"Welcome to Kamar-Taj."
Since it was daytime in America, naturally it was nighttime in Nepal on the other side of the Earth.
Looking up at the sky filled with countless stars without any dust or smoke obstruction, Bayonetta raised an eyebrow: "Stepping through a door to reach the other side of the Earth—this trick of yours is quite convenient."
"It's a very simple little trick."
The Ancient One smiled: "If you're interested, I can teach you."
"What's the price?"
Having been a witch for so many years and signed contracts with many hellish beings, Bayonetta deeply understood that there's no such thing as a free lunch.
"There's no price."
The Ancient One replied: "First, I'm not sure if you can learn it. Second, this is a universal spell that every sorcerer can use—it's not that important."
"..."
Bayonetta didn't respond, just stared at the Ancient One with persistence in her eyes.
"Fine."
Seeing Bayonetta firm attitude, the Ancient One had to shrug: "In that case, if you kill demons in the future, I hope you can help collect some materials."
"Hmm?"
Not expecting the Ancient One to say this, Bayonetta blinked with some surprise: "You also know how to use them as raw materials to make weapons?"
"Weapons? No."
The Ancient One shook her head: "Just sacrificial offerings."
Just like how Kaecilius promised to offer Earth as a sacrifice when borrowing power from Dormammu, the Ancient One also needed to pay a price when borrowing power from the Vishanti.
If the Ancient One own soul could be compared to 'principal' then the various trinkets selected from spoils of war after each battle were the so-called 'interest.'
Just as victors would make drinking cups from enemy skulls and display them at home to show off their achievements to comrades, Vishanti, as a god of white magic was also very interested in sacrificial offerings from various negative dimensions.
In fact, it was precisely because they were very satisfied with the sacrificial offerings the Ancient One contributed that they spared no effort in providing her with power.
Speaking of which, the reason the Ancient One now possessed Skyfather-level strength was not only due to her own talent and effort, but also because she had good judgment in catering to preferences and offering Vishanti their favorite sacrificial offerings—this was also one of the reasons that couldn't be ignored.
"I understand."
Bayonetta nodded, seemingly not finding it surprising.
After all, she herself was an example, and she was all too familiar with such arrangements—according to the setting in "Bayonetta" while witches could summon demons through contracts and magic, these contracts weren't free.
Simply put, as long as they didn't die, witches had to hunt at least one angel every day and offer it to their contract demons as sacrifice, otherwise they would be forced to fulfill their contracts with the demons and have their souls taken by their contract partners.
In every battle, she had to kill at least dozens or hundreds of angels.
Because there was a clause in the contract that allowed for "advance storage" Bayonetta didn't need to run around everywhere every day just to hunt one angel.
However...
Coming to the valley where demon corpses were piled up, carefully examining the large heap of various indescribable things before her, sensing the familiar taste in the remaining aura on them, she then closed her eyes and communicated with her contract partners through consciousness.
About half a minute later, Bayonetta opened her eyes, her expression somewhat grave: "I roughly understand what's going on."
Through Bayonetta explanation, Shi Xiaolei finally understood his confusion—why demons like Hideous, as well as Hatred, Fury, Pain, Pride, Sloth, and Greed, which had only appeared in the "Bayonetta" world, would appear in the Marvel universe.
Simply put, after he summoned Bayonetta to this world, the contracts between her and the higher-level demons hadn't been erased.
Demons like Gomorrah, Malphas, Hekatoncheir, Scolopendra, Phantasmaraneae, Labolas, Mictlantecuhtli, Baal, Hydra, Diomedes, and others were still manageable.
They only occasionally appeared as summoned creatures in battle.
Although they could provide considerable help, they didn't actually make decisive contributions to Bayonetta own strength improvement.
They were somewhat like temporarily hired thugs... if their services weren't needed, naturally no tribute was required.
But the three ladies—Madame Butterfly, Madame Styx, and Madame Khepri—weren't so easy to dismiss.
The superhuman strong body and the ability to summon various torture devices out of thin air to kill enemies all came from Madame Butterfly blessing.
The ability to transform into butterflies to evade enemy attacks, to shapeshift into panthers, ravens, and sea serpents, were all abilities granted by Madame Styx.
And from Madame Khepri, Bayonetta obtained countless knowledge and experience.
Otherwise, even with the World Eye, she might not be able to use it skillfully.
If Bayonetta was the party with resources and production machinery, then Madame Khepri was the patent inventor providing technical support—her share of benefits absolutely couldn't be defaulted on.
The contracts hadn't been erased, and the three ladies were still waiting for Bayonetta tribute.
But after more than half a month, they hadn't seen a single angel soul.
As creditors, the three ladies naturally couldn't help but want to inquire about the situation.
The problem was that Bayonetta had been summoned to the Marvel world.
Restricted by the world barrier, 'signals' could only travel one way—unless Bayonetta actively contacted them, the three ladies had no way to directly communicate with her through consciousness as they usually did.
Now this was quite a predicament.
If Bayonetta was alive, why had she suddenly stopped tribute? If she was dead, why hadn't they received her soul? Unilateral loss of contact obviously wasn't a normal situation.
So, to figure out the situation, the three ladies got together and held a girlfriends tea party.
The final result of their discussion was not to alarm the lofty Queen of Sheba, but to work together to open a small gap in the world barrier and send some subordinates over to investigate the situation.
(In the game, when the world split into light, darkness, and chaos, the Queen of Sheba was born. She is the main god ruling the entire dark world, with a status second only to Omne who could only be summoned by combining the power of both Lumen Sages and Umbra Witches. Or rather, she was actually half of Omne—the dark half that split from Omne after the world shattered.)
"These are all subordinates of your contract partners?"
After listening to Bayonetta explanation, the Ancient One suddenly felt a bit embarrassed.
"It's fine, low-level demons were just cannon fodder anyway. Besides, I've already contacted them, haven't I?"
Waving her hand to indicate that the Ancient One needn't feel sorry for killing the messengers sent to her, Bayonetta felt another matter was more pressing: "What's troubling me now is where I'm going to get angel souls for them."
"Does it have to be angels? I mean, only angels from your world can satisfy their needs?"
"Hmm?"
"If they're not that picky, perhaps I can introduce you to some substitutes."
(T/N: Like the story fellow daoist?you can read 20 chapters ahead on my P@treon [p@treon.com/DaoistRongyi] Thanks for your support! 😊)