Chapter 43
He slowly, but without hesitation, lifted the goblet. The thick, red blood flowed into his mouth.
Ragnar’s throat convulsed deeply. The rich, sharp scent of blood spread across his tongue, and its lukewarm temperature—neither hot nor cold—lingered in his mouth. If life resided in blood, then this blood had not yet realized it was dead.
Extreme abstinence was closely intertwined with extreme cruelty. The blood, the life flowing within it, led him toward the greatest and most magnificent god above all else.
Ragnar’s faith was sincere. Since being chosen by the Order at the age of twelve, he had never wavered. Not for a single moment. Not to any temptation, nor to any pleasure.
Bathed in the red light filtering through the stained glass, Ragnar—having sufficiently savored the blood—opened his eyes, which had been shut in deep concentration.
His mind was at peace. The blood had been satisfying. Everything was perfect.
The moment he felt that nothing more could be added to this perfection, Ragnar’s brow furrowed. A voice had surfaced in his mind before he even realized it.
“I… I didn’t want to be punished. And… because this is the lord’s sacred land, I didn’t want to commit a sin, so…”
He imagined that if a red lily could sing, it would sound like that voice. There was a thick fragrance in it—a scent that was sweet, yet suffocating.
The voice, tangled with fear and half-mingled with breath, scraped at his nerves. Ragnar raised the goblet again. The beast’s blood clung thickly and swirled within the cup.
“Strange men were chasing me. I was so scared… so I prayed…”
Gray, gold, green—eyes like mystical gemstones that could appear in any color looked up at him and quivered. Unadorned black hair flowed long over her shoulders, casting deep shadows across her skin.
That white skin, those long lashes, the sharply sculpted nose, lips as red as roses—and beneath her graceful, slender neck, the gentle swell of her chest.
A woman born with original sin. A lowly woman, bearing the hatred of an entire village. A woman who scrubbed rags in dirty water, who could do nothing but pray, even while surrounded by men waiting for a chance to defile her.
On that beautiful body was carved a vivid, inerasable mark—the proof of her original sin.
Ragnar recalled clearly how Arzeletta’s body had looked, exposed under the sunlight. That flawless, beautiful white form, and that horrifying, blackened back.
Her grotesque back, as if scorched and seared by hellfire, was undeniable proof that she was a cursed being.
Unconsciously, Ragnar imagined her testimony—the image of the woman, alone at the lakeshore, chased by strangers whose faces and names she did not know.
The scene was like something out of myth. Or perhaps it was a fragment of a cruel dream.
It was provocative. It was obscene. And it was… beautiful.
The beautiful woman had dropped her basket and was being chased. The terrified woman was a deer, and the men chasing her with tongues hanging out were hounds in heat.
The deer couldn’t run far and was bitten on a hind leg by a hound. The fallen deer could only pray. Her eyes were transparent, as if she had known such a day would come.
Drooling, the hound mounted the fallen deer’s body and bit her nape.
The deer couldn’t breathe and gasped. Soon, the deer became Arzeletta. Her gasping breaths were hot, and her praying cheeks were flushed.
Her spread body was a white naked form. The absurd pieces of cloth, barely clothes, were easily stripped away by fingertips. The assailants, like beasts, buried their noses and tongues into Arzeletta’s white body and bit into various parts of it.
Flesh met flesh. The blood of male and female boiled. The cursed woman gasped lovely under the pleasure of sin. She opened her body to the assailants’ desires, fearing heaven.
Her prayers shattered like petals scattered by the wind. Her white body was pressed beneath bodies hard as rock. The woman thrashed and was swept away.
Sacrificing her chastity to the ruthless men, Arzeletta was stained crimson. Gasping hot breaths, she spread the scent of sin. And on the woman’s back, the cursed skin, writhing black like hell…
“……!”
Ragnar gasped and opened his eyes.
A thick imagination clung to him, threatening to engulf him.
“What is this…!”
He looked into the cup in his hand. The blood had cooled. The cold, unfinished blood displeased Ragnar. The blood of a freshly killed beast satisfied his sense of conquest, but cooled blood irritated his nerves.
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