Chapter 3: The Baptism of Sacrifice and the Resurrection Made in Shadow
The blood used in divine alchemy had to be special. No—if the ritual required a life, it would have to be one filled with godhood, ancient power, and ideally, a descendant of a celestial ruler with ichor instead of blood.
Even so, that wasn't the most unusual thing about it.
The Divine Water, now known as Primordial Baptis, was the most valuable resource, so valuable that kings would kill for it. The country was considered a myth by nations and was kept secret by the state. Only the most powerful demigods, those close to becoming gods, were allowed to experience the drug.
To Lucifer McKenzie, however, the true son of Hades, lord of death and architect of the Underworld's ledger, this hidden truth was child's play. Why? Because he had read the script—the novel, the prophecy, the cursed chronicle of a world that didn't yet know it danced to the tune of fate's ink-stained quill.
He accessed the Akashic Record, which the simple-minded called the "Internet," and searched through its pages until he found what he was looking for.
"Fuck me sideways," he cursed. "What the hell is Okahama Beach doing so far out in the middle of nowhere?"
There was no room for minor annoyances. The ritual's requirements would not change because his mortal frame ached. He reserved a place on the fast train that humans call a bullet train.
😔
Eight hours later, Lucifer reached the coastal city that stood beside the old sands of Okahama. He got off the train as if he had come back to finish something he started long ago. The heat of the sun made him realize that his body was still far from being divine.
With his tired body, he made his way to the closest beach shack, rented some scuba gear, and sat down for a moment on a bent wooden bench.
"It feels like my soul is being cooked on a spit," he said, his head aching from tiredness.
All his joints were aching. Just breathing felt as if I needed a Resonance-level stamina spell. It wasn't only tiredness—it was a sign of decay. His current body is not suited for traveling to the heavens.
He considered hiring someone or using a pawn to get the Primordial Baptis for him. But that thought withered instantly. The place he was about to enter was a hotbed of international tension. Should even a hint of it be revealed, blood would flood the world and war cries would be heard everywhere.
So no. I had to do it by myself.
He took his last breath, twisted his neck, and said, "Let's just get this over with."
On a boat that was barely fit for the sea, Lucifer headed into the unknown. The engine made a low, rumbling sound, but it took him to the place he remembered.
With his fingers shaking, he put on the oxygen mask and entered the water.
The ocean had a strange feeling, neither cold nor warm. It felt…watchful. Alive.
Fish schools surrounded him, moving around his body as if they were keeping secrets. Some gleamed like molten gems; others bore tribal stripes. Some, huge and solitary, seemed to be carrying grudges as they drifted along.
The seabed greeted him quickly—he had not ventured far.
Lucifer scoured the submerged terrain with trained eyes, tracing coral formations with his fingers until he located the sacred crevice: the maw of the sea cave, a slit between reef teeth.
He was close to collapse. Each kick of his legs drained him, each breath a countdown to unconsciousness.
The gap was barely wide enough to admit him. If his bones bore even a drop more flesh, he'd be stuck, drowned, and forgotten.
But he slithered through.
Inside the submerged sanctuary, a miracle: air. He broke the surface of the inner cave, tore off the respirator, and sucked life into his lungs like it was made of gold.
The chamber was dim, but lit—bioluminescent fungus painted alien constellations across the cave walls. In its heart, a shallow pond shimmered like liquid mercury.
"Haven't been claimed yet, huh?" he said, smirking. "Good."
He'd half-expected to be met by sentinels from the kingdom beneath the sea—the militarized realm ruled by Clara Williams, tyrant queen of the merfolk. But the lack of guards, the stillness of the cave—it confirmed his hypothesis.
In the book, this cave was eventually discovered by Clara's soldiers and repurposed as a holy site. That was, until a villain—ravaged and fleeing from the story's golden protagonist—stumbled in and slaughtered the guardians to drink deep from the Baptis, healing his wounds and amplifying his might.
The villain would later rain devastation upon the mermaid realm, nearly annihilating it. It was only thanks to the protagonist's intervention that Clara's daughter, Bernice Williams, was saved—and drawn romantically to her savior.
Lucifer wasn't about to let any of that happen.
"No villain. No destruction. Just me and a fat fucking loophole."
He pulled a flask of Braham liquor from his coat—an aged spirit said to charm spirits—and poured its contents into the pond. The alcohol mixed with the divine water like silk merging with flame. He followed this with powdered herbs harvested during a lunar eclipse. The pond hissed and frothed, exuding a fragrant sweetness that clawed at the senses.
He stripped.
Naked and unafraid, Lucifer McKenzie stepped into the sacrificial bath. The alcohol-laced Primordial Baptis licked his skin like tongues of eldritch fire.
Now came the final step.
The sacrifice.
Himself.
It was elegant in its heresy. Lucifer would offer his own life to the void and return from it. A death for resurrection. A cheat in the ritual matrix.
A gamble worthy of Hades' son.
"There's no plan B if this fucks up," he muttered. "Just a one-way ticket to oblivion."
He wasn't doing this because he lacked better offerings. There were plenty of cunts who deserved to bleed for the greater good. No, this was strategic.
The sacrifice needed to be nearly identical to the target—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. No proxy would do.
Who better than the source?
Lucifer.
And so, with every requirement checked, he lay back into the pond's embrace and activated the forbidden name of his Unique Skill.
"Death."
The sensation was not a clean exit. It was a tear, a rupture in all things logical.
Suddenly, he existed in a winter wasteland, though his veins felt ablaze. He couldn't scream. Couldn't even think.
Then—a touch. Cold, damp, electric.
He blinked. The sky was void-black, and three impossibly vast red eyes stared down from above, unblinking and ancient.
He was lying on a beach made of tar-slick sand that oozed like flesh. The air wasn't breathable—it was chewable. Every inhale shoved gravel down his lungs.
The Underworld.
This was it. The eternal pit where all threads ended.
And then, came the voice.
"You have arrived, O Child of Monarch," it rasped, the words grinding against his soul.
A figure emerged—a boatman cloaked in darkness incarnate, its face nothing but twin spheres of blue fire.
"Come, son of the Monarch Below. The River awaits."
It reached out with a skeletal hand wrapped in shadows—but froze mid-gesture.
"What is this scent…?" it hissed, voice now trembling.
Then it screamed.
"You reek of sacrifice! What blasphemy is this, O Child of Monarch?!"
The cave of death shook.
And Lucifer McKenzie grinned in the face of his own undoing.