"Near me?!" I repeated the word, sounding like a death sentence. Doubt gnawed at my mind as I tried to visualise my inner circle. "I'm afraid that can't be possible... unless that Nero did something to me back when we met in the Death Shrine. He was close enough to plant a thousand curses if he wanted to."
"He didn't," came the firm, immediate reply from my new boss. The Grandmaster didn't even have to check the logs for that one.
"If Nero were the one who had shackled you, why would he ever bother to send you that cryptic message through the backdoors of the system? It would be like a jailer sending a key to a prisoner he just locked up. It serves no purpose."
His logic was airtight. Besides, as the timeline on the floating screen had shown, this parasitic curse had taken root long before I ever stepped foot in the Death Shrine or spoke to that pale jerk.
