Jason would gladly give them what they wanted!

’Babe, what’s going on? My power level just dropped.’

Gina’s voice came through their mental link, and Jason explained what was happening quickly. The Ritual Art had affected every mage within the circle, so both Jason and Gina, as well as all of Jason’s subordinates, could only wield a measly ten percent of their powers! Gina’s face twisted in anger once she heard what had happened, and her mana flared to life in preparation for a fight. Jason quickly sent a message to his subordinates and told them to grab all the Fey family members! Multiple Legion subordinates appeared from the shadows and grabbed everyone other than Gina and Jason, and they quickly tried to move them away from the farm, but a large magic circle suddenly lit up the sky above the farm, and a magical dome slammed into the ground to block anyone from leaving! The dome shone with a brilliant light, and an artefact was activated!

[Crown of the Everlasting Sun]!

Sunlight burst to life around the farm, and all the subordinates who had been in the shadows were suddenly forced to retreat so they wouldn’t be pushed out from the darkness! This was an artefact that armies used in dark battlefields to give their troops better visibility, but right now the Machina were using it to try and counter Jason’s shadow abilities. Jason clicked his tongue in annoyance, and he told his subordinates to bring the family back to the farm and take them into the house! The Machina obviously knew what they were doing by preventing any of the family members from leaving! Jason had many high-level AOE skills that he could activate to take out everyone in the region, but Jason couldn’t use any of those destructive skills right now because the family would also get caught up in the attack! Jason’s top priority was to make sure the family wasn’t hurt, so Jason turned to Azrael and told him to shift his protective dome to only protect the house!

’Gina and I will be fine! Set up your strongest defensive rune and stay with the others!’

All the family members were placed inside the house, and Azrael quickly deactivated the dome he had been holding before flying towards the house! Azrael landed on the roof, and he slammed his staff down to activate a high-level defensive rune that covered the entire house!