Nicolai returned to the cave. While he'd been out, the mining bots had been following his instructions. He was working on more rooms. The base was being turned into a complex. He'd had a practice room for Arts constructed. Its walls were multilayered. Thick steel on the inside, behind which was another layer with rituals deeply inscribed, to absorb Aura ripples. No ripples or other signs of Arts would escape it. Once the Infiltrator had a full Node system, this room would be useful for more serious sparring.

Progress had been made in that regard. Legal was happy to report it had completed four Yin-Yang Rotation Orbs while he'd been out. Adding that to those the Modules had created before he'd left, the Symbiote was almost at its cap of ten. Once that was reached, he would send three Modules into the bot, plus the Mask, to start work on Nodes.

Beyond the room for practising Arts, he'd also had a ritual room constructed, which had a very similar design. However, where the practise room was largely empty, the ritual room had some additional constructions. A pair of braziers. A circle on the ground—or, more accurately, a circular groove into which a circle could be placed. It was modular. He was very happy about that. When studying these "magic circles" he'd learned that one of the main limitations when a Cultivator built one, was that they might need to make dozens of rooms for each different circle.

His were better, at least, than those shown in the Disc he'd been given, which admittedly had seemed a fairly basic introduction. He'd improved the design. He had numerous metal circles, designed to be fit with additions. In this case, the correct circle was one meant for interacting with other dimensions.

Nicolai retrieved Legal, the Yin-Yang Rotation and Small Silver Ant from from the Infiltrator, then entered and locked the Ritual Room's heavy door, which ensured a good spiritual seal, and got started on the day's final activity. He wanted all the Modules with him, so that his Soul was as strong as possible.

He picked the metal circle labelled C6 out from the large shelving unit on one side. After placing it into the circular inset, he then retrieved some modular additions. They were small additional open circles that went on the inside of the primary circle.

He retrieved two, both different in design, and placed them on the ground where they wrapped around two larger insets. He moved out and retrieved the braziers, which slotted into these insets. Another open circle went in between them, in front of where he would sit. Inside this he placed some small wooden bowls, containing various powders.

One more inner open circle was added, which went to his left. In this he placed the small jade talisman he had been carving, setting it on a small wooden stand.

Finally, he retrieved some modular additions which he attached to the circle, small additional shapes of metal that slotted into it.

Some were on the inside. He'd use them to control the ritual. Others, on the outside, provided some minor additions and improvement to the ritual—passive buffs, in a way. For now, these were quite basic, but if he were to gain better materials, certain Artifacts or Symbiotes in the future, he could further improve the circles.

Nicolai enjoyed setting it all up. It combined the logic of a system with the calming and mysterious nature of something spiritual.

He lit a few tall candles, placing them around the room for light. He had reason to believe that electric lights might become less reliable during this ritual. That done, he retrieved two bags of salt, one white, one black. Taking his time, moving with measured precision, he poured white salt into the primary circle and internal parts, and the black salt into the externals. All the circles were formed from lengths of metal with a channel on the top, into which the salt went.

All that done, he dithered for a moment.

The Ritual he had in mind had been described in his Memory Disc on the Black Gift. It was called a Reckoning, and it was not a simple matter.

It revolved around creating an opening between himself and the Interior. The other world where the Minor Demons and Entities that followed him, spoke to him, and fed on his actions, would be found.

They would gain access to him, physically. With this, he would be able to take action against them, but so too, could they against him. By creating a link to the Interior he also risked the Reckoning slipping from his control. It was even possible, the Disc had said, that in a dire situation one might end up linked to the Outside.

The Disc didn't go into detail on what would happen if this occurred. It just said to avoid that happening at all costs, and work to end the Ritual immediately if it did. Unfortunately, it didn't give much specific information on how to avoid it happening.

Threat Analysis was uneasy. Cyberwarfare and Psychology, on the other hand, were eager to get going, excited to see what might be learned. The Mask emanated determination, prepared for battle.

Nicolai mirrored the Modules' nervousness, and their excitement. They all knew this was an important event. There was no telling how it would go. If it went well, it would mark a change in his approach to the dark, and to his control of himself. It would mark the time where he began to use his Black Gift entirely to his benefit, the time where he began to gain true control over it. If it went badly… well, there was no point in worrying about that. When the operation was due to start, and all preparations have been made, fear and worry must be laid aside. He knew this, and the Modules knew this.

