Artificial Goddess (3)
In the pitch-black hours when darkness had fallen over the vast national forest, locating the mushroom worshippers' ritual site wasn't as tricky as one might think. The armed guide had mentioned that the fungal cultists had plenty of enemies—sensationalist reporters chasing scoops, personal streamers, voyeuristic thrill-seekers driven by curiosity, and even religious zealots hunting for proof of Satan worship. Would people spying on the secrets of the Lady Amilaria Church really limit themselves to boots on the ground and the naked eye?
Fat chance. These days, anyone with a drone could fly one up. Quadcopters equipped with thermal imaging cameras cost barely two grand, so unless you were dirt poor, why bother trudging around on foot like some chump?
The forest's sheer expanse wasn't much of a barrier. To block prying eyes from above, the cultists had no choice but to set up drone defenses: low-power search radars, directional jammers, net launchers for capture. In the US, this stuff had been available to civilians for ages, and as long as you weren't messing with commercial comms on private land, anyone could build their own private shield.
Of course, pulling that in a public national forest like this was against regs. But would a bunch of religious nuts give a damn about the law?
The fact that no one's caught them yet is proof they're running defenses.
If they only spun them up for an hour or two during rituals in the dead of night, the odds of getting busted were nil—especially way out here in some remote mountain hollow far from civilization.
All I needed was a radar wave detector. Consumer models had a detection radius of a few hundred meters, but the actual signal propagation was way broader. The escort team's scanner was standard gear they carried everywhere. Here, the on-site support crew had prepositioned it per plan. Slap it on a drone, and you could sweep dozens of kilometers in no time.
"Found it."
Kyung-tae grinned as he tapped coordinates onto the map.
"Team Three picked up the signal... closer than I thought. About 7.2 klicks from here."
The live drone feed enabled triangulation for precise coords. The steady ping intervals unique to rotating radars, plus the standard civilian bands, meant my guys weren't chasing ghosts.
"7.2 klicks. We won't be late."
Rituals took time to prep, after all.
Kyung-tae glanced up at my words. "How we handling close protection?"
"You included, three of us total."
More would just kill stealth. The rest could trail at a distance.
Prep was done ages ago, so I headed out without delay. Skipping the lobby CCTV, I hopped straight out a window—no way for the front desk to clock a guest leaving. The stone walls and electric fences meant to block Awakened Beings were too high for barehanded vaulting with my mana field suppressed, so the advance guys had gone old-school: snipped the wire, peeled back chain-link in a K-shape, slipped through, then resealed it. Come morning—well before light could leak—they'd weld it shut with magic flame and polish smooth with telekinesis. Traces gone.
"......"
The mandatory Awakened guard at these lodges? Slouched in his outpost chair, rifle on his thigh, chugging a beer. Veins buzzing with booze, eyelids drooping—he'd be lucky not to pass out, let alone patrol. No suspicious guest outings on his watch.
7.2 klicks at a light jog? Piece of cake. The colossal fungal colony's dominance limited my mana field, sure, but the terrain wasn't brutally rugged, no real obstacles. I just ducked into tree shadows now and then to dodge any flying cameras.
Slipping the cultists' perimeter easy, I halted in a brush-choked clearing. No line of sight without x-ray vision, so the perfect spot their Awakened sentries wouldn't sweat.
That's... the crazy bitch from before.
In the ritual ground, faintly lit by moonlight, I spotted a face I'd seen once already. Back on my first visit here, the barefoot priestess scavenging Immortal Cancer globs from a dead host body. When I shot down her "Mother Amilaria" pitch, she'd huffed off calling me a bad person. Who'd have thought I'd run into her here.
Still in white robes, barefoot, she stood at the center conducting.
"We now commence the rite of holy communion."
To evade patrolling senses, mana fields stayed suppressed. I relied on the bugs my team had planted for audio.
A cauldron of soup simmered outside the ritual circle. From the thick, psychoactive tang as the priestess ladled it out, I pegged it: psilocybin. Extract from hallucinogenic mushrooms—technically a narcotic, but barely addictive. Users raved about "spiritual experiences."
