Gospel of Blood

Chapter 364: Summoning Array

Charlotte first picked up the roster.

The roster was recorded in red ink, with neat and elegant handwriting. Even though Charlotte’s handwriting was barely legible, she could tell that the person who wrote the roster had excellent penmanship, possibly even better than Sebastian.

Curious, she opened it and browsed through, discovering it was a list of nobles who had dealings with the Blood Demon Cult.

Or more accurately, it was a list of nobles recruited by the Blood Demon Cult.

The list was quite extensive, with names from court nobles who walked the royal palace to noble officers in charge of patrolling the city defenses, from direct members of great noble families to impoverished nobles almost

indistinguishable from commoners… covering all identities and classes.

Charlotte even saw the names of several well-known noble family heads, who were also respected lords in the kingdom, included in the list.

Most of them were nobles supporting the Third Prince, but there were also some neutral nobles and even a few royalist nobles.

More surprisingly, Charlotte saw the names of some church clerics, including the former Bishop of Borde, Leonard.

And after his name, it was recorded in slightly less elegant handwriting the date and cause of his death.

“Died on 4th day of the 9th Month, 1444, by fire, at the Lutecia Cathedral.”

Reading this list, Charlotte understood why the Holy Court had been hunting the Blood Demon Cult for so long without being able to eradicate it.

Just looking at this list, the nobles of Crescent were almost entirely infiltrated.

Although not all the nobles on the list had joined the Blood Demon Cult, being on the list at least meant they were willing to trade with or even shelter the Blood Demon Cult.

With nobles sabotaging from within, and corrupt clerics in the Holy Court colluding with the Blood Demon Cult, it was no wonder the church couldn’t wipe them out completely.

It was a miracle they could even suppress the Blood Demon Cult publicly.

After browsing the roster, Charlotte closed it gently.

This roster was significant. If handed over to the church, it would deal a heavy blow to the Blood Demon Cult.

Honestly, Charlotte was tempted.

Although the core members of the Blood Demon Cult were also bloodbornes, she had no sympathy for these “terrorists.”

These people had targeted her. An eye for an eye. Since they could report her to the church, she could do the same to them, using the church’s hand to strike back at the Blood Demon Cult.

However, Charlotte was puzzled.

From what she read in her memories, Bertrand had only joined the Blood Demon Cult for three years. In just three years, Bertrand had managed to obtain such an important roster, which probably only high-ranking members of the Blood Demon Cult had access to?

Of course, Charlotte’s confusion didn’t last long.

It was true Bertrand had only joined the Blood Demon Cult for three years, but he was the forbidden blood thrall of the Dark Apostle Albrecht.

His power within the Blood Demon Cult was an extension of the Dark Apostle’s authority, and his swift rise to the rank of Blood Count was likely due to this.

Thus, despite having joined the Blood Demon Cult for only three years, his relationship with the Dark Apostle elevated him to a high-ranking position within the cult.

Understanding the reason, Charlotte set down the roster and picked up the other notebook.

Opening the cover, she found it to be Bertrand’s diary.

The handwriting in the diary was different from the elegant script in the roster.

However, it matched the second, less elegant handwriting in the roster.

Clearly, someone else had written the roster and handed it to Bertrand, who had then made additional notes.

The diary was quite old, with early entries about Bertrand’s early experiences, which Charlotte skipped, turning to the more recent years.

The diary’s records matched what she had seen in her memories.

In recent years, the aging Bertrand had increasingly felt the fear of time’s passage. The decline of his body and strength made him anxious. As the head of the Chevalier family, his death would greatly weaken the family’s power, forcing him to seek various ways to extend his life.

During this process, he encountered the Blood Demon Cult.

The Blood Demon Cult promised to solve his lifespan problem in exchange for him joining their organization. The diary detailed Bertrand’s inner struggle during that time.

But ultimately, he couldn’t face the fear of death and accepted the Blood Demon Cult’s deal.

After that, he underwent the embracing with the Dark Apostle and became a forbidden blood thrall.

