Chương 594: B8 - Chapter 91: Inner Circle

David looked at the young man in front of him, unsurprised by the confusion written across his Lord's face at the cryptic words he had just heard.

"Could you say that again?" David readily repeated himself.

"I said: I want in." Ezekiel's brows furrowed.

"You want in... what exactly?"

"I want to enter your inner circle." His Lord looked at him in disbelief.

"You don't think you are already in my inner circle? Didn't I entrust the entirety of Undercity to you?" David shook his head.

"This and that are not the same. In the past, you might have asked me to execute your will, but not to share your burden." Zeke's mouth turned down at the edges. David could see the question forming in his mind. What had brought about this change? What had made him speak those words? Then, suddenly, he seemed to think of something.

"Did you meet Leo just now?" David nodded.

"I did."

"Did he say something to you?"

"He had a lot to say, but that is not the reason for my request," David said.

"The things he couldn't say are what concern me more." Ezekiel frowned.

"Are you dissatisfied that I am keeping things from you then? Things that Leo knows? If that is so, then I can assure you that Leo paid a high price for..."

"I know," David cut him off.

"I know that Leo paid a price. Something that allowed you to trust him with everything. Something that allows him to share your burden in a way the rest of us cannot." David paused, his eyes full of fervor.

"That is what I ask of you." Ezekiel met his eyes evenly.

"Why?"

"To atone for my past. For my indecisiveness. For watching you struggle alone when I should have been the one to support you. For forcing you to grow up faster than any child should." The young man before him remained quiet for a moment, and David could see the bittersweet emotion stirring on his face.

"I've never held that against you, David. I hope you know that." David's expression became bitter.

"That, above all else, only makes it worse." Ezekiel sighed.

"I can accept your request if that is truly what you want. But I have to warn you one last time. If this is something you are doing on the spur of the moment, you will regret it in the future." David remained silent, letting the resolve in his eyes speak for him. Ezekiel held his gaze for a while longer before nodding.

"Follow me then." He led the way to one of the side rooms, a place David had never been allowed to visit before. Inside, he found the floor inscribed with lines, crystals, and diagrams. It was clearly a ritual, but one unfamiliar to David. However, the scope alone made it clear that this was nothing minor. His feet stopped automatically as he took in the sheer scale of the creation.

"What... is this?"

"It's something I created with Akasha's help," Ezekiel said from deeper inside the room.

"Step into the circle in the middle." David's eyes immediately found the spot. He continued to inspect everything carefully as he slowly approached.

"What is its purpose?" His lord seemed busy with the preparations for the ritual, but he still answered patiently.

"It's a bit complicated," Ezekiel said as he injected Mana into a pathway.

"For a very long time, I've been trying to find a way to ensure the secrecy of my followers while also protecting them against mental intrusion." He moved his hand to another pathway, and a different section of the ritual lit up in response.

"Not as easy when I have to do it alone," he murmured under his breath. He shot David an apologetic look and continued to explain.

"…While the Memory Sealing Ritual is a decent choice against mental intrusion, it has several weaknesses, especially when the subject is willing to divulge information. There are simply too many ways to get around it." David arrived at the center of the ritual and stopped.

"... But for a long time, I was stuck, unable to come up with any better solution. That was until I arrived in Korrovan. There, I encountered another one of the Great Rituals: The Enslavement Ritual." David felt his throat go dry.

"... You aren't going to turn me into a slave, are you?" The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Ezekiel smiled faintly, but shook his head almost immediately.

"Of course not. That ritual has even more problems than the first." He paused for an instant, then added, as if it were an afterthought, "Aside from the ethical ones, I mean." There was a short pause before Ezekiel continued.

"But thanks to a stroke of luck and a deeper understanding of the Enslavement Ritual, I was able to extract some of its more useful qualities. And after combining them with the Memory Sealing Ritual, I created something entirely new." Ezekiel opened his arms wide, indicating the massive array before them, the very one David now found himself standing in the middle of. David looked around and gulped dryly. If this explanation had been meant to reassure him, then it had most definitely failed to do its job.

"So..." he began after a moment of silence.

"What does this actually do? And what is it called?" Ezekiel smiled.

"I call it the Honorguard Ritual. As for its purpose..." He paused, clearly searching for the right words.

"It creates something like a mark in your soul. A timestamp of sorts. It would not be wrong to say that your life will be divided into a time before the stamp and a time after."

"That dramatic?" Ezekiel nodded.

"Kind of, yes. But don't worry, you likely won't even notice its presence. The mark isn't there to restrict you in the first place. Its only purpose is to serve as a beacon in case you ever want to leave my service in the future." David's eyes widened.

