"STAY BACK, OR I SWEAR TO GOD, I'LL CUT HER THROAT!"
"Saint Wang?! What is the meaning of this?"
"YOU ARE ALL FOOLS! HAVE YOU NOT LEARNED ANYTHING! IN THIS LAND, THE WARDEN'S WORD IS LAW! FOR ONCE, HE OFFERED TO SPARE US IF WE SURRENDERED QUIETLY AND THIS IS HOW YOU RESPOND! DO YOU BELIEVE HE WILL NOT KILL US ALL ONCE HE DEALS WITH THAT BULL! NOW, THE ONLY WAY FOR ANY OF US TO SURVIVE IS IF WE OFFER THIS LYING WHORE UP TO HIM AS A SACRIFICE!"
"HAVE YOU GONE MAD?! CEASE THIS SACRILEGE AT ONCE!"
"STOP CALLING ME CRAZY! YOU ARE THE ONES WHO ARE CRAZY! ALL OF YOU THINK SHE REALLY DID ALL THOSE THINGS! PUSHING THE DARK EMPIRE OFF THE 1st MARTIAL CONTINENT? WHAT A JOKE! THIS BITCH IS NO GODDESS! IF SHE HAD NOT STOPPED ME BACK THEN, I WOULD HAVE TAKEN THE HEAD OF THE DARK LORD WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS! SHE IS THE REASON WHY SO MANY OF US ARE TRAPPED HERE TODAY!"
"STOP SPEAKING LIES YOU FOOL AND GET AWAY FROM THE GODDESS, BEFORE YOU INCUR HER DIVINE WRATH!" Douglas shouted.
"I AM NOT A LIAR! TELL THEM THE TRUTH! TELL THEM WHAT YOU DID!" Wang screamed, shaking Nox's head by the hair.
Unfortunately, his hands were shaking from a mix of mad frustration and exhaustion. Due to his unsteady hand, he ended up nicking her throat while trying to shake the truth out of Nox, which was exactly what Nox wanted.
As a single drop of blood fell on to the dagger in his hand, Nox only had one thing to say.
"Barer of the Gemini. By shedding the blood of the covenant barer, you have broken the pact with the stars and therefore surrendered the twins to the serpent!" Nox spoke as the drop of blood suddenly shot up towards the tattoo on his chest.
Wang's tattoo was of a pair of twins tied together by a snake coiled around the pair. The moment the blood hit the tattoo, the snake started moving as its jaw unhinged and swallowed them whole. After digesting the twins, the snake now larger in size detached from Wang's skin as it slithered through the air towards Nox, crawling into her pupil, disappearing into the darkness, and as it did, the river of divine energy within the other zodiac bearers increased in size.
The ritual Nox had performed earlier is called 'The Covenant of the 13th Zodiac', and it belongs to a special collection of divine rituals collectively called 'The Rites Of The Zodiacs'. In addition to creating a set of mystical gems, they establish a special divine energy chain based in the mortal plane, that distributes the divine energy between those connected by the ritual. This means the divine energy they acquired from this ritual is entirely their own, rather than something borrowed from a god in the divine realm. However, there are some conditions to this. There are 13 different rituals in total, and each one is dedicated to a different zodiac, therefore, the one representing the honored constellation of zed ritual is granted special privileges, as without that person, the whole energy chain will collapse. If a member of this energy chain were to bring harm to the only vital piece of this system, it becomes possible to cut off their access entirely. Depending on the circumstances this could be good or bad, for if the person banned from the energy chain was contributing more energy than they consume like in the case of Douglas, the shared energy pool would shrink, but since Wang had practically no contributions to speak of, his share of the divine energy was redistributed between the others.
"What *Cough* What did you do to me?"
"Oh, nothing much my dare Judas! I just took away the power I had bestowed upon you with that ritual earlier!"
"Power?"
"One as distrustful as you might not have had any experience with it, so you probably didn't notice, but that ritual I did earlier grants you access to a source of divine energy! What a shame? Had you not betrayed my trust, or been a little bit sharper, you could have used it to restore your cultivation core! Oh, well, live and learn!"
"WHAT?! NO! YOU'RE LYING! EVERYONE KNOWS THAT A CULTIVATION CORE CAN'T BE-!"
Wang's words of denial stopped short, as he recalled the circumstances of how he had ended up in the frost palace to begin with. He had committed treason and attempted to kill his superior. He had personally broken the dark lord's cultivation core, only for it to be restored moments later by Nox.
"Anything is possible! As long as you have enough power, you can do anything! All you need to do is believe and make a wish! Then hope and pray you have the required amount! AIN'T THAT RIGHT! DONUT LION!"
*BOOM*
Just as she yelled that, Douglas exploded with qi. Having heard Nox's words, and followed them, Douglas had proceeded to put them to the test. Using the sudden increase in divine energy within his body, making it flow towards his dantien, surprised at how smoothly and efficiently the divine energy responded to his commands when compared to what he recalled during his time as a high-paladin for the old god, he wished for his cultivation core to be restored, and soon ice qi began bursting out of his body as a new cultivation core began to take shape. However, …
*Sizzle*
"AH! HOT!"
"AAAHH! MY BUTT'S ON FIRE!"
As he wished for his core to be restored, his mind began to wonder back to that time when he had first encountered Nox. He recalled the warmth of that soup she had fed him, and that feeling he had felt. A soup of sunlight, flowing through his veins. When wielding divine energy, it is dangerous to let ones thoughts wonder like this, as it can drastically alter the effects of their divine magic, but he just could not help it, for the feeling of his qi canals opening up again reminded him so much of that time. Because of this, his wish for his ice element core was altered, and instead, he got a tri-elemental cultivation core. With the accidental ignition of a nearby believers pants, he has once again reached the indigo stage of nascent soul, this time as a cultivator of ice, fire and light. This was the bearer of Leo's mark, Douglas Dough, of the zodiac's blessing.