Each one could use the weapon they carried with them or that they could find, the only rule was not to leave the predetermined circle, if they left it would be taken as an offense and the punishment would be death.
Why such a ridiculous rule?, well that's due to a tradition imposed since we were recruited into the Principality.
If it were for honor, the other instructors would understand it was for the hatred held toward the codices.
If it's military, it maintains rules of subjugation that in the end you'll be their dog on a chain for the rest of your life, without any guarantee of advancement.
But a ritual combat is different, it's based on the religion imposed by the district and the creation of the Principality. It's not exactly Christian or Catholic religion, nor Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, or Judaism.
If I had to say, it's a partial mixture of all.
We believe in God, unique and different before all creation itself, we believe in his son who came to forgive sins, we believe in self-illumination to reach a state that approaches perfection, we believe that his son had a mother who accompanied him and that meant God himself can be earthly, we doubt of greater existences, but we don't rule them out because we would be ignorant if we did, we believe in karma, we have prayer and fasting.
We are codices that will safeguard history, and for that reason we don't settle for the ridiculous parts that churches put forward. There might be heaven and hell, but we don't care, if our goal is to bring humanity to salvation then we'll assume the sins, even if the cost is millions of lives.
There is a God, who gave his son, who lived to keep his Hebrew people and saw the people of Israel flourish. But there's something more that the districts believe in and strongly the Principality, we believe in how imperfect we are, in how insufficient and conformist we are before this imperfection and, above all, we believe that God is no longer with us.
If God had thousands of years to see us grow from Adam and Eve, and his progressive interventions that made an attempt to save humanity countless times from the beginning or eliminate us for his perdition, showed something disturbing to the creators and founders of the districts.
God will not return, perhaps one day the apocalypse told in the bible will be real, that calamities will be real, that God's forgiveness through the body of Christ gives us, the forgiveness of sins, and still the founders knew it, they wouldn't sit idly by watching humanity become extinct, if God gave us the small wheels so we could walk, then we would be the ones who decided how we would fall before destiny.
That we were created initially as a military tool doesn't mean that a future-focused approach wasn't thought through, because the founders knew it, if they only focused on the possible war of humanity in the future, then we would fall without achieving something to hold onto.
Our way of reaching power was through sneaky methods or true pride, but the result is what counts.
Among the numbers involved in the codices program and the same instructors, there is a tacit understanding about this religion.
Despite everything there are still differences between us, the MASTERS and the instructors are a more radical faction, they took the teachings of the founders and proposed the most appropriate solution and took it as a crisis that must be resolved regardless of consequences, what mattered was the survival of humanity, it wasn't relevant if the history books branded them as genocidals or who knows what improprieties described them, what mattered is that someone would be there to read those texts in the future.
The Codices understood this truth from their flooding, but there was an evolution regarding that ideology, although we didn't have time we understood that this crisis shouldn't be carried the way the radicals thought, of course, it had to be efficient and correct, because error in the present could be irreparable in the future, therefore, among the Codices themselves we started to have our own vision of the end and resurrection of humanity.
Changes are necessary, they always will be, to get to what would be closest to perfection.
And that's why we'll do the most imperfect and crazy things to save humanity, we'll break those standards so the genocide that's being prepared takes the least amount of innocent lives possible.
From our confinement, we understood the progression we can have as humans, and for that reason we believe we can make a better change than that of the MASTERS.
Despite everything, that mentality was what put us in their sights, and subsequent elimination by the MASTERS of district three, the Principality was created to take us down the path of salvation, including its own sacrifices, and when they saw it wasn't working, they decided to discard us.
This way they would have an example to make an example of transgressions, the other codices from the other principalities understood the message (If you don't understand what's required for change then you're not useful).
And with me, it was a partial exception, they wanted to show how they could forgive and give opportunities within the district.
This of course in order not to cause an uproar in each district with their codices, because if you demonstrate that they're not useful and that they can be eliminated without a shred of forgiveness then it means that at any moment you'll be eliminated without importance, even after your usefulness, and that was something that didn't align with the need to improve ourselves by reaching illumination; there couldn't be contradictions and unless they wanted a revolution among their own men they decided to keep me alive.
That was very conditional, since initially I should have been eliminated with my brothers, the fact that I wasn't present resulted in an unforeseen change, from which they would try to get the most profit until the moment of having a justification to eliminate me.
And they found it when they planned to sell me discreetly to the traffickers, while I myself was on a mission to get rid of them.
An authority of order and chaos like the district doesn't need contaminants like traffickers, they're garbage that must be eliminated, and what better moment than to put me into action to eliminate them and at the same time sell me for my capture.
Once captured it would just be a matter of time before I was away from communication long enough to be considered a threat to the district and officially be put down for my next elimination.
Another way to make everyone blame me for being a traitor to the organization.
Killing me directly wasn't possible without a justification, because above the MASTERS are the supervisors and without their approval, they couldn't touch a hair on me, unless of course I had something to justify it with.
I could well have not let myself be captured, however, that wouldn't have been fun or effective, I had to be free from the district's hands to be able to move, and also be able to move within the district for when the great day the MASTERS were waiting for came.
The great purge, that will be organized in a little more than 3 years.
There are many preparations to prevent it from taking place, and I can't count on friendships with the other codices from the other districts for now, which is why I must run if I want to be able to make any difference.
If not, it will be the same as what happened in "Le Vide Rouge", even on a much larger scale.
Now there was only one last thing before my freedom, and that was my death before the district.
***
3 KILOMETERS AWAY
"Sir, we just received a report on the vanguard advance, all converged at the center of the enemy camp, they're preparing for a ritual combat"
A man with dark skin, brown hair and amber eyes was leaning back in his seat with his hand on his armrest.
He wore an impeccable tailored suit, as black as the darkness of the jungle, over which stood out an opulent velvet and gold armor. The jacket, structured and without a single wrinkle, was adorned with profuse golden patterns that rose up the lapels and covered the shoulders as if they were insignias. Underneath, a vest, the true focus of his treasure, shone with an old gold quilted pattern.
His neck was bound by a neat black bow tie, secured by a small fiery brooch. His hands, were gloved in black leather that gave the cold and methodical impression of an assassin.
"What's the reason for the ritual?", without showing a shred of interest, he asked the soldier in dark suit with yellow shoulder pad and number I.
"For the fallen brothers of Varyn and for the rebirth of true deservers of being codices"
Gently touching his wooden chair, old and rough, he looked coldly at a monitor in front of him.
"So they've begun with their resentment, well, let's see what the Codex Mortis can offer before its inevitable fall"
Without saying more he took a glass of whisky and took some sips waiting for the ritual to begin.