Raph, meanwhile, was lying with his back on the table. Each of his limbs were stretched out and attached to the table.

"Resisting is futile, my lord," commented the priest, who was amused by Raph's sight.

Raph tried to move his limbs, but it was in vain. The handcuffs used on him this time were cutting into his skin as he tried to wriggle his limbs. After several attempts, Raph started to lose hope while blood dripped from his limbs onto the floor.

The trickling of his blood resounded throughout the hall.

Raph glanced at the priest with a panicked look as someone handed a thin golden ceremonial pen. The latter accepted it with a smile and wrapped his mana around the thin feather tip.

"Before we can put our lord's soul inside you, we must make sure your body is strong enough to contain it. You don't want to burst, right," the priest whispered as he dipped his feather, which was coated by his mana, into a fluorescent blue liquid.

After dipping, he dripped the feather into the small jug. He periodically took a sip with his free hand from his goblet, which was filled with Raph's blood. Slowly the tip of the feather approached Raph's chest. One could see the movement of Raph's chest with each breath he took and how he was covered in goosebumps.

He smiled as he slowly pressed the feather tip against Raph's skin, and it sank a few millimeters in with no resistance.

Raph's eyes were glowing red at the moment, and his veins were almost popping. He wanted nothing more but to scream and to curse each of them, but no word seemed to leave his mouth. Only the tears began to flow slowly. These came from sadness as well as anger.

'I can't die yet. I want to see each of you again... I have to see each of you again... I must meet each of you again,' were regrets running through Raph's mind at that moment.

With a renewed will, he tugged at the shackles, but they still didn't budge.

"Give up, my lord," commented the priest who wore a magnifying glass on one eye to better carve the runes.

He started with Raph's chest and finished drawing the first rune within seconds. It was half a centimeter in size, and the carved area glowed blue. Raph felt a sharp pain while the priest ignored his existence and continued to dip his pen into the light blue liquid before continuing to carve.

Several hours later, Raph's chest area was covered with runes. His chest ached with sharp pain, and he felt weak. The individually carved runes had little to no effect on Raph. But only after they were interwoven together did they seem to show their strength.

By now, even the priest was sweating, and beads of sweat regularly fell on Raph's cold chest. The fact that the priest regularly stroked Raph's chest with his ice-cold hand didn't make the situation any better.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"You can join me now," the priest commented, and four people stepped forward. All of them were wrapped in black cloaks, and in comparison to the priest, they carried a silver ceremonial pin. Each of them went to one of Raph's limbs, and Raph could only look in horror at them.

They started with Raph's soles and palm. It tickled, Raph but the priest stabbed Raph's neck area with his pen while muttering, "I'm sorry, my future lord, but we'll need you quiet if we're going to pull this off successfully."

Obviously, the priest and his subjects regularly made small to large mistakes. These areas would then be healed by the priest before another attempt was made. In any case, one would not like to lie in Raph's place and get a full-body rune tattoo.

Raph now was lying there paralyzed while his whole front body was tattooed with runes. He no longer felt any physical pain, but with each new rune center established on Raph's body, he lost more and more control over his own body.

By now, it became difficult for him to move his fingers as they continued to carve, so he had no choice but to stare at the ceiling fresco.

It was said that the ceiling fresco was mysterious because it showed something different to everyone.

If one glanced only briefly at it, one would see angels serving the gods. But with every minute that one stared at it longer, the image changed more and more.

The smiles the angels once had, slowly disappeared and the cheerful mood of the ceiling fresco also faded. The mood turned gloomy while the angels lost their wings and became more and more human. These people also changed

Over time they resembled people from the viewer's circle of friends and family.

Legends say that if you look long enough at the fresco, you could see one of the possible futures that await you.

Raph saw his siblings struggling against several monsters and how he slaughtered monsters and dragons, how he rained sulfur on cities, and how he ended up fighting his siblings.

But one of the scenes frightened Raph. In the scene, he saw Luz on his knees. Raph, who stood behind Luz, pulled a burning sword out of his back while not showing any emotions.

''Why would I do such a thing,'' Raph whispered as another tear rolled down his face.

The image that came next was more confusing. Luz was bleeding to death on the ground while a humanoid monster tore Raph to pieces and ate the two siblings. The monster seemed to have lost control over itself and howled loudly as a horde of skeletons surrounded it.

Raph understood nothing, but before he could brand the scenes depicted on the frescos into his memory, the monster turned to the lying Raph and roared loudly.

At that moment, Raph was seen twitching continuously and some of his bones broke due to being cuffed as he suffered a seizure.

"What's happening here," muttered the priest, who only glanced at the fresco. Some small crumbs fell from the ceiling, and the group watched Raph silently twitching in front of them for a few minutes. After Raphs seizure stopped, one could see foam leaving his mouth.

The priest was speechless and placed his hand on Raph's chest.

"He's still alive and his heart still beats regularly again," the priest told the rest while having a short moment of eye contact with them.

"We are done with the front. Now only the back is left to be done," the priest stated as he opened the handcuffs that bound Raph to the table.

The rest of the operation continued smoothly. In the end, a boy was lying there, with a full-body rune tattoo from the throat down. The runes on his body glowed lightly, and only the priest knew what their effects were, but one thing for sure, Raph will never be the same after he leaves the room.

A large amount of mana began flowing in Raph's direction and accumulating in his body. The priest watched with pride as Raph greedily absorbed mana like a hurricane as he uttered: "We'll take a break before inserting the soul of our lord."