After the skin bag enveloped 'Negary', he took on almost the same appearance as Michael, except there were now a few burn marks on his neck.
By taking on this skin bag, 'Negary' easily inserted himself into the process of this magic ritual.
In the first place, magic rituals that changed one's species into another in order to obtain a second life were full of dangers, any mistakes could easily result in irreversibly terrible consequences.
At this point, 'Negary' had been able to thoroughly analyze this magic ritual. It used the caster's brain, innards, muscles, and bones as the four pivots of the ritual, which would first undergo species conversion into maggots, leaving only the skin in human appearance to act as the center of the ritual.
And the sewage pipes that proliferated all over the institute acted as the ritual's lines. Within the range of this ritual, everyone who lived upon it would contribute to the ritual's operation, especially the five sacrifices.
By the time of the Mana Banquet, the Mana Fetus would show itself and cause a tide of mana, by which the ritual would exert its maximum potential. At that time, the flesh that had turned into the white threads of maggots that extended all over would reach out from inside the pipelines and capture the predetermined sacrifices.
The vitality of these five sacrifices would then be directly extracted to become the crucial foundation for Michael's second life.
The humanoid maggots at the four pivots of the ritual would then converge, enter the empty human shell that had turned into a cocoon, then undergo incubation until the new life broke open the cocoon and emerged as a humanoid fly, with all the special characteristics of a supernatural life form.
〖 If that's the case, let it break 〗'Negary' was now inside Michael's skin bag as the center of the ritual, coupled with the fact that he was one of the predetermined sacrifices, and the innards humanoid maggot that was acting as one of the pivots were already killed, the magic ritual was now at the brink of collapse.
Under 'Negary's' manipulation, the internal mana flow of the entire ritual was in chaos, the underground pipe system began giving off a slight ringing vibration. All the students and professors on the surface of the school suddenly felt a slight migraine, those whose constitutions were a bit weak even fell unconscious.
〖 The connection between Michael and the Mystic Demonesses is even tighter than I had imagined 〗'Negary' was able to recognize that a small portion of vitality from those on the surface were extracted through the ritual in order to create mana.
And in this Moon Tree world, there were quite a few methods of creating mana from vitality. The most famous of which came from the Half Life Church that worshipped Life Bearer Mequik; followed by the Seclusion Church that worshipped Eulogy of the Ocean Depths; and finally the organization called the Mystic Demonesses.
〖 Combined with the fact that the Demoness Nox is one of the five sacrifices, the situation is quite clear. Michael has a considerably tight connection with the Mystic Demonesses, and Nox is an abandoned child 〗
〖 While the Mystic Demonesses primarily uses pregnancy magic, they have a lot more spells and rituals related to vitality mana 〗
〖 In that case, the Demonesses wanted to probe further into the wonders of Life through Michael's ritual 〗
'Negary' wasn't at all surprised about this. Nox was nothing but a member without any background, so it made perfect sense that she would be abandoned when they stood to benefit more from doing so.
〖 I'll help you finish this life form conversion, although the conversion target might be a bit different from what you had imagined! 〗
'Negary's' knowledge of Mysticism far surpassed Michael, combined with how he obtained Mequik's book [The Origin of Life], his understanding of vitality mana had also surpassed any mortals.
Under 'Negary's' control, the entire magic ritual instantly underwent change.
…
The blade of light in Quirl's hand was no longer stable, she was originally a spy serving under one of the city's mages, the only two spells she knew were Presence Concealment and Light Blade, even her method of obtaining mana was to periodically eat some nauseating pieces of flesh.
Despite the white threads still continuously approaching them, Quirl had no choice but to stop her magic. Her mana was approaching its end, if she didn't dispel her magic now, she would instead trigger a recoil from her spell due to the lack of mana, which would truly spell her end.
Very unexpectedly, right as the white threads were about to kill her, they stopped.
All the dancing white threads in the room collapsed to the right, hanging from the pipelines like real threads.
Quirl breathed heavily as her vision became blurry, then turned completely white. She wasn't able to endure the exhaustion and had collapsed.
…
At another location, not just the white thread, but a mass of maggots in the shape of spikes also collapsed and fell into the dirty sewage. This was a humanoid maggot transformed from Michael's bones, it was this same creature that killed the two fleeing members of the Abnormality Elimination Squad.
A small mass of maggots in the shape of a sphere began to scatter, revealing a small egg the size of a grain of rice. The egg trembled slightly before its shell broke open and a small maggot crawled out.
This maggot larva seemed to still haven't gotten used to its situation, after wiggling its tiny body for a little bit, it fell down from the pile of excrement into the dirty water, then got washed away following the underground water flow.
This was Michael whose reincarnation ritual was twisted by 'Negary'. Since he wanted to turn into a humanoid fly, 'Negary' aided him with his goal; however, since the ritual was incomplete, and the mana tide of the Mana Banquet hadn't begun, nor had the sacrifices been utilized, it was impossible to actually turn him into a humanoid fly. Instead, he was turned into a maggot larva.
〖 Seize the opportunity I've given you. Four out of the five sacrifices are still available, as long as you can actually kill them, not only would you be able to continue living, but you'd be living an even better life compared to before 〗
In his mind, 'Negary' silently thought to himself that if Michael could somehow kill this Negary clone, he would even gain an unprecedented compensation.
Unfortunately, the current Michael was merely a maggot. Furthermore, since the magic ritual's effects had been bolstered by interference, if he couldn't kill any of the sacrifices in two days, he would still undergo the metamorphosis that he had coveted so much and turn into a housefly with the same lifespan as a real one.
〖 To complete the rest of the ritual in two days using the body of a maggot, that is the trial you've been given, Michael 〗
'Negary' then controlled what remained of the ritual to converge the vitality mana extracted from the campus towards himself, storing all of it on the Michael skin bag he was wearing.
The original wrinkles and brown spots on the skin bag swiftly receded, returning to its supple youthful appearance. However, it merely affected the skin bag, as 'Negary' would not allow any of the vitality mana to enter his body.
〖 By using this skin bag as my cocoon, my body will also be incubated and undergo metamorphosis in a different manner 〗
'Negary' began to concoct and enact the first phase of his plan. The skin bag he was currently wearing was the young Michael, so as long as he could manipulate things well enough, he would be able to utilize all of Michael's connections and resources while he was still alive.
〖 Now, it's about time our Roger is given a bit of tough love 〗pushing the door to the underground lab open again, 'Negary' saw the two unconscious people on the ground.
…
At another location, a maggot larva was floating through the dirty sewage water. Being limited by his body, Michael could now hardly form normal coherent thoughts, at which point he suddenly sensed a living person's vitality. Understanding that he had no other choices with his current maggot body, he instinctively utilized the tiny bit of remaining many inside this maggot body to propel himself out of the sewage and onto the person's body.
Landier seemed to have felt something, but he didn't want to care about it anymore. He was currently sitting in a small corner of the underground sewers, sitting while leaning on a wall with a doused torch next to him.
After he got separated from the main group, he got lost for a second time and was separated from the security guard as well. By the time that his torch stopped burning, he also ran out of strength to move around.
"Roger, you've really put me in a miserable state this time around. If you're still alive, I'm going to make sure you repay me for everything you've done" Landier smiled, having regained strength from some unknown place as he stood up and began to walk to the end of the sewers tunnel.
A small maggot was crawling into Landier's ear.