Nicolai retrieved the Angelic Blade, stripped it from its sheath, and sat within the circle, legs crossed. He placed the blade on his lap. It was so large that its blade and hilt extended almost to the edges of the circle. The heavy weight over his legs felt strangely warm and comforting.

In one of the finger Nodes of his bionic arm he'd placed the Symbiote purchased when he'd been in the Phantom City. The Floater Ant gave his Soul Sense minor telekinesis. Useless against living things and only capable of lifting items with a rough weight of a kilogram, it was not a Symbiote for combat, but for day-to-day utility. He'd purchased it for this particular moment—to allow him to remain in the perfect position, the very centre of the circle, while still manipulating objects around him as needed.

Nicolai's Soul Sense scooped into one of the bowls, pulling free a handful of gray-green mugwort powder. He tossed it into the brazier to his left, which burned bright green for a moment, releasing a puff of smoke. A spiritual pulse burst through the room, rustling his Soul and being absorbed by the walls. A sense of a door beginning to open. Now, it just needed a good shove.

Nicolai drew a knife with which he gently pierced his earlobe. He only dug the tip of the knife in by a fraction, not enough to pierce through, then licked his blood from it and placed it to the side. With Soul Sense he observed as a drop of blood welled from the tiny wound.

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With the Floater Ant activated his Soul Sense was able to catch it as it fell. Telekinetic Soul Sense was astonishingly versatile, he reflected. It could be made into any shape—twisting fingers, little hammer, grabbing hand, prodding stick, tiny bowl—the shape he chose now to catch the drop—and anything else the user could imagine.

That done he activated the Blood Bite Ring on his finger, using it to prevent further blood loss. As the wound was so small, activating the Blood Bite took almost no attention or Oma. His ear would have stopped bleeding by itself shortly, but he didn't want to leave tiny drops of blood on his clothing.

The drop was floated over to another bowl, and then his Soul Sense tendril spread, forming more scooping bowls. A pinch of mugwort and some crushed peach wood were placed into the bowl, and the blood was added to them. His Soul Sense formed a finger, mixing it all together into a paste.

Then he lifted it and flung the whole mixture into the same brazier. White smoke vomited out of it, far more than one would have expected from so small an amount of material, and began to spread over the ceiling. At the same time, he felt the Aura pulsing around him. The door had been shoved.

He closed his eyes and his focus moved inward, to the Dark, to the Cage, and to the Hole.

Nicolai loosened the cage for the first time, and the dark was allowed freedom. He gained access to the hole, and he stared through it.

Beings stared back at him.

He began to chant. His words were confident and clear. He had practiced this chant. Any mistake was dangerous. The words needed to be pronounced as perfectly and clearly as possible. It was in some ancient mystical language, which he approved of. He'd learned enough to know what the words meant, which the Modules approved of.

The chant was very much to the point. "Spirits, Demons, and Entities linked to me, I reach through and draw you to this Material Realm. Heed my call, be guided by my Black Gift…" and so on.

As he spoke, his will was reaching through the hole. With the ritual he had made an invitation. Now he acted as a lure.

The candles flickered and dimmed. Shadows crawled over the pulsing metal walls, and the eyes and shapes of snarling faces appeared on them. The ceiling of the room stretched up, up, and rose away entirely, disappearing into smoke.

It was hazy and dim, close and pressing, yet at the same time open and vast.

Nicolai remained in the centre of it all, gazing calmly out of his circle, his bastion. This might be his first true spiritual ritual, his first Reckoning, but it was far from his first time seeing strange and disconcerting things. The crawling shadows, the faces and the eyes, the breathing of the walls and the weird twisting of the flames. Old friends, old enemies.

The hole was open and things were coming through, but for once they weren't coming directly into him.

The candles outside of his circle were now mere sparks wrapped by the endless dark. Something rushed out of that dark and pressed up against his circle. A face, a creature. Something that had never been human.

A Demon. It licked the invisible wall of his circle with a barbed tongue, crept around the outside, watching him with burning eyes. Another arrived, vomited out of the darkness to squeal and crawl around the circle on many strange limbs. It had hundreds of faces and these were human, all of them twisted with misery and rage, screeching and crying and wailing.

Next arrived a twisted figure, his eyes bulging out of his face, cracked like pink glass. 'You killed me, Nicolai, killed me and left my body for that thing to steal.' He slobbered the words, drooling red froth. 'You stabbed me, stabbed me in the back!'