Soon, pupils dilated among the soup-slurpers. Heartbeats erratic, they clutched an incense burner the priestess lit.
"Next, the rite of purification."
These ceremonies cribbed heavy from orthodox magick traditions.
Banishment, purification, consecration, invocation. Clear out rival forces from the site, cleanse participants and space, offer it to the divine, summon if needed. Magick-worship cults broke it into nine steps, but the skeleton was the same.
I thought of the Round Table's grand magi.
Slapping meaning onto worthless ritual—imperialists aren't so different.
Purification done, participants linked hands in a circle, chanting empty incantations. Circle-casting to spiritually transform the space—that was the cult's gospel. Then symbols of the gods inside, more chants from the leader, until finally, the priestess hit the "Great Rite" I'd come for—but didn't care to watch in detail.
Swish—
High-end mics with minor audio boost picked up even clothes rustling. Kyung-tae, earbuds in, shot me a weird look soon after.
"Uh, hyungnim. This ain't...?"
"Exactly what you're thinking."
"......Whoa."
He let out a dry chuckle, scrubbing his face. My bad for not briefing the nitty-gritty. Seemed unnecessary.
Per fake mage Aleister Crowley's theory, sex magick's power scaled with orgasm count and intensity. So foreplay got prime focus before the main act. Natural.
"Ah, haang, haaaaaang!"
The leader's moans climbed octaves. Ritual doctrine: belt 'em out raw to fill the sacred space with "magickal force."
Earbuds glued in as mic jockey and security chief, Kyung-tae wore a mask of pure awkward cringe.
"Never saw this coming, hyungnim."
The Great Rite was for set dates or dire need only. But for folks communing in the goddess's embrace? Dates and conditions were bullshit. Who cared when you could merge with divinity?
I nearly turned away as her partner greedily tongued her asshole. Jesus.
Leech-mating tangled, moaning and shrieking with spasms, the pair finally shifted for climax.
Canon for the cult's dual deities—"Mother Goddess" and "Horned Male God"—was facing missionary fusion. But anal in that? Dick snaps mid-thrust. For mortals, her reverse cowgirl was safest.
Earbuds now mixed panting duet with wet, rhythmic squelches from the gut's endgame.
"This is... so... damn... awkward... Not just anyone, but with hyungnim... watching... this... uh, voyeur shit..."
"Enough."
"Yessir."
Why I skipped the preview.
Orthodox sex magick? No better than ancient Egyptian pharaohs publicly jerking to the Nile.
Under pale moonlight, her body bucked repeatedly. Head thrown back, drooling in ecstasy, the priestess addressed her flock in a trance-drunk tone.
"Do you all feel it? Our circle brims with sacred energy. Mother Goddess gazes upon us. She delights in our offering! Now is the hour. Open the soul's gate, invite Mother Goddess into our depths."
"Before the energy dissipates, calmly as I taught: let soul energy flow through your bodies. She is merciful. She loves you. Trust her, surrender all. Great Mother of Nature and All Things, Lady Amilaria, enters our souls......"
Golden Age's Eye caught a deliberate "code" pattern in her soul's mana flow. Artificial, rare in natural Awakeners.
...She invented an incantation?
Crafting one's own wasn't earth-shattering. Even lesser biomass held potential for new codes, if not matching Trembling Giant's ilk. But a natural Awakener forging a direct soul-op was wild, merits aside. Her below-average talent made it borderline miraculous—religious zeal's gift.
Effect: crumple her mana field, breach soul circuit barriers. Reckless as hell—rupture bait—but ignorance breeds boldness, even in magick.
"Heek, hick, hiiiik—!"
Eyes rolled back, shuddering, she looked orgasm-wracked. But through my eyes: head's mana field withdrawn, fungal magick eroding in via crown. Waves that should never pierce skin lapped her brain like a slow tide.
From a mage's view: handing her soul defenseless to another.
Gruesome.
Imagining myself doing it? Wince city. How the hell did she even craft that?
Participants botched mimicking her incant. But once her brain fully eroded, abruptly—fungal mana flooded their bodies. As if the colossal colony answered her prayer.