The head priest, the person I assumed was the High Priest of Quetzalcoatl, was waiting for me when I arrived at the sacrificial table. The attacks against my intrusion had stopped as I began ascending the steps of the Pyramid. The Aztecs remained furious but were too frightened of their Gods to tempt insulting them by defiling the stairs of Cholula or damaging the Pyramid itself.

I had listened to the shouts and threats the people lining the steps of the Pyramid made as I climbed, but those had also lessened. By the time I reached the top level, I had learned their language. My mind attributes had reached the God level, even if it was at the lowest ranking, so learning a new language was simplistic.

"I would speak with Quetzalcoatl," I informed the High Priest as soon as I'd reached the sacrificial altar. "I bring gifts as well as sacrifices that are laced with the Divine heritage of Gods that he will enjoy."

I produced the bodies of an Ice Reindeer and a Fire Salamander as proof of my words. I had captured and stored enough of the Asgardian godlings to gain the interest of Quetzalcoatl, hopefully. Taking the godlings alive to be sacrificed on their altar should be enough to entice the attention of the entire Aztec Pantheon. The fire salamander should prove especially significant and enticing to Quetzalcoatl.

I had captured and stored enough of each animal type in my [Rings of Hidden Depths] that I could offer the same enticement to the Hindu, Egyptian, and Japanese Pantheons if the Aztecan Pantheon refused my request.

I'd chosen Quetzalcoatl because he was the most likely to agree. He might not be the most powerful of the Gods I could call on, but his Pantheon had been trapped in the new world, unable to affect change across the globe.

I had a way for him to circumvent the strictures that kept him and his Pantheon isolated. My offer was time sensitive. I knew that the barrier that protected the continents from each other would fall.

And if I knew, then it seemed likely that every God would know.

The High Priest glared at me, silent, but his intention was obvious. He would not help me. If I wanted to gain Quetzalcoatl's attention, I would need to do it without his help. I was positive the offering I had captured would be enough, but the only way to part the veil between planes was to present a still-beating heart to the Aztec Gods.

Since the High Priest would not perform the sacrifice, I would do it myself. I moved to place the first of the Asgardian animals I'd removed from my ring on the sacrificial altar; once it was placed so that the catch bowl would gather the blood, I was ready.

Except for one small detail.

I needed a sacrificial dagger, blessed by ritual, forged in the ceremony of mysticism that the Aztec priests practiced. Without that item, the sacrifice would be seen as an insult. The veil between planes would weaken, but the Aztecan Gods would arrive angry and impossible to appease.

They would rip the hearts out of anyone in attendance, I didn't need to worry about that so much, but the High Priest refusing to help would die. His refusal to perform the ceremony was more than a symbolic gesture. He knew if I didn't use the correct tools, he would be dead, his heart would be torn out, and his soul destroyed.

That he was willing to go so far spoke to his character and devotion. He was a faithful priest of the Aztec Pantheon, motivated by his beliefs and filled with the conviction that his death was worth the sacrifice to make sure the infidel despoiling the altar of his Gods would be met with justice.

He knew the Gods were real. He had been present when they manifested after each sacrifice. He was afraid of the punishment a poorly performed ceremony would entail but was willing to suffer soul destruction to do the duty he saw as his while protecting the tenants of his faith.

The Winter Reindeer and Fire Salamander had been dosed with Elfshot. I didn't need to worry about either animal attempting to escape or communing with their brethren still in Asgard in some manner. With them deep in [Sleep], I was able to leave them draped across the altar to approach the High Priest.

His eyes widened in alarm as I glided towards him, but he refused to take a step back. I have to admit I admired his resolve. The war with Caesar would have ended long ago if the Sidhe had his type of resolve and faith.

I didn't intend to harm him; I just needed his sacrificial dagger. A quick snatch with reflexes augmented by levels and divine energy saw his eyes change from alarm to disbelief. He had seen how I had ignored and bypassed his warriors and priests, but this little sleight of hand had left him more bewildered and impressed.

Mortals were so strange, but his disbelief explained so much about what motivated them: envy, jealousy, and fear. They saw the Sidhe, beautiful and immortal, brimming with power even before [Fairy], and their magic was returned and coveted what they saw.

Usually, the priests would have a fire made from charcoal built under the sacrificial bowl. The still-beating heart would be placed in the bowl, and the fire would begin to cook the heart. The goal was to cook the heart enough that the rising smoke would draw the God's attention.

I decided to sacrifice the reindeer first just for expediency’s sake. It was harder to manage, the body not constructed to lie on its back. It took a bit to finagle, made even more challenging because of the dead weight of the sleeping animal, but eventually, I tied each limb to a corner of the altar.

With the chest exposed, it was a simple matter to carve an opening, reach in and grab the heart, rip it from the chest cavity and then place it in the bowl. Once finished, I severed the beast's throat so that the blood that remained could fill the channels that surrounded the altar and allowed the blood to pool and collect.

I'd barely finished the reindeer when I moved it aside, placed the salamander, and performed the offering a second time. Both hearts were still beating when I released a touch of [Beleros Aura] to heat the brazier the hearts were sitting in.

I felt the Divine stirring as I intensified the heat into a confined area; that divine interest only strengthened as I added some of the blood from the offering bowl to the brazier. Once the blood from both godlings had pooled, I used the blood chalice to collect some of the blood, offering a toast to the Aztec Pantheon as I quaffed the entire goblet in one gulp.

The blood of a godling differs from that of a mortal man or an immortal Sidhe. It resonates with the divine energy of the Pantheon they belong to.

I felt the Asgardian powers enter my body, and I began to process those energies before they could corrupt my connection to the Tuatha de Danann. It required me to cycle the divine like a fictional cultivator as my body, and my own divine energies purified them and made them a part of me.

The struggle between metabolizing divergent divine energies and directing those energies was not comfortable. The searing pain as my blood vessels and magic channels burned with the acidic nature of the energy that opposed my own induced pain that I would have never willingly embraced.

But I was tenacious, if nothing else, and I refused to allow this foreign energy to destroy the foundation I had created as I'd worked relentlessly to ascend to the [Rank] I had achieved. And as I gained control, as I subsumed and remade the Asgardian Divine into my own, I felt a subtle shift. A reworking of my body and another step forward towards embracing complete synergy with my [Domain].