Following this, the Dark Apostle gave him the roster of nobles and clerics connected to the Blood Demon Cult, appointing him as the High Priest of the Blood Demon Cult in Lutecia, tasking him with recruiting more nobles and overseeing the sacrificial rituals in the capital.

As for the specific content of the sacrificial rituals, the diary didn’t detail.

It wasn’t that Bertrand didn’t want to write it down; some sections showed he intended to describe the rituals, but the handwriting would become suddenly sloppy, as if the writer was trembling.

Charlotte guessed the rituals were likely taboo, prohibited by the blood thrall’s mark from being disclosed, even in a diary. Bertrand’s soul mark probably reacted whenever he tried to write about them.

Seeing this, Charlotte shook her head slightly.

“Called a High Priest, but actually just cannon fodder…”

Yes, cannon fodder.

The Blood Demon Cult, after all, was an extraordinary bloodborne organization. The real high-ranking members couldn’t possibly be blood thralls. Bertrand was likely just a tool for the Dark Apostle to execute orders.

The power of a Blood Count wasn’t easily obtained, what came easily could also be taken back easily. Forbidden blood thralls were slaves to higher-ranking bloodbornes.

Once the Blood Demon Cult achieved its goals, Bertrand would likely be discarded.

Besides the sacrificial rituals, Bertrand had recorded some of his observations within the Blood Demon Cult.

This part interested Charlotte, especially the structure of the Blood Demon Cult.

Surprisingly, the Blood Demon Cult’s internal organization wasn’t very tight. Although all branches nominally followed the orders of the Dark Apostles, they actually operated independently.

Summoning the Blood Demon Archduke to the mortal world was the goal of all Blood Demon Cultists, but each local branch had its own ideas and plans, not pooling their strength together.

This was something Bertrand complained about in his diary.

The dates suggested these complaints were made after the failed God’s Descents in Borde and the North.

This answered Charlotte’s question about why every Blood Demon Cultist she encountered seemed to be preparing for a God’s Descent.

Aside from the complaints, the diary also detailed Bertrand’s efforts to recruit nobles and clerics.

Over the three years, he had successfully recruited many nobles and clergy. Some were even turned into bloodbornes, and the “deal” offered by the Blood Demon Cult was almost always the same.

Immortality.

Charlotte was not surprised. Although the “immortality” of bloodbornes had many restrictions, it was still a form of “immortality.”

Humans would ultimately die. No matter how powerful they were, after their lifespan ended, they would return to nothingness.

The more one wielded power, the more they feared death. And this fear of death, this craving for power, was the fertile ground on which the faith of the Blood Demon Cult grew.

The bloodborne had a high sense of identity. Most blood clans, even if they had long since diverged, still adhered to the ancient tenets of the bloodborne.

One of these tenets was to maintain the purity of the bloodborne by restricting the unlimited spread of their bloodline power.

Among all the bloodborne organizations, only the Blood Demon Cult did not follow this rule, daring to openly use “Embrace” as a bargaining chip.

Of course, whether one was embraced into a bloodborne or into a blood thrall, only heaven knew.

After finishing Bertrand’s diary, Charlotte exhaled lightly and closed it.

There was a reason the Blood Demon Cult had endured in the Crescent region for so long. As long as people feared death, they would never lack new followers.

However, Charlotte found herself curious about those ancient tenets that the bloodborne had to follow.

The rule that “bloodborne must not create forbidden blood thralls” was understandable—it was to prevent chaos and collapse within the ranks of the bloodborne.

But why was there a rule to “restrict the unlimited spread of bloodline power”?

Was it to prevent too many immortal bloodbornes from competing for resources?

Charlotte pondered this.

“I have too little understanding of the bloodborne. Perhaps in the future, I could find a way to obtain some bloodborne literature from Yurst.”

Charlotte mused.

After putting away the diary and the roster, Charlotte decided to hand them over to the church.

She had no choice, she was just such a righteous model citizen.

