章 25: Ritual

All of a sudden a frail and wrinkled hand reached out from behind Mr. Eckhart and smacked him on the head as though trying to swat away a fly.

"Doing you are what Brenda? Driving away another customer? Take my place after my retirement you will, now not though. And belongs to me this!" The hand pulled off the silver-rimmed spectacles off the young man… whose name seemed to be of a woman?

Behind the fake Mr Eckhart who was now assumed to be Brenda, a lean and hunched figure came out, and put on the spectacles that seemed to fit him perfectly. He had a face that was disgusting and reminded him of a certain magical castle caretaker with a pet cat.

Thankfully, unlike the original, this person did had some hair on his head, and did not grow the sides out, keeping a rather normal hairstyle with the hair slicked back using some kind of hardening gel or just plain old wax.

'Yup, seems like a sleazy lawyer to me.' Max nodded internally as he put on his professional smile, ignoring the mishap with Brenda and began to speak.

"Good morning, I am-"

"It is morning no longer, child."

"Well, good day regardless. I am Max, Max Verstappen, and I came here looking for Mr Eckhart. Mr Isengard sent me this since I was looking for a lawyer to help me make a deal, as well as perhaps talk about future endeavours as well."

"New customer you are! The coffee get Brenda!"

Max's lip trembled slightly at the blatant copyright display that would have had a certain mouse company thrashing him with lawsuits every second, but suppressed his emotions and went inside with the old lawyer.

…

Max left the house with a smile on his face while looking at the hazy but still visible sunset in the distance.

'Today was productive…' Max thought to himself as he buttoned his grey suit and began making his way to a nearby hotel. He would search for a house in a few days. But tonight, he had more pressing matters to attend to.

…

In his newly rented hotel room, Max took out a few candles as well as some chalk. Using the chalk, Max drew a circle with a few oddly shaped words on it. From what he assumed, this was something similar to Ancient Hermes, but not quite. Though, Max did not actually know ancient Hermes and he would need someone to teach him the language in order to be able to survive in this world.

But that was not important. After the symbols, Max placed each of the candles in certain spots along the circle and lit each of them one at a time before leaving the last one empty. He then began to make strange sounds that reminded him of many tongue-twisters from back on Earth.

Ancient Hermes, unlike Ancient Feysac that Max knew, was a very old language dating its origin back to the Second Epoch. And, unlike ancient Feysac, Ancient Hermes had actual effects on the mystical world and was used in countless rituals and even Beyonder abilities.

Max did not know exactly what he was saying, but he had a rough estimate.

<Mother Goddess of Depravity,

Origin of Evil,

The Indestructible>

Along with some other words after the end. However, based on the vision he had seen while losing control a few days ago, Max was sure about one thing. The Outer God and Ex-pillar that he had seen in his dream back in Tingen, was supporting him.

Or at the very least helping him to become stronger for her to use in the future. Most likely to try and take over his Unity Sefirot that was hiding behind her, in a similar fashion to what Mr Error had tried to do with Klein.

'So, I will just make use of her more than she would ever be able to make use of me.' Max had decided not long after he had the vision of his origin and the impending problems he would face. At first, Max was hesitant to use the ritual given to him by the Crimson Moon, since anything could have happened. Plus, he did not have the spirituality to actually complete the mission.

Now, not only did he have the spirituality, but he also had a reason to not only trust the Crimson Moon but also to speed up his initial plans to slowly accumulate enough power to advance Sequences. Thus, the ritual.

The last candle had not been lit, and as Max began to speak the incredibly convoluted tongue-twister, he felt his spirituality gradually leave his body and collect near the tip of the candle at the centre of the circle. The Crimson moon's brightness began to increase slowly, from its normal red diffusion to a slight crimson radiance, to finally becoming a bloody beam of light, spreading all over Backlund without actually focusing on a single location.

…

However, it only lasted an instant before returning to normal. Most would only consider this an incident where their eyes were playing a joke on them. Some would be more perceptive but still assume it was just a freak accident. Only a select few high-sequence Beyonders, as well as certain Sequence 0 existences, knew what this was, and what it meant.

All of a sudden, many of the churches in Backlund and the secret Beyonder hideouts of the other churches in Backlund who could not officially exist there received direct orders to search for anything and everything odd going on in Backlund.

…

It was at the moment that the Red light had reached Back, that the centre-most yellow candle on Max's circle lit up, but instead of fire, it was lit up with glowing blood. Quite literally glowing blood that was shaped in the form of a flame. The blood drop grew rapidly until it became the size of a fist in just a single moment before bursting and evaporating into nothingness, just as soon as the red light all over Backlund had stopped.

*Clack*

Max noticed a small mottled bronze key falling to the ground. It had various engravings on it with deep circles joined by much shallower lines, forming around 7 constellations which were unknown to Max. However, one of them he did know, and it was the symbol of the Intis Republic's ex-royal family; the Sauron Family who was overthrown by the previous reincarnator Emperor Roselle.

Klein quite liked this one who was his predecessor since they were both Chinese, and he had written most of his life experiences in Chinese that Klein used to understand lots of the world around him, as well as give subtle hints about future plot points.

Anyway, Max did not spend too much time on the Key and just threw it in his pocket before quickly putting out all the other candles and cleaning the ground, ensuring no candle wax or marks were left on the wood floor.

After everything was done, Max sighed and sat down on his stiff bed with a smile on his face. Everything had worked out well, and he could finally take a look at his item. Max pulled out the bronze key and observed it, recalling his memories from when the Crimson Moon had visited his dream and told him about the ritual and the item it would give.

[Sequence 3: Wanderer…]