The Sorcerer's Handbook-Chapter 77: The Ritual

By noon, the registration desk had been dismantled, and volunteer selection was complete.

The death row inmates who had been chosen wasted no time spending their Contribution Points, eating and drinking without restraint. Some even treated others, sharing their joy.

"Six bottles of Foddin over here! It's on me!"

"One extra-large platter of Lobster Lala Fat! I'll pay with my Contribution Points!"

"Drinks for everyone! This round's on me, Black Beast Tuck!"

Once they became volunteers, only two outcomes awaited them. They either walked out alive or vanished without a trace. Contribution Points no longer mattered to them, and they might as well spend them all while they still could.

The cruelest thing in life was dying with money left unspent, but if there was anything more cruel, it was, perhaps, having money left unspent while desperately wanting to die.

Ronald Wade belonged to the latter. He stared at the lavish spread before him. His stomach growled, yet he couldn't summon a shred of appetite.

A server set down a mug of ice-cold ale, paid for by Black Beast Tuck. Ronald hadn't touched alcohol in days. Before his imprisonment, he drank almost daily, treating liquor like water. By all rights, he should have been desperate for it. Instead, after a single sip, all he tasted was faint bitterness.

Boring. Everything felt boring. Prison was boring. Life was boring. Even indulgence had lost its meaning. Now, the only thing that could make him feel alive, the only thing that reminded him he existed, was...

"Urgh!"

Ronald suddenly slammed his face into the food and shovelled it into his mouth with his hands. His jaws worked frantically, teeth grinding through sinew and flesh, as if only this savage act could drown out that disgusting, irresistible urge clawing at him from within.

Just then, a voice sounded casually from behind. "You look pretty skinny for someone with that appetite. Do you work out?"

Ronald looked up to see two notorious figures from the prison standing before him.

One was Beautiful Beast Iger—an infamous information broker who specialized in using Contract Spirits to strip newcomers of their Contribution Points before they even realized they had agreed to an unfair deal. Ronna had warned him on his very first day never to trust a single word Iger said.

The other was Demon Ashe—the man who left an even deeper impression on Ronald. He had defeated Iger, killed Varkas, and survived a Blood Moon Tribunal that should have been certain death. In Ronald's eyes, Ashe looked doomed every single time, yet somehow, he emerged victorious.

He went from someone who couldn't fight to knocking Iger down with a single punch. He went from someone who couldn't wield a sword to piercing Varkas's throat in a single strike. And during the Blood Moon Tribunal, when Varkas tried to drag him to his death before the Blood Moon Lord, Ashe's head somehow stayed firmly on his shoulders.

If this had been the outside world, Ronald would have thought he was witnessing the birth of a legend. But this was Shattered Lake Prison, where even miracles were no more than bubbles rising from the lake. They were beautiful for a moment, but vanished before they ever reached the sunlight.

"No," Ronald replied flatly.

"Then why are you so thin?" Ashe asked while biting into a sandwich. "Did the meat on your body decide to run away?"

Ronald raised an eyebrow but remained indifferent. "If you want trouble with Ronna, go find him yourselves. I'm not interested in your feud."

Ashe said calmly, "No. We're here for you."

He met Ronald's gaze. "Still upset about not getting picked as a volunteer? Don't worry. Becoming a volunteer isn't the only way out of this prison."

Ronald's eyes lit up. "Do you have a plan for getting out?"

Ashe said with a sly smile, "Prison break. We have a major operation underway. The odds of success are extremely high. We're just short on manpower. Interested?"

Ronald froze, then let out a heavy sigh. "Honestly... can you stop messing with me? I'm begging you. How about this instead? I'll treat you to a meal, one Contribution Point each. Just let me off, alright?"

Ashe shot a helpless glance at Iger, who responded with a resigned sigh. "If all the cult leaders outside were as eloquent as you, it's no wonder the Four Pillar Deities vanished for so long."

Iger returned his attention to Ronald. "You know you can't stay here any longer, don't you? You have to leave Shattered Lake. You have to get away from Ronna. Even volunteering for a near-suicidal mission is worth it compared to staying by his side. Because if you remain, you will suffer a fate far worse than death."

Ronald's eyes flickered with unease. "I don't know what you mean. All I know is that without Ronna, I'll keep ending up at the Blood Moon Tribunal until the executioner grinds me into minced meat."

Iger said with a small smile. "Tempting, isn't it? As long as you maintain an intimate arrangement with him, he'll deliberately lose in Death Matches, letting you earn massive Contribution Points and temporarily escape the Blood Moon Tribunal. Especially after you lost five matches in a row, Ronna became your only lifeline."

Like most death row inmates, Ronald's methods of earning were practically written into the criminal code. After entering, he could barely contribute anything socially useful. Naturally, he turned to the Death Match Club. Stealing others' resources to survive had been his way of life for more than twenty years.