Not only that, but she had to hand them over quickly.

Her current incarnation could last at most one day. After that, it would self-destruct.

She had initially thought of using the guise of going insane to cover Bertrand’s death, but upon seeing that roster, she realized that wouldn’t work.

Bertrand’s identity was more special than she had imagined. Holding the roster of the Blood Demon Cult meant that the Dark Apostle was closely watching him.

Once this incarnation died, the Dark Apostle of the Blood Demon Cult would certainly be alert.

She needed to hand over the information to the church before the Dark Apostle noticed, and she needed the church to act quickly.

So, how to hand it over and make the church act swiftly?

A figure naturally appeared in Charlotte’s mind.

The undercover Demon Hunter Knight.

But she quickly dismissed this idea.

Relying on the undercover Demon Hunter to deliver the message would be too slow.

Moreover, who could guarantee that the church would act quickly after receiving the message?

Unless… she gave the church a reason to act immediately.

Charlotte’s mind sparked with a bold idea.

Of course, before executing this idea, she needed to “transport” her spoils first.

Thinking it over, Charlotte gathered the diary and the roster, then packed up the valuable extraordinary materials and equipment in the secret room, piling them together.

She then selected some extraordinary materials specifically for drawing magic arrays and began setting up a sacrificial array on the ground.

At the center of the sacrificial array was the thorny rose symbol.

This was a sacrificial array dedicated to the “True Ancestor of Blood.”

Charlotte had learned about sacrificial arrays from Nice.

She had previously tested that, after activating the faith network, she had gained some abilities similar to those of a God. One of these was receiving sacrifices through the faith network.

Of course, calling it a sacrifice was more accurately described as a targeted teleportation using the faith network.

The teleportation destination was the Dark Night Castle in her mental world, and the items could then be retrieved using the 『Blessing of Divine Grace』 by setting the blessing effect to 『Grant』.

Charlotte clumsily drew the magic array, placed the “spoils” inside, and then connected with the Gospel of Blood in her mind, linking it to the magic array.

As the Master of the Gospel, she did not need to pray to herself. She only needed to establish a spell connection directly.

With her intention, the sacrificial array glowed faintly. The items within the array shimmered and then disappeared.

Meanwhile, a pile of miscellaneous items appeared in a corner of the Dark Night Castle.

With her spoils secured, Charlotte felt more at ease.

She erased the thorny rose from the magic array and then modified it into a demon summoning array.

It was a spell she had copied from one of Bertrand’s collected magic books, but she omitted the incantation specifying the type of demon to summon.

The specific incantations for summoning demons varied widely and had no fixed pattern, as long as it was related to the target demon, it worked. The more accurate the incantation, the more precise the summoning.

For example, the incantations for targeted demon summoning recorded in the Gospel of Blood were very precise.

After modifying the magic array, Charlotte inscribed the protected “blood thrall mark” from Bertrand’s body onto it.

Then she closed her eyes, connected with the Gospel of Blood, and activated the 『Demon Contract』.

The brilliance of the Gospel of Blood shone, and Charlotte felt herself linking with a vast darkness filled with numerous evil presences, both strong and weak, awaiting her call.

However, she did not choose to connect with those evil presences but directly linked with the “blood thrall mark” protected by the blood divine power.

At this moment, the “blood thrall mark” connected with the demon summoning array through the 『Demon Contract』!

Immediately, Charlotte withdrew the protective blood divine power from the “blood thrall mark”, dissolved the 『Demon Contract』, and swiftly withdrew her consciousness from the body.

Without the protection of divine power, the “blood thrall mark” quickly collapsed, and a powerful and evil presence surged through the mark, carrying a sense of anger.

This presence was then swiftly drawn into the summoning array on the ground.

Soon, a new summoning incantation began to form in the array.

The Dark Apostle of the Blood Demon Cult also possessed demonic blood…

Instantly, the array lit up, and a dazzling radiance shot into the sky as a terrifying will slowly descended.

Alongside the anger, there was also… a hint of bewilderment.