Gaspard's POV
I stood there quietly, watching as the Prince was carefully laid down at the very center of the ritual circle.
The stone floor beneath him had been carved with intricate symbols, lines twisting and spiraling into each other like veins spreading across the ground. When I looked at it from above, the entire formation almost resembled a living thing. A massive web of ancient runes, all connected in ways that only someone who had studied forbidden rituals for decades could properly understand.
It was… familiar.
Uncomfortably familiar, in fact.
The ritual circle looked almost identical to the immortality ritual we had performed long ago. Back then, the goal had been simple. We wanted to defy death itself. To step beyond the fragile limits that bound ordinary humans.
Of course, that ritual had ended in failure.
This time, however, the objective was different. Instead of trying to force immortality upon someone, we were attempting something arguably far more insane.