Unfortunately, Shattered Lake Prison had too many predators and too few producers. When Ronald first joined the Death Match Club, he picked an old man who seemed weak. The result was brutal. Every bone in his body shattered, and Diamond Tiger snatched one Contribution Point from him before he even had a chance to react.

The next four matches were just as devastating. Ronald gathered every scrap of intelligence and used every trick he knew, but nearly every opponent who fought him crushed him outright.

After losing fifteen Contribution Points, he sank to the bottom of the prison hierarchy. He no longer dared accept Death Matches. The first five defeats had shattered his confidence. Everyone seemed stronger, faster, and smarter. Without a way to earn Contribution Points, he would be forced to appear at every Blood Moon Tribunal until one day the citizens' mercy ran out, and the Blood Moon Lord claimed him, the so-called Woodpecker gang's Golden Mouth.

That was when Ronna appeared. Ronna deliberately lost Death Matches to Ronald, allowing him to earn Contribution Points. It was a long-term arrangement. Ronna had his own ways of accumulating points, and as long as he wished, they could maintain high Contribution Points and live comfortably in prison for years.

He had only two conditions. The first was that Ronald must maintain an intimate relationship with him. Ronald wasn't thrilled, but he wasn't strongly opposed either. He had seen plenty in the outside world. If survival required a minor sacrifice of dignity, he could accept it. As for the second condition...

Iger explained calmly, "Ronna needs you as 'ingredients,' doesn't he? He sets this condition in exchange for deliberately losing to you in Death Matches. You're desperate for Contribution Points, so you have no choice but to accept. During a Death Match, all restrictions are lifted. He can do whatever he wants to you. When you're on the verge of death, Ronna kills himself so you win. That's the general structure of your deal, right?'"

Ronald remained silent for a moment, then nodded slightly. "As long as I don't die, my body recovers. Sure, it shortens my lifespan in the long run, but without Contribution Points, I don't even know if I'll survive the next Blood Moon Tribunal."

Iger smiled. "If that's all the transaction involves, it's a very good deal. Even I would be tempted."

"What do you mean?"

"You should know better than I do," Iger said. "I pieced together Ronna's true purpose by tracking his previous 'friends.' You're the sacrifice inside the ritual itself. You must have sensed this already, or you wouldn't be so eager to volunteer just to escape him."

Ronald's pupils dilated. "A ritual? What ritual?"

Iger's lips curved slightly. Revealing the truth to victims like this was one of his favorite criminal routines. If circumstances allowed, he would explain the scheme to every fool he deceived. The greatest tragedy, in his view, was letting fools realize their own stupidity.

"You don't actually think Ronna made these demands out of gluttony, do you? You must have noticed something else. He doesn't treat you like an object, a tool, or a stranger. He truly loves you. Completely. Without reservation."

Ronald's face drained of color. His hand trembled slightly as it gripped a meat cutlet.

It sounded absurd. Ronna had exploited him, forced him into an agreement, and gnawed at him like spare ribs in every Death Match. By any logic, Ronna should have been nothing more than a master exploiting a willing slave.

If that were the case, Ronald might have felt relief. It would have been a relationship he could understand. But what terrified him was... Ronna was sincere.

Ronald wasn't an emotionless killer. He had loved before. He knew what love felt like. That was why he was afraid.

Every glance, every gesture from Ronna carried genuine emotion. Even while "feeding," there was no trace of killing intent. Love and consumption coexisted perfectly within him, as though they were never contradictory.

Ronald had never dared think too deeply about it. Now, with Iger laying it bare, he had no choice but to confront the truth.

He swallowed hard and asked, voice trembling, "What... what kind of ritual is this?"

Iger admitted, "Honestly, I don't know. I only know how the sacrifices end. Every one of Ronna's previous 'friends' died in their own cells."

Ronald went deathly pale. "That's impossible! How could they die in their cells?"

Ashe was equally shocked. Outside the Death Match Club's arena, the chip strictly forbade death row inmates from self-harm. If an inmate starved themselves to a certain point, the prison would notify guards to force-feed them. Death in a cell was impossible unless it was from old age. Ronna clearly wasn't interested in twilight romance either.

"Reportedly, there were no visible abnormalities," Iger said while spearing a strawberry from his cake. "The bodies looked normal. But every organ had ceased functioning. As if... the soul vanished first, and the body collapsed immediately afterward."

Ronald's lips trembled uncontrollably, and his face turned paper-white.

Iger delivered the final blow. "Right now, you're probably uninterested in everything except Ronna's ritual. Even if you already have enough Contribution Points, you'll still accept his Death Match invitations. Do you know why?"

"Why?"

Iger said softly, "Because only in the ritual does your soul briefly become whole. That incomplete soul of yours has grown impatient. It's desperate to escape your body."