The Mistery of Belicena Villca simultaneous action , evidently agreed in advance , Bera spoke a word and Birsha slaughtered Noyo with a skillful cut to the throat ; indeed , the tip of the knife had been leaning on Noyo ' s left ear , and , at the sound of Bera ' s word , described a perfect curve that sectioned the throat and concluded in the right ear : literally , the Noyo was slaughtered " from ear to ear "; blood gushed out and mixed with the water , while Bera continued reciting other words without moving the Dorché ; little by little the first miracle happened : the water , which was just staining with blood , began to redden and thicken until the whole lake seemed to be a huge clot ; by then , a reddish luminosity was released by the water in the form of steam , an intense glow , similar to that emitted by an immense incandescent furnace ; when all the water had become blood , that is , when not a drop fell from the bloodless body of Godo de Tharsis , Bera lowered the Dorché and pointed toward the lake while he uttered a blood curdling cry : then the color of the lake turned from red to black and its substance was transformed into a kind of pitch or dark tar ; and there the Ritual ended . It should be added that such a substance , similar to pitch , was nothing else than an organic synthesis of a human corpse , as would be obtained after a period of geological evolution of millions of years , but accelerated in an instant with the wonderful Power of the Dorché . That black pitch was , then , the essence of the physical death , the last extreme of what has been the life and that is potentially written in the message of the blood .
But the blood is unique to each Lineage . So the consequence sought by the black magic of the Immortals consisted of the propagation of that transmutation to the remaining members of the Lineage , to those who participated in that cursed blood , that is , the Lords of Tharsis . Repeating what has been said before , if the Ritual of the Immortal Golen is to be judged by the catastrophic effects on the House of Tharsis , it will be necessary to agree that it concealed a great secret regarding the power of sound , the meaning of words , and the function of the Dorché . Because , at the same moment that the lake of blood turned color and was transformed into black pitch , the ninetynine percent of the members of the House of Tharsis exhaled the last sigh : they only survived the Men of Stone , that is , those who had transmuted their human nature with the Power of the Spirit . Of course , among them were the Noyo and the Vraya , but both too old to procreate new members of the Lineage . Yet , hundreds of miles away , other Men of Stone were still alive and would be in charge of enforcing the family mission . From the rest of the House of Tharsis , no one was left alive to tell about it .
The Almogavar sentinels who guarded the bivouac of the Count of Tarseval began to fidget as soon as they noticed the buzzing ; they could not say when it started , but the truth is that it had grown and now filled the whole valley ; Yet , by becoming audible , the rude warriors believed they recognized , unusually , that sound : it was the exact tone , the oscillating sound of a swarm of bees , but tremendously amplified by some gruesome and unknown cause . Plus the buzz , despite being surprisingly abnormal and having gained the intensity capable of producing daze , was soon forgotten . The sentinels , in effect , noticed that something serious was happening because a terrifying scream broke the continuity of that impressive vibration ; but such a cry did not come from outside but from inside the bivouac and did not consist of one but a multitude of laments that had coincided in an instant : the instant in which the water of the underground lake was transmuted into the blood of the Lords of Tharsis . Then all the members of the Lineage experienced a scorching heat a thousand times more powerful than the Hot Fire of Animal Passion : and they yelled in unison . But no one would be able to help them because minutes later they would die “ at the same time that the lake water turned into black pitch ”.
In a matter of minutes the buzzing stopped completely and a sepulchral silence seized the valley . And then the madness began for the scarce two hundred survivors of Count Tarseval ' s army : all of them were Almogavars from the Braga region , that is to say , of the Celtic race . At first terror had paralyzed them , but those fearsome warriors were not prone to flee under any
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