Nicolai raised an eyebrow.

It was Karl. This was the second time the man had returned from the dead to bother him. Some people never learn, reflected Cyberwarfare.

He opted not to respond to the… spirit? He wasn't sure. Souls were consumed by the Aura, but Karl had died without a Soul. And yet, this echo of him remained, summoned forth by the ritual.

He watched with interest as more twisted spirits appeared. He recognised some of them. A man with an exploded knee, a head that had been stomped into red paste. A young man with a bulging, purpled face and accusing eyes. A woman with bionic arms and legs, with a bloody hole poked in her throat. A rat-like individual, stabbed everywhere, and beside him a larger man with a smashed face.

They all snarled and hissed at him. 'Murderer,' they hissed. 'You killed us, you murdered us.' They surrounded his circle, pressing on the invisible walls like a crowd gazing at a creature in a zoo. 'You are guilty!' they seethed. 'Guilty!'

Nicolai gazed back, unconcerned, and the spirits pressing close hissed and snarled at him.

'Don't you feel guilty?!' they moaned.

Nicolai laughed at them, a laugh of honest confusion. 'Would you feel guilty if you'd killed me? I doubt it. So why should I? We fought. You lost. I won. That's life.'

He waved a dismissive hand, beginning to reach for the proper powders and mustering his Soul Sense, but surprisingly enough his simple lack of care was enough to banish them. An immaterial wind stirred, and the moaning spirits vanished.

Only the Demons, and the other things, remained. The Demons were twisted and monstrous. Some of them—many of them—held bloody weapons in malformed hands. They wore bloodthirsty grins, and they whispered and cried for endless battle, lakes and rivers of blood.

He recognised many of these. He recalled a time when in the throes of the dark, a bloody face had burrowed out of a wall. Watch out, it had said, just in time to warn him, and he'd raised his foot to avoid the slice of an axe. He saw that same face in a Demon holding a barbed spear with a head impaled upon it. He gave it a nod, and it grinned at him with jagged teeth.

Many of these beings had helped him. They were simple. The more he sat and gazed at them, the better he understood them. They wanted him to fight and to kill. They wanted to see him tear his enemies apart and be drenched in their blood.

And that… suited him just fine. He bestowed a smile upon them. You may stay.

The purpose of the Reckoning was to see which otherworldly influences were at work upon you, and then deal with those influences as one saw fit. The Memory Disc, speaking of this, had said that typically one would seek to shove away and destroy, if they could, all otherworldly influences. Thus they would gain more control. But some of the influences might be helpful. Many Minor Demons wanted simple things, tied to their nature.

If these beings made him a better fighter, if they gave him knowledge he would not otherwise be able to possess… they could stay. He would accept that it made it harder, at times, to control himself, because they benefited him overall.

But not all of his immaterial followers fit into that mould.

Some of the Demons chittered endlessly of murder and rape and self-harm, and other unhelpful, pointless things. These were the ones who pushed him to do things that went against his own drives. Who didn't aid him in combat. Who only sought to use him for their own drives.

Parasites.

Others were simply strange, alien. Not Demons but Entities. Unknowable beings who gazed at him. One in the shape of a triangle… except as he gazed at it, he realised it was circular. No, square. Glittering and shimmering and twisted, warped and impossible, covered in squirming feelers. It wasn't what one would call "evil" nor "good." And it was interested in him for reasons he couldn't understand. Even as he looked, it faded away.

His eyes narrowed. Some others were doing that, too. His Soul Sense flexed, as he placed a great handful of glutinous rice powder into the rightmost brazier. It burned with an ugly flame, releasing a foul smell.

The Demons and Entities hissed and snarled, as the hole flexed, bent… and was sealed.

They pressed against the circle, hissing and spitting, snarling their rage.

You have trapped us here… why… why are we trapped… let us in, break this tiny bubble you've made and let us in, into your body, let us be a part of you…

Nicolai rose slowly to his feet. In his bionic hand he held the Angelic Blade, which he'd charged to full with one of the Tier 3 Oma crystals. In his other he held the jade talisman, the controller of this ritual. He poured Oma into it, activating it so he might move in and out of the circle without sundering it.

'Not all of you are useful,' he intoned, and the demonic faces shifted like flames in a breeze, whispering with confusion. 'That which is not useful must be disposed of.

He raised the Angelic Blade, and the Demons flinched.

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