"You'd allow that? After I had entered your inner circle?" Ezekiel looked at him strangely.

"Wasn't it you who told me to find a way to make it so? Didn't you claim that a house that kept its followers tied by force could never become truly great?" David's expression grew strange.

"I didn't think you'd actually follow through on that..." Ezekiel shook his head, exasperated.

"Well, I did. So if you ever want to leave my service in the future, all you have to do is say the word. But I have to warn you, the price would not be small." David's expression grew serious. He did not think he would ever need to invoke this privilege, but it was still important to know exactly what price would be demanded of anyone who wished to leave.

"What is the price?" His lord answered with equal seriousness.

"Your memories. Everything from the moment the mark is placed upon you to the day you leave my service. I will be taking all of them." David nearly gasped. Out of everything he could have imagined, this was at once the lightest and the heaviest price. Memories. Wholly intangible and yet more valuable than anything else. He had not even known that this was possible. Could memories really be extracted at will, as though erasing writing from a book? Before his eyes, his Lord was growing more enigmatic by the second.

At least, he now fully understood why Ezekiel was not afraid of letting even those in his closest circle go. After all, what could they possibly use to hurt him if they lost all their memories?

"…That can't be all the ritual does, can it?" David surmised after thinking about it for a moment. Ezekiel nodded.

"There is one more thing…" He paused for a moment, as if searching for the best way to explain it.

"You know how a slave cannot betray their master, yes? It's an interesting mechanism when you break it down. The actual arbiter, the one who decides what counts as betrayal, is the slave themselves. Or at least some part of their being." David listened quietly.

"It is this very same mechanism that I used in my ritual as well. However, instead of forcing you to obey all my orders mindlessly, this ritual is limited to enforcing the commandments of our contract." David's mind caught that word immediately.

"What commandments?" Ezekiel smiled at him from across the room.

"You'll see…" The moment the words left his lips, power surged through the carved channels. Light raced along every line and every intersection until the entire room blazed with magical radiance. Ezekiel's voice echoed in David's mind, as though it were coming from all sides at once.

"Do you swear to live and die by my will, submit in body and mind, and carry out my instructions faithfully until your death or release from this bond?" David could feel a peculiar power at work. It did not seem to come from the outside, but from his very being, as if whatever answer he gave next would be branded onto his essence. Even so, he did not hesitate.

"I swear."

"And do you understand that, should you choose to leave my service, all knowledge gained under my protection will be forfeit?"

"I do."

"Then let it be so." Ezekiel released his hold on his Mana, letting it flood into the ritual. The intricate patterns flared to life, each line becoming a river of power. The very air grew thick with magical pressure as reality bent to accommodate the working. For a single instant, David felt incredibly uncomfortable. It was as though he were being inflated without end, pushed to the point where he felt he might burst.

Then, with a quick but sharp pain, he felt something separate from him, only to return a moment later. Then everything returned to normal. The lights, the pain, the strange sensation, all of it vanished as if it had been nothing but a mirage. David looked down at his hands, clenched them, then allowed them to relax. That… was it? He could not discern any concrete change from before the ritual. If he were being asked to provide any proof that the ritual had taken place at all, he could not think of anything.

"How does it feel?" Ezekiel asked, having arrived right in front of him at some point. David blinked as he looked up. He had wanted to say that not much seemed to have happened. But now that he looked at Ezekiel, the boy seemed different somehow. He could not quite describe it. The only word that came to mind was that his lord somehow seemed more pleasant to the eye. But before he could even begin to explain, Ezekiel smiled knowingly.

"That," he said, pointing vaguely at David's eyes, "will fade with time, or so I've been told." David nodded, not in the mood to ask how his lord knew.

"You really developed this ritual on your own?" he asked instead. Ezekiel shrugged.

"Well, it was mostly Akasha, with some help from Khai'Zar and me." David noticed right away that the way his lord spoke was different from before. After the ritual, it seemed as though some sort of barrier between them had been broken.

"... Who is Khai'Zar?" David asked, finding the name strange.

"It's the Dragon who lives in my body." David froze on the spot. He searched Ezekiel's face for a trace of mirth, a smirk, or anything else that might reveal this as some sort of joke. He found nothing of the sort. Instead, Ezekiel was looking at him with something that was almost pity.

"If you're already shocked by that," he said, "wait until you see the pocket dimension I'm hiding in the other room. Let's go..." With those ominous words, Ezekiel led the way out of the ritual chamber. David stared at his back, thinking for the first time that losing his memories at the end of all this might not be the curse he had believed it to be. At the very least, it might allow him to retain his sanity in old age.

Even so, he could not hide the smile that naturally formed on his lips as he quickly hurried after his lord.